The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor revealed that thousands of families in Gaza are still resorting to burying their children in random mass graves, in a way that has become a phenomenon due to the occupation’s continued killing of Palestinians in various areas of the Strip for the 348th day.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor reviewed in a report and an infographic today, Wednesday, the locations and dates of the establishment of about 30 random mass graves containing about 3,000 martyrs and deceased in the northern, central and southern governorates of Gaza, from several mass graves in the Strip.
The human rights observatory confirmed that there are more than 120 random mass graves in which 3 or more individuals were buried, which have been created in the Gaza Strip since October 2023, noting that the situation is getting worse with the occupation army continuously targeting individuals trying to reach the cemeteries to bury their relatives.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor pointed out that these graves are distributed in residential neighborhoods, courtyards of homes, roads, wedding halls, sports fields, hospital yards, schools, mosques, agricultural lands, and even public road intersections.
The Observatory explained that the largest mass grave it documented is the “Al-Batsh Cemetery” in the Al-Tuffah neighborhood, east of Gaza City, where the cemetery contains between 500 and 1,000 people who were buried in it since its establishment on October 22, 2023, only two weeks after the start of the military attack on Gaza.
Euro-Mediterranean teams also documented the emergence of random mass graves since the inauguration of the first mass grave in the Al-Shifa Medical Complex on October 15, 2023, after it was impossible to transfer the martyrs and dead to the official cemetery in Gaza City due to its location in eastern Gaza. Later, the construction of these cemeteries continued until their number exceeded 120 mass graves, according to the Observatory’s statement.
The ongoing military attacks, coupled with direct targeting by shelling, sniping, or shooting from quadcopter drones, prevent families from reaching the main cemeteries to bury their children in a dignified manner, and make the process of counting, registering, and identifying the victims almost impossible.
The Observatory stressed that Israel is imposing inhumane conditions on the residents of the Gaza Strip, which constitutes a serious violation of the provisions of international humanitarian law that guarantees respect for the dignity of the dead and the proper treatment of corpses. It called on the World Health Organization and the International Committee of the Red Cross to play their role in ensuring the dignity of the corpses buried in dozens of mass graves in Gaza.
