179 buried in ‘mass grave’ in Gaza hospital compound

Gaza’s main hospital buried 179 dead patients in a “mass grave”, said the director of the hospital.

The hospital has no power.

US President Joe Biden pressed Israel to protect the hospital complex trapped in fierce combat.

Israeli forces were at the gates of the sprawling Al-Shifa hospital they say sits atop an underground Hamas command base, but the Palestinian group deny the charge and doctors say thousands of people are stranded inside in horrific conditions.

In a sign of Israel’s advance in Gaza, the country’s Channel 12 TV broadcast a photo of soldiers carrying Israeli flags in the Gaza parliament chamber.

“There are bodies littered in the hospital complex and there is no longer electricity at the morgues,” said Al-Shifa hospital director Mohammad Abu Salmiyah, adding that 179 bodies had been interred so far.

“We were forced to bury them in a mass grave,” he said, adding that seven babies and 29 intensive care patients were among those who had died after fuel for the hospital’s generator ran out.

The United Nations believes that thousands, and perhaps more than 10,000 people — patients, staff and displaced civilians — may be inside and unable to escape because of fierce fighting nearby, reports AFP.

The World Health Organization insisted yesterday that moving the most vulnerable patients from the hospital has become an “impossible task”.

Israel says it is not targeting the hospital, but has vowed to destroy Hamas.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Israel’s relentless assault has killed 11,240 people, also mostly civilians, including thousands of children.

Biden called on Israel to use “less intrusive action relative to the hospital”, some of his most pointed comments on Israeli operations to date.

“The hospital must be protected,” he told reporters, as international outrage builds over the death and suffering the war has inflicted on Gaza civilians.

Meanwhile, the US in conjunction with the United Kingdom yesterday announced a third round of sanctions on Hamas.

Hamas said on Monday they told Qatari mediators that the group is ready to release up to 70 women and children held in Gaza in return for a five-day truce, reports Reuters.

In the occupied West Bank, eight Palestinians were killed in clashes with Israeli troops, seven during an army raid on the northern city of Tulkarem and one near the southern city of Hebron, the Palestinian health ministry said yesterday.

After repeated attacks on US forces in the Middle East, the United States launched air strikes that killed at least eight pro-Iran fighters in eastern Syria, a Britain-based monitoring group said.

On Monday, Israel used fighter jets to strike what it said were “operational command centres” belonging to Iran-backed group Hezbollah inside Lebanon.

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