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‘Forced to do it as bodies everywhere’: Mass grave at Gaza hospital, 179 buried
Israel-Hamas War: The stench of decomposing bodies was everywhere in the facility.
Gaza's biggest hospital said that 179 people, including babies and patients who died in the intensive care unit, had been buried in a "mass grave" at the complex. Al-Shifa hospital director Mohammad Abu Salmiyah said that seven babies and 29 intensive care patients were among those buried after hospital fuel supplies ran out.
"We were forced to bury them in a mass grave," he said, adding, “There are bodies littered in the hospital complex and there is no longer electricity at the morgues.” No fuel has entered the Gaza Strip since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7. Abu Salmiyah also informed that a man and a woman died in the ICU bringing the number of people who had died in the unit to 29.
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The stench of decomposing bodies was everywhere in the facility, news agency AFP reported as the hospital director said that the nighttime fighting and air strikes from Monday into Tuesday had been less intense than previous nights.
Israeli tanks have massed at the gates of Al-Shifa hospital as Tel Aviv says that the facility conceals an underground command "node" used by Hamas. The terrorist group denies the claim. Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Gaza health ministry said that there was no objection to having babies evacuated from Al Shifa Hospital but there was no mechanism for an evacuation to take place.
"We have no objection to have the babies moved to any hospital, in Egypt, the West Bank or even to the occupation hospitals. What we care most is about the wellbeing and the lives of those babies," Ashraf Al-Qidra said as per Reuters.
Dr. Ahmed Al Mokhallalati, a surgeon, said, "We are planning to bury them today in a mass grave inside the Al Shifa medical complex. It is going to be very dangerous as we don't have any cover or protection from the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross), but we have no other options, the corpses of the martyrs began to decompose. The men are digging right now as we speak."
