New Delhi, Dec. 18: Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor (Euro-Med) has called for an independent international investigation into mounting evidence and reports to Israeli occupation forces using bulldozers to bury sick and wounded Palestinian civilians alive in the courtyard of Kamal Adwan Hospital, in the town of Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip, reports Middle East Monitor.
The Geneva-based rights group said in a statement on Saturday that it had received “testimonies and complaints from medical and media teams confirming that Israeli [army] bulldozers had buried Palestinians alive in the hospital yard before withdrawing from it.”
The sources added: “At least one of the bodies could be seen among the piles of sand, with citizens confirming that he had been injured before he was buried and killed.”
“The Israeli army has reportedly buried wounded Palestinian civilians alive outside of Kamal Adwan Hospital in the Gaza Strip’s northern town of Beit Lahia, after nine consecutive days of total siege, raids, and horrifying atrocities in the area,” it explained.
“During the raid,” the statement said, “Israeli forces destroyed the hospital’s external gates, part of its administration building, and its pharmacy.”
They “created a large hole in the hospital courtyard; and exhumed about 26 bodies of dead people who, unable to be buried in cemeteries due to the ongoing Israeli attacks, had been previously buried in the yard. Israeli bulldozers removed the bodies in a humiliating manner,” Euro-Med Monitor said, adding that this was “in violation of the dead’s dignity.”
Euro-Med Monitor received testimonies confirming that an elderly man was recently starved to death in the hospital, while another was killed after an Israeli military dog was let loose on him. “The rights organisation said that the atrocities committed by Israeli forces at Kamal Adwan Hospital are part of the Israeli army’s repeated and systematic attacks on health facilities, crews, and ambulances, ongoing since 7 October, which aim to destroy the Gaza Strip’s healthcare system, constituting a war crime under the rules of international humanitarian law,” it added.
So far, Israel has not provided any solid evidence proving that hospitals in the Gaza Strip are being used for any other purpose than health work.
