Days after the Israeli army left Khan Yunis, a mass grave was discovered at the Gaza hospital

In the major southern city of Gaza, Khan Yunis, the civil defense service in Gaza said on Sunday that its crews had found 50 dead buried in the courtyard of the Nasser Medical Complex since Saturday.

“To provide a final count of martyrs, we are awaiting the excavation of all graves,” Mahmud Bassal, a civil defense agency spokesperson, told AFP.

“There were no clothes on some bodies, which certainly indicates (the victims) faced torture and abuse,” Bassal said.

The 50 remains were dug out from what Hamas described as a “mass grave” in the hospital courtyard, the group stated in a statement.

The Israeli army said that it was investigating the claims.

On April 7, Israel withdrew its ground soldiers from Khan Yunis after what it described as a “precise and limited operation” targeting the largest hospital in Gaza.

The Israeli military has targeted Gaza’s hospitals, claiming that Hamas is using them as command centers and to house captives who were kidnapped on October 7. Hamas has refuted these accusations.

An AFP photographer saw civil defense workers on Sunday removing human remains from the courtyard as distraught family members gathered corpses covered in white cloths.

Umm Mohammed al-Harazeen, a resident, visited the hospital area in the hopes of receiving word about her husband.

She said that “we have been searching for him, but to no avail,” and that “he has been missing since Israeli forces entered Khan Yunis.”

Netanyahu has said repeatedly that Israel will launch a military attack on Rafah despite international concern for civilians who have sought sanctuary in the southern Gazan city. Netanyahu promised action “in the coming days” without providing any details.

The prime minister’s most recent comments were made a day after US senators authorized $13 billion in fresh military assistance to Israel, a longtime ally, despite growing international condemnation of the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the beleaguered Gaza Strip.

The US assistance has been referred to by Hamas as “green light” for Israel to “continue the brutal aggression against our people”.

On the eve of the Jewish festival of Passover, Netanyahu said via video that Israel “will deliver additional and painful blows” to Hamas.

“In the coming days we will increase the military and political pressure on Hamas because this is the only way to free our hostages,” he said.

After the Hamas raid on October 7, Israel thinks that 129 prisoners are still in Gaza, 34 of whom the IDF claims are dead.

The majority of Gaza’s 2.4 million residents have taken refuge in Rafah, which has avoided an Israeli assault so far, according to the army, where at least some of the hostages are being kept.

Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, an Israeli military spokesperson, said in a televised statement that “the chief of staff has approved the next steps for the war” but provided no other information.

“The captives will be held captive for 200 days starting on Passover… We’ll battle till you come back to us,” he said.

The G7, a group of wealthy nations, said earlier this week that it was against a “full-scale military operation” in Rafah because to “catastrophic consequences” for civilians.

Already, the city has been the target of several airstrikes by Israeli troops.

According to the civil defense organization, at least 16 people—mostly children—were killed when Israeli missiles struck two houses in Rafah Sunday night.

Umm Hassan Kloub, a 35-year-old resident, said that her kids cried out as they “woke up to a nightmare of an explosion”.

“Every second we live in terror, even the sound of Israeli aircraft doesn’t stop,” she said.

According to the health ministry of the territory, at least 34,097 individuals have died in Gaza as a result of Israel’s conflict, the majority of them were women and children.

There has also been an increase in violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where fighting has intensified over the last two years since the start of the Gaza conflict.

At least 14 individuals were murdered during a 40-hour Israeli attack on the Nur Shams refugee camp in the northern West Bank, according to a statement released on Saturday by the Palestinian Red Crescent.

According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, two Palestinians were murdered on Sunday during an Israeli operation close to Hebron, while third was slain at a checkpoint in the northern West Bank. All three, according to the military, attempted to assault soldiers.

The military arm of Hamas said that its fighters in southern Lebanon had launched 20 rockets against a military installation in northern Israel, the most recent in a series of cross-border gunfights that have often featured Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas.

One of the soldiers injured in a Hezbollah attack on Wednesday near the Lebanese border has died, the Israeli army reported on Sunday.

Israel’s air defenses were anticipated to be strengthened by the majority of the additional military aid that the US House of Representatives authorized on Saturday.

At the burial for Palestinians buried in the Nur Shams refugee camp, close to the West Bank town of Tulkarem, mourners pray over the remains covered in the banners of the terrorist organization Islamic Jihad.
This comes as the Israeli military claims that, with the assistance of Israel’s friends, almost all of the hundreds of missiles and drones that Iran fired against the nation a week ago were intercepted.

The fatal assault on Tehran’s embassy consular annex in Damascus on April 1 prompted Iran to launch its first-ever direct attack on Israel.

When explosions were reported in the Iranian province of Isfahan in the center on Friday, it looked that Israel might respond; however, worries about a potential larger conflict subsided as Iran seemed to minimize the issue.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said Tehran would not retaliate until there was another Israeli strike, but Israeli authorities had not released a statement.

In his first remarks since the drone and missile strike on Israel, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, commended the “success in recent events” of his country’s military forces on Sunday.