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nasser hospital
'Horrific Massacre': IDF Kills 200+ Palestinians Rescuing 4 Hostages
"It's a nightmare at Al-Aqsa," said Samuel Johann, MSF coordinator in Gaza. "How many more men, women, and children have to be killed before world leaders decide to put an end to this massacre?"
Jun 08, 2024
Palestinian officials said at least 210 people were killed and more than 400 injured as the Israel Defense Forces conducted an operation in the central Gaza Strip on Saturday to rescue four of over 240 hostages taken by Hamas militants last year.
Israeli forces rescued Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomi Ziv—all attendees or security guards at a music festival that Palestinian militants attacked on October 7—from two locations in Gaza's Nuseirat refugee camp, according to the IDF. There are 116 hostages still being held in the Hamas-governed enclave, and at least 41 are believed to be dead.
Abu Obaida, a spokesperson for Hamas' military wing, said Saturday that "the enemy succeeded in releasing some of its hostages by committing horrific massacres, but at the same time, killed some of them during the operation."
CNNreported that spokespeople for Israel's police and military said an Israeli policeman from a counterterrorism unit was killed and estimated casualties from the operation at "under 100." The outlet also noted the higher death toll cited by Gaza officials and spoke with witnesses—including Abu Abdallah, who said that "dogs were eating people's remains. We pulled out six martyrs, all torn-up children and women, we risked our lives to get them to the hospital."
As The Associated Pressdetailed:
The bodies of 109 Palestinians including 23 children and 11 women were taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where spokesperson Khalil Degran told The Associated Press more than 100 wounded also arrived. He said that overall, 210 dead had been taken there and to Al-Awda Hospital, saying he had spoken to the director there. Al-Awda's numbers couldn't immediately be confirmed.
AP reporters saw dozens of bodies brought from the Nuseirat and Deir al-Balah areas, as smoke rose in the distance and armored vehicles rolled by.
A baby was among the dead. Small children wailed, covered in blood. Bodies were placed on the ground outside, their feet bare, as more wounded were rushed in.
"It's a nightmare at Al-Aqsa," said Samuel Johann, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) coordinator in Gaza, in a statement. "There have been back-to-back mass casualties as densely populated areas are bombed. It's way beyond what anyone could deal with in a functional hospital, let alone with the scarce resources we have here."
In addition to killing more than 36,800 Palestinians and wounding over 83,600—according to Gaza officials—the IDF's eight-month retaliation for the October 7 attack has devastated civilian infrastructure across the besieged coastal enclave, including hospitals.
"How many more men, women, and children have to be killed before world leaders decide to put an end to this massacre?" Johann asked amid cease-fire and hostage negotiations mediated by Egypt, Qatar, and the United States—which has provided weapons and diplomatic support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's war, despite nationwide protests, including on Saturday.
Karin Huster, an MSF medical referent, shared an audio recording about her experience at Al-Aqsa's emergency department Saturday afternoon: "Total chaos inside; the entire emergency room... was completely packed with patients on the floor coming from the bombings in Nuseirat. There were hundreds of patients, and we did whatever we could to stabilize them... And, thank God we were able to refer a bunch of patients to Nasser Hospital as well as IMC Field Hospital that is not far away from here."
"Despite the fact that the place was completely overwhelmed, it did an amazing job," Huster continued. "There is nothing, nothing at all that justifies what I saw today. Nothing. These children—the 3-month-old, the 7-year-old, the 12-year-old that died—the 25-year-old man, the 78-year-old woman, who all have horrendous injuries. Why did they deserve this? And why is the world looking on in silence? ...To what level of horror do we need to go before we finally do something, before we finally tell Israel that this is not acceptable?"
Chris Hook, MSF medical referent at Nasser Hospital, shared an audio update from there, saying that "we've received, coming close now to about 50 badly injured patients. There's people with multiple major open fractures of their limbs. We've got several unconscious children who are trying to be escorted through CT scan and on to intensive care."
"A few very bad burns have come through, and already four or five people who've required chest tube insertion, and things like this, for major injuries to the chest," he said, explaining that the hospital has a limited ability to perform CT scans, a shortage of pain killers, and a full intensive care unit. "More patients are arriving. It's a serious mass casualty incident that is occurring right now."
Council on American–Islamic Relations national executive director Nihad Awad said in a statement Saturday that "we strongly condemn the Israeli government's horrific massacre at Nuseirat refugee camp, where Israeli forces, some hidden in a humanitarian aid truck, reportedly slaughtered at least 200 Palestinian civilians while freeing four Israeli hostages who could have and should have been safely released months ago as part of a cease-fire agreement that Benjamin Netanyahu keeps torpedoing so that he can continue the genocide and stay in office."
"The Biden administration must be transparent about any U.S. involvement in this massacre and whether any Americans were in the units that carried it out," Awad added. "The administration also must stop funding these daily incidents of mass slaughter and instead use American leverage to stop the genocide, free all hostages and political prisoners, and end the illegal occupation of Palestine that lies at the root of the violence."
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When Mass Graves Are Not Considered News
The discovery of these mass graves “horrified” UN rights chief Volker Turk. But it has yet to prompt so strong a reaction from several major US news outlets.
Apr 29, 2024
The bodies of over 300 people were discovered in a mass grave at the Nasser medical complex in Khan Younis, a Gaza city besieged by Israeli forces. The discovery of these Palestinian bodies, many of which were reportedly bound and stripped, is more evidence of “plausible” genocide committed by Israel during its bombardment of Gaza. Over 34,000 Palestinians have died thus far, with more than two-thirds of the casualties being women and children (Al Jazeera, 4/21/24).
Yet this discovery prompted few US news headlines, despite outlets like the Guardian (4/23/24), Haaretz (4/23/24) and Reuters (4/23/24) covering the story. Instead, headlines relating to Palestine have predominantly focused on protests happening at university campuses across the country—an important story, but not one that ought to drown out coverage of the atrocities students are protesting against.
Israel’s Haaretz noted that
emergency workers in white hazmat suits had been seen digging near the ruins of Nasser Hospital. They reportedly dug corpses out of the ground with hand tools and a digger truck. The emergency services said 73 more bodies had been found at the site in the past day, raising the number found over the week to 283.
The bodies included people killed during the Israeli siege of Khan Yunis, as well as people killed after Israel occupied the medical complex in February (Guardian, 4/22/24). They were found under piles of waste, with several bodies having their hands tied and clothes stripped off (UN, 4/23/24; Democracy Now!, 4/25/24). Similar mass graves, containing at least 381 bodies, were found at Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital after Israel withdrew from occupying that complex on April 1 (CNN, 4/9/24).
The discovery of these mass graves “horrified” UN rights chief Volker Turk (Reuters, 4/23/24). But it has yet to prompt so strong a reaction from several major US news outlets.
Limited response
In comparison to the widespread coverage from international outlets, the US response has been limited at best. Newsweek (4/23/24) published an article that included claims from the IDF that the deaths were a result of a “precise” operation against Hamas near Nasser Hospital:About 200 terrorists who were in the hospital were apprehended, medicines intended for Israeli hostages were found undelivered and unused, and a great deal of ammunition was confiscated.
The article centered on the US response to the reports of mass graves. Along with CNN (4/23/24), Newsweek included quotes from the IDF that called reports of mass burials of Palestinians by the Israeli army “baseless and unfounded.” Rather, the IDF said, they were merely exhuming the bodies to verify whether or not they were Israeli hostages.
The Washington Post (4/23/24) relegated the news to a small section of their live updates feed: “UN Calls for Investigation of Gaza Mass Grave; IDF Says It Excavated Bodies.”
CNN and PBS (4/22/24) both published relatively well-rounded reports of the discovery, noting reports of 400 missing people and allegations of IDF soldiers performing DNA tests on the bodies, along with accounts of people still searching for their loved ones amidst the rubble. CNN released an update April 24:
At least 381 bodies were recovered from the vicinity of the complex since Israeli forces withdrew on April 1, Gaza Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Basal said, adding that the total figure did not include people buried within the grounds of the hospital.
The update was also released to CNN‘s Meanwhile in the Middle East newsletter.
As FAIR (11/17/23, 2/1/24, 4/17/24) has repeatedly noted, coverage of the war has widely been from an Israel-centered perspective. The CNN and PBS articles, however, along with an NBC video, prominently included quotes from Palestinians searching for family members.
The same cannot be said for outlets like the Washington Post and New York Times, who cited sources from the UN and the Palestinian Civil Defense—a governmental organization that operates under the Palestinian Security Services—but didn’t include additional first-hand accounts from Palestinian civilians
The Times said that “it was not clear where the people discovered in the mass grave were originally buried.” It didn’t mention that several family members of the deceased remembered where they buried them, but were no longer able to find them, they said, due to IDF interference (CNN, 4/23/24):
Another man, who said his brother Alaa was also killed in January, said: “I am here today looking for him. I have been coming here to the hospital for the last two weeks and trying to find him. Hopefully, I will be able to find him.”
Pointing to a fallen palm tree, the man said his brother had been temporarily buried in that spot.
“I had buried him there on the side, but I can’t find him. The Israelis have dug up the dead bodies, and switched them. They took DNA tests and misplaced all the dead bodies.”
Playing catch-up
As mentioned above, US news outlets have had considerable coverage of pro-Palestine university protests, particularly since April 18, when more than 100 demonstrators were arrested at New York’s Columbia University (FAIR.org, 4/19/24). News of these protests have dominated US headlines since (e.g., Wall Street Journal, 4/25/24; AP, 4/25/24; The Hill, 4/24/24); while the discovery of mass graves just a few days later has received next to no coverage in comparison. In the case of the New York Times, for instance, they published just two stories (4/23/24, 4/25/24) about the mass graves since the news broke on April 21, while publishing seven stories about the campus protests in the span of two days.
The New York Times has been telling writers not to use words like “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” to describe the violence in Gaza, a leaked internal memo revealed (Intercept, 4/15/24; FAIR.org, 4/18/24). Accordingly, the Times used the phrase “wartime chaos” to explain the mass graves, as if they were merely a side effect of war, not the result of intentional bombing campaigns.
While some prominent US media outlets are beginning to report on this discovery (ABC, 4/25/24; AP, 4/23/24; HuffPost, 4/24/24), they are playing catch-up with their international counterparts, whose reporting makes up a majority of search results on Google. Even articles that do appear on the first page rely heavily on reports from official spokespeople (e.g., Spectrum News, 4/23/24; The Hill, 4/23/24).
The UN’s Turk (4/23/24) has called for an independent investigation into the mass graves, saying “the intentional killing of civilians, detainees and others who are hors de combat is a war crime.” Corporate news outlets have been quick to note that the claims of bodies being found with their hands tied “cannot be substantiated,” despite consistent reports from both Palestinian officials and the office of the UN high commissioner for human rights about the condition of the bodies.
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No Outside Probe, US Reiterates as Gazans Reportedly Buried Alive in Mass Grave
"How does it ever make sense that the United States asks the accused party to examine itself?" asked one incredulous reporter.
Apr 25, 2024
A Biden administration spokesperson once again brushed off calls for an independent investigation into how hundreds of Palestinians found in mass graves near Gaza hospitals died when asked Thursday about new reports that many of the victims were tortured, summarily executed—and in some cases, buried alive by Israeli invaders.
During a Thursday U.S. State Department press conference in Washington, D.C., a reporter noted Gaza officials' claim that mass grave victims "including children were tortured before being killed" and that "some even showed signs of being buried alive, along with other crimes against humanity."
"What's wrong with an independent, scientific, forensic investigation?"
Noting calls by Palestinian officials and United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk for an independent probe into mass graves, the reporter said that "this administration repeatedly said that it asks... the Israeli government to investigate itself."
"How does it ever make sense that the United States asks the accused party to examine itself and provide reports that you have previously said that you actually trust?" the reporter asked State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel. "What's wrong with an independent, scientific, forensic investigation?"
Patel replied: "We continue to find these reports incredibly troubling. And that's why yesterday you saw the national security adviser for this to be thoroughly investigated."
While National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan on Wednesday called reports of mass grave atrocities "deeply disturbing" and said that "we want answers" from Israel, he did not call for an independent investigation.
When the reporter pressed Patel on the legitimacy of asking Israel to investigate itself, Patel said, "we believe that through a thorough investigation we can get some additional answers."
Thursday's exchange followed a similar back-and-forth on Tuesday between Patel and Said Arikat, a journalist for the Jerusalem-based
Palestinian news outlet al-Quds who asked about the mass graves.
At least 392 bodies—including numerous women and children—have been found in mass graves outside Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, where Palestinian Civil Defense and other workers have been exhuming victims for nearly a week. Officials believe there are as many as 700 bodies in three separate mass graves.
Based on more recent exhumations, local Civil Defense chief Yamen Abu Sulaiman said during a Wednesday press conference that "we believe that the occupation buried alive at least 20 people at the Nasser Medical Complex."
"There are cases of field execution of some patients while undergoing surgeries and wearing surgical gowns," he stated, adding that some victims showed signs of torture and 10 bodies had medical tubes attached to them.
Gaza Civil Defense official Mohammed Mughier told reporters that "we need forensic examination" to definitively determine the causes of death for the 20 people believed to have been buried alive.
Previous reporting on the mass graves quoted rescue workers who said they found people who were apparently executed while their hands were bound, with some victims missing heads, skin, and internal organs.
Other mass graves have been found in Gaza, most notably on the grounds of al-Shifa Hospital, where Israeli forces last month committed what the Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor called "one of the largest massacres in Palestinian history."
It's also not the first time there have been reports of Israeli troops burying victims alive during the current war, in which Palestinian and international officials say Israeli forces have killed or wounded more than 122,000 Gazans, including at least 11,000 people who are missing and feared dead. Israeli forces attacking Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia last December reportedly bulldozed and buried alive dozens of injured patients and displaced people.
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