• Members stress the need for ‘accountability’ for any violations of international law
• Hospitals in the Gaza Strip have been repeatedly targeted since the beginning of the Israeli military operation

NEW YORK: The UN Security Council has called for an immediate and independent investigation into mass graves allegedly containing hundreds of bodies near hospitals in Gaza.

In a statement, members of the council expressed their “deep concern over reports of the discovery of mass graves, in and around the Nasser and Al-Shifa medical facilities in Gaza, where several hundred bodies, including women, children and older persons, were buried.”

The members stressed the need for “accountability” for any violations of international law.

They called on investigators to be given “unimpeded access to all locations of mass graves in Gaza to conduct immediate, independent, thorough, comprehensive, transparent and impartial investigations.”

Hospitals in the Gaza Strip have been repeatedly targeted since the beginning of the Israeli military operation in the Palestinian territory following the October 7 attack on southern Israel by Gaza-based Hamas militants.

The World Health Organization said in April that Al-Shifa, in Gaza City, had been reduced to an “empty shell,” with many bodies found in the area.

The Israeli army has said around 200 Palestinians were killed during its military operations there.

Bodies have reportedly been found buried in two graves in the hospital’s courtyard.

The UN rights office in late April had called for an independent investigation into reports of mass graves at Al-Shifa and the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis.

Gaza officials said at the time that health workers at the Nasser complex had uncovered hundreds of bodies of Palestinians they alleged had been killed and buried by Israeli forces.

Israel’s army has dismissed the claims as “baseless and unfounded.”

The statement on Friday from the Security Council did not say who would conduct the investigations.

But it “reaffirmed the importance of allowing families to know the fate and whereabouts of their missing relatives, consistent with international humanitarian law.”

Israel’s offensive has killed at least 34,943 people in the Gaza Strip, primarily women and children, the Health Ministry in the territory said.

AFP