Watan-In a war crime added to the list of Zionist occupation crimes, the Director-General of the Ministry of Health in Gaza, Munir Al-Barsh, affirmed that the occupation forces kidnapped the bodies of Palestinian martyrs from the refrigerator at the “Al-Shifa” medical complex, as well as the bodies of martyrs in the cemetery dug within the complex, to an unknown destination.
Al-Barsh stated in a statement to Al-Jazeera that the mass grave contains the bodies of 82 martyrs kidnapped by the occupation. On Thursday morning, the occupation abducted the bodies of 15 martyrs from them, and also seized the bodies of 130 martyrs from the hospital courtyard, taking them to unknown locations.
مدير عام وزارة الصحة في #غزة من داخل مجمع الشفاء للجزيرة: قوات الاحتلال اختطفت جثامين الشهداء من الثلاجة والمقبرة لجهة مجهولة#حرب_غزة #الأخبار pic.twitter.com/9AjpOYqGUk
— الجزيرة فلسطين (@AJA_Palestine) November 17, 2023
The occupation abducts the bodies of martyrs
The local official stated that they buried 83 martyrs yesterday and dug a mass grave inside the hospital for their interment. They intended to complete the burial of the remaining 130 bodies, but the occupation forces forcibly entered the hospital, abducted the 130 martyrs in trucks, and their fate remains unknown to this day.
When asked by the interviewer to explain what happened and the reason for the abduction, the Palestinian official, with a poignant tone, said, “Words have dried up in my throat due to the intensity of the scenes we witness.”
He added that the intention was to create a mass grave befitting our greatest and most honorable martyrs.
Dr. Munir Al-Barsh continued: “We cooperated as medical teams and displaced people, and we dug this pit with our own hands and simple resources. We buried 82 of them and placed them in the cemetery. Before their burial, the occupation forces abducted these bodies,” without a known reason.
He revealed that some of the unidentified bodies would come to Al-Shifa Hospital, and after being unable to identify them, mass graves were dug, including the Emergency Burial Ground for the Al-Batsh family in Shujaiya, under the supervision of a specialized committee from the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Awqaf (Religious Affairs), and the Ministry of Justice.
Bodies on the side of the road
The locals gathered some of the bodies from the Sea Street – Harun al-Rashid – that, as he described, were scattered on the roadside. They were next to the bodies of the martyrs at Al-Shifa Hospital in the hospital courtyard. The occupation did not allow their burial despite the intervention of the International Red Cross.
According to Dr. Al-Barsh, the occupation forces entered the hospital and took bodies placed in a blue refrigerator intended for storing fish, as well as the central refrigerator of the hospital, which had become full.
Not content with that, the occupation forces proceeded to dig the ground behind the hospital with bulldozers and took the buried bodies. These bodies were loaded onto large trucks.