As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised to increase military pressure on Hamas, Gaza’s civil defense said on Sunday that scores of remains had been discovered buried at a medical facility that Israel had previously invaded.
Netanyahu has stated repeatedly that Israel will launch a ground assault on Rafah despite international concern for civilians who have taken refuge 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 aid to Israel, a longtime ally, despite growing international condemnation of the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the beleaguered Gaza Strip.
The US aid was hailed as a “green light” for Israel to “continue the brutal aggression against our people” by Hamas, the militant Palestinian group whose attack on October 7th set off the Gaza conflict.
Since Saturday, 50 bodies have been found buried in the courtyard of the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis, the main southern city of Gaza, according to the civil defense service.
“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 stated.
The Israeli army declared that it was investigating the claims.
The 50 remains were dug up from what Hamas described as a “mass grave” in the hospital courtyard, the group stated in a statement.
On April 7, Israel withdrew its ground soldiers from Khan Yunis following 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 hostages who were kidnapped on October 7. Hamas has refuted these accusations.
An AFP photographer observed civil defense workers on Sunday removing human remains from the courtyard as distraught family members gathered bodies covered in white cloths.
Umm Mohammed al-Harazeen, a resident, visited the hospital area in the hopes of receiving word about her husband.
She stated that “we have been searching for him, but to no avail,” and that “he has been missing since Israeli forces entered Khan Yunis.”
“Awoke to a bad dream.”
On the eve of the Jewish holiday of Passover, Netanyahu declared 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 stated.
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 invasion thus far, according to the army, where at least some of the hostages are being kept.
Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, an Israeli military spokesperson, stated 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 uttered.
The G7, a group of wealthy nations, stated 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 forces.
According to the civil defense organization, at least 16 people—mostly children—were killed when Israeli missiles struck two homes in Rafah Sunday night.
Umm Hassan Kloub, a 35-year-old resident, reported 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 stated.
1,170 persons, primarily civilians, lost their lives as a result of Hamas’s attack that started the conflict, according to an AFP count based on Israeli government statistics.
The health ministry of the Hamas-run enclave in Gaza reports that at least 34,097 individuals have died as a result of Israel’s retaliatory operation, the majority of them were women and children.
The US Strengthens Israeli Defenses
There has also been an increase in violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where fighting has intensified over the past two years since the start of the Gaza conflict.
At least 14 individuals were killed 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 a third was slain at a checkpoint in the northern West Bank. All three, according to the military, attempted to attack soldiers.
The military arm of Hamas reported 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 typically involved Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas.
One of the soldiers injured in a Hezbollah strike 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 approved on Saturday.
This comes after the Israeli military claims that, with the assistance of Israel’s friends, nearly all of the hundreds of missiles and drones that Iran launched toward the nation a week ago were intercepted.
The deadly attack 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 appeared that Israel might respond; however, worries about a potential larger conflict subsided as Iran seemed to downplay the issue.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian stated Tehran would not retaliate until there was another Israeli attack, but Israeli officials had not released a statement.
In his first remarks since the drone and missile attack on Israel, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, commended the “success in recent events” of his country’s armed forces on Sunday.
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