The Gaza mass graves: can a genocide case be built against Israel?

Every day, hundreds of Palestinians flock to the courtyard of the Nasser Hospital in Gaza as they desperately search for the bodies of their missing loved ones.

The Israeli military has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, women and children among them. Some of them were killed in hospitals where they had taken refuge and the Israeli military buried the bodies in unmarked graves to erase the evidence of its brutality.

Palestinian civil defence teams are now trying to recover the bodies. They have been joined by civilians whose children, parents, or relatives have been missing since the onset of Israel’s war on the enclave on October 7. They join in the excavation efforts, digging through the piles of sand alongside the dwindling number of civil defense workers, Gaza-based journalist Isa Muhammad Saadullah tells TRT World.

On April 26, civil defence reported the discovery of three mass graves while clearing debris around the courtyard of the Nasser Hospital, located in southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.

Since then, at least 392 bodies of men, women, and children have been exhumed from several burial pits following the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the city on April 7.

As each body is dug out of three-meter-deep burial pits, the stench becomes stronger, compelling some people to step away while others put on masks, and continue digging through the soil and garbage with shovels.

And all of them have only one thing in their minds, Saadullah says, to give their loved ones a proper and dignified burial. But that can happen only once they have identified the bodies.

Saadullah says the bodies taken out of the mass graves have undergone significant decomposition, with features blurred, limbs scattered, and some bodies even dismembered or torn apart.

As the Israeli troops and tanks move into Rafah, where more than a million people have taken refuge, there’s growing concern that the Israeli military will try to erase more of its war crimes.

During the three-month siege imposed by the Israeli forces on Khan Younis, Nasser Hospital became a refuge for 10,000 Palestinians, including doctors and patients, seeking shelter from relentless Israeli bombings.

However, the hospital was repeatedly targeted by Israeli raids in January and February, leaving dozens of patients and staff stranded without crucial supplies like oxygen, fuel, food, water, and electricity.

Workers from OCHA, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, who participated in evacuation missions, reported witnessing deceased individuals strewn across the corridors.

According to reports from local authorities and journalists, these burial pits were dug deep and filled with garbage in a blatant attempt to conceal evidence of executions and war crimes that were perpetrated inside the hospital while it was under Israeli occupation.

Just like the Bosnian mass graves

Scholars who have studied genocide and human rights groups have expressed concern over the lack of international interest in probing the existence of mass graves.

Experts say the discovery of mass graves in areas that had faced military action raises the possibility that war crimes were committed.

Israel cannot be expected to investigate its own war crimes, they say.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) had already declared that Israel is "plausibly" committing genocide based on its actions and statements of senior officials.

The Israeli planners and executors of war crimes know that the absence of international entities, which can document their crime, coupled with the lack of media coverage, will render legal action more challenging, Camil Durakovic, Vice President of the Republic of Srpska and former Mayor of Srebrenica tells TRT World.

Duraković says, “This is why Israeli forces are preventing the presence of the media, let alone relevant international actors that could determine and document anything in real-time, which represents a special segment of the crime that is taking place in Gaza.”

Hariz Halilovich, Professor of Global Studies at Australia’s RMIT University, tells TRT World that in war zones like Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo, the discovery of mass graves was often a result of an effort of family members trying to find missing persons post-conflict.

Mass graves have historically been used as evidence of crimes including genocide, ethnic cleansing, and summary executions of civilians and the intentional movement of bodies.

This happened in Bosnia where bodies of non-Serbs, being mostly Bosniak-Muslims, were transferred between primary, secondary, and tertiary sites by Bosnian Serb forces, complicating the process of identifying victims and making it difficult to gather evidence.

The proximity of mass graves to protected buildings like hospitals, as seen in Gaza, raises serious concerns and suspicions about the circumstances of the victims' deaths.

This suggests that they were likely unarmed civilians who posed no threat, says Halilovich, citing past instances, such as the Vukovar hospital massacre in Croatia, where civilians seeking refuge in hospitals became targets of violence.

“A similar scenario happened in the Vukovar hospital massacre in Croatia in November 1991 when Serb forces captured the city of Vukovar where militias and military executed some 200 Croatian patients and civilians in a hospital,” says Halilovich.

“The bodies were buried in a mass grave called Ovcara, only to be identified later and tested in the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia in the Hague, and two high-ranking officers who were responsible for what happened were accordingly charged.”

However, in such cases, no criminal forensic experts were immediately available on the ground. In their absences, local individuals often played a crucial role in collecting initial evidence and documenting crime scenes.

This meticulous recording of evidence is essential to prevent disputes or dismissals of evidence by perpetrators, he adds.

Halilovich highlights that in Bosnia, where the first act of genocide after the Second World War in Europe was committed during the Bosnian War between 1992 and 1995, forensic experts arrived a year after the war ended.

It was only after the establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) that forensic research began, driven by the need for evidence to prosecute war crimes.

The findings of forensic investigations, such as the presence of blindfolds and bound hands in mass graves, played a crucial role in proving that the victims were civilians and in holding perpetrators accountable for crimes against humanity, including genocide.

Similarly, in Gaza, where resources and expertise are limited, local efforts to document evidence at mass grave sites will be crucial for future prosecution and adjudication of war crimes, says Halilovich.

Despite the challenges they face, their meticulous work in recording the circumstances of the victims' deaths can serve as vital evidence in holding perpetrators accountable for atrocities committed during the war.

A race to gather evidence

At Al Shifa, Gaza's largest medical facility, rescue teams began excavating the complex’s courtyard, following a 14-day siege by Israeli forces in March.

“At least 33 bodies were recovered from two mass graves – one in front of the specialised surgery building and the other in front of the kidney dialysis building. In these graves, we found dozens of bodies, including those of medical and emergency relief teams”, Ismail Al Thawabta, head of the Government Media Office in Gaza tells TRT World.

Both Nasser and Al Shifa hospitals were raided and besieged by Israeli forces, reducing them to ruins. Many sections of hospital buildings were blown up, and others were set ablaze, with medical equipment reduced to ashes, making it impossible for the facilities to operate again anytime soon.

Bodies exhumed from these mass grave sites show signs of torture – some had their hands tied with plastic tapes, while others were blindfolded and had their mouths covered, indicating that they were executed in detention, rescue workers, the UN human rights office, and other organisations have reported.

Al Thawabta claims that during the exhumation process, some bodies were found decapitated, with evidence of skin and organ removal, along with clear indications of torture. Some victims had gunshot wounds to the front of the head and between the eyes, while others were buried alive, or injured before being executed.

“This was evident when we found urinary catheters and splints still attached to some patients’ bodies,” he says.

The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor has urgently called for investigations, saying that many victims were subjected to premeditated murder and extrajudicial executions in violations of international law.

Despite limited resources and the absence of technical support from experts due to Israel’s siege, which isolates the Gaza enclave from the outside world, rescue workers and Palestinian Civil Defence teams have been working meticulously to document and compile initial evidence of Israeli war crimes.

Al Thawabta says civil defense teams have documented burial circumstances through photos and videos, while paramedics are establishing the cause of death of the victims. He added that two-thirds of the victims have so far been identified.

“We are prepared regarding the investigation into mass graves to provide any party with the available materials,” he says.

“We are committed to documenting evidence confirming that the Israeli occupation is behind these massacres, which can be used to prosecute the occupation judicially in any international court.”

However, he notes that they have yet to be contacted by any international organisation regarding the investigation into the Israeli war crimes.