Both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority demanded an investigation after around thirty bodies in bags buried under rubble and sand at a school in northern Gaza were discovered.
Videos and images released on Tuesday (30) showed dozens of body bags being discovered in a school in Beit Lahia that had been used as a shelter by hundreds of people during the fighting. Some of the body bags had labels in Hebrew along with barcodes. A CNN geolocated the video of Hamad bin Khalifa Secondary School, which, along with other schools and shelters in the area, was in the midst of intensive combat in early December.
The identities of the victims are unknown, as are the circumstances and date of their deaths. The area was the scene of heavy fighting in December, and two schools in Beit Lahia, including Hamad bin Khalifa, were surrounded by the Israeli military for some time. Satellite images from January 13 show a series of craters nearby and bulldozer tracks.
The Palestinian Prisoners Society reported, on Wednesday (31), “the discovery of the bodies of 30 martyrs inside one of the schools that was surrounded by the occupation” and claimed that the dead were “handcuffed and blindfolded”.
The accusation was later repeated by Hamas in a statement, which demanded that human rights organizations “document this horrific crime.”
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry in the West Bank also called for “the formation of an international investigation team on the ground” for what it described as “the massacres committed by the occupation”. It claimed that, “according to testimonies from Palestinian citizens, more than 30 decomposed bodies were discovered buried in the northern Gaza Strip. They were killed, apparently executed, while blindfolded and with their hands handcuffed.”
A CNN could not independently verify whether any of the victims were handcuffed or blindfolded.
A CNN contacted the Israel Defense Forces for comment on the allegations made, providing the video and geographic coordinates.
Source: CNN Brasil
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