Methodologies
Location
Publicationdd Date
As part of our ongoing investigation of Israel’s destruction of medical infrastructure in Gaza since October 2023, we are releasing new findings that expand our documentation of the targeting of al-Shifa Hospital to include the desecration of makeshift burial grounds — including a mass grave — within the hospital compound.
The Israeli army’s second invasion and occupation of the al-Shifa compound began on 18 March, imposing a communications blackout on the besieged staff and patients that lasted until Israeli forces withdrew from the compound on 1 April.
In the days after this occupation ended, as immense destruction to the hospital buildings and grounds was revealed, visual evidence emerged of bodies being uncovered from piles of earth and rubble. Our analysis of that evidence shows that Israeli forces desecrated makeshift burial grounds within the hospital compound where the dead had been buried since November 2023, when Israeli forces first surrounded and cut off access to al-Shifa. Further evidence suggests that the bodies of Palestinians killed during the second invasion were haphazardly buried in the hospital courtyard by Israeli military bulldozers and later exhumed by Palestinian Civil Defence teams.
Four Burial Grounds
Soon after the Israeli assault on Gaza began in October 2023, al-Shifa Hospital was inundated with the bodies of those killed by Israeli forces. Despite being the largest hospital in Gaza, the vast scale of killing quickly overwhelmed al-Shifa’s morgue, which reached its capacity in early November. On 9 November, Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah posted images of a refrigerated truck that had been brought to the hospital to serve ‘as an additional morgue.’
As the Israeli army besieged al-Shifa, Dr. Munir al-Bursh said in an interview on 13 November that stray dogs had begun to feed on bodies that were left unburied in the main courtyard.
Visual evidence from 14 November (camera position 1) showed doctors and civilians digging a mass grave one day before Israeli forces seized the compound. Our visual analysis shows that the first makeshift burial ground (Site A) was located in the eastern corner of the main courtyard, in a fenced-in area that was previously vegetation.
First Israeli Invasion of al-Shifa Hospital
The Israeli army first invaded al-Shifa Hospital on 15 November, occupying the compound until withdrawing on 25 November, during a temporary ceasefire. After the withdrawal, Euro-Med Monitor claimed that Israeli forces had exhumed and seized bodies that had been buried in a mass grave dug by doctors on the hospital grounds.
The second makeshift burial ground we documented (Site B) appeared in video broadcast by Al Araby (recorded from camera position 2) on 11 December, which showed a grave site with several individual plots.
On 17 December, visual evidence of a third makeshift burial ground was posted online, showing a large cemetery (Site C) on a plot of land to the rear of the Emergency Department. Another image of the site that was posted online on 1 January 2024 (from camera position 3) showed that the cemetery contained more than 100 graves.
On 23 December, Al Araby broadcast video of a fourth burial site (Site D, recorded from camera position 4), located to the north of the Dialysis building.
Second Israeli Invasion of al-Shifa Hospital
A photograph taken from al-Shifa’s ruined Surgery building (camera position 5) that was posted online on 2 April showed the destruction of the hospital’s main courtyard during the second Israeli invasion. Our analysis of this visual evidence indicates that two makeshift burial grounds (Site A and B) created in late 2023 were desecrated during the Israeli occupation.
The upturned earth at these locations was likely caused by Israeli military bulldozers, like the one seen operating in the hospital courtyard in video covertly recorded from the hospital’s Emergency Department (camera position 6), broadcast by Al Jazeera on 18 March, on the first day of the second invasion.
The largest makeshift cemetery in the compound (Site C), located behind the Emergency Department, was also desecrated, as seen in video broadcast by Al Jazeera (camera position 7) on 7 April.
Sites of Exhumed Bodies
Our analysis reveals there were at least two sites where the bodies of people killed during the second invasion appear to have been buried by the Israeli army in a haphazard manner. Reports cited by a spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights indicate that some of deceased were found with their hands tied together.
Video published on 8 April, a week after Israeli forces withdrew, showed bodies being exhumed from piles of earth (Site E, seen from camera position 8) likely left behind by Israeli military bulldozers. Another video clip posted online the same day showed Palestinian emergency and civil defence workers exhuming remains from a different pile of earth and rubble (Site F, seen from camera position 9) outside al-Shifa’s Emergency Department.
