Amid the ongoing genocide, Euro-Med Monitor documents the most prominent mass graves in Gaza
Palestinians bury the bodies of 110 victims of Israeli attacks in a mass grave in the Khan Younis cemetery, 22 November 2023
Euro-Med Monitor writes on 18 September 2024:
Thousands of families continue to bury their children in random mass graves, a phenomenon brought on by over 11 months of systematic killings of Palestinians by Israel in every Gaza Strip governorate. The situation is worsening as a result of the Israeli occupation army’s constant targeting of people who attempt to enter these makeshift cemeteries to bury their loved ones.
Euro-Med Monitor has released an infographic design that shows the locations and dates of approximately 30 randomly established mass graves in the northern, central, and southern governorates of Gaza, containing roughly 3,000 dead victims of Israel’s genocide in the enclave. The graphic also depicts 120 random mass graves in which three or more people are buried, and which were established in the Gaza Strip between now and last October.
Since many random graves are found inside houses and other private spaces and some are periodically moved to new locations, the majority of them are still unrecorded. Thus, the number and location of these graves remain constantly changing. Furthermore, the Israeli occupation army is continuously bulldozing both makeshift cemeteries and official graves, disfiguring the victims’ bodies, and even stealing some of them, in grave violation of international law.
Al-Batsh Cemetery, located in Gaza City’s eastern Al-Tuffah neighbourhood, is the largest documented mass grave in the Gaza Strip. Between 500 and 1,000 people have been buried there since the cemetery’s founding on 22 October 2023, just two weeks after Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza began.
Euro-Med Monitor field teams have been documenting the mass and random graves across the enclave since the establishment of the first mass grave in Al-Shifa Medical Complex on 15 October 2023, when it became impossible to transfer the dead victims to the official cemetery in Gaza City due to the large number of corpses and the danger presented by Israeli forces. Over time, more of these mass graves have been created, one after another, eventually totaling at least 120.
These graves have been established throughout residential areas, in the backyards and courtyards of homes and hospitals, public road intersections, wedding halls, sports fields, schools, and mosques.
“Random mass graves have become something of a phenomenon in Gaza,” according to a Euro-Med Monitor field researcher in Gaza City whose name is being withheld due to safety concerns. “They are seen on the roads, in traffic islands, [and] near markets and residential buildings at random.”