Mutasim Mortuza. He is a Palestinian video journalist from Khan Younis, Gaza Strip. Recently, he is making a documentary about the mass graves discovered at Nasser Hospital after the withdrawal of Israeli forces. More than three hundred bodies have already been found there. On Monday, he released a video of a woman. It shows a Palestinian mother holding her child’s body. This video of him has spread widely on social media. He describes the scene here.
Hundreds of mothers are coming to Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis. They are looking for their children, running from one corpse to another, looking at each corpse.
They are examining the bodies with their eyes and hands. They are checking the clothes, trousers, and shoes of the dead body, if they match these items of the child! It is not easy to find loved ones among more than three hundred bodies recovered from mass graves.
Mothers need a simple proof. Any evidence to identify their children. But the task is not easy. Most of the body’s identification has been lost. Most of the bodies were melted, unrecognizable.
Israel besieged Khan Yunis for three months. Nasser Hospital is the second largest in Gaza and the ‘backbone’ of medical services in the southern area. More than 10,000 Palestinians took refuge here to escape the attacks.
Israeli forces raided hospitals frequently in January and February, completely destroying them, arresting staff, and driving thousands of people homeless.
Israeli troops withdrew earlier this month. Then the search for the body began. Hundreds of dead bodies were found within the hospital perimeter.
On the first day the mass graves were discovered, 70 bodies were found. Another 70 bodies were found the next day. Dead Palestinians were buried underground. Many were left under trees, some in hospital wards.
Rescuers found dozens more bodies on Tuesday. As a result, the number of dead bodies increased to 310.
The air is heavy with the smell of the dead.
The more they dig, the more bodies come out. Bodies are being found from many places, which are not even imagined. Many times the rescuers are getting body parts. Or the body is so decomposed that there is no way to identify it.
According to the Gaza government’s media office, many bodies were found decapitated. Many were skinned and dismembered. The dead include children, old women, young people – everyone.
Rescue workers said they also found bodies whose hands were tied behind their backs. The UN human rights office says these are “serious violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law.”
Israel denies burying Palestinian bodies. They claimed instead that they picked up the bodies ‘respectfully’ in search of Israeli prisoners.
Many people are crying in Nasser Hospital, many are in pain. I have no words to express such a scene.
The feeling of receiving the dead body of a loved one is indescribable. How mothers cover their dead children in sheets, accompanying them to the grave, cannot be expressed.
We as journalists are capturing every scene with absolute silence. we don’t talk We cried while taking pictures. Our hands shake so much that our cameras lose focus. But we start over, then do it again.
Source: Middle East Eye
