The existence of mass graves is believed to play an important role in uncovering potential war crimes. According to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the act of violating or destroying a corpse is a war crime.
According to Turkish news agency Anadolu, Palestinian authorities said they discovered two mass graves near Nasser hospital in central Gaza on April 21. These two graves contain nearly 400 bodies and were discovered after the Israeli army withdrew from the city of Khan Younis on April 7 after a four-month ground offensive. Ismail Al-Thawabteh, head of Gaza’s media office, said about 700 people in the city were still considered missing since Israel’s withdrawal.
Meanwhile, another grave was also found by Palestinian officials at Al Shifa hospital in northern Gaza – an area once attacked by Israeli special forces. Eyewitness videos show that grave digging activities near the hospital have been carried out since November last year.
On April 23, UN spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said an investigation needed to be conducted to verify the number of bodies.
“Some of them had their hands tied, which of course represents a serious violation of international human rights law and international humanitarian law. These incidents need to be investigated further,” spokesman Shamdasani, on behalf of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk, told the press.
Currently, the ICC is also investigating the attack by Hamas forces on October 7, 2023 and the response of the Israeli army. However, the ICC prosecutor’s office has not made any public comments on the discovery of mass graves.
For its part, in a statement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that the Palestinian Authority’s accusations that the IDF had buried the bodies were baseless. They said these graves were dug by Palestinians themselves and released footage showing that these graves existed before the IDF deployed operations into the area.
The IDF unit tasked with searching for Israeli hostages examined the bodies buried near Nasser hospital and then returned them. “The examination was carried out carefully and non-invasively on the corpse,” the IDF press release stated.
Is trespassing on mass graves considered illegal?
According to the 1949 Geneva Convention, to which Israel is a signatory, parties to the conflict must take all feasible measures to prevent the destruction of dead bodies.
Under International Humanitarian Law (IHL), the dead must be respected, including the obligation to ensure that graves are not desecrated or looted and that the identification and burial of remains are properly carried out. . IHL also recommends that parties take measures to protect grave sites, including mass grave sites.
In 2002, in a case involving the killing of Palestinians in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the Israeli Ministry of Defense was responsible under international law for locating locate, identify, evacuate and bury the bodies of Palestinians killed in the fighting. The judges said the bodies should not be buried in mass graves but should be handed over to the Palestinian Authority.
What is the role of mass graves in past war crimes trials?
Evidence from mass grave exhumations played a key role in the trials of the International Tribunal for War Crimes in the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) regarding the alleged 1995 Srebrenica massacre against some 8,000 Muslim men and boys by Serb forces in Bosnia was a crime of genocide.
During the trial of Bosnian Serb general Radislav Krstic, the first person convicted of genocide by the ICTY in 2001, judges received evidence that hundreds of victims were buried blindfolded and tortured. tie your hands behind your back. This evidence is enough to conclude that the victims were not killed while directly participating in combat.
In a statement on the Gaza situation on April 24, the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) said: “The mass graves contain important evidence showing the truth about what happened. It is necessary to take measures to protect those graves immediately.” According to ICMP, these safeguards can bring perpetrators to justice in the event war crimes actually occur. ICMP has been involved in identifying thousands of victims buried in mass graves during the Balkan wars of the 1990s.
