Washington, April 24 (IF). – The United States asked Israel on Wednesday to provide more information about the mass graves in the courtyards of two hospitals in the Gaza Strip that were found after the withdrawal of Israeli forces.
“These allegations are alarming and disturbing. We take them seriously and continue to press the government of Israel for more information,” Foreign Ministry deputy spokesman Vedant Patel said at a press conference.
According to Patel, the Israeli military's version is that these graves were already there, were dug up to look for the bodies of Hamas hostages and then covered them up again.
However, the spokesman insisted that the United States wanted more information about the “circumstances” of what happened and stressed that it would announce it when it was collected.
At least 310 bodies have already been exhumed from several mass graves in the courtyards of Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, from where Israeli forces withdrew in early April after four months of fighting in the area.
For their part, the mass graves found in Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City contained more than 200 bodies. The United Nations and the European Union called for independent investigations into what happened.
The relationship between the United States and Israel is experiencing a new moment of tension as the State Department evaluates the possibility of imposing sanctions on the Israeli army's Netzah Yehuda Battalion, which consists of ultra-Orthodox soldiers, over possible human rights violations against Palestinians.
This legislation prohibits the US government from providing military aid to foreign units facing credible accusations of human rights violations.
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