Palestinian officials are accusing Israeli forces of carrying out “execution-style” killings in Gaza after the discovery of a mass grave containing at least 30 decomposing bodies. Some of the victims were blindfolded with their hands tied behind their backs with zip ties. The bodies were found on the grounds of a school in Beit Lahia. Al Jazeera spoke to one man who helped discover the bodies. Palestinian man: “Inside the schoolyard, we were shocked to find the dead bodies. Those are Palestinian civilians, blindfolded and handcuffed at the back. The dead bodies were kept inside black plastic bags.” The discovery of the mass grave comes as the death toll in Gaza has topped 27,000. At least another 66,000 have been injured. The group Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor is now estimating that more than 25,000 Palestinian children have lost one or both parents in Gaza over the past four months.

More video and eyewitness info on Al Jazeera so far

Also reported on Common Dreams and Middle East Eye.

I haven’t found any reports of any independent investigations yet, hopefully they are underway

  • HappycamperNZ@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    8 months ago

    Taking everything here as fact no person would deny it. But misinformation and agendas are everywhere.

    Looking into the article:

    • comment of one civilian (not named)

    • witnesses decomposing bodies in an area of mass conflict

    • potentially/probably bound and/or gagged

    • assumed to be civilians

    • instantly placed blame on one group they are heavily biased against

    • blaming Israel is nearly half the article

    No investigation on who they are, how they were killed, who killed them or collaborated from multiple sources. These could be innocent Palestine civilians, executed Israeli hostages, executed POW from either side, soldiers killed in conflict and dumped in one spot with torn clothes, soldiers tied up to transport easier.

    Democracynow.org is a heavily left leaning publication (could be irrelevantbut not balanced), cant find anything on accuracy, owned by non profits. Not published by a well known and accurate source. Assigned blame on Israel without any investigation (this is the big red flag for me).

    This is a very vague article, with little backing and authority behind it. If it is true, it should absolutely be investigated and considered as a crime against humanity - but this looks like a piece with poor reporting and a heavy agenda behind it.

    And before anyone calls me a genocide denier - take a step back and look at who writes the articles you read and what their agenda is. This conflict has soo much propaganda from both sides and uninformed and uneducated opinions it horrendous. My list of what is missing is longer than the article.

    • WaxedWookie@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      8 months ago

      Democracy Now have a left-wing bias, but are a factual source. . That said, I’m not here to defend them - nor do I have much interest in this particular article or event.

      I was asking about the broader situation, action, policy and rhetoric. My views are based more on the history of the situation, the casualty counts, reporting from the likes of AP and Reuters, UN oversight, and significantly, the words of the Israeli leadership themselves. If nothing else, when a political leader tells you they want to exterminate a group they’ve been keeping in brutal conditions, then kills tens of thousands of them, I tend to believe them.

      I’m not going to call you a genocide denier, but I will ask you - are you denying the genocide, and if so, on what grounds. If you have any thoughts on the differentiation from the Nazis of that era, I’d like to hear those too.

      • zerog_bandit@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        8 months ago

        I don’t deny that a genocide was attempted on 10/7. I also believe that Israel has the right to ensure it’s security, especially if the Palestinian public refuses to do so themselves. You might say “But Palestinians have no responsibility to do so” and you’d be wrong. 80 years of terrorism against the Israeli people means that Palestinians have a responsibility to stop the violence.

        Until they do, Israel must take actions to defend itself. If you have suggestions for how this should be done, I’m all ears.

        • WaxedWookie@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          8 months ago

          TL:DR: Israel isn’t defending itself by committing a genocide against a population they’ve subjugated.

          There are a series of issues with this…

          • Genocide isn’t an act of defence - it’s an attempt to completely exterminate a group of people, and is the greatest act of aggression a group could possibly commit.

          • The response we’re seeing is in no way proportionate, and causing a completely unacceptable level of civilian casualties (10k+ children alone in response to 1,200 total killed according to Israeli counts).

          • Israel have killed more Palestinians than the total number of Hamas members in existence with zero indication of progress, and no sign of stopping.

          • Israel have maintained Palestine in conditions described by the UN as an open air concentration camp, and have placed severe apartheid restrictions on Palestinians for years.

          • Israel have killed orders of magnitude more Palestinians than Hamas have killed Israelis.

          • Israel funded the rise of Hamas (who were no less violent then) over the secular moderates - as confirmed by both IDF leadership at the time she Arafat. I see no reason for them to do this other than to manufacture pretext for the genocide while maintaining US support.

          • Palestinians seem to have a lot more to “defend themselves” against - between the numbers killed and displaced and the very restrictive living conditions they’re subjected to.

          • Israeli leadership have said pretty plainly and repeatedly that they intend to exterminate Palestinians - if all Palestinians were to lay down arms and submit to the apartheid conditions, movement restrictions, and conditions we’ve seen over the past decade, the well funded nuclear power with modern military simply won’t stop.

          What makes Israel’s actions self-defence while Hamas’s lesser actions are not?

            • bamboo@lemm.eeEnglish
              0·
              8 months ago

              Yeah, that’s a list of Palestinians attacking invaders/colonizers in Palestine. Palestinians defending themselves in Palestine is unambiguously self defense. The tactics aren’t preferable, but I’m in no position to tell any person suffering under a brutal occupation that their fight for self determination is in some way invalid.

              • zerog_bandit@lemmy.worldEnglish
                01·
                8 months ago

                Cool, you say that Israel is colonizers and Palestine is defending themselves.

                I’ll say that Gazans are terrorists and Israel is ensuring it’s security. Israelis defending themselves after an invasion of their country is unambiguously self-defense. Their tactics aren’t preferable, but I’m in no position to tell someone who is under attack how to defend themselves.

                Unfortunately none of this solves problems for actual civilians in the conflict.

        • jordanlund@lemmy.worldMEnglish
          0·
          8 months ago

          Here’s the problem… For the past several decades or so, Israel has blockaded Gaza and the West Bank from getting any kind of support from the outside.

          https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip

          They don’t have the material or the personnel to do ANYTHING about the violence being enacted against the Israelis and that’s BY THE DESIGN of the Israelis.

          So what do you expect the Palestinians to do? Israeli policies have been crushing them for decades, they don’t have the capacity to throw out Hamas because Israel actively prevents them from having the capacity. Sooo? Obtain weapons illegally? Now in the eyes of Israel they ARE Hamas and they get attacked too.