The rumor was growing on social networks.
For the first time, the Israeli army officially acknowledged to the American channel CNN having exhumed bodies from a cemetery in Gaza and having evacuated them to Israel.
The IDF said it was acting as part of a search for the remains of hostages kidnapped by Hamas during the October 7 terrorist attacks.
According to the American channel, images of the cemetery in question, in Khan Younes, in southern Gaza, show the area bulldozed with damaged and destroyed graves, and human remains exposed, after the IDF carried out operations in the area.
The operation would have taken place between January 15 and 17, according to satellite images consulted by CNN.
Also read Death of Israeli hostages: Hamas videos, weapons of “psychological warfare”
The IDF admitted to having exhumed eighteen bodies in this cemetery.
“The process of identifying the hostages, carried out in a safe and alternative location, guarantees optimal professional conditions and respect for the deceased,” an IDF spokesperson explained to the channel, adding that the bodies which do not are not those of the hostages are “returned with dignity and respect”.
“Without Hamas' reprehensible decision to take Israeli men, women, children and babies hostage, the need for such searches for our hostages would not exist,” the Israeli military added.
These practices can be considered a war crime under international law, if this “intentional attack against a cemetery” is not carried out “with a military objective”.
Razored cemeteries
This is not the first time that the IDF has been accused of such abuses.
At the beginning of January, AFP journalists observed in a cemetery located in the al-Tuffah neighborhood in Gaza “exhumed bodies, in their body bags, (…) visible in the middle of mounds of earth.
» Hamas had accused in a press release the Israeli army of having
“
destroyed 1,100 graves” and “stealed 150 bodies of recently buried martyrs”.
The IDF said it was verifying these allegations, without further comment.
Earlier in December, the New York Times also revealed that the Israeli army had razed cemeteries in Gaza.
Based on satellite images, the American newspaper showed that at least six cemeteries had been damaged or destroyed during their advance into the northern Gaza Strip.
Contacted by the daily, the Israeli army did not respond.