How the BBC reports Al Shifa clinic loaded up with mass graves and cadavers, Palestinians are dazed by the smell.

BBC reports
Al Shifa hospital filled with mass graves and corpses, Palestinians are stunned by the smell

Palestinians are stunned by the smell of dead bodies in the rubble after Israel withdrew its troops from Al-Shifa, the largest hospital in Gaza City, for the second time on April 1.

In recent weeks, four mass graves have been discovered on the hospital grounds, where hundreds of bodies have been found, according to the Palestinian investigative team.

Hospitals have been repeatedly attacked by Israeli forces during the eight-month war in Gaza. Israel claims that hospitals in Gaza are being used as bases by the Palestinian independence group Hamas. However, Hamas has always denied this claim.

But Israel's rampage at al-Shifa, Gaza's once largest and best-equipped hospital, is arguably the most dramatic.

Israel launched a two-week surprise raid on the hospital, claiming that Hamas had regrouped on the al-Shifa compound. The Israeli government described the operation as 'specific and surgical' (attacks on specific military targets without harming civilians and infrastructure).

In addition to killing 200 terrorists in this operation, 900 terrorists were caught and no civilian was killed, the spokesperson of the Israeli government claimed.

But reality says otherwise. A string of rotting corpses poking out of the sand in the al-Shifa compound cast doubt on that Israeli claim.

A Palestinian civil defense activist, Rami Dababesh, told the BBC on May 8, “We dug up mass graves. Most of the dead bodies found there were decomposed. They cannot be identified”.

"We found dead bodies and body parts of women, children, and headless people," he added. With a lack of forensic equipment and expertise, rescue workers used photos and videos to identify and document the remains.

"Some of the bodies showed signs of execution, signs of tying, gunshots to the head and torture on the limbs," the director of Palestine's civil defense, Mohammad Mughir, told the BBC.

Some of the bodies recently found in al-Shifa are those of patients who died during Israel's latest military operation. A medical worker engaged in the investigation said that some of the dead bodies had catheters attached.

The UN Security Council has expressed deep concern over the discovery of mass graves in Al-Shifa and Nasser hospitals in Gaza. They called for an independent investigation by the United States and the European Union to look into possible Israeli war crimes in the operation there.