More Than 100 Bodies Are Delivered to a Mass Grave in Southern Gaza

More than a hundred bodies of Palestinians were buried in a mass grave at a cemetery in the southern Gazan city of Khan Younis on Wednesday. The bodies, believed to be from Al-Shifa Hospital and Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza, were returned by Israel to Palestinian authorities earlier this week.Credit…Yousef Masoud for The New York Times

In Khan Younis, a city in the southern Gaza Strip where many Palestinians have fled to escape Israeli bombardment of the north, 111 bodies wrapped in bright blue bags arrived on Wednesday in a shipping container on the back of a truck.

The bodies were believed to be from Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza, which Israeli troops seized last week, and Beit Hanoun, a city on the northeastern edge of Gaza. Israel returned the bodies to Palestinian authorities earlier this week.

They were removed from the shipping container on stretchers, as workers dug a trench with construction equipment and shovels. Journalists watched, but no family members were present. The bodies were unidentified except for numbers on the bags.

Workers then stacked them next to each other in the trench, their blue bags standing out against the red-orange soil.