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Palestinian authorities have demanded an international investigation after a mass grave was found in Gaza with the decomposing bodies of Palestinian detainees who were blindfolded and handcuffed. At least 30 bodies were found in “black plastic bags” near the Hamad school in northern Gaza, with Palestinian officials accusing Israeli soldiers of killing the civilians “execution-style”. KEEP READING list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4 Contact lost with sisters trapped under Israeli gunfire in north Gaza list 2 of 4 Israeli soldiers taunt Palestinians at Gaza checkpoint list 3 of 4 The climate cost of Israel’s war on Gaza list 4 of 4 UN chief says UNRWA is ‘backbone’ of Gaza aid response end of list The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs called for an international investigation on Wednesday into what it described as Israeli “massacres”, demanding that a team visit Gaza “to find out the truth and dimensions of the genocide to which our people are exposed”. Witnesses told Al Jazeera that the deceased were blindfolded, tortured and killed before being placed in the bags. “As we were cleaning, we came across a pile of rubble inside the schoolyard. We were shocked to find out that the dozens of dead bodies were buried under this pile,” one witness told  Al Jazeera. “The moment we opened the black plastic bags, we found the bodies, already decomposed. They were blindfolded, legs and hands tied,” the witness added. “The plastic cuffs were used on their hands and legs and cloths straps around their eyes and heads.” Hamas said human rights organisations should “document” the mass grave. Advertisement https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.616.1_en.html#goog_244723685Play Video Sign up for Al Jazeera Week in the Middle East “This heinous crime and others committed by the neo-Nazis against our Palestinian people will remain a curse that haunts them, and the day will come when they will be held accountable for their brutality and crimes that exceed the most horrific violations known to humanity in our modern era,” the Palestinian armed group said in a statement on Telegram. Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Rafah in southern Gaza, said the “condition of these bodies ranges from severely decomposed to mere skeletal remains … making it hard to identify them”. “But people still come to the site, searching for closure in this place of tragedy,” he added. Palestinian human rights lawyer Diana Buttu told Al Jazeera on Thursday that this incident was “precisely why Israel was taken to the ICJ“. Buttu added that the discovery of the mass grave was “clearly a war crime” and urged that it must be investigated. The International Court of Justice has ordered Israel to take “all measures within its power” to avoid Palestinian casualties and acts that could amount to “genocide”. The Foreign Ministry said the discovery of the mass grave was evidence of the forms of “genocide committed by the occupation forces against our people in the Gaza Strip without accountability or oversight”. https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.616.1_en.html#goog_67470290Play Video Video Duration 07 minutes 01 seconds07:01 Palestinian detainees are routinely abused by Israeli forces in the enclave, subjected to weeks of imprisonment in unknown locations, beatings and verbal abuse. Last month, a United Nations human rights official called for an end to Israel’s mistreatment of Palestinian detainees and said he had met men who had been held for weeks and were beaten and blindfolded. “These are men who were detained by the Israeli security forces in unknown locations for between 30 to 55 days,” Ajith Sunghay, a UN human rights representative, told reporters by video link from Gaza, who met released detainees in the enclave. “There are reports of men who are subsequently released, but only in diapers without any adequate clothing in this cold weather,” he said, adding that it was not clear why they were made to wear diapers but that “they were clearly visibly shocked and even shaken when I met them”. Several videos shared by the Israeli army since the war began show hundreds of Palestinian men stripped to their underwear, sitting outdoors in the cold, sometimes blindfolded. In a few videos, women and children were also seen. Much of the densely populated Gaza Strip has been destroyed after four months of intense Israeli bombardments and ground offensive. Gaza’s health authorities have said at least 26,900 Palestinians have been killed since the war began on October 7, following Hamas attacks in Israel that killed at least 1,139 people.

Israel is reported to have readied a proposal for a two-month truce that aims to secure the release of captives held by Hamas and other groups but without ending the war in Gaza. US and Israeli press reported late on Monday that Israel is optimistic that it could conclude a deal with the help of the US. The plan comes against a backdrop of intensified combat in southern Gaza as well as increasing pressure on the Israeli government to find a deal to bring the captives home. KEEP READING Hospitals cut off as Israel batters southern Gaza list 2 of 4 Families of hostages storm Israeli parliament meeting list 3 of 4 Relatives of Israeli captives storm Knesset list 4 of 4 Photos: Palestinians flee Khan Younis as Israel steps up ground operation end of list US website Axios quoted Israeli officials as saying that the proposal has been presented to Hamas through Qatari and Egyptian mediators. It includes a two-month truce during which all Israeli detainees in Gaza will be released. Israel’s Channel 13 reported that the principles of the deal consist of three to four stages of captive release. Meanwhile, the Israeli military would withdraw from some areas of the enclave, but without ending the war. US Middle East envoy Brett McGurk is in Cairo and is expected to travel across the region for “active” discussions on a possible hostage release deal. White House spokesperson John Kirby said Washington would support a longer humanitarian pause in Gaza to ensure the release and for aid to be brought in. “The conversations are very sober and serious about trying to get another hostage deal in place,” Kirby told a regular White House briefing, adding that the discussions included how long of a pause would be needed to get the hostages out. Qatar also said mediation efforts were ongoing. “We are engaged in serious negotiations and discussions between the two sides of the crisis in Gaza,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari told a press conference in Doha. Phases Reporting from occupied East Jerusalem, Al Jazeera’s Stefanie Dekker said that the proposal included plans to release captives in phases, starting with women and those over 60. A second phase would see a handover of female soldiers and men deemed as non-soldiers by Hamas. The third phase would include male soldiers and bodies remaining inside Gaza. Meanwhile, Israeli soldiers could be redeployed away from some urban areas to allow Palestinians to return home. “Of course, the question is what do they have to return to,” said Dekker. In Israel, the families of the captives have been applying increasing pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree a deal. Amid the ongoing bombardment of Gaza, they worry that time is running out to bring their relatives home alive. On Monday, dozens of relatives stormed a parliamentary committee meeting, demanding that the government seek a deal to win their loved ones’ release. Stuttering A weeklong truce in November saw the release of about 100 of the 240 or so captives taken into Gaza on October 7 when Hamas launched a surprise attack inside Israel. Efforts to put another pause or even ceasefire in place have been stuttering since. But Israel is facing mounting impatience as it ignores calls to scale back its onslaught. The EU on Monday gave Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz short shrift as he pitched the construction of an artificial island in the Mediterranean near the Gaza coast as a hub for the enclave’s commercial relations with the rest of the world. But facing political pressure and demands from hardline coalition partners, Netanyahu has repeatedly vowed to press ahead with the offensive until Hamas is crushed. The reports of the truce negotiations come amid an intensification of fighting in southern Gaza, with the hundreds of civilian casualties adding to the death toll in the enclave, which local authorities now say tops 25,000. The Palestine Red Crescent Society said early on Tuesday that its headquarters in Khan Younis had been shelled. Writing on X, the NGO said that the shelling coincided with “intense gunfire from Israeli drones, resulting in injuries among internally displaced individuals who sought safety on our premises”. UN agencies and aid groups have sounded the alarm about the growing threat of disease and famine in Gaza, where 1.7 million people are estimated to have been displaced from their homes. That makes a cessation of fighting ever more urgent, and there will be hope that alongside the pressure from the families, recent troop losses could give added momentum to efforts towards dialling down the conflict. On Tuesday, the Israeli military reported it lost at least 21 soldiers in one of the deadliest attacks on its troops since the war began three months ago.

More than 100 people have been killed in an Israeli strike on the Maghazi refugee camp with families still trapped in rubble. Published On 25 Dec 202325 Dec 2023 Israel has intensified its assault on the Gaza Strip, killing more than 100 people at the Maghazi refugee camp, with Palestinian authorities reporting that 250 people have been killed in a wave of strikes over 24 hours. “My entire family is gone. All five of my brothers are gone. They didn’t leave me any brothers. … All of them!” a wailing woman said on Monday at the Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip. KEEP READING list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4 ‘Massacre’ as Israel steps up Gaza bombardment for Christmas list 2 of 4 Israel hits Bethlehem in Christmas raids on occupied West Bank list 3 of 4 Egypt sets out ambitious Israel-Gaza ceasefire plan list 4 of 4 Israel’s Netanyahu heckled inside parliament by families of Hamas captives end of list Palestinians lined up to touch the shrouded bodies of those killed in Israeli strikes on the camp in a funeral on Monday, commemorating dozens of people who were killed, many of them women and children. An Al Jazeera reporter in Gaza said the figure has now reached more than 100. The Government Media Office in Gaza said seven families were wiped out in the Israeli attack on a residential square in the camp. “The Israeli army doesn’t spare civilians,” Zeyad Awad, a resident of Maghazi, told Al Jazeera. “My child said to me, ‘Help me! What’s happening? I can’t breathe,’” he added. The night before Christmas in Gaza was marked by some of the most intense bombardments in the current round of fighting between Israel and the Palestinian armed group Hamas with Israeli strikes levelling buildings and leaving families trapped beneath piles of rubble. https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.609.1_en.html#goog_346604168Play Video Video Duration 01 minutes 52 seconds01:52 “This is a three-story building that was targeted, and another house here and another house here. According to the family, he told me that five of his family members are still under the rubble,” Al Jazeera correspondent Hind Khoudary reported from Maghazi, adding that one of those trapped is a baby. “He also told me that there has been no ambulances or civil defence since yesterday and he can’t do anything about it. He’s trying to dig with his own bare hands,” she added. Israeli strikes also killed scores of people in areas such as Khan Younis, Bureij and Nuseirat. About 500 people have been injured by Israeli strikes over the past day. https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.609.1_en.html#goog_346604169Play Video Video Duration 28 minutes 40 seconds28:40 Reporting from Rafah in southern Gaza, Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum said the death toll in the Maghazi strike had risen to 106. In Christmas remarks on Monday, Pope Francis said children being killed in wars, including those in Gaza, are “little Jesuses of today” and Israel’s assault has reaped an “appalling harvest” of innocent civilians. More than 20,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed in relentless Israeli bombardment of Gaza since October 7. In the city of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, where the Bible says Jesus Christ was born, the normally jubilant Christmas celebrations have turned solemn, and Israeli forces have carried out raids.

One of the captives taken by Hamas, US dual national Gadi Haggai, 73, has died in Gaza, a group representing Israeli captives’ families has said. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement that on the morning of October 7, Haggai and his wife Judi went out for a morning walk in the fields of kibbutz Nir Oz, when they were kidnapped by Hamas. “Judi managed to notify friends that they had been shot and that Gadi was critically injured – it was the last contact with them. Judi is still held captive by Hamas. Gadi’s body is still being held by Hamas in Gaza,” spokesperson Liat Bell Sommer said. According to an official Israeli tally, 129 people remain held in Gaza after the rest were repatriated in a November truce or recovered during a military offensive. Of those still in Gaza, 22 are dead, the Israeli government says.

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Jan Egeland, the secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, has warned Israel and the US that “the indiscriminate bombardment renders Gaza unliveable with generational costs, bottom-less suffering for Palestinians and insecurity for the whole region, including Israel”. In a series of posts on X, the head of the humanitarian organisation said about 70 percent of homes in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed as the death toll from aerial, land and sea bombardment has reached 20,000. “As humanitarians we will do all we can to provide urgent aid and keep people alive. But we cannot clear the shattered remains of whole cities, raise infrastructure from rubble, or construct multi-story buildings,” Egeland said. “When the dust finally settles, Israel & U.S./Western nations providing the arms must meet the responsibility for the chaos and destruction caused by the disproportionate bombardment,” he added.

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