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With its diplomatic weight within the UN Security Council, Algeria convened a closed-door consultation meeting devoted to the mass graves discovered in Khan Younes in the Gaza Strip. This meeting is a first step to launch the debate following the discovery of mass graves where nearly 400 bodies were removed, the majority of which are women and children.
According to diplomatic sources, this meeting, marked by two briefings presented by the UN rapporteur concerning the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, and by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, was the opportunity to evoke, in an exhaustive manner, the flagrant violations of the Israeli occupier.
The permanent representative of Algeria to the United Nations (UN), Ambassador Amar Bendjama indicated, during this meeting, that “the Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip crossed all lines and transgressed all the rules” .
The Algerian diplomat highlighted three main points, “insisting on the need to open an independent investigation to determine responsibilities”, recalling in this regard the fate of previous Israeli investigations.
He further called for “the importance for the occupation authorities to cooperate in accordance with the decision of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), rendered on January 26, 2024, and to guarantee the preservation of evidence”, while supporting the UN Secretary-General’s statement on “the imperative to allow independent international investigators with forensic expertise immediate access to the sites of these mass graves, in order to determine the exact circumstances in which the Palestinians lost their lives life and were buried or reburied.
Bendjama stressed that “the change of dead bodies constitutes a war crime under the Geneva Conventions of 1949, stipulating that parties to the conflict must take all possible measures to prevent any change of dead bodies,” recalling that “ the occupation authorities had admitted to having opened the graves of Palestinians.”
As a reminder, UNRWA spokesperson Juliette Touma declared that “Israel had sent 225 dead bodies to Gaza in three containers since December, then transferred them to local health authorities for burial.”
According to the same sources, “negotiations are currently underway for the development of a draft Security Council declaration, initiated by Algeria, to express the deep concern of the members of the Security Council regarding the reports, stating of the discovery of mass graves in Gaza, stress the need to demand accountability for violations of international law and call for allowing investigators access to all mass grave sites in Gaza.
This is not the first time that Algeria has challenged the Security Council on the barbaric acts of the Zionist entity. At the end of last February, Algeria’s permanent representative to the United Nations urgently convened the Security Council after the massacre committed against civilian populations who were awaiting the distribution of food aid and medical assistance for the sick. As a reminder, this carnage left more than a hundred dead.
The resolutions that Algeria, as a non-permanent member of the Security Council, had proposed for a vote were twice blocked by an American veto.
At the end of April, Palestinian authorities discovered a mass grave containing 180 bodies inside the Nasser medical complex in the Gaza town of Khan Yunis, from which Israeli troops initially withdrew. of the month. Gaza civil defense officials later said more than 300 bodies had been found at the site.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said it was imperative that international investigators have access to mass graves in Gaza to establish the facts about the carnage.