A third mass grave has been discovered in the ruins of Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital, the largest medical complex in the Palestinian enclave.

At least 49 bodies have been recovered so far from the mass grave, the government media office in Gaza said on Wednesday.

“Government crews are still recovering more bodies until now,” it said. “The exhumation operations have not finished, and we expect to find dozens of new bodies.”

Gaza’s government media office said 400 people were killed by Israeli forces in al-Shifa, including “wounded, sick, and displaced people”. It said hundreds of people were still missing.

“Some of these bodies were found in pieces, some of these bodies were found without heads,” Motassem Salah, director of the health ministry’s emergency operations centre, told reporters on Wednesday.