The UN Human Rights Office demands that Israel allow international investigators to enter all of Gaza, where more than 630 bodies have been exhumed since last November and around 8,000 people remain missing under the rubble.
Nearly three years after the war began, the recovery of human remains in Gaza’s ruins continues, and the UN is raising its voice. Its Human Rights Office considers it essential that international investigators have access to all parts of the territory to collect evidence, a request made directly to Israel.
The UN’s top human rights official, Volker Türk, sounded the alarm in a statement: “The remains of what appear to be entire families are now being exhumed in places that have been pulverized by Israeli attacks.” He warned that these discoveries likely represent “only the tip of the iceberg,” recalling that much of Gaza has been leveled by bombings or demolition operations carried out with heavy machinery and explosives.
The situation on the ground remains concerning. “Today, many areas of Gaza where the Israeli army is deployed continue to be flattened by bulldozers, with no regard for the dead buried under the rubble,” he added. According to UN data, up to 82% of the Gaza Strip has been reduced to ruins during the conflict.
The Palestinian Civil Defense reports more than 630 bodies and remains cleared from collapsed buildings since last November alone. The UN also estimates that over 8,000 people are still buried under the rubble, a figure illustrating the still poorly measured scale of the destruction. The majority of the recovered bodies are believed to be women and children, which, according to the organization, increases the likelihood that war crimes were committed during Israeli military operations.
Volker Türk called for “all possible efforts to be made to document and identify these victims, preserve forensic information and biological samples, record their burial sites, and inform their families.” He warned: “The discovery of numerous remains under the rubble in Gaza City revives concerns about war crimes and other atrocious crimes.”
The war began after Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which caused the deaths of at least 1,195 people according to official Israeli figures. The subsequent military campaign has, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, killed more than 73,000 Palestinians in total, including over 1,350 since the signing of a ceasefire last October. For European governments, the UN’s call increases pressure on Israel for an independent investigation, as the scale of civilian losses continues to be revealed.
