UN urges full access for investigators as remains unearthed across Gaza

The United Nations on Tuesday called for international investigators to be allowed into all parts of Gaza after new recoveries of human remains amid the rubble raised concerns that war crimes or other atrocity crimes may have been committed.

UN details troubling recoveries

The UN rights office said the ongoing recovery of extensive human remains in Gaza mostly of women and children and the discovery of what appear to be entire families under destroyed buildings highlight the possibility of war crimes. The statement said bodies are being pulled from rubble in areas that were heavily bombed.

Call for access and evidence-gathering

UN rights chief Volker Turk urged that “international investigators to be allowed into all parts of Gaza to assist with evidence-gathering.” He warned that the remains recovered so far “may only be the tip of the iceberg,” pointing to how “much of Gaza has been flattened by Israeli bombing or demolition and clearing by heavy machinery and explosives.”

“The remains of what appears to be entire families are now being unearthed at locations that were pulverised by Israeli attacks,” Volker Turk said.

Turk also said: “Today, many areas in Gaza where the Israeli military is deployed continue to be levelled by bulldozers with no respect for the dead under the rubble.”

Numbers and forensic concerns

The rights office cited figures from the Palestinian Civil Defence that more than 630 bodies and other human remains have been recovered from beneath destroyed buildings across Gaza since last November. It said the Civil Defence “estimates the total number of missing under the rubble at over 8,000.”

Turk insisted that “every feasible effort must be taken to document and identify these victims, preserve forensic information and biological samples, record their burial locations and inform their families.”

Conflict context provided by the UN and regional figures

The UN statement recalled that Israel’s full-scale war on Gaza began after a Hamas attack inside Israel on October 7, 2023, and that the campaign reduced much of the Palestinian territory to rubble. The Gaza health ministry, under Hamas authority, reported that the relentless Israeli bombardment and ground offensive has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians, including more than 1,350 since a ceasefire agreed last October.

AFP figures cited in the UN report noted that Hamas’s October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, based on official Israeli figures.

What the UN is asking for

In its statement the rights office stressed the need for full access by international investigators to ensure proper evidence collection at destroyed sites and to address mounting concerns about possible war crimes and other atrocity crimes in Gaza.