UN warns of possible war crimes in Gaza - IOL

Displaced Palestinian children carry pots of food collected from a charity kitchen to their family shelter beneath the rubble of buildings destroyed by the Israeli military, in the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip. The UN has called for investigators to be given full access to probe war crimes in the strip.

Geneva, Switzerland - The United Nations called Tuesday for international investigators to be granted access to all of Gaza "to assist with evidence-gathering" as hundreds of bodies are pulled from the rubble.

The ongoing recovery of extensive human remains in Gaza, mostly of women and children, nearly three years after Israel heavily bombed their homes, highlights the possibility that war crimes have been committed, the UN warned.

"The remains of what appears to be entire families are now being unearthed at locations that were pulverised by Israeli attacks," UN rights chief Volker Turk pointed out in a statement.

"I worry the remains recovered so far may only be the tip of the iceberg," he said, pointing to how "much of Gaza has been flattened by Israeli bombing or demolition and clearing by heavy machinery and explosives".

"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," he lamented.

The rights office said it was critical that evidence of violations, including at destroyed sites, calling for "international investigators to be allowed into all parts of Gaza to assist with evidence-gathering".

It pointed out that the Palestinian Civil Defence had reported that more than 630 bodies and other human remains had been recovered from beneath destroyed buildings across Gaza since last November.

"It estimates the total number of missing under the rubble at over 8,000," it said.

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".

"The discovery of extensive remains under the rubble in Gaza City resurfaces (the) concerns of war crimes and other atrocity crimes," he warned.

Israel's full-scale war on Gaza -- which began after a Hamas attack inside Israel on October 7, 2023 -- reduced much of the Palestinian territory to rubble.

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, according to Gaza's health ministry, which is under Hamas authority.

Hamas's October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.