UN Warns Israel's Gaza Rubble Clearance Threatens Crucial War Crimes Evidence

Civil defence personnel continue to look for human remains in the central Gaza Strip. According to a warning issued by the United Nations, Israel's ongoing clearance of rubble in Gaza poses a significant risk of destroying vital evidence of war crimes.

Francesca Albanese, the UN's Special Rapporteur on the occupied territories, stated on Monday that states and companies involved in removing the rubble could incur international criminal responsibility for destroying evidence of crimes committed during the conflict. This warning comes two years after the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take effective measures to prevent the destruction of evidence related to allegations under the Genocide Convention.

Francesca Albanese, a harsh critic of Israel, emphasized that it is completely unacceptable for the reconstruction of Gaza to be conditioned upon the erasure of its past and the necessary evidence required to secure justice for its victims.

During August, the Israeli military carried out a massive operation to crush, mix, and transport millions of tonnes of rubble from numerous sites, which included cemeteries and other known locations containing human remains. A report released last month by the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor suggested that removing debris from Gaza could represent an attempt at demographic engineering and erasing evidence of the genocide.

Palestinian authorities currently estimate that more than 8,000 people remain buried beneath the debris, as many individuals in Gaza continue desperate searches for the remains of their loved ones. Meanwhile, Israel continues to block the heavy machinery and forensic supplies that are urgently needed to recover these bodies.

On Sunday, Palestinians in northern Gaza held funeral ceremonies for about 100 people, which included 60 children, whose remains were successfully recovered from the rubble of destroyed buildings in Gaza City.

Raed al-Dahshan, the head of Gaza's civil defence service, told Al Jazeera that with proper equipment, the recovery of remains from under the rubble could be completed in about 90 days. However, without that essential equipment, the process could take years.