UN human rights chief warns Gaza remains point to possible war crimes

The United Nations human rights chief says newly recovered remains in Gaza point to potential war crimes committed during the conflict.

Volker Turk said on Tuesday that crews pulling hundreds of bodies from the rubble of buildings that Israeli strikes destroyed in Gaza have raised fresh concerns about war crimes carried out during the nearly three year war. He said workers are unearthing the remains of what appear to be entire families from sites that Israeli attacks flattened, and he noted that many of the victims are women and children. Turk said the discoveries mean relatives who spent months searching for missing loved ones are now “having their worst fears confirmed.”

Turk linked the new findings to a 2024 UN report that found Israeli strikes on residential buildings and other civilian sites in the early weeks of the war may have broken international humanitarian law.

The Israeli prime minister’s office and the Foreign Ministry did not respond immediately to requests for comment. Israeli officials have repeatedly denied deliberately targeting civilians and maintain that the military followed international law while fighting Hamas inside Gaza.

Israel launched its offensive in Gaza after Hamas fighters raided Israeli territory in October 2023, and the campaign has left behind roughly 61 million tons of wreckage and debris, which the UN estimates could take seven years to clear. A ceasefire that the United States brokered ended large scale fighting in October 2025, but Israeli forces continue to carry out strikes, and each side blames the other for breaking the truce.

The Palestinian Civil Defence says crews have pulled more than 630 bodies and sets of human remains from beneath collapsed buildings across Gaza since November 2025, and Palestinian authorities believe more than 8,000 people remain buried under the wreckage. Turk said he fears the remains recovered so far represent “only the tip of the iceberg,” pointing to large sections of Gaza that Israeli bombing and later demolition and clearance work have flattened. He also accused Israeli forces of continuing to level areas where troops remain stationed, saying bulldozers are operating “with no respect for the dead under the rubble.”

Israeli tallies show that Hamas led attacks killed 1,200 people inside Israel in 2023 and that fighters took 251 hostages. Gaza health authorities say Israel’s military campaign has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians. Israel maintains that its forces have taken extensive precautions to avoid harming civilians and accuses Hamas of using Gaza’s civilian population as human shields in crowded neighborhoods, a charge Hamas denies.

Turk urged authorities to grant international investigators access to every part of Gaza to help preserve evidence, citing legal proceedings that are examining possible war crimes committed during the war. He said Israel has blocked the heavy machinery needed to clear rubble from entering the territory. Francesca Albanese, the UN’s independent expert on the Palestinian territories, has said investigators should gather evidence and identify human remains before crews begin full scale clearance work.

Earlier this month, the Palestinian Civil Defence said crews recovered 96 bodies and sets of remains from a single site in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City, including 58 children and 23 women.

The recovery effort in Gaza follows a pattern seen in other long running conflicts, where the true civilian toll often only becomes clear once rubble clearance begins and investigators gain access to areas that fighting had sealed off. International tribunals examining past wars have relied heavily on forensic evidence gathered from mass grave and building collapse sites, which is part of why rights groups continue to press for independent access to Gaza before reconstruction crews move in and disturb what remains.