UN rights chief urges access to all of Gaza to recover bodies buried under rubble

The United Nations called Tuesday for international investigators to be granted access to the entire Gaza Strip “to assist with evidence-gathering” as hundreds of bodies are pulled from the rubble.

The ongoing recovery of human remains in Gaza highlights the possibility that war crimes have been committed, the UN asserted, adding that most of the bodies were of women and children.

“The remains of what appears to be entire families are now being unearthed at locations that were pulverized by Israeli attacks,” UN rights chief Volker Turk said in a statement.

“I worry the remains recovered so far may only be the tip of the iceberg,” he added, 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 leveled by bulldozers with no respect for the dead under the rubble,” he lamented.

The rights office called for “international investigators to be allowed into all parts of Gaza to assist with evidence-gathering.”

The office pointed out that the Hamas-run civil defense had reported that more than 630 bodies and other human remains have been recovered from beneath destroyed buildings across Gaza since last November.

The civil defense “estimates the total number of missing under the rubble at over 8,000,” the UN 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 concerns of war crimes and other atrocity crimes,” he warned.

The Gaza war began on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists invaded southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages, amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.

The ensuing war has killed over 73,400 people in Gaza, according to the enclave’s Hamas-run health ministry, which does not differentiate between combatants and civilians.

The Israeli military believes that Hamas’s overall toll is largely accurate, with IDF officials estimating that two to three civilians were killed for every slain terror operative. The IDF says it has killed over 24,000 combatants in Gaza and another 1,200 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 onslaught.

In October 2025, a US-brokered deal ended major fighting in the Strip, as Hamas released hostages it had taken captive in its invasion, and the Jewish state freed thousands of security inmates, including terror convicts serving life sentences. The Strip remains bisected into Israeli- and Hamas-controlled areas.

Despite the ceasefire, Israel has continued to carry out strikes in Gaza, often targeting Hamas commanders and operatives who took part in the October 7 attack. More than 1,300 Palestinians have been killed ‌in Gaza ⁠since the truce took effect, according to Gazan health officials, while five Israeli soldiers have been killed, including one by so-called friendly fire.

Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.