Israel Removes Gaza Rubble in Alleged Effort to Erase War Crime Evidence
Theo Al Jazeera English
Human rights groups report that Israel is conducting a large-scale operation to crush, mix, and haul millions of tons of rubble out of the Gaza Strip, raising concerns about the destruction of war crimes evidence and reshaping territorial boundaries. The operation, involving heavy machinery and daily truck convoys, may also serve to prevent Palestinians from returning and to erase forensic evidence of atrocities.
Human rights groups and monitors say Israel is carrying out a large-scale operation to crush, mix, and transport millions of tons of rubble away from the Gaza Strip.
According to the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, the operation may be an attempt to redesign demographics and erase evidence of the war. The report “Gaza Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment” states there are about 68 million tons of rubble across the Gaza Strip, largely the result of Israel's military campaign since October 2023.
Wiping Away the Truth
The report estimates that at least 10 million tons of rubble have been moved from their original locations in areas under Israeli control, comprising about two-thirds of Gaza's territory. Some 400 heavy machines are being used to demolish remaining structures, with nearly 100 Israeli trucks daily carrying rubble to undisclosed sites inside Israel and the West Bank.
Budour Hassan, a researcher at Amnesty International, told Al Jazeera that this could be a calculated effort to destroy evidence of Israel's crimes. “The bulldozing of land is an integral part of any effort to destroy land in Gaza City and across the Gaza Strip,” Hassan said.
“The real concern is that these operations are happening with the purpose of wiping out and concealing evidence,” she added. Preventing access to evidence is a direct challenge to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which is handling the genocide case filed by South Africa against Israel.
Mohammed Salha, director of the Network of NGOs in the Gaza Strip, said the displaced rubble contains shrapnel, ammunition, and personal belongings—items crucial for future accountability.
“The occupation is moving the rubble, fragmenting it, and bringing it into the Green Line to erase evidence and truth,” Salha told Al Jazeera. “Of course, there are thousands of martyrs under this rubble, and moving them along with their remains means deliberately destroying crime scenes that contain essential evidence exposing the commission of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.”
Urban Engineering
The massive removal of rubble could serve a distinct military and colonial purpose. Euro-Med Monitor reports that the large-scale crushing and removal of rubble destroys land boundaries, house foundations, and street networks, depriving Palestinians of property rights and deepening the ethnic cleansing campaign, facilitating the re-establishment of Israeli settlements.
Elias Hanna, a retired brigadier general and military and strategic expert, explained to Al Jazeera that geography is being used as a form of extreme collective punishment. “When the Israeli enemy destroys and bulldozes land, it's part of a policy of collective punishment; that is, you create a new urban technique and a different shape for the social and security environment to punish those who resist and punish the civilian environment at the same time.” This strategy aims to permanently alter the ecosystem of the land, prevent Palestinians from returning home, and make destroyed areas uninhabitable or unbuildable.
Daily Tragedy
The rubble removal also risks causing the remains of about 8,500 missing people, according to Gaza Civil Defense estimates from July 2026, to disappear forever. The use of heavy machinery without prior forensic surveys risks crushing or scattering remains, severely violating families' rights to know the fate of their loved ones.
Abu Asim, a Palestinian citizen whose relatives remain buried in eastern Gaza, now behind the military “Golden Line,” shared his grief with Al Jazeera: “My family's story is that their bodies are scattered on the streets, and some are still under the rubble of the house, not yet brought out.”
Samir al-Mana’ama, a lawyer at the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, said that during the war, Israeli authorities seized about 70% of eastern Gaza. “They prevent rescue forces from accessing to exhume the bodies of martyrs, and they are interfering with rubble areas, moving them from one place to another, causing clear and public violations of the provisions of international humanitarian law and international human rights law.”
Raed al-Dahshan, director of civil defense forces in Gaza, stressed the impossibility of rescue missions: “In the areas we are moving in, everything is very difficult and complex. So what would happen if we had to coordinate to enter areas inside the Golden Line, which requires special equipment, coordination, and security guarantees?”
Even the resting places of the dead have not been spared. Salha said historic cemeteries are included in this eradication campaign. “Human rights reports and documentation say Israel has completely or partially destroyed more than 93% of cemeteries in the Gaza Strip. No stone, no human, including the dead in graves, has escaped the occupation.”
