dduncombe

Remember how we were always hearing that the official death toll in Gaza is an undercount because there are thousands of bodies trapped under the rubble? Well, it looks like Israel has been moving those remains along with the rubble, conveniently destroying evidence of genocide. Drop Site News reports: "The Palestinian Center for Missing and Forcibly Disappeared Persons has accused Israel of destroying evidence that could identify thousands of Palestinians buried beneath Gaza’s rubble or reveal the fate of those forcibly disappeared. "The center says Israeli forces are moving hundreds of tons of debris each day from destroyed neighborhoods inside closed military zones. Crushing and removing it could pulverize human remains, mix them with rubble and waste, erase the locations of burial sites, and destroy DNA and other forensic evidence. "Around 7,000 Palestinians remain missing in Gaza, including an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 believed trapped beneath the ruins. “These sites are not merely construction waste,” the center warned. It called for urgent UN and Red Cross intervention, access for rescue and forensic teams, and independent oversight of all future rubble removal." Last month, a report by Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor estimated that “at least 10 million tonnes of rubble have been removed, crushed, or moved from their original sites within the areas under Israel’s unlawful military control.” “In recent weeks, Euro-Med Monitor tracked nearly 100 Israeli trucks daily leaving the Gaza Strip with debris,” the report reads. “These trucks carry rubble to undisclosed sites within Israel and further south of the occupied West Bank. The Israeli authorities have not provided details on the quantities removed, the routes taken, the destination sites, or how the material is utilised. They also have not permitted independent oversight of the sorting, weighing, or transport processes. This lack of transparency makes it very difficult to trace the transported material, identify evidence, or recover any human remains that might be present.” Euro-Med Monitor notes that this removal occurs while Israel is still under investigation by the International Criminal Court for the crime of genocide, adding that the Rome Statute considers “destroying, tampering with or interfering with the collection of evidence” as criminal acts that hinder the ICC’s justice mission when done deliberately. In South Africa’s genocide case against Israel in the International Court of Justice, the court ruled that “The State of Israel shall take effective measures to prevent the destruction and ensure the preservation of evidence related to allegations of acts within the scope of Article II and Article III of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide against members of the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip.” These obligations are plainly being disregarded as Israel scrambles to cover up evidence of its crimes. On Sunday, Palestinians in Gaza held a mass funeral for approximately 100 people, including 60 children. These individuals were not killed recently; the mass funeral was held because their bodies had been recovered from the rubble of destroyed buildings in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighborhood. This is the sort of thing Israel is working to prevent as it clears out the wreckage from its genocidal onslaught. You don’t generally look at construction equipment and think of it as a tool for genocide, but in occupied Palestine that’s exactly what this machinery is used for. They use it to knock down homes. To bury their victims. To conceal the evidence. The state of Israel should have a Caterpillar D9 bulldozer on its flag.