13 August 2026
Israel is carrying out a massive, organised operation to crush, mix and transport millions of tonnes of rubble out of the Gaza Strip, according to human rights groups and monitors.
The Israeli military’s systematic reshaping of the urban landscape comes against a backdrop of a staggering human toll, with at least 73,387 Palestinians – mostly children and women – killed since Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza began in October 2023.
This removal of rubble could be an attempt at demographic engineering and erasing evidence of the genocide, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor has said, in a report entitled Gaza Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment.
Obliterating the truth
The report estimates that there are approximately 68 million tonnes of rubble across the Gaza Strip, much of the result of Israel’s ongoing genocidal war on the enclave.
At least 10 million tonnes of rubble have already been removed, crushed or moved from their original sites within areas under Israel’s unlawful military control, which encompass about two-thirds of the enclave.
About 400 heavy pieces of excavation, crushing and transport machinery are also working to demolish the remaining structures in Gaza.
Debris is being loaded onto nearly 100 Israeli trucks daily, which are leaving the Gaza Strip for undisclosed sites within Israel and the occupied West Bank.
Budour Hassan, a researcher at Amnesty International, told Al Jazeera that this could be a calculated attempt to destroy evidence of crimes committed by Israel during the war.
“The bulldozing is an integral part of all attempts to destroy the lands in Gaza City and in the Gaza Strip in general,” Hassan said.
“The real fears are that these operations are taking place with the aim of obliterating and hiding evidence.”
Preventing access to evidence of crimes is a direct challenge to the International Court of Justice, Hassan said. The ICJ is currently overseeing a genocide case against Israel brought by South Africa and supported by numerous other nations.
“The occupation systematically works to obliterate evidence and destroy the features of the crime,” she added.
Mohammed Salha, director of the NGO Network in the Gaza Strip, believes the debris being moved out of the enclave contains missile fragments, ammunition, and personal belongings – crucial for future accountability.
Source:Aljazeera
