Occupied Palestinian Territory — Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor calls for urgent international intervention to halt the crimes of widespread destruction and land levelling being carried out by the Israeli army in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, until specialised teams and the necessary equipment are allowed to recover the bodies of victims, identify them, and ensure their dignified burial.
Euro-Med Monitor warns that the circulating plans to reshape the area under the name of the "Green City" in Rafah will be used to entrench the isolation of the population and forcibly concentrate them into military-controlled ghettos, thereby perpetuating their displacement from their original homes and imposing deadly living conditions that undermine the basic foundations of their survival.
Over recent days, Euro-Med Monitor's team has documented the evacuation by the Israeli occupation army, alongside contractors operating under its authority, of the entire area under full Israeli control in Rafah, and the commencement of rubble removal and land levelling. The army confirmed in recent hours that no less than 70% of rubble removal operations in the city have been completed.
bulldozing and land levelling operations in Rafah are being carried out despite confirmed indications that hundreds of bodies remain beneath the rubble of destroyed buildings and in streets and agricultural fields, posing a serious risk of damaging human remains and erasing their locations before recovery and identification can take place.
Euro-Med Monitor had previously documented the bombing of homes while residents were inside them, and the targeting of civilians during attempts to flee, without medical teams or rescue crews being able to reach or recover them due to Israel's complete military control over the city and the prevention of access. This has been compounded by the creation of an unsafe environment in Israeli-controlled areas through local armed groups established or activated by Israel, which further increased risks and effectively restricted any safe humanitarian access. As such, the ongoing rubble removal operations constitute a continuation of the obstruction of rescue efforts and significantly heighten the risk of erasing evidence related to the fate of the victims.
The use of heavy machinery to remove rubble and level land could fragment victims' remains or mix them with debris, which may then be transported to unknown collection sites or landfills. This would effectively result in the loss of bodies, render their recovery and identification impossible, and constitute a serious violation of the sanctity of the dead and the rights of their families, while further complicating dignified burial procedures. There is an urgent need to allow the entry of search and rescue teams, along with forensic experts equipped with surveying tools and location-identification technologies, to ensure the recovery, documentation, identification, and dignified burial of victim
The number of missing persons in the Gaza Strip is estimated at approximately 8,000, including hundreds believed to have been killed and left beneath rubble or in areas of Israeli military incursions, particularly in Rafah. Ignoring repeated calls to recover bodies and lay them to rest in accordance with human dignity is shameful and unacceptable, deepening the suffering of families of the missing and depriving them of their right to know the fate of their loved ones, to mourn, and to bury them.
The proposed establishment of a 'Green City' to house Palestinians forcibly transferred to an area under Israeli control, and under the authority of armed groups it has established, represents an extremely dangerous model of re-engineering both population and territory under direct Israeli military administration.
This would effectively transform the area into a population ghetto, particularly as it coincides with the erasure of Rafah and the elimination of residents' right to return to their original homes, carrying serious risks of permanently altering the demographic and geographic landscape of the Gaza Strip.
The establishment of the so-called "Green City," in its proposed form and as implemented on the ground, entrenches a comprehensive system of acts prohibited under international humanitarian law and rises to the level of international crimes. This is because it is based on the unlawful and forcible transfer of civilians by compelling them to move to a designated area under the effective control of the occupying power, while practically preventing return to original places of residence or converting them into closed military zones. The area would be administered as a closed system controlling entry, exit, and residence, resulting in severe and unlawful deprivation of physical liberty. This is accompanied by deliberate and serious deprivation of fundamental rights on discriminatory grounds, amounting to persecution, in addition to the extensive destruction of property without imperative military necessity, and the violation of the sanctity of the dead and the rights of families through the removal of rubble before bodies are recovered, thereby obstructing identification and dignified burial, and the undermining of the preservation of material evidence necessary for investigation and accountability resulting from the erasure of Rafah.
The so-called "Green City" constitutes a complementary mechanism to the ongoing path of genocide, as it transforms widespread destruction and population displacement into a permanent reality by erasing Rafah, preventing residents from returning to their homes, lands, and livelihoods, and then forcing them into a security-managed isolation zone governed by gates, permits, and surveillance under military control. This enables the imposition of foreseeable and systematic restrictions on food, water, medicine, fuel, healthcare services, movement, and work, and perpetuates forced dependence on aid controlled by the occupying power. As such, the proposed "city" is not a humanitarian plan but a living environment that produces gradual destruction, accelerates health and social collapse, and exacerbates hunger, disease, and death, amounting to the deliberate imposition of life-threatening conditions calculated to bring about the physical destruction of the group, in whole or in part.
Under international humanitarian law, the occupying power bears a direct obligation to ensure the safe and immediate access of medical personnel and rescue teams to victims, to search for and collect the dead, to prevent the mutilation of bodies, and to take all necessary measures to preserve their dignity and enable their identification and return to their families wherever possible. Preventing or delaying the recovery of bodies, leaving them under rubble or exposed, or subjecting them to deliberate or foreseeable damage through demolition and levelling machinery constitutes a grave violation of these rules, infringes upon the dignity of the dead and the rights of their families, and requires international accountability.
Euro-Med Human Right Monitor calls for urgent international pressure to immediately halt rubble removal and land levelling operations in Rafah until a clear, binding humanitarian and technical mechanism is established to ensure the systematic search for the missing, the recovery of bodies, the protection of remains, and the prevention of their mixing with debris or transfer to unknown locations, thereby safeguarding victims' dignity, the rights of their families, and preventing the erasure of evidence.
Euro-Med Monitor further calls for the establishment of an independent international mechanism to oversee search, recovery, and documentation operations throughout the Gaza Strip, including Rafah, involving international experts in forensic medicine, forensic engineering, and cemetery management, to ensure integrity and prevent tampering with sites or remains.
It also calls for a ban on the transfer or disposal of rubble outside Rafah prior to the completion of forensic and humanitarian surveys of affected areas, and for obligating implementing entities to designate declared and secured debris collection sites and restrict unauthorised access until documentation procedures are completed. In addition, Euro-Med Monitor calls for urgent technical support for identification efforts, including mobile DNA laboratories or rapid referral arrangements, and the establishment of a unified database for missing persons in coordination with families and medical authorities.
It further urges the rejection of any arrangements under the name of the "Green City" that involve the forcible transfer, concentration, or isolation of the population, or subject them to a security administration that controls their movement and existence. Such arrangements must be treated as an unlawful framework that violates the core principles of humanitarian protection and the Palestinian people's right to self-determination, entrenches crimes of forcible transfer, severe deprivation of liberty, and persecution, and effectively forecloses the possibility of return to original residential areas, while contributing to the consolidation of a life-threatening environment used to complete the ongoing genocidal process in the Gaza Strip.
Finally, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor calls on states and influential actors to fulfil their obligations under international law, particularly the duty to ensure respect for international humanitarian law and to refrain from contributing to grave violations, by moving beyond statements of concern to practical and tangible pressure measures to halt Israeli crimes against Palestinians and compel compliance with international obligations. This includes suspending any military, security, logistical, or financial cooperation that may enable or facilitate ongoing violations, imposing a comprehensive arms embargo, and banning the transfer of ammunition, related services, financing, insurance, shipping, and any commercial or financial activities used to support these crimes or entrench their effects
