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Casablanca – United Nations experts have raised concerns over reports of Palestinians, including a child, being forcibly disappeared while seeking food aid in southern Gaza.
In a joint statement released Thursday, seven independent UN experts said they had received accounts of individuals who vanished after approaching distributing centers run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) in Rafah. The experts described the incidents as “heinous crimes” that may amount to torture.
“Reports of enforced disappearances targeting starving civilians seeking their basic right to food is not only shocking, but amounts to torture,” the statement read. “Using food as a tool to conduct targeted and mass disappearances needs to end now.”
The signatories included the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, and Michael Fakhri, Special Rapporteur on the right to food.
The experts accused Israel’s military of direct involvement, saying it had failed to provide information on the fate of those detained, in violation of international law. “The failure to acknowledge deprivation of liberty by state agents and refusal to acknowledge detention constitute an enforced disappearance,” they said.
The statement comes just a week after the UN formally declared a famine in Gaza governorate, attributing it to what it called Israel’s “systematic obstruction” of humanitarian deliveries. Israel has argued that Hamas routinely loots aid and previously enforced a total blockade on the enclave.
Read also: UN Confirms Famine in Northern Gaza
The GHF, established with Israeli and US backing to distribute food following the easing of restrictions, has become the main channel for aid deliveries. But experts noted that its facilities have themselves become dangerous, citing aerial bombardments and gunfire that have killed scores of civilians.
The UN human rights office recently reported that nearly 1,900 Palestinians have been killed since late May while trying to access aid, more than half of them near GHF sites.
Calling for urgent action, the experts urged Israeli authorities to “clarify the fate and whereabouts of disappeared persons” and to conduct impartial investigations. They also demanded stronger protections at distribution sites, stressing that “an already vulnerable population cannot be further subjected to disappearance, violence and hunger.”
