UN rights experts voiced alarm over reports of "enforced disappearances" of starving Palestinians seeking food at distribution sites run by the US-Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), calling on "Israel" to end the "heinous crime".

In a joint statement, seven independent experts detailed having received reports that several individuals, including one child, had been "forcibly disappeared" after they had gone to aid distribution sites in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

The experts, who are mandated by the UN Human Rights Council but do not speak on behalf of the United Nations itself, stated that "reports of enforced disappearances targeting starving civilians seeking their basic right to food is not only shocking, but amounts to torture," adding, "Using food as a tool to conduct targeted and mass disappearances needs to end now." 

Israeli military directly involved in 'forced disappearances'

According to a statement signed by the five members of the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, along with Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on rights in the Palestinian territories, and her counterpart on the right to food, Michael Fakhri, "Israel's" military was reportedly "directly involved in the enforced disappearances of people seeking aid".

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The statement further accused "Israel's" military of violating international law by refusing to provide information on the fate and whereabouts of the individuals it had deprived of their liberty, adding that a "state agent's failure to acknowledge a deprivation of liberty or a refusal to confirm a detention effectively constitutes an enforced disappearance."

The UN human rights office reported last week that it had documented the killings of 1,857 Palestinians seeking aid since late May, a figure which includes 1,021 individuals killed near GHF sites. The experts warned that "the distribution points pose additional risks for devastated individuals of being forcibly disappeared" and urged Israeli authorities to "put an end to the heinous crime against an already vulnerable population."

They demanded that the authorities "clarify the fate and whereabouts of disappeared persons and investigate the enforced disappearances thoroughly and impartially and punish perpetrators."

UN staff pressure human rights chief to label war on Gaza a genocide

Meanwhile, hundreds of UN staff at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) have asked their chief, Volker Turk, in a letter seen by Reuters, to explicitly describe the war in Gaza as an unfolding genocide.

The letter sent on Wednesday said the staff considers that the legal criteria for genocide in the Israeli war on Gaza, which has lasted nearly two years, have been met, citing the scale, scope, and nature of the violations documented there.

The letter, which was signed by the Staff Committee on behalf of over 500 employees, stated that "OHCHR has a strong legal and moral responsibility to denounce acts of genocide," adding that "failing to denounce an unfolding genocide undermines the credibility of the UN and the human rights system itself."

Turk, who has repeatedly condemned "Israel's" actions in Gaza and warned of the increasing risk of atrocity crimes, said the letter raised important concerns.

"I know we all share a feeling of moral indignation at the horrors we are witnessing, as well as frustration in the face of the international community’s inability to bring this situation to an end," Turk said in a response according to Reuters, calling on the employees to "remain united as an Office in the face of such adversity."