UN rights experts voiced alarm Thursday at reports of "enforced disappearances" of starving Palestinians seeking food at distribution sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), urging Israel to end the "heinous crime".
The seven independent experts said in a joint statement they had received reports that a number of individuals, including one child, had been "forcibly disappeared" after going to aid distribution sites in Rafah, southern Gaza.
"Reports of enforced disappearances targeting starving civilians seeking their basic right to food is not only shocking, but amounts to torture," said the experts, who are mandated by the UN Human Rights Council, but who do not speak on behalf of the United Nations itself, AFP reported.
"Using food as a tool to conduct targeted and mass disappearances needs to end now."
Israel's military was reportedly "directly involved in the enforced disappearances of people seeking aid", said the 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 "refusing to provide information on the fate and whereabouts of persons they have deprived of their liberty", in violation of international law, the statement said.
"The failure to acknowledge deprivation of liberty by state agents and refusal to acknowledge detention constitute an enforced disappearance."
The UN declared a famine in Gaza governorate last week, blaming "systematic obstruction" of humanitarian deliveries by Israel. Israel, which has accused Hamas of looting aid supplied by the UN, imposed a total blockade on Gaza between March and May.
Once it began easing restrictions, the GHF, a private organisation supported by Israel and the United States, was established to distribute food aid, effectively sidelining UN agencies.
The experts pointed to how "aerial bombardment and daily gunfire at and around the crowded facilities have resulted in mass casualties".
"The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is obligated to provide secure distribution sites and has contracted private military security companies to that end," they said.
The UN human rights office said last week it had documented that 1,857 Palestinians had been killed while seeking aid since late May, including 1,021 near GHF sites.
Now, the experts warned, "the distribution points pose additional risks for devastated individuals of being forcibly disappeared".
The experts 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".
