How Israel is rewriting Gaza’s landscape to erase its crimes

Israel has been deliberately and systematically implementing a policy aimed at erasing the physical evidence of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity committed in Gaza over the past two years. This effort includes a wide range of field and administrative measures — most notably, preventing the entry of international journalists and independent investigative committees — to obstruct any criminal investigation or on-the-ground documentation that could expose the truth and confirm the occupying regime’s legal responsibility.

A recent decision by Israel’s Supreme Court to grant the government more time before allowing independent journalists into Gaza illustrates the institutional complicity among Israeli bodies in concealing crimes and shielding their perpetrators.

In effect, the Israeli judicial system provides a legal cover for the government’s policy of suppressing transparency and erasing on-site evidence of atrocities committed in Gaza.

The ongoing prevention of journalists and international investigators from entering Gaza forms part of a coordinated policy by Israeli authorities — across security, executive, and judicial branches — designed to keep these crimes away from international scrutiny and avoid accountability for grave violations.

The ban on independent journalists entering Gaza has been a long-standing policy since the start of Israel’s military assault. Its aim: to deprive the world of witnessing on-the-ground realities by imposing total media censorship and blocking all international monitoring mechanisms from accessing the crime scenes.

Despite the ceasefire agreement on October 11, Israel continues to deny entry to foreign journalists, except for highly controlled “military tours” organized under army escort. As a result, all media coverage from the ground remains under strict military censorship, lacking any independent verification consistent with international standards of press freedom.

The killing of 254 Palestinian journalists and the continued ban on international media workers reflect a systematic Israeli policy to hide the truth, monopolize the narrative, and maintain total control over the media scene — silencing independent documentation and denying victims the right to share their stories.

Israel also blocks the entry of UN-mandated commissions, International Criminal Court (ICC) investigators, and other international fact-finding bodies, all of which are essential for documenting and verifying atrocities. This deliberate obstruction of international justice violates Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law.

Israeli authorities have further barred forensic teams and medical anthropology experts from entering Gaza — professionals essential for securing crime scenes, examining human remains, and collecting biological and physical evidence of mass killings, genocide, and the use of banned munitions. These actions aim to eliminate material evidence before any investigation can take place, depriving victims and their families of identifying their loved ones and preventing international verification of the scale of Israel’s crimes.

Israel has also blocked the entry of necessary equipment for exhumation and DNA identification, including lab tools and forensic kits. As a result, hundreds of bodies remain unidentified, leaving families without closure or the basic human right to bury their loved ones with dignity.

Among these remains are 195 bodies returned by Israel without any information about their identity or cause of death — many showing clear signs of torture and extrajudicial execution. These findings suggest summary killings and inhumane treatment of detainees, including those subjected to enforced disappearance.

By withholding bodies and blocking independent investigations, Israel imposes another form of collective punishment on Palestinian families, depriving them of their right to identification and dignified burial.

Meanwhile, Israel has completely leveled several towns, villages, and refugee camps where mass killings occurred. Satellite imagery and eyewitness accounts show that Israeli forces removed topsoil layers, flattened areas, cleared debris, and transported it to unknown locations, effectively destroying potential physical evidence such as munitions fragments, bodies, blast patterns, and traces of explosions.

Israel continues to maintain full military control over roughly 50% of the Gaza Strip, reshaping its geography through demolition, bombing, and bulldozing, while constructing new military routes and bases atop the ruins. This is not mere occupation — it is a deliberate re-engineering of the landscape to erase material evidence and prevent future confirmation of war crimes.

The presence of Israeli forces, combined with their targeting of anyone approaching so-called “yellow lines,” has turned half of Gaza into a forbidden zone, isolating it from journalists, investigators, and humanitarian teams — effectively preventing any independent field documentation of mass killings and destruction.

Such actions represent a clear violation of international humanitarian law, which requires parties to preserve crime scenes until independent investigations are completed. These policies also violate the International Court of Justice’s ruling obligating Israel to take all necessary measures to prevent genocide — including preserving, not destroying, evidence.

Israel continues to withhold hundreds, possibly thousands, of bodies, including those of Palestinian detainees killed under unclear circumstances, while blocking autopsies that could confirm causes of death. This is a flagrant violation of Article 130 of the Third Geneva Convention, which obliges occupying powers to respect the remains of the deceased and return them promptly to their families.

The denial of justice and truth for victims is not merely an additional crime — it is the continuation of genocide itself. Through these actions, Israel seeks to erase evidence of its crimes, obliterate collective memory, and deprive Palestinians of their right to tell their story — erasing both the victims and the proof of their existence.