Gaza Herald – The United Nations Human Rights Office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory has raised alarm over mounting reports of Palestinian returnees to the Gaza Strip being subjected to physical attack, threats, degrading treatment and intrusive searches by Israeli soldiers and armed personnel operating under Israeli authority.
The UN said Palestinians returning through Karm Abu Salem crossing, and previously through Rafah, have reported the confiscation of essential belongings, including medicines, medical supplies, personal documents, educational certificates, money and other possessions, without being given any mechanism to recover them.
Between July 7 and August 4, 2026, hundreds of Palestinians described long and exhausting journeys back to Gaza. On a single day in July, 54 of 92 returnees reported that some or all of their personal belongings had been confiscated, including medicines and assistive devices.
In early August, an elderly Palestinian man said Israeli personnel beat him, handcuffed him, dragged him along the ground and detained him in a small room after he objected to money missing from his belongings.
In another case, two Palestinian women returning together said they were taken separately into enclosed areas and subjected to intrusive body searches by an Israeli female soldier. They reported being ordered to remove their clothing while being filmed by a surveillance camera after a metal necklace worn by one of them triggered a security alarm.
The UN Human Rights Office said the accounts are consistent with concerns documented during previous crossings, including verbal abuse, intimidation, interrogation, attack and confiscation of belongings.
Children have faced particularly vulnerable circumstances. The UN reported that a four-year-old Palestinian girl arrived in Gaza alone after her father was prevented from returning to the Strip. Humanitarian organizations subsequently began tracing her relatives and working to reunite her with her mother and uncle.
Ajit Sunghay, head of the UN Human Rights Office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, said the reported abuses form part of a broader pattern of violations and dehumanizing treatment of Palestinians, warning that such practices could discourage people from returning to Gaza.
Palestinians returning to the Strip are already coming back to a homeland devastated by years of Israeli bombardment and deprived of basic living conditions. The UN’s concerns highlight the additional risks they reportedly face at the very crossings through which they seek to return home.
