In recent weeks, there has been a significant escalation in the widespread destructions in the Gaza Strip, targeting residential neighborhoods and civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, roads, electricity, water, and sewage networks. Entire neighborhoods, particularly in Rafah City and Northern Gaza, have been rendered uninhabitable, reduced to mere rubble, compelling most residents to evacuate under Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF)’s threats of death and starvation.
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) emphasizes that these acts committed by IOF, constitute a calculated policy aimed at entrenching the humanitarian crisis by destroying residents’ means of survival, eradicating their existence, and displacing them as part of a genocide campaign ongoing for more than a year. This systematic destruction is intended to cause maximum material and psychological harm to Gaza’s residents, threatening their future, stability and survival.
According to PCHR’s monitoring, IOF has intensified attacks on three hospitals in Northern Gaza: the Indonesian Hospital, Kamal Adwan Hospital, and Al-Awda Hospital1, as well as the surrounding residential buildings. These attacks include the demolition of homes and neighborhoods while people remain trapped inside, aiming to fulfill the objectives of the genocidal campaign based on ethnic cleansing that results in harrowing massacres that have killed thousands of civilians and disrupted life-saving medical services. Dr. Hussam Abu Safieh, Director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, stated to PCHR’s researcher that IOF have been pressuring the hospital to evacuate by targeting it repeatedly and undermining its operations. On Wednesday, 25 December 2024, explosives planted outside the hospital were detonated to demolish nearby residential buildings, causing significant damage to the hospital, injuring nurse Hassan Al-Dabus severely, and threatening the safety of patients and medical staff. According to Abu Safieh, this was the second time in two days that such explosive devices were used near the hospital, with the previous incident injuring 20 people, including five medical personnel. The hospital has also been directly targeted by drones dropping incendiary bombs on anyone moving in its courtyard, as well as its generators and power sources, to force an evacuation.
This large-scale destruction in Northern Gaza compounds the extensive devastation already documented by PCHR’s team in areas ravaged by Israeli military operations in North and South Gaza Strip. However, the current wave of violence and destruction in Northern Gaza and Rafah has reached unprecedented levels where IOF deploys advanced weaponry, including explosive-laden robots to level entire neighborhoods into rubble.
Israeli media have circulated images and reports exposing the staggering scale of the destruction, including IOF contracting companies to conduct extensive house demolitions and land-razing operations in Northern Gaza and Rafah. Footage2 captures machinery from Israeli private companies actively razing homes and civilian infrastructure in Rafah’s Shaboura refugee camp.3
Among the atrocities documented by PCHR is the massacre of the Abu Nasser family in Beit Lahia, where over 250 Palestinian civilians were killed, with many victims remaining trapped under the rubble due to the inability of rescue teams to reach them. IOF have repeatedly targeted the remaining civilians to force them to flee. Adham Ali Abu Nasser (32) who was detained on 05 November 2024 and released 37 days later in Deir Al-Balah, stated:
“On the evening of Tuesday, 29 October, Israeli warplanes bombed our family home, where most of the family had sought refuge after fleeing from Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza. I survived along with a few family members, and we struggled to recover the bodies of our relatives until the quadcopters intensified shelling and managed to stop us. They deliberately targeted us as we tried to rescue others, managing to retrieve 126 bodies. We sought shelter at relatives’ homes near Kamal Adwan Hospital. Each night, we heard nearby explosions, and every morning, we were shocked by the scale of destruction, particularly in the western neighborhoods of Beit Lahia. These areas were relentlessly bombarded with artillery shells while robots planted explosives at intersections and among homes, detonating them later to level down entire buildings. Entire neighborhoods were turned into rubble, forcing survivors to bury their dead and head to checkpoints under the threat of starvation and death. For a month, my family and I took refuge with relatives until the situation worsened. On 05 November 2024, we decided to flee to western Gaza City, but IOF arrested me and later released me on 12 December to southern Gaza. My family remains displaced in Gaza City.”
Testimonies collected by PCHR researchers from residents displaced from these areas reveal IOF’s brutal tactics employed to destroy residential neighborhoods. These include innovative methods of demolition, such as the use of explosive-laden robots. Sabah Naeem Al-Daqs (44), a resident of Jabalia refugee camp, shared the following account with a PCHR researcher:
“Since the beginning of the war, we have suffered under a severe siege, but this time, the siege was far brutal and more relentless. It was accompanied by artillery shelling and the destruction of buildings through every conceivable means, the most devastating being the use of explosive robots that caused widespread destruction. Every day, we heard the sound of these robots moving near the house where we had sought refuge, feeling death inching closer with each passing moment. During this military operation, I lost 15 family members due to the bombing of a nearby home. The siege and hunger eventually forced us to leave through military checkpoints after being ordered to evacuate via voice recordings by quadcopters. We also feared the threats of entire residential blocks being bombed with their inhabitants inside. As we fled toward Gaza City, the scale of destruction was staggering. No house was spared from total or partial destruction.”
In light of above, PCHR expresses grave concern over the continued international double standards and the global silence regarding these ongoing crimes. The persistent failure of the international community and its institutions to put an end to IOF’s policy of collective punishment, in blatant violation of international treaties, constitutes implicit complicity in the genocide against Palestinians. This inaction not only fails to deter the perpetrators but also provides them with exceptional political cover that encourages them to go further with their crimes against Palestinians and their property, and to intensify efforts to starve and displace them from their homes.
In this context, PCHR emphasizes that IOF’s accelerated destruction of residential neighborhoods and their infrastructure reflects a deliberate policy aimed at inflicting maximum material and psychological harm on Palestinians in Gaza. This campaign seeks to annihilate their existence, a clear violation of Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Therefore, PCHR:
