Israel's Controlled Demolitions Are Razing Neighborhoods in Gaza

[Uncle Joe]

(snip)

Israeli officials, who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the issue, said that Israel wanted to demolish Palestinian buildings close to the border as part of an effort to create a security “buffer zone” inside Gaza, making it harder for fighters to carry out cross-border attacks like the ones in southern Israel on Oct. 7.

But most of the demolition locations identified by The Times occurred well outside the so-called buffer zone. And the number of confirmed demolitions — based on the availability of visual evidence — may represent only a portion of the actual number carried out by Israel since the war began.

(snip)

In December, a State Department spokesman, Matthew Miller, said that the creation of a buffer zone along Gaza’s roughly 36-mile border with Israel would be “a violation” of Washington’s longstanding position against the reduction of territory in Gaza. And experts on humanitarian law say the demolitions — which would prevent some Palestinians from eventually returning to their homes — could violate rules of war prohibiting the deliberate destruction of civilian property.

In one video of a demolition from late November, a controlled explosion took down at least four high-rise residential buildings just blocks away from a major hospital in Gaza City. Another demolition in December destroyed over a dozen buildings around the city’s central Palestine Square, which the Israeli military said was home to a large network of tunnels.

(snip)

Controlled demolition in Palestine Square, Gaza City


(snip)

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/02/01/world/middleeast/Israel-gaza-war-demolish.html

[brush]

1. A buffer/re-enforced zone on the Israeli side would've been nice...

before Oct. 7, especially after being warned of a coming Hamas operation several months before.

Come on, Netanyahu/Likud, do better.

[Autumn]

2. Is it war crimes yet?

[Beastly Boy]

4. It has been since Oct 7. Sadly, the Hamas leaders have not yet faced justice.

A central square in Gaza’s largest city that until October 7 was a humming center of Palestinian retail and commercial activity hid an extensive warren of Hamas tunnels used by the terror group’s top officials to hide from Israel, the military has revealed.

Among those whose homes or offices were linked by the network of subterranean fortifications was Muhammad Deif, the elusive leader of the terror group’s military wing, and Yahya Sinwar, the top Hamas official in Gaza, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

Palestine Square is located in the upscale Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City, an area that before the war was seen as the power center of the enclave’s elite, home to top officials from the terror group ruling the Strip.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/under-the-heart-of-gaza-city-idf-digs-up-a-vast-hive-of-lairs-where-hamass-elite-hid/

It was a war crime for Hamas bigwigs to hide among civilians.

[Autumn]

5. Yeah but don't worry. Palestinian children are paying for the sins of Hamas.

I would like to see Netanyahu and some of his cabinet being punished along with Hamas.

[Igel]

3. Google points me at this location for the site.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Palestine+Square/@31.5230929,34.4549261,361m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x14fd7f050bbaa733:0xf04041475bc9b328!8m2!3d31.5226148!4d34.4556519!16s%2Fm%2F05zptb8?entry=ttu

I can't match up geographic features. Roads, buildings.

Looks like a circle in the near-center of the area, but roads and buildings don't line up.

[AloeVera]

6. Demolition of universities too.

If there are tunnels as the IDF claims, surely the tunnels can be destroyed without destroying the entire university complex or multiple high-rises?

I'm wondering if Israel will need to show evidence for the existence of tunnels for every civilian building or civilian infrastructure it destroyed via these controlled demolitions. At this point we have nothing but their word.

Really hard to understand why a large and important university needed to be destroyed for "military reasons". Or the large apartment buildings, or the many others we may not know about.