This article needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(September 2024)
Attacks on protected zones and civilians in Gaza during the Israel–Hamas war have led to the killing of over 30,000 Palestinians and the displacement of over 2 million people,[1] as well as the collapse of the education system[2] and the destruction of most homes[3] and hospitals in Gaza.[4] Israel has faced accusations of war crimes from South Africa,[5] the UN Human Rights Council,[3] and Amnesty International,[6] among others, due to the number of civilian casualties and the percentage of civilian infrastructure destroyed, including Palestinian refugee camps, schools, mosques, churches, and more.[6][7][8] Analysis of satellite data shows that 80% of buildings in northern Gaza have been damaged or ruined.[9] As of January 2024, researchers from Oregon State University and the City University of New York estimated that 50 to 62 percent of all buildings in the Gaza Strip were damaged or destroyed.[10][11][12]
The healthcare system in Gaza has collapsed due to the blockade of Gaza, lack of fuel, power cuts, and airstrikes. From the beginning of the war to 30 November 2023, the World Health Organization reported 427 attacks on health care in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.[13] By February 2024, it was reported that "every hospital in Gaza is either damaged, destroyed, or out of service due to lack of fuel."[14] On 24 January 2024, the WHO announced that only seven of 24 hospitals in northern Gaza and seven of 12 hospitals in southern Gaza were operational. On 7 February 2024, the United Nations announced that only 4 of 22 health centers in Gaza remained operational.[15]
From 7 October 2023 to late March 2024, the United Nations reported multiple airstrikes on more than 200 educational facilities, including universities and schools, by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in the Gaza Strip.[16][17] The attacks have resulted in the collapse of the Gazan education system, affecting 625,000 students.[2]
According to international law, cultural heritage, cemeteries, and religious places are considered civilian infrastructure and their destruction can be considered a war crime of “committing outrages upon personal dignity” under the Rome Statute.[19] According to historians, Gaza is one of the oldest inhabited areas in the world, dating back to at least the 15th century BC.[20]
In South Africa's genocide case against Israel, Israel was accused of targeting Palestinian culture, destroying modern museums and cultural centers, and threatening the "cultural potential" of Gaza by damaging schools as well as teachers and killing journalists and intellectuals. Israel claimed that the targeting of cultural and religious places and cemeteries is due to finding and returning the bodies of Israeli hostages and Hamas using these places for military purposes.[21]CNN's analysis of satellite images and videos showed that the Israeli forces use cemeteries as military outposts. According to CNN's investigation, at least 16 cemeteries in Gaza have been desecrated by IDF, tombstones have been destroyed, the soil has been overturned, and in some cases, bodies have been unearthed.[22]
Israeli attacks have destroyed more than 200 buildings of cultural and historical importance in Gaza, including mosques, cemeteries, and museums. UNESCO reported that at least 22 sites, including mosques, churches, historical houses, universities, and archives, were damaged or destroyed as a result of multiple Israeli attacks.[23][20]
In the Israel–Hamas war, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have carried out numerous airstrikes on densely populated Palestinian refugee camps in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, as part of the bombardment and invasion of Gaza.[24]
Since 7 October 2023, at least 38,983 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed, including more than 15,000 children. More than 89,727 people have been injured and more than 10,000 people are missing in Israel's war on Gaza.[25] In March 2024, Al Jazeera reported that Israeli forces made a pattern of killing entire families by targeting homes where they had taken shelter.[26] On 29 February 2024, Gaza's Ministry of Health reported that 44% of the fatalities were children.[27]
Amnesty International's investigation into nine airstrikes found that Israel violated international humanitarian law by failing to take all possible precautions to save civilians, or by taking out indiscriminate strikes that were unable to distinguish between civilian and military targets, or by attacks that may have been taken out against civilian objects.[28] The BBC reported that since the beginning of December, the bombardment of southern and central Gaza has intensified, and the city of Khan Yunis bears the brunt of Israel's military attacks while Israel has repeatedly encouraged the people of Gaza to move south for their safety.[29] Also, an NBC news investigation found Palestinians were killed in airstrikes in seven areas that the military had designated as safe zones.[30]
The New York Times' analysis of the Israeli military's actions shows that since November, Israeli-controlled demolitions have destroyed hundreds of buildings, including mosques, schools, and entire sections of residential neighborhoods. The spokesperson of the Israeli army stated the reason for these controlled demolitions is the location and destruction of terrorist infrastructures embedded inside buildings in civilian areas, adding that sometimes entire neighborhoods serve as "combat complexes" for Hamas. While Israeli officials told The New York Times that Israel is demolishing Palestinian buildings near the border to create a security "buffer zone" inside Gaza, making it harder for fighters to carry out cross-border attacks, most of the destruction sites identified by The Times occurred well outside this buffer zone.[31]
UN experts have called the destruction and bombing of more than half of the homes in Gaza by Israel, under the pretext of identifying and destroying Hamas, as "domicide" (the mass destruction of homes to make this land uninhabitable).[32] Destroyed locations include the Palace of Justice (the main Palestinian court in Gaza), the Palestinian Legislative Council, 339 educational centers, 167 places of worship, and 26 of Gaza's 35 hospitals. Hugh Lovatt, a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations, claimed that Israel is "deliberately and methodically destroying the civil societies and infrastructure needed to govern and stabilize Gaza after the war”.[33]
In late October, a document was leaked to the Israeli press by the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence, planning the forced and permanent transfer of 2.3 million Palestinians living in Gaza to Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. The document exposes an organization called "The Settlement Unit – Gaza Strip", which aims to resettle the Gaza Strip, 18 years after the withdrawal of Israeli forces and settlers from it.[34][35][36] Italian historian Lorenzo Kamel said Israel wants to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable by dropping tens of thousands of tons of bombs and targeting civilian infrastructure including schools, universities, hospitals, bakeries, shops, farmland and greenhouses, water stations, sewage systems, power plants, solar panels, and generators.[37]
