The NGO accuses the Hebrew state of having destroyed “unjustified” entire neighborhoods of Gaza along the border with Israel in order to create a buffer zone.
An international investigation for “war crimes” must be opened against the Israeli army, which has extensively destroyed “unjustified” entire neighbourhoods of Gaza along the border of the Palestinian enclave with Israel in order to create a buffer zone, Amnesty International demanded on Thursday 5 September. According to the human rights NGO, more than 90% of the buildings appear to have been “destroyed or seriously damaged” and 59% of crops damaged between October 2023 and May 2024 over a 1 to 1.8 km wide strip along this wall.
The damage covered a total of 58 km², or about 16% of the territory of the Gaza Strip, Amnesty calculates. In four areas where the NGO investigated, “structures were deliberately and systematically demolished” after the Israeli army took control of it, outside of fighting with Hamas, she said. “The Israeli army’s relentless campaign of destruction in Gaza is a campaign of wanton destruction”regrets Erika Guevara-Ross, a general director of Amnesty International, in this report consulted by AFP. “The creation of a ‘buffer zone’ must in no way constitute a collective sanction for the Palestinian civilian population living in these areas”continues the NGO. “No military objective can justify the scale of this massive and systematic destruction.”Who “must therefore be investigated for war crimes”insiste Amnesty international.
Humanitarian and health disaster
Amnesty said it sent questions about this to the Israeli authorities in early July, but received no response two months later.
The attack by Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza into southern Israel on October 7 resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data. Of the 251 people kidnapped that day, 97 are still being held in Gaza, including 33 declared dead by the army. In response, Israel launched a major offensive in Gaza that has so far killed at least 40,861 people, according to Hamas’s Health Ministry, causing a humanitarian and health disaster and the displacement of almost all of the city’s 2.4 million inhabitants. The majority of the dead are women and minors, according to the UN.
In August, the UN also estimated that nearly two-thirds of Gaza’s buildings had been damaged or destroyed since October 7.
