FALCON POWERS – While the international community calls for an immediate ceasefire in the crisis-stricken Gaza Strip, an Israeli unit belonging to the military engineering forces continues to deliberately demolish Palestinian homes in the region, potentially amounting to a “war crime,” according to United Nations reports.
The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, Balakrishnan Rajagopal, described the systematic and widespread attacks on civilian homes and infrastructure in Gaza as “geographic cleansing.”
Rajagopal affirmed in statements to the non-profit organization Bellingcat that even with attacks on individual buildings, each targeted or destroyed building must be legally assessed.
He added that the burden lies on the Israeli army to provide evidence justifying the demolitions and to prove that the attack was “proportional and necessary.”
Estimates indicate that over 50% of buildings in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged, and nearly 1.7 million people have been displaced since the start of the offensive.
Bellingcat collaborated with the non-profit news organization Scripps News to investigate the deliberate demolition of homes in Gaza and ongoing conflicts over land in the West Bank.
The investigation concluded that a specialized military engineering unit operating under the name “8219 Commando,” affiliated with the Israeli army, is assigned the task of destroying and demolishing homes in Gaza, turning entire neighborhoods in the region into rubble.
A City of Rubble
Bellingcat used social media to track the movements of the combat engineering unit, known as 8219 Commando, within Gaza as they demolished tunnels, houses, and mosques.
This engineering unit operates under the 551st Battalion and is part of the Israeli army’s 98th Division.
The non-profit organization relied on posts from soldiers within the engineering unit who openly revealed their experiences inside Gaza, providing a “rare” glimpse into what the Israeli army conceals.
One member of Unit 8219, an Israeli captain whose identity was not disclosed by Bellingcat, wrote posts about his experience in the form of war memoirs, detailing their location and what they destroyed.
These posts, along with social media posts from other members of 8219, included videos, photos, and data that described the unit’s war experience.
Bellingcat geolocated each video or image of a demolition process and verified the location. Satellite imagery from Planet Labs was then used to determine the timing of the demolitions.
The first demolition operation in which Unit 8219 participated took place on November 13 or 14 of the previous year. The unit destroyed a two-story building overlooking the Mediterranean Sea without providing any justification for the demolition.
The pace and scale of demolition operations increased significantly thereafter. Between November 20 and 23, the unit participated in multiple demolitions of residential buildings directly adjacent to the Al-Quds Hospital in the Tel Al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City.
Satellite imagery of this neighborhood shows that at least 34 residential buildings were completely or partially destroyed during this period.
“We Have Become Addicted to Explosions”
On November 19, the captain of the Israeli engineering unit wrote that rockets and drones were found at one location, but he did not explain why this discovery necessitated the destruction of multiple residential complexes.
Another building was demolished in the Gaza Strip between December 7 and 10.
The Al-Islah Mosque and an adjacent building were demolished between December 10 and 15, despite the fact that religious buildings are protected under international humanitarian law.
On February 19, the mosque’s Facebook page posted a picture of the destroyed building, with its minaret collapsed.
The captain of Unit 8219 wrote in a post dated December 28, “We have become addicted to explosions.”
The most recent demolition operation took place in the heart of Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza, in mid-January.
