Haaretz newspaper revealed that it had obtained information indicating that the Israeli army ordered its soldiers to set fire to homes whose residents had left in the Gaza Strip, and that several hundred of them were damaged beyond repair.
According to this information, Israeli soldiers began burning homes in implementation of direct orders from their commanders, without obtaining the necessary legal permission to do so.
The newspaper explained in its report that during the past month, the soldiers destroyed several hundred buildings, then set fire to the structure of the building until it burned and became useless.
The Israeli army said in its response to the report that the destruction of buildings is carried out only by approved means, and that any action carried out in various ways will be investigated.
When asked about this new practice, an Israeli army commander told Haaretz that “buildings are selected for burning based on intelligence information.”
In response to Haaretz’s question about a burned building not far from where the newspaper interviewed him, the military commander – whose identity the Israeli newspaper did not reveal – claimed that “there must be information about the owner of the building, or perhaps something was found inside it.” “I don’t know exactly why this house was set on fire.”
Three officers leading the fighting in Gaza confirmed to the newspaper that burning homes has become a common practice. The commander of one of the battalions said to his soldiers last week, while they were concluding their operations in a certain area in Gaza: “Take your things out of the house and prepare it for burning.”
Haaretz investigations revealed that this practice was originally limited to specific cases only, but it became more and more common as the war continued.
Recently, Israeli soldiers deployed in Gaza took to social media to show themselves participating in the burning of homes in Gaza.
The report added that soldiers sometimes do this “in retaliation for the killing of their fellow soldiers, or even for the (Hamas movement’s) attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.”
The newspaper goes on to reveal that burning a building means that its residents will not be able to return to live in it again.
She continued to say that the Israeli army, since the beginning of its war in Gaza, has deliberately destroyed the homes of members of the Hamas movement, or citizens of the Gaza Strip who participated in the attack of last October 7.
Until last month, combat units affiliated with the Engineering Corps mostly used mines, explosives, and sometimes heavy equipment to demolish homes.
Haaretz, citing a BBC report that included an analysis of satellite images, reported that between 144,000 and 170,000 buildings in the Gaza Strip had been damaged since the start of the war.
An investigation published by the American newspaper The Washington Post last month, and reported by Haaretz, found that entire areas of the Strip had been wiped out in Beit Hanoun, Jabalia, and the Karama neighborhood in Gaza City.
The report also stated that 350 schools and about 170 mosques and churches were either damaged or destroyed as of late last December.
