Amnesty International has called for an international investigation into the Israeli army for suspected “war crimes” in the Gaza Strip due to its “unjustified” destruction of entire neighborhoods along the Palestinian enclave’s border with Israel in order to create a buffer zone.
According to the organization, the Israeli army, using bulldozers and hand-planted explosives, illegally destroyed agricultural land and civilian buildings, and leveled entire neighborhoods to the ground, including homes, schools and mosques.
The non-governmental rights organization said in a report on Thursday that between October 2023 and May of this year, along the border line between the Strip and Israel, with a width ranging between 1 and 1.8 kilometers, more than 90% of buildings were “destroyed or severely damaged,” and 59% of agricultural crops were destroyed.
The damage covers a total of 58 square kilometers, or approximately 16% of the area of the Gaza Strip, according to the report.
Amnesty said that in the four areas where it conducted its investigations, “buildings were deliberately and systematically demolished” after the Israeli army took control of them and outside of any fighting with the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas).
The report quoted Erika Guevara Ross, Director General of Amnesty International, as saying: “The ongoing campaign of devastation waged by the Israeli army in Gaza is an unjustified campaign of destruction.”
She explained that “the establishment of a buffer zone should in no way constitute collective punishment of the Palestinian civilian population living in these areas.”
According to the report, Amnesty International sent questions on this subject to the Israeli authorities in early July, but did not receive any response after two months.
Last August, the United Nations said in turn that its estimates indicate that about two-thirds of buildings in Gaza have been damaged or completely destroyed since October 7, 2023.
Regarding the “buffer zone,” Amnesty stressed in its report that “no military objective can justify the scale of this comprehensive and systematic destruction,” which “should therefore be the subject of an investigation on suspicion of committing a war crime.”