Israel continues demolishing buildings in Gaza a year after ceasefire

It’s perhaps the most dramatic wound inflicted on the Gaza Strip by Israel’s military campaign over the past three years: the city of Rafah, once home to a quarter million people, has been erased.

Satellite imagery shows the Israeli military has systematically razed the southern city and other towns and districts to the ground and in some places ploughed away the rubble. Demolition, using bulldozers and explosives, has continued unabated since the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal reached a year ago, as the military solidifies its hold over the around 60 per cent of the territory that it still controls.

Gaza’s mangled landscape is just one of the wounds on top of wounds that the enclave’s 2 million Palestinians have endured since Israel launched its campaign to destroy Hamas after the militants’ October 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel.

More than one out of every 10 people from Gaza’s pre-war population has been killed or wounded by Israeli fire. While nearly every family mourns dead or cares for wounded, most also had to move multiple times to escape fighting and Israeli evacuation orders.