Bellingcat: Between November 20th and the 23rd, the unit destroyed or partially destroyed at least 34 residential tower blocks immediately next to Al Quds Hospital in the neighbourhood of Tel al-Hawa, Gaza City. Most of these blocks were seven to ten storeys high.

New: Bellingcat and @scrippsnews.bsky.social followed one IDF battalion’s movements across Gaza, geolocating their social posts to highlight IDF involvement in systematic destruction of Palestinian land and livelihoods: www.bellingcat.com/news/2024/04...

“We’ve Become Addicted to Explosions” The IDF Unit Responsible for Demolishing Homes Across Gaza - bellingcatwww.bellingcat.com Bellingcat investigates the demotions carried out by the IDF in Gaza.

The UN’s Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, Professor Balakrishnan Rajagopal described the nature of the systematic and widespread attacks on civilian housing and infrastructure in Gaza “domicide”. www.ohchr.org/en/press-rel...

Gaza: Destroying civilian housing and infrastructure is an international crime, warns UN expertwww.ohchr.org GENEVA (8 November 2023) – The world must act now to end the horrifying and massive attacks against civilian housing and infrastructure in Gaza, which comes at a tremendous cost to human life, a UN ex...

As of April 12, more than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza and approx 1.7 million displaced since the offensive began according to UN OCHA reports. It’s estimated that more than 50% of Gaza’s buildings have been destroyed or damaged. www.conflict-damage.org

Aboutwww.conflict-damage.org DDMG: Decentralized Damage MAPPING Group

We used social media to track a single IDF combat engineering battalion, 8219 Commando, as they moved across Gaza, demolishing tunnels, houses, and mosques. 8219 Commando is a combat engineering battalion associated with 551 Commando Brigade and part of the 98th Division.

Soldiers from 8219 openly post about their experiences inside Gaza. One captain of 8219 posts a war diary, noting where they were, and what they destroyed. Posts by members of the battalion include videos, pictures and statements describing the unit’s experience of war.

This map shows the destruction and demolitions carried out by 8219 since November that we were able to geolocate from their posts and their journey to demolition.

Between November 20th and the 23rd, the unit destroyed or partially destroyed at least 34 residential tower blocks immediately next to Al Quds Hospital in the neighbourhood of Tel al-Hawa, Gaza City. Most of these blocks were seven to ten storeys high.

On the 19th the Captain wrote about finding rockets and a UAV at one location in the residential blocks, which matches a Times of Israel report from this time. He did not explain why this discovery required the destruction of so many residential blocks. www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_ent...

IDF raids Gaza City’s Tel al-Hawa neighborhood, capturing Hamas outpost, offices of intel divisionwww.timesofisrael.com * * *

The Unit also destroyed religious buildings which hold a protected status under International Humanitarian Law. For example, between December 10 - 15th, Al-Islah mosque and an adjacent building were demolished.

An Instagram post, by a member of the battalion, depicting this Al-Islah mosque claimed that “Every house, mosque and school has been used here for terror purposes: either as a place for terrorists, an explosives warehouse or a military base”.

We also found evidence of the 8219 Unit clearing land for a ‘buffer zone’, destroying entire towns alongside the Israeli border.

In notes the 8219 Captain stated that a separate unit had requested the help of 8219 and between December 26 and January 6, the IDF bulldozed large areas of the neighbourhoods of Khuza’a and Khirbat Ikhza’a, demolishing buildings using explosives.

The Captain described this operation in a Facebook post as one to take and “destroy the village of the murderers”.

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