Israel used bombings of civilian buildings to displace the Palestinian population, report warns

Amnesty International warned that demolitions of homes and civilian buildings in Gaza are continuing even after the so-called ceasefire and denounced that the Palestinian population continues to live under attacks, displacement and a lack of humanitarian aid.

Amnesty International denounced that Israel’s deliberate destruction of high-rise civilian buildings continues to worsen the humanitarian situation of displaced Palestinian families in the occupied Gaza Strip. Despite the ceasefire declared in October 2025, the bombings and destruction of civilian infrastructure persist, while reconstruction remains a distant prospect and more voices are being raised against what they describe as a genocide of Palestinians.

Last week, Amnesty International published a report documenting how the Israeli army destroyed at least 13 multi-story residential and commercial buildings in different parts of Gaza City between September and October 2025. According to the document, Israeli forces dropped multiple bombs on each building after forcing its residents to evacuate with little warning. Thousands of people lived in many of these buildings, including internally displaced families.

The human rights organization confirmed that the attacks did not respond to imperative military necessity and called for them to be investigated as possible war crimes of wanton destruction, collective punishment and direct attacks on civilian objects.

The human rights organization also noted that statements made by Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz after several of these attacks show that the demolitions sought to exert political pressure on Hamas and deepen the forced displacement of the Palestinian population, rather than serving strictly military objectives.

In this regard, Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnesty International’s Senior Director of Research, Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns, stated that “in the month before the so-called ceasefire of October 2025, Israel intensified its offensive against Gaza City to the point of causing one of the worst waves of mass displacement recorded during the genocide.” 

Guevara Rosas added that one of the main patterns of this offensive was the deliberate destruction of multi-story civilian buildings through airstrikes, leaving thousands of people homeless and also devastating makeshift camps set up around them.

Amnesty interviewed 16 former residents, displaced people and witnesses to the attacks. In addition, the organization’s Crisis Response Programme Evidence Lab analyzed satellite imagery and verified more than 25 videos to reconstruct the pattern of destruction carried out by Israeli forces.

According to the report, the investigation reveals a systematic policy of demolishing civilian structures without any military necessity to justify it, thereby breaching international humanitarian law.

The organization reported that on March 19, 2026, it sent formal inquiries to the Israeli Ministry of Defense about the attacks and the official statements related to these events, but as of publication it had not received a response.

Previously, Amnesty International had also documented other episodes of destruction of civilian areas between December 2023 and May 2024, linked to the expansion of an Israeli “buffer zone” along Gaza’s eastern perimeter. It also verified, through satellite imagery and audiovisual records, the total destruction of the town of Khuza’a, in southern Gaza, in May 2025.

Despite the ceasefire announced in October 2025, Israeli forces continued demolishing homes and other buildings in areas under full operational control east of the so-called “yellow line.” According to Amnesty, these areas represent more than 55% of Gaza’s territory and remain off-limits to the Palestinian population.

The organization warned that the boundaries of that “yellow line” are constantly being shifted by the Israeli army, deepening the uncertainty and restrictions faced by displaced families.

In this regard, Erika Guevara Rosas warned that the impunity with which Israel acts in Gaza has encouraged the repetition of similar practices in other territories, particularly in Lebanon. As she noted, the Israeli army has already caused massive destruction of civilian facilities, homes, parks and public spaces in various parts of Lebanon.

Amnesty stressed that the Fourth Geneva Convention expressly prohibits collective punishment and the destruction of civilian property except in cases of absolute military necessity. Likewise, international humanitarian law considers both deliberate attacks on civilian objects and the extensive and unjustified destruction of property to be war crimes.

“These demolitions did not only reduce buildings to rubble; they also destroyed homes, memories and entire ways of life,” said Guevara Rosas. She added that for thousands of displaced Palestinians, the constant sound of bulldozers destroying homes became part of a daily life shaped by war, even during periods officially presented as a ceasefire.

For his part, the high representative for Gaza of the “Board of Peace” created by Donald Trump stated that the ceasefire in Gaza is not perfect but is holding. However, “it is not perfect,” since “there are violations every day, and some of them are very serious.”

The UN, Amnesty International and even sectors linked to Trump’s “Board of Peace” agree that Israel commits violations of international law against the Palestinian population every day. A scenario increasingly far removed from the peace hoped for in the region. 

Guillermo Whpei

President of Fundación para la Democracia