The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor stated that the Israeli army is carrying out extensive demolition operations of residential blocks in the south, east, and north of Gaza City as part of a simultaneous offensive “crawling with comprehensive destruction and systematic erasure” as part of Tel Aviv’s plan to occupy the city. The Geneva-based monitor added in a statement that “Israel is implementing an illegal plan to destroy Gaza City and impose its unlawful military dominance over it,” and that the ongoing operations represent “a new phase of genocide” against Palestinians.

On August 8, the Israeli government approved a plan proposed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the gradual occupation of the Gaza Strip, adopting by majority vote the so-called “five principles to end the war,” which include “disarming Hamas, returning all prisoners (alive and dead), disarming the Strip, securing control over it, and establishing an alternative civilian administration away from Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.” The monitor pointed out that more than one million people currently live besieged in less than 30 percent of the city’s area, all threatened with forced displacement towards the southern sector under this plan aimed at erasing Gaza and subjecting it to systematic destruction and full military control. Its field team documented on Sunday the Israeli army detonating a booby-trapped robot in the Al-Saftawi neighborhood north of Gaza City following a military incursion involving vehicles and a bulldozer towards the Abu Sharakh area, causing extensive destruction.

The monitor said Israeli forces detonated similar robots in the Al-Wahidi area in Jabalia town and in the Al-Zarqa area south of the town to destroy more homes and residential blocks. Israeli warplanes also carried out “violent fire belts” (a series of airstrikes) on Sunday morning on Jabalia town, focusing on the Abu Sharakh roundabout and the Jabalia Al-Nazla cemetery, according to the same source. The monitor noted that Israeli forces intensified the use of “quadcopters” loaded with highly explosive boxes, which dropped their payload inside buildings or on rooftops before detonating, causing widespread destruction comparable to that caused by robots or warplane strikes. The team documented the destruction of tall buildings and residential blocks in the Al-Saftawi and Jabalia Al-Nazla neighborhoods in recent days, despite the continued presence of large numbers of civilians and displaced persons.

Similar operations are being carried out in the Al-Tuffah and Al-Shuja’iyya neighborhoods east of the city and in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood to the south, where the occupation destroyed more than 500 homes, in addition to the Al-Sabra neighborhood (south), which witnessed the destruction of several residential blocks, including the Abu Shre’a family home where eight people, including four children, were killed on August 21. The monitor emphasized that the comprehensive destruction is accompanied by a “repeated pattern of deliberate killings” through direct targeting of civilians.