The deliberate demolition of structures is not a new Israeli military tactic. It has been deployed across swathes of Gaza during the war that was triggered by the Hamas-led attack on Israel on 7 October 2023.
“It’s been clear since October 7 and since Israel and Hezbollah have gone to war that there has been a strategy for Israel to revise the balance of power in the region,” said Renad Mansour, Deputy Director of Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House, a UK-based think tank.
Multiple legal experts told BBC Verify the destruction of property is strictly prohibited by international humanitarian law, unless it is demanded by military necessity.
The bar for necessity is higher than military convenience or advantage, according to Prof Janina Dill, a global security and international law expert at Oxford University: “It certainly does not cover levelling entire villages as a predicate to long-term national security.”
It also requires case-by-case analysis when determining which buildings have military significance, said Yuval Shany, a legal expert from the Israel Democracy Institute think tank.
The capacity of some civilian buildings to be used for military activity “does not justify a sweeping policy of creating buffer zones next to the border inside which all buildings are to be destroyed”, he added.