What matters peace if it permits killing, maiming and destroying the infrastructure of a society supposedly once at war?  This is the situation facing Gaza as the occupying Israeli forces go about their business making the Strip even more uninhabitable for the Palestinian residents, ensuring that that land will be vacated, either through force or massaged consent, to enable its eventual seizure. 

In a January 12 report, The New York Times found that Israel had razed over 2,500 buildings in the Strip since the ceasefire with Hamas commenced on October 10, 2025.  These have been initiated on the Israeli side of the demarcated side known as the Yellow Line.  The report, however, also notes the demolition of buildings on the side controlled by Hamas.  “The scale of ongoing destruction is stark.  Across eastern Gaza, in areas under Israeli control, satellite imagery reveals that entire blocks have been erased since the cease-fire, as well as swaths of farmland and agricultural greenhouses.”

The NYT quoted the grave words of Gaza-based political analyst Mohammed Al-Astal: “The Israeli military is destroying everything in front of it – homes, schools, factories and streets.  There’s no security justification for what it’s doing.”  A former Israeli official did not disagree.  “This is absolute destruction,” assessed Shaul Arieli, commander of Israeli forces in Gaza in the 1990s.  “It’s not selective, it’s everything.”

Under the thin covering of a cruel truce, Israel’s demolition campaign,

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