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palestinians
'Haunting' Footage as Gazans Return to Homes in Ruin
"This wasn't an accident. The far-right members of the Israeli government wanted to render Gaza unlivable with the aim of forcing 2 million Palestinians to flee (forever)," said one human rights leader.
Jan 22, 2025
Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip are returning home after a cease-fire deal between Hamas and Israel went into effect Sunday, halting 15 months of war that local health officials say killed over 46,000 people. But for many, there are no homes to return to.
Footage of Gaza shows what once were houses, shops, and other buildings severely damaged or completely reduced to gray rubble.
One Gaza resident, Islam Dahliz, toldThe New York Times that he and his brother and father set out to find their family home—a once spacious two-story dwelling in Rafah—almost as soon as the cease-fire went into effect. What they found instead was unrecognizable.
"It took us a few minutes to accept that this pile of rubble was our home," said Dahliz. The house had been built by Dahliz's father, Abed Dahliz, in the 1970s.
"I was shocked when I saw my entire life—everything I worked for—flattened to the ground," said Abed Dahliz, according to the Times. "The home I spent so many years building, pouring my savings into, is gone."
Versions of this story are playing out all around Gaza. All told, roughly 90% of the population across Gaza was displaced from their homes, many multiple times, according to the United Nations.
"The images emerging from Gaza are haunting. This is a site where Palestinian captives were forced to strip, their clothes left behind among the ruins as a reminder of what Israeli soldiers did," wrote Assal Rad, a scholar of modern Iran, on X. Rad's post is accompanied by a video of a man showing a strip of land covered in clothes. In the video, the man says that the clothes are from Palestinians who were arrested by Israeli forces after they stormed areas in northern Gaza, like the Kamal Adwan Hospital.
In response to reporting of Gazans returning home to destruction, Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch, wrote: "This wasn't an accident. The far-right members of the Israeli government wanted to render Gaza unlivable with the aim of forcing two million Palestinians to flee (forever), "
Human Rights Watch, which late last year issued a report accusing Israel of committing "acts of genocide" by depriving Palestinians of water access in Gaza, wrote in November 2024 that "the destruction [in Gaza] is so substantial that it indicates the intention to permanently displace many people."
A preliminary U.N. satellite imagery analysis found that as of December 1, 2024, 60,000 structures in Gaza have been destroyed. The total number of damaged or destroyed structures constitutes roughly 69% of the total structures in the enclave, according to the analysis. A separate U.N. estimate published in January found that 92% of homes have been destroyed or damaged.
The footage coming out of Gaza underscores how long it will take for Palestinians to reconstruct their communities. The cease-fire deal that went into effect Sunday includes three phrases, the third of which is supposed to entail reconstruction of Gaza. Dima Toukan, a nonresident scholar at the Middle East Institute, toldNPR that it's important to note the last phase could be a long way off, and could possibly never happen at all.
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The World Stayed Silent as Israel Destroyed Gaza 'for Generations to Come'
One wonders if the world had paid even the slightest attention to Gaza and the cries of people trapped behind walls, barbed wire, and electric fences, whether the current war and genocide could have been avoided.
Jan 15, 2025
The first official reference to Gaza becoming increasingly uninhabitable was made by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, or UNCTAD, in 2012, when the population of the Gaza Strip was estimated at 1.8 million inhabitants.
The intention of the report, The Gaza Strip: The Economic Situation and the Prospects for Development, was not merely to prophesize, but to warn that if the world continued to stand idle in the face of the ongoing blockade on Gaza, a humanitarian catastrophe was imminent.
Yet, little was done, though the U.N. continued with its countdown, increasing the frequency and urgency of its warnings, especially following major wars.
Even after the devastating war on Gaza ends and the rebuilding of the strip concludes, the ecological and environmental harm that Israel has caused will remain for many years to come.
Another report in 2015 from UNCTAD stated that the Gaza crisis had intensified following the most destructive war to that date, the year before. The war had destroyed hundreds of factories, thousands of homes, and displaced tens of thousands of people.
By 2020, though, based on the criteria set by the U.N., Gaza should have become "uninhabitable." Yet, little was done to remedy the crisis. The population grew rapidly, while resources, including Gaza's land mass, shrank due to the ever-expanding Israeli "buffer zone." The prospects for the "world's largest open-air prison" became even dimmer.
Yet, the international community did little to heed the call of UNCTAD and other U.N. and international institutions. The humanitarian crisis—situated within a prolonged political crisis, a siege, repeated wars, and daily violence—worsened, reaching, on October 7, 2023, the point of implosion.
One wonders if the world had paid even the slightest attention to Gaza and the cries of people trapped behind walls, barbed wire, and electric fences, whether the current war and genocide could have been avoided.
It is all moot now. The worst-case scenario has actualized in a way that even the most pessimistic estimates by Palestinian, Arab, or international groups could not have foreseen.
Not only is Gaza now beyond "uninhabitable," but, according to Greenpeace, it will be "uninhabitable for generations to come." This does not hinge on the resilience of Palestinians in Gaza, whose legendary steadfastness is hardly disputed. However, there are essential survival needs that even the strongest people cannot replace with their mere desire to survive.
In just the first 120 days of war, "staggering" carbon emissions were estimated at 536,410 tons of carbon dioxide. Ninety percent of that deadly pollution was "attributed to Israel's air bombardment and ground invasion," according to Greenpeace, which concluded that the total sum of carbon emissions "is greater than the annual carbon footprint of many climate-vulnerable nations."
A report issued around the same time by the U.N. Environment Program (UNEP) painted an equally frightening picture of what was taking place in Gaza as a direct result of the war. "Water and sanitation have collapsed," it declared last June. "Coastal areas, soil, and ecosystems have been severely impacted," it continued.
But that was over seven months ago, when parts of Gaza were still standing. Now, almost all of Gaza has been destroyed. Garbage has been piling up for 15 months without a single facility to process it efficiently. Disease is widespread, and all hospitals have either been destroyed in the bombings, burned to the ground, or bulldozed. Many of the sick are dying in their tents without ever seeing a doctor.
Without any outside assistance, it was only natural for the disaster to worsen. Last December, Médecins Sans Frontières issued a report titled Gaza: Life in a Death Trap. The report, a devastating read, describes the state of medical infrastructure in Gaza, which can be summed up in a single word: non-existent.
Israel has attacked 512 healthcare facilities between October 2023 and September 2024, killing 500 healthcare workers. This means that a population is trying to survive during one of the harshest wars ever recorded, without any serious medical attention. This includes nearly half a million people suffering from various mental health disorders.
By December, Gaza's Government Media Office reported that there are an estimated 23 million tons of debris resulting from the dropping of 75,000 tons of explosives—in addition to other forms of destruction. This has released 281,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide into the air.
Once the war is over, Gaza will be rebuilt. Though Palestinian sumud (steadfastness) is capable of restoring Gaza to its former self, however long it takes, a study conducted by Queen Mary University in the U.K. said that, for the destroyed structures to be rebuilt, an additional 60 million tons of CO2 will be released into an already severely impacted environment.
In essence, this means that even after the devastating war on Gaza ends and the rebuilding of the strip concludes, the ecological and environmental harm that Israel has caused will remain for many years to come.
It is baffling that the very Western countries, which speak tirelessly about environmental protection, preservation, and warning against carbon emissions, are the same entities that helped sustain the war on Gaza, either through arming Israel or remaining silent in the face of the ongoing atrocities.
The price of this hypocrisy is the enduring suffering of millions of people and the devastation of their environment. Isn't it time for the world to wake up and collectively declare: enough is enough?
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Israeli Strikes on Gaza Kill Over 20—Including Children—on First Day of New Year
Israel's military bombed two refugee camps in the besieged enclave, pushing the official death toll since October 7, 2023 to 45,553.
Jan 01, 2025
Israel's U.S.-backed assault on the Gaza Strip continued unabated on the first day of 2025, with airstrikes and drone attacks across the besieged enclave killing more than 20 people on Wednesday, including women and children.
One Israeli strike on the Jabilia refugee camp in northern Gaza killed at least 15 people, including four children and one woman, according to Al Jazeera. Others are still missing under the ruins of the house targeted by Israeli forces, which have systematically destroyed the Palestinian territory's civilian infrastructure during the nearly 15-month assault.
The Associated Pressreported that "another strike overnight in the built-up Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza killed a woman and a child, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, which received the bodies."
"A third strike early Wednesday in the southern city of Khan Younis killed three people, according to the nearby Nasser Hospital and the European Hospital, which received the bodies," AP added.
Gaza's Ministry of Health said Wednesday that the Israeli military's latest attacks pushed the official death toll in the enclave since October 7, 2023 to 45,553—a count that experts believe dramatically understates the actual toll.
Israel's incessant attacks and obstruction of humanitarian assistance have turned Gaza into what one aid group recently called a "death trap," with no safe place for civilians who are at growing risk of disease and starvation—emergency conditions exacerbated by winter weather.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said Tuesday that six babies have frozen to death in Gaza in recent days.
"More babies will likely die due to the cold, lack of shelter, and basic winter supplies," the organization warned. "Blankets, mattresses, and warm clothes are sitting outside Gaza waiting for approval to get in. The siege must be lifted."
Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA's commissioner-general, said Tuesday that "horrors continue" in Gaza "under the world's watch," pointing to Israel's killing of aid workers, attacks on U.N. shelters, and torture of detainees.
"In northern Gaza, since the intensification of the military operation nearly three months ago, there has been a significant increase in attacks on our staff, buildings, and operations," said Lazzarini. "I reiterate my call for independent investigations into the systematic disregard for the protection of humanitarian workers, premises, and operations. This cannot become the new standard and impunity cannot become the new norm."
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