BBC:
Israel has destroyed more than 1,500 buildings in areas of Gaza that have remained under its control since the ceasefire with Hamas started on 10 October, satellite images reviewed by BBC Verify show.
The new photos – the latest of which was taken on 8 November – show that entire neighbourhoods controlled by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have been levelled in less than a month, apparently through demolitions.
The actual number of destroyed buildings could be significantly higher, with satellite imagery for some areas being unavailable for BBC Verify’s assessment.
Some experts have argued that the demolitions may violate the terms of the ceasefire brokered by the US, Egypt, Qatar and Turkey. But an IDF spokesperson told BBC Verify that it was acting “in accordance with the ceasefire framework”.
US President Donald Trump’s 20 point peace plan for Gaza – the basis for the ceasefire – stated “all military operations, including aerial and artillery bombardment, will be suspended”. He has since repeatedly stated that “the war is over”.
BBC Verify’s visual analysis of satellite imagery has found that the destruction of buildings in Gaza by the Israeli military has been continuing on a huge scale. We used a change detection algorithm to analyse radar images taken before and after the ceasefire to highlight changes, which might indicate destruction, then manually counted visibly destroyed buildings.
We looked at buildings destroyed behind the Yellow Line – a boundary running along the north, south and east of Gaza. Under October’s ceasefire deal Israel agreed to withdraw its forces to that marker, annotated by a yellow line on maps released by the IDF.
