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Over thepast four years, the Israeli military has demolished over 2,500 Palestinianhouses in the occupied Gaza Strip. Nearly two-thirds of these homes were in Rafah, a densely populated refugeecamp and city at the southern end of the Gaza Strip on the border with Egypt.  Sixteenthousand people — more than ten percent of Rafah’s population — havelosttheir homes, most of them refugees, many of whom were dispossessed for a secondor third time.

As satelliteimages in this report show, most of the destruction in Rafah occurred along theIsraeli-controlled border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt.  During regularnighttime raids and with little or no warning, Israeli forces used armoredCaterpillar D9 bulldozers to raze blocks of homes at the edge of the camp,incrementally expanding a “buffer zone” that is currently up to three hundredmeters wide.  The pattern of destruction strongly suggests that Israeli forcesdemolished homes wholesale, regardless of whether they posed a specific threat,in violation of international law.  In most of the cases Human Rights Watchfound the destruction was carried out in the absence of military necessity.

In May 2004,the Israeli government approved a plan to further expand the buffer zone, and itis currently deliberating the details of its execution.  The Israeli militaryhas recommended demolishing all homes within three hundred meters of itspositions, or about four hundred meters from the border.  Such destructionwould leave thousands more Palestinians homeless in one of the most denselypopulated places on earth.  Perhaps in recognition of the plan’s legaldeficiencies, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are not waiting for the governmentto approve the plan.  Ongoing incursions continue to eat away at Rafah’s edge,gradually attaining the desired goal.

This reportdocuments these and other illegal demolitions.  Based on extensive research in Rafah, Israel, and Egypt, it places many of the IDF’s justifications for the destruction, including smugglers’ tunnels and threats to its forces on theborder, in serious doubt.  The pattern of destruction, it concludes, is consistent with the goalof having a wide and empty border area to facilitate long-term control over theGaza Strip.  Such a goal would entail the wholesale destruction ofneighborhoods, regardless of whether the homes in them pose a specific threatto the IDF, and would greatly exceed the IDF’s security needs.  It is based onthe assumption that every Palestinian is a potential suicide bomber and everyhome a potential base for attack.  Such a mindset is incompatible with two ofthe most fundamental principles of international humanitarian law (IHL): theduty to distinguish combatants from civilians and the responsibility of anOccupying Power to protect the civilian population under its control.

This reportalso documents—through witness testimony, satellite images, and photographs—theextensive destruction from IDF incursions deep inside Rafah this past May. Intotal, the IDF destroyed 298 houses, far more than in any month since thebeginning of the Palestinian uprising four years ago.  The extent and intensityof this destruction was not required by military necessity and appears intendedas retaliation for the killing of five Israeli soldiers in Rafah on May 12, aswell as a show of strength.

IsraeliPrime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan to “disengage” from the Gaza Strip holdslittle hope of relief to the residents of Rafah.  Under the plan, the IDF willmaintain its fortifications and patrols on the Rafah border indefinitely.  Theplan explicitly envisions the possibility of further demolitions to widen thebuffer zone on the basis of vague “security considerations” that, as thisreport demonstrates, should not require a buffer zone of the kind that currentlyexists, let alone further mass demolitions.

This reportrecommends that the Israeli government cease its unlawful demolitions, allowdisplaced Palestinians to return, pay reparations to victims, pay to repairunlawful damage, and address the emergency needs of the displaced.  Theinternational community, which funded some of the infrastructure destroyed bythe Israeli military and continues to pay for emergency relief, should press Israel to take these steps.  In the meantime, if donors allocate funds to rehouse victimsand repair unlawful destruction, they should demand compensation from Israel.

The Israelimilitary argues that house demolitions in Rafah are necessary primarily for tworeasons: to deal with smuggling tunnels from Egypt that run underneath theIDF-controlled border and to protect IDF forces on the border from attack. Rafah is the “gateway to terror,” officials say—the entrance pointfor weaponsused by Palestinian armed groups against the Israeli military and civilians. Under international law, the IDF has the right to close smuggling tunnels,to respond to attacks on its forces, and to take preventive measures to avoidfurther attacks.  But such measures are strictly regulated by the provisionsofinternational humanitarian law, which balance the interests of the OccupyingPower against those of the civilian population.

In the caseof Rafah, it is difficult to reconcile the IDF’s stated rationales with thewidespread destruction that has taken place.  On the contrary, the manner andpattern of destruction appears to be consistent with the plan to clearPalestinians from the border area, irrespective of specific threats.

The IDFargues that an extensive network of smuggling tunnels from Egypt require incursions into Rafah that result in house demolitions.  According to the IDF, atypical tunnel-hunting operation requires Israeli forces to destroy a housecovering a tunnel exit as well as houses from which Palestinian gunmen fire atthem during the operation.

Based oninterviews with the IDF, Rafah residents, the Palestinian National Authority(PNA), members of Palestinian armed groups, and independent experts onclandestine tunnels, Human Rights Watch concludes that the IDF has consistentlyexaggerated and mischaracterized the threat from smuggling tunnels to justifythe demolition of homes.  There is no dispute that tunnels exist to smugglecontraband, including small arms and explosives used by Palestinian armedgroups, into the Gaza Strip.  But despite the tremendous burden thatdemolitions have imposed on the civilian population, the IDF has failed toexplain why non-destructive means for detecting and neutralizing tunnelsemployed in places like the Mexico-United States border and the Koreandemilitarized zone (DMZ) cannot be used along the Rafah border.  Moreover, ithas at times dealt with tunnels in a puzzlingly ineffective manner that isinconsistent with the supposed gravity of this longstanding threat.  The reportmakes three main points:

• Shaftsvs. Tunnels.  Israeliofficials claim to have uncovered approximately ninety tunnels in Rafahsince 2000, giving the impression of a vast and burgeoning undergroundflow of arms into Gaza.  When pressed about these claims, the IDF admittedthe figure refers to tunnelentrance shafts,some of which connectto existing tunnels and others of which connect to nothing at all.  Ratherthan digging new tunnels, an IDF spokesman told Human Rights Watch,smugglers are often trying to connect to cross-border tunnels that alreadyexist.  This is possible in part because, until 2003, the IDF did not seekto close the tunnels themselves, but merely demolished the Rafah homes inwhich tunnel entrance shafts—operative or inoperative—were found. This tactic caused much destruction and homelessness while leaving tunnelslargely intact.  Soldiers have been venturing inside tunnels since 2003,thoughan IDF spokesman told Human Rights Watch that the military does not havethe technology to collapse lateral portions of tunnels.  In response toaninquiry from Human Rights Watch, the IDF refused to specify how manytunnels versus entrances had been discovered and destroyed.  The IDF’sapproach—namely, the use of ineffective methods for two years, followedby unclear improvements—contrasts sharply with alarmist Israelistatements on tunnels and the flow of arms.

• InoperativeTunnels.  In atleast three cases, the IDF has destroyed houses containing inoperativetunnels.  In July 2004, residents discovered and reported to the PNA anincomplete shaft in an empty house.  A few days later, the IDF destroyed thehouse and seventeen other houses nearby, leaving 205 people homeless aswell as a factory.  Human Rights Watch’s onsite assessment just after theincursion, as well as interviews with eyewitnesses and a representative ofa Palestinian armed group, indicated that the destruction was militarilyunnecessary; even in the home with the tunnel entrance, demolition of thewhole house was an excessive response to an incomplete shaft that couldhave been effectively sealed with concrete.  Human Rights Watch documentedtwo other cases in which the IDF appears to have destroyed houses withtunnel shafts that had already been sealed by the PNA.  The IDF claimsthat PNA closures are incomplete.

• Alternativesto Home Demolition.  Accordingto tunnel experts consulted by Human Rights Watch, a number of lessdestructive alternatives exist for the effective detection and destructionof smuggling tunnels.  No one method is guaranteed to work in allsituations, but different techniques can compensate for each other’sshortcomings, and overall conditions in Rafah favor the IDF: Only fourkilometers of the border run alongside Rafah, and tunnel depth is limitedby the water table —approximately forty-five meters in the camp.  Inthisenvironment, the IDF could install an array of underground seismic sensorsalong the border.  Known as an “underground fence,” this methodhas successfully detecteddigging activity on the U.S.-Mexico border.  Other methods, such aselectromagnetic induction and ground-penetrating radar, could be used todetect tunnels at the point where they cross the IDF-controlled border,and detection is more likely if the tunnels contain electrical wires,lights, and pulley mechanisms, as the IDF claims. Once the IDF detectstunnels underneath the border, it could dig down and neutralize them withconcrete or explosives, obviating the need for incursions into Rafah thatresult in destroyed homes and sometimes loss of life.

Israel in all likelihood has access tosuch sophisticated technology, either domestically or through the U.S. government, its closest ally.  But the IDF insists it has exhausted all alternatives,and that the current tactics are the only effective way of dealing with thetunnel threat.  Despite three requests from Human Rights Watch, the IDFdeclined to explain the alternative methods it has attempted to detecttunnels and why they did not work.  While some information regardingtunnels may be sensitive, the enormous impact on the civilian populationof demolitions places the burden on Israel to make the case as to why theonly way of dealing with tunnels that run underneath IDF positions is todemolish houses deeper and deeper into the camp.

Rafah is oneof the most violent areas in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT).  Overthepast four years, the IDF and Palestinian armed groups have regularly exchangedfire at various points along the border.  Whatfollows is a brief description of the fighting on the border rather than achronology of how it unfolded.

IDF positions fire with large caliber machine guns and tanksat civilian areas.  Based on multiple visits to the area by Human Rights Watchsince 2001 and interviews with local residents and foreign diplomats, aidworkers, and journalists, this shooting appears to be largely indiscriminateand in some cases unprovoked.  In July 2004, nearly every house on Rafah’ssouthern edge was pockmarked by heavy machine gun, tank, and rocket fire on theside facing the border.  Bullet holes were not only clustered around windows orother possible sniper positions, but sprayed over entire sides of buildings. Human Rights Watch researchers also witnessed indiscriminate use of heavymachine gun fire against Palestinian civilian areas in nearby Khan Yunis,without apparent shooting by Palestinians from that area at the time.

On a regularbasis, IDF positions and patrols on the border come under attack fromPalestinian armed groups using small arms and rocket-propelled grenades. During three nights in July Human Rights Watch researchers spent in Rafah,Palestinian small arms fire was sporadic while IDF heavy machine guns firedlong bursts into the camp.  Representatives of Palestinian armed groups inRafah told Human Rights Watch that the IDF-controlled border is well-fortifiedand attacking it is largely in vain, especially because a single 7.62 mm bulletin Rafah costs U.S. $7 (a figure also cited by the IDF as evidence of theirsuccess in blocking arms).

Both the IDFand Palestinian armed groups use tactics that place civilians at risk.  Undercustomary international law, civilians must be kept outside hostilities as faras possible, and they enjoy general protection against danger arising fromhostilities.  Human Rights Watch documented multiple cases where the IDFconverted civilian buildings into sniper positions during incursions and forcedresidents to remain with them inside.  In some cases, the IDF coerced civiliansto serve as “human shields” while searching Palestinian homes, a practicestrictly prohibited by international humanitarian law.  By attacking the IDFfrom within populated areas, Palestinian armed groups also place civilians atrisk, but Human Rights Watch found no evidence that gunmen fire from inhabitedhomes or force residents to let armed groups use their homes.

Despite theintense daily gunfire, most homes at the edge of the camp are still inhabited,at least part of the time.  Some residents remain despite the risk, lest theIDF consider their homes abandoned and target it for destruction.  Even whenthey do leave, however, absence does not constitute abandonment, especially whenindiscriminate IDF shooting forces civilians to flee.  One Palestinian, livingin the municipal stadium after the IDF bulldozed two of his homes in 2001 and2004, explained how IDF tactics force Palestinians near the border to leavetheir homes. “If [the Israelis] want to make you leave the home, they shoot thewalls, they shoot the windows,” he said.  “Then they can come and say ‘It isempty,’ and bulldoze the house.”

Comprehensive statistics on combatant and civilian deathsare unavailable and there is no consensus on how many Palestinian casualtiesfrom IDF fire are civilians.  The IDF does not appear to keep statistics ofcivilian deaths or injuries inflicted by its forces. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau ofStatistics, 393 residents of the Rafah governorate were killed between September 29, 2000, and August 31, 2004, including ninety-eight children under ageeighteen. The lowest possible percentage of civilian victims in Rafah istwenty-nine, which is the percentage of women and children killed over the pastfour years.  The actual figure is undoubtedly much higher because twenty-ninepercent presumes thatevery adult Palestinian male killed was directly participating in hostilities. In the same period, Palestinianarmed groups killed ten Israeli soldiers in Rafah.  One was killed whilepatrolling the border, in February 2001; four others were killed duringincursions inside the camp.  The other five soldiers were killed on May 12, 2004, when Islamic Jihad fighters destroyed an Israeli armored vehicle with arocket-propelled grenade. The IDF invoked this latter incident to justify the further expansion of thebuffer zone through wholesale demolition of homes.  As discussed below, itbetter demonstrates the effects of the IDF’s expansive notion of security.

In thiscontext, the IDF has taken steps that go far beyond what international lawallows and what the security of its forces requires.  The IDF has builtimproved fortifications on the border that by themselves would contributegreatly to the protection of patrols; but these new fortifications were placeddeeper inside the demolished area, bringing them closer to the houses, andeffectively creating a new starting point for demolitions.  The IDF’s expansivenotion of security erodes the spirit of international humanitarian law and is arecipe for ongoing demolitions.

The borderbetween the Gaza Strip and Egypt is 12.5 kilometers long, of which four kilometersrun alongside Rafah.  The IDF refers to this border area as the “Philadelphi”corridor or zone, but it is better understood as two distinct areas: a shieldedpatrol corridor (between the border and IDF fortifications) and abufferzone (the space between IDF fortifications and the houses of Rafah).  Theexpansion of both of these areas is illustrated in the satellite imageryincluded in this report.

Before theuprising, the IDF maintained a patrol corridor along the border some twenty toforty meters wide, separated from the camp in most places by a concrete wall,approximately three meters high, topped with barbed wire.  In some areas,especially the densely populated Block O section of the camp, houses weresituated within several meters of the patrol corridor.

Beginning in2001, as armed clashes erupted in the border area, the IDF launched nighttimeraids in Block O and other areas of Rafah, demolishing up to one or two dozenhomes in each attack and expelling all residents from the cleared area.  TheIDF argued that these demolitions were necessary responses to attacks fromPalestinian armed groups, as well as part of anti-tunneling efforts.  Thesedemolitions resulted in a de facto buffer zone between the patrol corridor andthe camp, littered with rubble and empty of Palestinians.

By late2002, after the destruction of several hundred houses in Rafah, the IDF began buildingan eight meter high metal wall along the border.  This wall, now 1.6 kilometerslong, faces the parts of Rafah that used to be closest to the border.  Such astructure would have greatly enhanced the security of IDF patrols by allowingarmored vehicles to patrol without being seen by Palestinian snipers, whilefortified IDF towers in the patrol corridor and built along the wall couldmonitor and respond to attacks on the wall from Rafah.  Other security measurespermitted under international law, such as restricting access to areas near thewall or taking control of propertyalong it (i.e. seizing homes and closing them off in a reversible manner),could have supplemented these moves.  Instead of attempting any of thesemeasures, the IDF resorted to demolitions en masse, without warning, often inthe middle of the night.

Mostimportantly, the IDF built the wallinside the demolished area, someeighty to ninety meters from the border.  Such an expansion doubled the widthof the patrol corridor and was not required to safeguard the border, as theprevious twenty to forty meter-wide patrol corridor was amply wide enough formulti-lane use by armored vehicles. The IDF’s Merkava tank is 3.72 meters wide,while Caterpillar D9 armored bulldozers, used in demolition operations, are4.58 meters wide without armor.

Theexpansion of the patrol corridor brought IDF fortifications closer to the camp,exposing them to risks subsequently invoked to justify further demolitions. According to satellite imagery taken in May 2004, some two hundred meters ofdemolished houses separated the metal wall from the last rows of remaininghouses.  In total, some fifteen percent of central Rafah’s pre-2000 built-uparea has been razed in order to make way for the expansion of both the patrolcorridor and the buffer zone.  The IDF invoked the death of five Israelisoldiers in Rafah on May 12, 2004, to demonstrate the need for a wider bufferzone.  This incident instead illustrates the effects of Israel’s inherently expansive notion of security: the armored vehicle carrying the soldiers wasconducting an anti-tunneling operation between the metal wall and the camp, notinside the patrol corridor.

According tothis logic, the IDF could continue to relocate its positions progressivelycloser to homes and then destroy them for security purposes.  This explains inpart why the rate of house demolitions in Rafah tripled in 2003 compared to theprevious two years, after the completion of the wall, even though it shouldhave reduced the perceived need to protect the border.  Similarly, the IDF’srecommendations for further razing are based in part on the perceived need tosafeguard a proposed anti-tunneling trench in the buffer zone.  While such atrench in theory could be lawful, it cannot be invoked as a reason to furtherexpand the buffer zone, especially in light of the existence of lessdestructive methods to detect and neutralize tunnels.

Thisinherently expansive notion of “security” is incompatible with Israel’s duty as an Occupying Power to balance its own interests against those of thecivilian population.  As one IDF officer put it, “I have no doubt that theclearing actions [i.e. house demolition and land razing] have an element oftactical value, but the question is, where do we draw the line?  According tothat logic, what prevents us from destroying Gaza?”

In May 2004,Rafah witnessed a level of destruction unprecedented in the current uprising, resultingin 298 demolished homes.  After Islamic Jihad destroyed the armored personnelcarrier (APC) on May 12, the IDF launched a two-day incursion to recover thesoldiers’ remains.  IDF tanks and helicopters also led an assault on Block O,reportedly killing fifteen Palestinians, including one fifteen-year-old.  Sixothers were identified as combatants. Claiming that it came under intense fire during the entire operation, the IDFrazed eighty-eight homes in Block O and neighboring Qishta area, includinghouses that had been separated from the buffer zone by three or four rows ofhomes and could not have been used to fire at the APC or the recovery teams. Towards the end of the incursion, two Israeli soldiers in Qishta were killed byPalestinian snipers.

From May18-24, the IDF conducted a major assault called “Operation Rainbow” thatpenetrated deep into two areas of Rafah — Tel al-Sultan in the northwest andthe Brazil and Salam neighborhoods in the east — reportedly leaving thirty-twoPalestinian civilians dead, including ten people under age eighteen, as well astwelve armed men.  The IDF also destroyed 166 houses.  The offensive wasostensibly aimed at searching for smuggling tunnels, killing or arrestingsuspects, and eliminating “terrorist infrastructure.”  The IDF claimed to havediscovered three smuggling tunnels during the operation, though later admittedthat one of these was an incomplete shaft and another was outside of Rafah andnot linked to any house demolitions.

Ininvestigating the events of May 2004 and other demolitions, Human Rights Watchdocumented systematic violations of international humanitarian law and grosshuman rights abuses by the Israeli military.  During the major May incursionsof May 18-24, the IDF destroyed houses, roads, and large fields extensivelywithout evidence that the destruction was in response to absolute militaryneeds, including in areas of Rafah far from the border.  In areas of Brazil further from the border, where incursions were not expected, most of the residents wereinside their homes as armored Caterpillar D9 bulldozers crashed through thewalls.  Bulldozers allowed residents to flee but proceeded with the destructionbefore they could remove their belongings.  In some cases away from the border,like the Rafah zoo, the destruction took place after the IDF had secured thearea, in a manner that was time-consuming, deliberate, and comprehensive,rather than in the heat of battle.

The IDFclaims its forces came under attack from Palestinians using anti-tank weapons,explosives, and small arms.  Based on interviews with thirty-five Rafahresidents and two members of Palestinian armed groups, information provided bythe IDF, public statements by Palestinian armed groups and the Israeligovernment, and after surveying the affected areas, Human Rights Watch believesthat armed Palestinian resistance to the May 18-24 operation was light,limited, and quickly overwhelmed within the initial hours of each incursion. Both sides made tactical choices to maximize their respective advantages: theIDF limited their operations mostly to Brazil and Tel al-Sultan, where theywere not expected and Palestinian armed groups laid ambushes in the denselypopulated heart of the original camp, where they would be more likely to engagethe IDF at close quarters.  The main two streets in Tel al-Sultan and Brazil are relatively wide andarranged in grid-like patterns.   The Israeli government designed them in thisway during the 1970s to facilitate the movement of its forces and limit coverfor Palestinian gunmen.  As a result, throughout the operation there wasminimal direct engagement between the IDF and Palestinian armed groups. Thiscontrasts sharply with the fierce multi-day battle in the densely populatedheart of Jenin refugee camp in April 2002, which resulted in the death offifty-two Palestinians, including twenty-seven confirmed civilians andthirteen IDF soldiers.

During theincursions into Tel al-Sultan and Brazil, the IDF employed armored CaterpillarD9 bulldozers in a manner that was indiscriminate and excessive, resulting inwidespread destruction of homes, roads, and agriculture that could have beenavoided:

• Houses. In Brazil,Caterpillar D9 bulldozers cleared “tank paths” inside the camp by plowingthrough blocks of houses as a general precaution against possible attackswith RPGs or roadside bombs, irrespective of the specific threats thatinternational law requires.  The IDF also used D9s to destroy homes nearsuspected smuggling tunnels and in other areas on a preventive basis, notin response to specific threats.  Other house demolitions had nodiscernible reason.

• Roaddestruction. Inboth Tel al-Sultan and Brazil, the IDF used Caterpillar D9s toindiscriminately tear up roads, destroying water and sewage networks, andcreating a significant public health risk in an already vulnerablecommunity.  In some areas, water shortages forced residents to leave theirhomes in search of water, putting them at risk of being shot by IDFsnipers for breaking curfew.  In total, the IDF destroyed fifty-onepercent of Rafah’s roads, usually by dragging a blade known as the“ripper” from the back of the D9 down the middle of the road.  The IDFgave various explanations for this tactic, including the need to clearpaths of potential bombs (improvised explosive devices, or IEDs), to severwires that could be used to detonate explosive devices and to preventsuicide car attacks on Israeli forces. If the IDF was truly concernedabout wires and IEDs, it would have used a front mounted device.  Insteadthey usedrear-mounted rippers that afforded no protection for theD9 bulldozers or their drivers from explosive devices in the road.  In addition, as aphotograph in Chapter 6 taken from another incursion shows, the rippercreates a path of debris down the middle of the road, leaving side lanesintact for use by suicide car attacks.  Tearing up paved roads also createsloose debris that facilitates the concealment of explosives andbooby-traps.

• RazingAgricultural Land. The IDF razed two large tracts of agricultural land outside the Telal-Sultan housing project away from the border.  Such destruction afterthe IDF had secured the area was disproportionate to any potentialmilitary gain and had a harmful impact on an area where agriculturalproduction plays an important role.  The IDF told Human Rights Watch thatmilitary vehicles destroyed agricultural land because they had to avoidbooby-traps on roads, but this does not explain why bulldozers spent morethan two days systematically destroying two large fields of greenhouses. 

Whileresearch focused on the extensive destruction in the Rafah camp, Human RightsWatch also documented other abuses during the incursions into Tel al-Sultan andBrazil, including unlawful killings of civilians and IDF troops coercingcivilians to serve as “human shields.”  Most egregiously, on March 19, anIsraeli tank and helicopter opened fire on a demonstration, killing nine,including three children under age eighteen.  The IDF did not claim that itstroops had come under fire, only that gunmen were in the crowd; eyewitnessaccounts and video evidence contradict this.  In response to an inquiry fromHuman Rights Watch, the IDF said that one those killed had been listed in itsrecords as a “Hamas activist” but did not substantiate or even reaffirm theclaim that he had been armed at the time.

As theOccupying Power in the Gaza Strip, the IDF has two roles: an administrator withpolice and security powers, and a potential belligerent who may engage infighting.  But atalltimes it is responsible for protecting thecivilian population, in accordance with both international humanitarian law(the laws of armed conflict) and human rights law.

Internationalhumanitarian law permits an occupier to take the drastic step of destroyingproperty only when “rendered absolutely necessary by military operations.”  Accordingto the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), military operations are“movements, manœuvres and actions of any sort, carried out by the armed forceswith a view to combat.” A belligerent occupation cannot be considered a “military operation” in itself,nor can every activity conducted by the Occupying Power be considered amilitary operation; rather, a military operation must have some concrete linkto actual or anticipated fighting.  Destroying property to improve the generalsecurity of the occupier or as a broad precaution against hypothetical threatsis prohibited.  As the ICRC stated during the May incursions in Rafah, “thedestruction of property as a general security measure is prohibited.”  Even duringmilitary operations, indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks on civilianobjects are not allowed.  Civilian property may not be destroyed unless it is makingan effective contribution to military action and its destruction offers adefinite military advantage.  In cases in which the targeted object is normallydedicated to a civilian purpose, such as a house, the presumption under the lawis that it is not a legitimate target.

Outside ofcombat, the Occupying Power may take measures to enhance its security.  Amongother things, it can temporarily take control of property to prevent itshostile use, build fortifications, and prohibit access to certain areas, butthese measures must be compatible with a fuller range of human rightsprotections, including the right to compensation for properties seized. Although it has denied the applicability of international human rightsinstruments to Palestinians in the OPT, Israel is widely considered to be boundby these laws.   International human rights law obliges Israel to provide effective judicial remedies for victims of forced eviction and to ensure adequatehousing for Palestinians

The IDF’sunlawful policy of destruction is consistent with public statements by Israeliofficials, the IDF’s disturbingly permissive interpretation of internationallaw, and its own admission that destruction has been excessive:

• The IDFhas publicly admitted destroying houses to “weaken the fear of tunnels”or in response to other hypothetical risks.  This doctrine conflates thelegal requirement of absolute military necessity — a strict standardrequiring that any property destruction must be connected to combat — withthe much broader notion of security.  This conflation is consistent withthe expressed desire of senior IDF officers, from Sharon’s days as head ofthe IDF Southern Command in the early 1970s throughYom-Tov Samiya’s statements quoted at this summary’s beginning, to razeall homes near the border.

• The IDF’smilitary manual misinterprets international law to permit destruction evenwhen it violates the laws of armed conflict, a standard that is far morepermissive than that of other major militaries.  According to the IDFmanual, “The Hague Conventions state that unnecessary destruction of enemyproperty is forbidden. … The only restriction is to refrain fromdestroying property senselessly, where there is no military justification,for the sheer sake of vandalism.”  The IDF manual does notmention that military necessity is commonly understood among majormilitaries to exclude actions that are expressly prohibited by the rulesof IHL, since military necessity was incorporated into the formulation ofthose rules. The manual also does not require that property destruction be absolutelynecessary or that it conform to fundamental principles of IHL, such as theduty to refrain from indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks.  The IDFmanual is far more permissive than, for example, the U.S. and Canadian military manuals, which require some connection between destruction and theovercoming of enemy forces.

• Senior IDFofficers have admitted that not all property destruction is authorized orjustified in such operations.  After the IDF destroyed approximately sixtyhouses in Block O in January 2002, Major-General Doron Almog, then head ofthe Southern Command, announced that some of the houses had beeninadvertently destroyed due to “navigational errors.” Brigadier-General Dov Zadka told the press on one occasion that he hadapproved a particular scope of “clearing,” only to find that troops hadexceeded the approved amount.  “You approve the removal of thirty trees,and the next day you see that they removed sixty trees,” he said. Even if these were mistakes, compensation and/or reparation should be madein such cases.  Despite this, the IDF has apparently not investigated anycases of improper or unlawful house demolitions.

Rafah is notthe only place where the IDF has extensively destroyed property in the name ofsecurity.  Throughout the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces have created buffer zonesnear IDF bases, illegal settlements, and Israeli-only bypass roads bysystematically leveling houses and agricultural fields.

For decades,the IDF has demolished homes for various reasons.  Most prominent have beenpunitive — or “deterrent” — demolitions aimed at the family homes ofPalestinians engaged or suspected of engaging in armed activities.  Suchcollective punishments are strictly forbidden by international humanitarianlaw. Israeli authorities have also destroyed Palestinian houses in the West Bank andIsrael ostensibly for violating building code regulations.  These demolitionsare not the focus of this report but have been extensively addressed elsewhere.

Palestiniansin the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) have nowhere to turn in Israel for legal protection against unlawful demolitions and forced evictions.  The IDF,the Supreme Court, and the Knesset have all played a role in denying effectiveremedies.

An IDFspokesman and an IDF legal officer told Human Rights Watch that  they had noknowledge of any investigations into cases of unlawful or improper housedemolition,even though the IDF military police had opened 173 investigations of damage toproperty in the OPT as of May 2004 (thirty-four percent of the total number ofinvestigations opened in the OPT). The Israeli Supreme Court has consistently sanctioned IDF policies that violateinternational law, including house demolitions aimed at collectively punishingfamilies of militants and those destroyed to make way for the illegal“separation barrier” under construction inside the occupied West Bank.  And underIsraeli law, compensation is ruled out in cases of “combat activity,” which theKnesset amended in 2002 with an expansive definition that includes virtuallyevery IDF action in the OPT.

Theinternational community has forcefully condemned unlawful destruction in Rafahand elsewhere in the OPT.  But donors who have invested heavily in Gaza, including in infrastructure and facilities destroyed by the IDF, have foundthemselves entangled in a dilemma.  On the one hand, the knowledge thatinternational aid money will pay to reconstruct what has been destroyed islikely to fuel the IDF’s sense of impunity for unlawful destruction.  On theother hand, donors know that restricting or reducing aid would harm Palestinianvictims.  Under international law, Israel is responsible for unlawful damagecaused by its forces and cannot misuse aid meant for Palestinians to evade itsown obligations.  As such, Human Rights Watch recommends that the internationalcommunity press Israel to either pay reparations to victims or to compensatedonors directly for any funds spent on repairing unlawful destruction.

A HumanRights Watch team of three researchers spent a combined total of one month inthe Gaza Strip, Israel, and Egypt to research this report.  The teaminterviewed over eighty individuals, including thirty-five residents of Rafahwho were victims of and/or eyewitnesses to house demolitions or other abuses,corroborating and cross-checking their accounts.  Researchers also spoke tofirst-hand participants in and observers of events in Rafah, includingrepresentatives of two Palestinian armed groups, Palestinian National Authoritysecurity personnel, and municipal officials.  Representatives of internationalrelief organizations and local human rights groups in Gaza City also provided information.

In Israel, the researchers met with three representatives of the IDF and an official from theIsraeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as foreign diplomats, militaryspecialists, local and international journalists, and local human rights organizations. The IDF shared information about its operational and legal doctrines, as wellas its unclassified assessments of the Rafah border situation.  In Egypt, researchers met with officials from the Egyptian Interior Ministry, local activists,and journalists.  The research also included analysis of public statements byIsraeli government entities and Palestinian armed groups.

Human RightsWatch also conducted on-site examination of physical evidence in Rafah,including ballistics, especially in cases of recent demolitions.  In all cases,researchers recorded the precise Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates oflocations visited, including those of demolished houses, using handheld GPSdevices.  The geospatial data has been incorporated into the maps and satelliteimages in this report.  Researchers took hundreds of digital photographs, someof them reproduced in this report, and were given access to extensivephotographs and video taken by local journalists and human rights organizationsduring the May 2004 incursions.

In analyzingthe broader patterns of destruction, Human Rights Watch was aided by satelliteimagery of Rafah taken since 2000 and provided by Space Imaging North America,Space Imaging Eurasia, Space Imaging Middle East, and DigitalGlobe.  HumanRights Watch also drew on detailed statistical data on house demolitionscompiled by UNRWA and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR).

[1] Voice ofIsrael Radio, January 16, 2002, cited in B’tselem,Policy of Destruction:House Demolitions and Destruction of Agricultural Land in the Gaza Strip,February 2002.

[2] TsadokYehezkeli, “Regards from Hell,”Yediot Ahronoth, June 11, 2004 (Hebrew).

[3] Unlessotherwise stated, statistics for homes demolished and persons rendered homelesswere provided by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for PalestineRefugees in the Near East (UNRWA) based mostly on assessments by its socialworkers.  UNRWA classifies damage in three categories: total destruction, partialdestruction (rendered uninhabitable, in need of reconstruction), and damage(habitable, in need of repair).  References to homes “demolished” or“destroyed” in this report refer to all those rendered uninhabitable, i.e. thefirst two categories, unless otherwise stated.  UNRWA statistics also includedata on the demolition of non-refugee homes.

[4] UNRWA’soperational definition of “refugee” includes descendents of those whofled orwere expelled from what became Israel (“Who is a Palestine refugee?” UNRWAwebsite,accessed September 24, 2004).

[5] HumanRights Watch has extensively documented this practice in recent years.  SeeIna Dark Hour: The Use of Civilians During IDF Arrest Operations (HumanRights Watch, April 2002).

[6] HumanRights Watch interview with Ibrahim Abu Shittat, Rafah, July 13, 2004.

[7]PalestinianCentral Bureau of Statistics, (accessed October4, 2004).

[8] Figureson Israeli fatalities are drawn from the website of the Israeli Ministry ofForeign Affairs,www.mfa.gov.il. (accessed October 4, 2004) In response to aninquiry from Human Rights Watch, the IDF did not disclose figures on injuriesin Rafah.

[9] Whilemajor militaries affirm the right of an occupying power to temporarily controlproperty for security purposes, confiscation (permanent seizure and transfer ofownership) is prohibited by Article 46 of the Hague Regulations.

[10] AvihaiBecker, “The Black List of Captain Kaplan,”Ha’aretz, April 27, 2001, cited in B’tselem,Policy of Destruction: House Demolitions andDestruction of Agricultural Land in the Gaza Strip, February 2002, p. 34.

[11] Becausein this investigation HRW focused on the pattern of property destruction,figures on deaths were compiled from an analysis of reporting by local humanrights organizations, media accounts, and statements by Palestinian armedgroups, supplemented in some cases by Human Rights Watch’s own documentation.

[12] FourthGeneva Convention, Art. 53.

[13] ICRC,Commentary to the Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International ArmedConflicts (Protocol I), 8 June 1977, p. 67.  See virtually identical languagein “Interpretation by the ICRC of Article 53 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of12 August 1949, with particular reference to the expression ‘militaryoperations,’” Letter to al-Haq signed by Jacques Moreillon, Director ofDepartment of Principles and Law and Jean Pictet, ICRC, November 25, 1981 (“…with a view to fighting”) and “Occupation and international humanitarian law:questions and answers,” ICRC press release, August 4, 2004 (“…when absolutely required by military necessity duringthe conduct of hostilities”).

[14] “ICRCDeeply Concerned Over House Destructions in Rafah,” ICRC press release, May 18, 2004.

[15]“Transcript of GOC Southern Command Regarding the Findings of the Investigationof the Demolition of the Buildings in Rafah (10-11.01.02),” IDF Spokesperson’sUnit, January 27, 2002.

[16] Sharon wrote in his memoirs that “it was essential tocreate a Jewish buffer zone between Gaza and the Sinai [then under Israelicontrol] to cut off the flow of smuggled weapons and — looking forward to afuture settlement with Egypt — to divide the two regions” (Warrior:The Autobiography of Ariel Sharon (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001),p. 258).

[17]Lawsof War in the Battlefield (IDF Military Law School, Department ofInternational Law, 1998), p. 69.  The manualisavailable in English (accessed October 4, 2004).

[18] See,interalia,U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10: The Law of Land Warfare(Department of the Army, July 1956), p. 4;The Manual of the Law of the Lawof Armed Conflict (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 21-23;TheLaw of Armed Conflict at the Operational and Tactical Level (Office of theJudge Advocate General, Canadian military, September 2001), section 2-1.

[19]U.S.Army Field Manual 27-10: The Law of Land Warfare, pp. 23-24;The Law ofArmed Conflict at the Operational and Tactical Level, section 12-9.

[20]“Transcript of GOC Southern Command Regarding the Findings of the Investigationof the Demolition of the Buildings in Rafah (10-11.01.02),” IDF Spokesperson’sUnit, January 27, 2002,available.

[21] GuyZadkham, “Zadka under fire,”B’Mahanah [IDF magazine], December 28, 2001, cited in B’tselem,Policy of Destruction: House Demolitions andDestruction of Agricultural Land in the Gaza Strip, p. 29.

[22] See,interalia, periodic reports on land leveling in the Gaza Strip by thePalestinian Centre for Human Rights, available atwww.pchrgaza.organd B’tselem,Policy of Destruction: House Demolitions and Destruction ofAgricultural Land in the Gaza Strip, February 2002.

[23] FourthGeneva Convention, Art. 33.

[24] Onpunitive demolitions, see,inter alia, al-Haq,Israel’s PunitiveHouse Demolition Policy: Collective Punishment in Violation of  InternationalLaw, 2003; al-Haq,A Thousand and One Homes: Israel's Demolition andSealing of Houses in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, 1993; andB’tselem,Demolition and sealing of homes in the West Bank and the GazaStrip as a Punitive Measure During the Intifada, 1989.  On administrativedemolitions in East Jerusalem, see B’tselem,A Policy of Discrimination:Land Expropriation, Planning and Building in East Jerusalem, 1995.

[25] HumanRights Watch interviews with Major Assaf Librati, Spokesman, IDF SouthernCommand, Tel Aviv, July 25, 2004 and Major Noam Neuman, IDF Deputy LegalAdviser for the Gaza Strip, Tel Aviv, July 20, 2004.

[26] IDFcorrespondence with HRW, May 10, 2004.

[27] See,interalia, International Court of Justice, “Advisory opinion on LegalConsequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied PalestinianTerritory,” July 9, 2004 and “Israel’s ‘Separation Barrier’ in the Occupied WestBank: Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Consequences,” HumanRights Watch, February 2004.