Palestinian Territory – Israel has begun executing its unlawful plan to destroy and occupy Gaza City. The army is carrying out simultaneous bombing and demolition operations across the south, east, and north, advancing from three axes towards the city’s centre in a campaign of comprehensive destruction and systematic erasure. This escalation marks a new phase of the genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, ongoing for 23 months.
This assault follows the Israeli army’s official announcement of Operation Gideon’s Chariots II on 20 August, with its preliminary and initial stages already underway. Over one million people are now trapped in less than 30 per cent of Gaza City, all facing the threat of forced displacement to the south under a plan designed to erase the city, inflict systematic destruction, and establish full military control.
At dawn on 24 August, Euro-Med Monitor’s field team documented Israeli forces detonating an explosive-laden robot in the Al-Saftawi neighbourhood, north of Gaza City. This followed the infiltration of the nearby Abu Sharkh area by military vehicles and a bulldozer, after which the robot was deployed and remotely detonated, causing widespread destruction.
Israeli forces also detonated robots in the Al-Wahidi area of Jabalia al-Balad and in the Zarqa area to its south, destroying additional homes and residential neighbourhoods.
This morning, Israeli aircraft launched violent airstrikes on Jabalia al-Balad, targeting the Abu Sharkh roundabout and the Jabalia al-Nazla cemetery.
In addition to deploying explosive-laden robots, Israeli forces have intensified the use of quadcopter drones loaded with crates of explosives. These drones drop their payloads inside buildings or onto rooftops, causing devastation no less severe than that inflicted by the robots or airstrikes.
Over the past few days, our field team documented the destruction of numerous multi-storey buildings and residential areas in Al-Saftawi and Jabalia al-Nazla. These areas and their outskirts still host large numbers of residents and internally displaced persons from northern Gaza, who were forced to flee once again under relentless shelling and bombing.
Destruction operations in Al-Saftawi in the north are part of a broader Israeli military plan encompassing all areas of Gaza City. Similar operations are underway in the east, particularly in Tuffah and Shuja’iyya, and in the south in Zeitoun, where more than 500 homes have already been destroyed. In Al-Sabra, several residential blocks have also been levelled using explosive-laden robots and airstrikes, including inhabited homes such as the Abu Sharia family residence, which was bombed on Thursday, 21 August, killing eight family members, of whom four were children.
The ongoing mass destruction is accompanied by a recurring pattern of deliberate killings, with Israeli forces directly targeting anyone moving in these areas, including those fleeing death. This was the case with two siblings, Awad Ihsan Saadallah and Nadine Ihsan Saadallah, who were killed on Saturday by an airstrike that struck a group of civilians near Hamza Mosque in Jabalia al-Nazla.
The continued excessive intensity of Israeli attacks, combined with the limited capacity and accessibility of the few functioning hospitals and the absence of basic civil defence capabilities and field coverage, makes accurate documentation of casualties impossible. The actual death toll is almost certainly far higher than what has been announced or recorded to date.
These practices are inflicting catastrophic and irreversible consequences on hundreds of thousands of civilians already enduring starvation and displacement. They are subjected to daily bombing and killings as their city is erased block by block before their eyes, while the international community remains inactive and silent in the face of one of the most heinous crimes of genocide in modern history.
Israel’s continued assault and expansion of operations to fully occupy Gaza City risks unleashing an unprecedented massacre against civilians, obliterating what remains of the already collapsing and inadequate humanitarian response.
This escalation, already underway, constitutes a new chapter in the Israeli genocide, carried out openly in full view of the international community, which continues to provide political, financial, and military cover to its perpetrators. These massacres are not fleeting or isolated incidents but the calculated outcome of an official and publicly declared Israeli policy. The international community bears responsibility for enabling them and their consequences through silence and inaction, which in many cases amounts to direct complicity.
All states, individually and collectively, must fulfil their legal obligations and act urgently to stop this genocide in Gaza, taking every feasible measure to protect Palestinian civilians there. They must enforce Israel’s adherence to international law and the rulings of the International Court of Justice and hold Israel accountable for its crimes against Palestinians.
This includes, without waiver, enforcing the arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court for the Israeli Prime Minister and former Minister of Defence at the earliest opportunity and surrendering them to international justice, upholding the principle that no one is immune from prosecution for international crimes.
The international community must also impose economic, diplomatic, and military sanctions on Israel in response to its systematic and grave violations of international law. This includes banning weapons exports to Israel and halting arms purchases from it; suspending all forms of political, financial, and military support and cooperation; freezing the assets of officials involved in crimes against Palestinians or inciting such acts; and imposing travel bans on them. Moreover, trade privileges and bilateral agreements that grant Israel economic advantages, enabling it to commit crimes, must be suspended.
The international community must urgently fulfil its legal and moral obligations by addressing the root causes of the Palestinian people’s suffering and oppression, ongoing for 77 years. It must ensure their right to live in freedom, dignity, and self-determination in line with international law, end the apartheid regime imposed by the Israeli settler-colonial enterprise, ensure the full withdrawal of Israeli forces to 1967 borders, lift the illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip, hold Israeli perpetrators accountable, and guarantee Palestinian victims their right to compensation and redress.