Razing Rafah

Book excerpt: This report show, most of the destruction in Rafah occurred along the Israel-controlled border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. During regular nighttime raids and with little or no warning, Israel forces used armored caterpillar D9 bulldozers to raze blocks of homes at the edge of the camp, incrementally expanding a "buffer zone" that is currently up to three hundred meters wide. The pattern of destruction strongly suggests that Israeli forces demolished homes wholesale, regardless of whether they posed a specific threat, in violation of international law. In most cases Human Rights Watch found the destruction carried out in the absence of military necessity.