The widespread, systematic bombardment and destruction of housing and civilian infrastructure in Gaza amounts to a war crime and crime against humanity, an independent United Nations expert said Wednesday.
A month of Israeli attacks on targets within the Gaza Strip have destroyed or damaged 45% of all housing units in the Palestinian territory, Balakrishnan Rajagopal said, warning the destruction comes at a "tremendous cost to human life."
The U.N. special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing stressed that systematic or widespread bombardment of housing, civilian objects and infrastructure are strictly prohibited under international law.
"Carrying out hostilities with the knowledge that they will systematically destroy and damage civilian housing and infrastructure, rendering an entire city – such as Gaza City – uninhabitable for civilians is a war crime," he said.
When such acts are "directed against a civilian population, they also amount to crimes against humanity," he said.
Israel launched its massive bombardment campaign in the Gaza Strip in response to the Oct. 7 Hamas incursion. Over 10,500 Palestinians, most of them women and children, have been killed since.
Nearly 2,500 others, more than half of them children, have been reported missing and are most likely trapped under the rubble.
Rajagopal, an independent expert appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council but who does not speak on behalf of the United Nations, had previously coined the term "domicide" to refer to the systematic and widespread attacks on civilian housing and infrastructure that cause death and suffering.
Domicide, he said, "is now being committed in Gaza".
Around 1.5 million people have been displaced in Gaza amid the destruction and Israeli calls to evacuate the entire north of the territory, according to U.N. figures.
Rajagopal said the Israeli evacuation order, issued despite a lack of adequate shelter and aid for those fleeing and while cutting off water, food, fuel and medicine and repeatedly attacking evacuation routes and "safe zones," was "a cruel and blatant violation of international humanitarian law."
