Israel's Genocide in Gaza: A Crime of Urbicide?

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srael’s decades-long policy of violence and genocide in Palestine continues to escalate before the eyes of the world. Through its attacks in 2008, 2012, 2014, and 2021, Israel sought to remove the Palestinians from Gaza. With its 2023 attack, Israel has escalated its efforts to achieve this goal. Through its phased occupation strategy, Israel has become a war machine, attacking the values that humanity has built.

It has engaged in inhumane practices, such as dividing Gaza into pieces, indiscriminately massacring its people, including children, the elderly, and women, forcing them to move, destroying their living spaces, condemning them to hunger and thirst, and cutting off their communication with the world.

Massive destruction in Gaza

Since October 7, 2023, when the latest occupation and attempted genocide began, it has been reported that 67,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, including more than 20,000 children, in addition to 15,000 who are still under the rubble of their homes. Additionally, 169,000 people have been wounded. However, it must be stated that the actual numbers are likely much higher.
This is because many people are under the rubble or missing, which makes it impossible to accurately determine and record the number of people trapped under the rubble.

Just a few days ago, Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine, drew attention to this issue, stating that “we should start thinking about the figure of 680,000” as the actual death toll in Gaza. While the international community grapples with the horror of these figures, attacks aimed at destroying living spaces continue.

According to studies conducted by international organizations, nearly 200,000 buildings, as well as around 40 hospitals and health facilities, have been destroyed or damaged. Additionally, approximately 90 percent of Gaza’s population has been displaced; 77 percent of the road network; more than 50 percent of cultivated land; and waste systems have been seriously damaged. Public health problems have also arisen due to infrastructure debris, air, and water pollution.

Urbicide

In its satellite assessments, UNESCO has identified at least 110 damaged cultural assets, including 13 places of worship, 77 historical and artistic structures, three movable cultural property storage facilities, nine monuments, one museum, and seven archaeological sites. According to World Bank data, rebuilding all this destruction would cost at least $53 billion.

This table clearly shows that, in addition to crimes against humanity in Gaza, Israel has committed the crime of urbicide. The term “urbicide,” which entered the literature of urban studies after the Bosnian War, refers to the deliberate destruction of urban spaces. The killing, genocide, displacement, obstruction of humanitarian access, physical destruction, urban destruction, and environmental devastation witnessed in Gaza are not ordinary war damages.

These attacks are aimed at destroying the Palestinian way of life, social spaces, and collective memory. These attacks are directed not only at military targets, but also at homes, schools, hospitals, and infrastructure facilities, such as water, electricity, and sewage systems. They are also directed at marketplaces, mosques, churches, and cultural spaces. Most dramatically, Israel is attacking refugee camps.

Academics, activists, and various media outlets such as Eyal Weizman, Stephen Graham, and Ahmad Z. Khalilia, and Nordine Latreche state that the humanitarian tragedy unfolding in Gaza constitutes urbicide, or the destruction of urban life. The systematic destruction of Palestinian cities, elimination of public spaces, and attacks aimed at destroying urban life and memory support the idea that this destruction is genocide. In this sense, Israel’s attack on Gaza goes beyond traditional war crimes.

Evidence of war crimes

Although urbicide is not a crime defined in international law, it is associated with war crimes and crimes against humanity. This is because Gaza is being completely destroyed and its inhabitants are being denied the right to live. Important evidence supporting claims of genocide is being produced by international actors through examples of urbicide.

The following statements from the Forensic Architecture report, A Spatial Analysis of the Israeli Military’s Conduct in Gaza Since October 2023 (2024), are noteworthy: Incidents include attacks on homes, shelters, hospitals, and other medical facilities; public institutions, such as universities, schools, and government buildings; culturally significant sites, such as cemeteries, archaeological sites, and mosques; agricultural infrastructure, such as fields, orchards, greenhouses, and water wells; and infrastructure for transporting, storing, and distributing aid.

Furthermore, Israel is creating “safe zones” and issuing evacuation orders, repeatedly displacing the Palestinian population in Gaza on a large scale. The scale and nature of the attacks, the extent of the damage, and the number of victims are being questioned, as is the organized structure of the violent acts and the low probability of them occurring randomly.