Gaza Herald- The Israeli military is systematically leveling around 300 residential units per day in Gaza City and Jabalia, deploying nearly 15 remote-controlled robots packed with close to 100 tonnes of explosives.
This destruction, carried out at an unprecedented rate, is part of a broader strategy to empty Gaza City of its residents, escalating what rights groups have long described as an ongoing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip for nearly two years.
According to Euro-Med Monitor’s field team, Israel has intensified its use of armored, explosive-rigged robots to wipe out residential neighborhoods. Large parts of Jabalia al-Balad and Jabalia al-Nazla have already been flattened, while Israeli forces continue advancing into Gaza City from the south, east, and north, leaving behind near-total ruin.
Escalation Since End of Temporary Truce
Since the army declared last Friday the conclusion of what it referred to as a “daylight humanitarian ceasefire” in Gaza City, Euro-Med Monitor documented that the number of explosive-laden robots detonated doubled—from around seven to nearly 15 daily.
Each robot is typically loaded with several tonnes of explosives, sometimes up to seven, and driven into densely populated neighborhoods such as Jabalia al-Balad, Jabalia al-Nazla, Zeitoun, al-Sabra, al-Shuja’iyya, al-Tuffah, al-Saftawi, and Abu Iskandar. Once in position, the machines are detonated, erasing entire blocks in seconds.
At the current pace of devastation, Gaza City could be almost destroyed within two months—or sooner, given Israel’s overwhelming military power and the absence of international intervention to halt its crimes.
Scale of Devastation and Human Impact
Euro-Med Monitor estimates that each robot blast destroys around 20 housing units, leaving hundreds of thousands of civilians without homes or shelter. Entire families are being displaced yet again, forced into desperate conditions without food, water, or basic protection.
The robots are essentially modified Israeli military vehicles, often outdated M113 armored personnel carriers converted into mobile bombs. Some are detonated directly, while others unload crates of explosives at targeted sites before being reused in later operations. This reveals a systematic military plan to maximize destruction and sustain the campaign of annihilation.
Beyond physical demolition, these attacks are a calculated tool of psychological warfare. Most detonations occur late at night or at dawn, terrifying families and compelling them to flee. The blasts are so powerful that they shake buildings across Gaza City and are audible more than 40 kilometers away, underscoring their immense destructive capacity.
Legal Violations and Genocidal Intent
Israel’s use of such machines is a flagrant breach of international humanitarian law, as these weapons are indiscriminate by nature. Their wide blast radius inevitably strikes civilians and civilian infrastructure, violating the principles of distinction and proportionality, cornerstones of humanitarian law.
By employing explosive robots in civilian areas, Israel commits acts that qualify both as war crimes and crimes against humanity. The systematic nature of this destruction, which renders entire neighborhoods uninhabitable and deprives Palestinians of the means to survive, constitutes a direct method of genocide, as defined in the Genocide Convention, deliberately inflicting living conditions intended to destroy a population in whole or in part.
Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz underscored this intent on 22 August, declaring: “If they [Hamas] do not agree to Israel’s terms, Gaza will become Rafah and Beit Hanoun. Just as I promised – so it will be.” His words illustrate the state’s open endorsement of mass destruction and collective punishment.
Historical Precedent and Expanding Use
The army first employed explosive robots to destroy residential zones during its two assaults on Jabalia refugee camp in May and October 2024. Since then, their use has spread across multiple areas of the Strip, becoming a core feature of Israel’s war strategy.
These robot bombings are accompanied by other destructive tactics, including aerial strikes, artillery shelling, drone-dropped explosives, building demolitions with booby traps, and bulldozing of surviving structures. Combined, these methods aim to obliterate Gaza’s urban fabric and strip its residents of the possibility of return.
International Inaction and Urgent Demands
Despite the catastrophic toll, the international community has largely remained silent, enabling Israel to escalate openly without offering even a pretext of legal justification. Influential states, along with the UN Security Council’s paralysis, have emboldened Israel to continue these crimes unchecked.
Euro-Med Monitor and allied human rights groups call on the UN General Assembly to urgently act under Resolution 377 (V) “Uniting for Peace”, which allows the Assembly to recommend collective measures when the Security Council fails. This includes the deployment of an international peacekeeping force in Gaza, tasked with protecting civilians, ensuring humanitarian access, and preventing further systematic attacks.
All states are legally and morally obligated to act both individually and collectively to stop the genocide in Gaza. Measures must include:
Sanctions on Israel must be imposed at the economic, diplomatic, and military levels. This includes an arms embargo that bans weapons exports and halts arms purchases from Israel. Political, financial, and military cooperation should be suspended. Assets belonging to those complicit in crimes must be frozen, while travel bans should be enforced against them. Trade privileges and bilateral agreements that give Israel economic leverage to commit atrocities must also be suspended.
In addition, states are obligated to enforce the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants against Israeli leaders, including the Prime Minister and former Defense Minister, ensuring their prosecution for crimes against humanity and war crimes such as mass killings, persecution, and the deliberate use of starvation as a weapon of war.
Existential Threat to Gaza’s Population
More than one million Palestinians in Gaza City are now facing extermination-level threats from Israel’s campaign of destruction, starvation, and forced displacement. The ongoing use of explosive robots is not only flattening homes and infrastructure but also erasing Palestinians’ future in Gaza, undermining their right to remain on their land and to return to their homes.
Unless urgent international measures are taken, Gaza risks being completely wiped from the map, with its people subjected to one of the most severe cases of systematic destruction and mass suffering in modern history.
