Israel has demolished more than 1,500 buildings in Gaza since the 10 October ceasefire began and carried out new airstrikes on Wednesday, raising urgent questions about whether the months-long truce still meaningfully exists or has effectively collapsed in all but name.
A new BBC Verify investigation found that Israel has levelled significant portions of territory behind the so-called “yellow line” — areas Israel was explicitly required to vacate under the US-, Egypt-, Qatar-, and Turkey-brokered ceasefire agreement. Using radar-based satellite imagery from multiple commercial providers, analysts identified widespread and systematic destruction across eastern Khan Younis, al-Bayuk near Rafah, Shejaiya in Gaza City, and neighbourhoods surrounding the Indonesian Hospital in Jabalia.
BBC investigators noted that the actual number of destroyed structures may be far higher, as satellite passes have been irregular due to weather, sensor limitations, and obstruction from smoke and dust.
Humanitarian agencies and legal observers say the findings reveal a pattern: Israel is not only failing to withdraw from the demarcated zone but appears to be entrenching its military presence while reshaping large portions of Gaza’s built environment.
Demolitions of Previously Undamaged Neighbourhoods
Satellite comparisons conducted by the BBC show that many of the flattened buildings were previously undamaged, with earlier images revealing intact rooftops, gardens, orchards, courtyards and irrigation lines. In several neighbourhoods, entire residential clusters that had survived months of bombardment were destroyed only after the ceasefire began.
In Abasan al-Kabira, former resident Lana Khalil, now displaced for the fourth time, described watching her community vanish in real time:
“Our home was a heaven — farms, vegetables, everything. The Israeli military left nothing. We heard the demolitions from our tents in al-Mawasi. Our hearts are broken.”
Her experience reflects a broader pattern of forced displacement that Palestinians describe as ceaseless, even under a ceasefire in name. Many of the newly demolished areas were once farmland or self-sufficient homesteads, where families attempted to resume fragments of normal life during the lull in fighting.
BBC analysts also verified videos showing controlled demolitions, ground charges placed inside residential buildings, and excavators systematically tearing down structures — all in areas Israel still controls behind the yellow line.
Drone footage from November shows Israeli engineering units carving wide corridors through neighbourhoods, widening roads, and levelling clusters of homes in a pattern that conflict-mapping experts say mirrors Israel’s long-documented “buffer zone” strategy used in previous Gaza operations and in parts of the West Bank.
IDF Says Demolitions Comply With Ceasefire — Experts Strongly Disagree
The Israeli military maintains that all demolitions are “tactical” and permitted under the ceasefire clause requiring the dismantling of “terror infrastructure,” including tunnels, weapons caches, and command centres.
But independent analysts and legal scholars say this claim cannot be reconciled with the scale or locations of the destruction.
Dr H.A. Hellyer, Senior Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), said:
“This is definitely a violation of the ceasefire — even if Washington refuses to acknowledge it. The agreement required withdrawal from these areas, not their eradication.”
International law specialists say the demolitions likely violate the Fourth Geneva Convention. Professor Adil Haque, an expert in the law of armed conflict, noted:
“An occupying power cannot destroy civilian property unless it is absolutely necessary for military operations. That necessity is implausible during a declared ceasefire.”
He added that destroying undamaged homes, orchards, and apartment blocks suggests “punitive or strategic motivations, not immediate military need.”
Hugh Lovatt of the European Council on Foreign Relations warned that Israel’s continued presence behind the yellow line threatens to unravel the entire diplomatic initiative:
“The longer Israel remains behind the yellow line, the greater the threat to the ceasefire. It gives every impression of stalling for time while altering the facts on the ground.”
New Airstrikes Hit Gaza on Wednesday
Despite the ceasefire’s commitment to halt all offensive operations, at least three new Israeli airstrikes struck Gaza on Wednesday in Beit Lahia, eastern Jabalia, and near Bureij camp in central Gaza.
Local medical teams reported multiple casualties and ongoing recovery efforts. Videos posted online captured smoke rising over crowded displacement zones, with residents running through rubble-littered streets carrying wounded children.
One resident of Jabalia described the blasts as:
“As if the war had never stopped, not even for one day.”
Israel said it launched the strikes in response to “immediate threats,” a justification critics say mirrors language used to prolong operations during earlier ceasefires in 2009, 2014, and 2021 — ceasefires that continued to see sporadic strikes long after terms were agreed.
Analysts note that the timing is politically fraught: international monitors have been pressuring Israel to accelerate withdrawal, and any renewed violence risks providing cover for continued delays.
Ceasefire in Name Only
With ongoing demolitions, fresh airstrikes, and severe humanitarian restrictions still intact — including limits on fuel, aid convoys, and the movement of displaced civilians — experts say the ceasefire now exists “only on paper.”
More than half a million Palestinians remain displaced in makeshift camps along Gaza’s coast. Many had hoped the October ceasefire would mark the beginning of a slow return home, but the new satellite imagery confirms that thousands of those homes no longer exist.
Aid agencies warn that repeated Israeli incursions and demolitions behind the yellow line risk creating a permanent depopulated buffer zone, similar to the “sterile zones” established in parts of the occupied West Bank.
Diplomats privately fear that Israel’s actions signal an intention to redraw territorial boundaries in Gaza under the guise of anti-tunnel operations — a strategy that, if left unchallenged, could make the ceasefire’s political framework unworkable.
For now, the agreement remains in force on paper. But on the ground — in the flattened neighbourhoods of Khan Younis, the ruins of eastern Jabalia, and the smoking craters appearing even this week — many Gazans say the reality feels unmistakable.
The ceasefire, they say, never truly began.
