JERUSALEM

The Israeli army has carried out unjustified looting and demolition of homes in Gaza, said a prominent Israeli analyst on Friday. 

Yedioth Ahronoth's chief analyst, Nahum Barnea, reviewed an example of the Israeli army's practices in the Gaza Strip, which he said cause enormous harm to Israel and are being used against it before the International Court of Justice.

“An order was issued to demolish one house in a neighborhood in the northern Gaza Strip. A senior commander ordered the destruction of all the houses not because he had to, but because he could issue the demolition order,” Barnea wrote in his article.

“The decision to bomb the Legislative Council building in Gaza did not please the Israeli army staff,” he said, adding that “it was issued by a field commander, and had no practical justification.”

Barnea pointed out that Israeli Army Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi acknowledged that looting had occurred.

"The Chief of Staff makes sure, in every visit to the field, to remind the commanders and soldiers of what is not permissible, and he talks about looting, breaking discipline, and unnecessary writing on the walls,” Barnea said.

Barnea also pointed out that “Israeli soldiers made video clips” that document Israeli atrocities and could be evidence condemning Tel Aviv’s practices.

“An investigator in Unit 504 took a picture standing over a naked detainee,” Barnea said.

“An officer was filmed shouting ‘Listen to Israel’ (an Israeli prayer) while blowing up a mosque,” he added.

Barnea warned that the harm being caused to Israel is enormous, pointing to the use of some of these videos in the lawsuit filed by South Africa against Israel in the International Court of Justice.

The analyst stressed that “Israel is waging its war from a storefront, in front of a suspicious, hostile and exposed world as never before.”

“What begins with the looting of abandoned properties leads to the theft of enemy military equipment and then to the theft of military equipment for our forces,” Barnea said.

Since a cross-border incursion by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people, the Israeli offensive into Gaza has killed more than 28,775 people and caused mass destruction and shortages of necessities.

The Israeli war on Gaza has pushed 85% of the territory's population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, which in an interim ruling this January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

Despite international outcry, Israel plans a ground invasion of Rafah, which holds about 1.4 million refugees. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says, "We will fight until complete victory and this includes a powerful action in Rafah."

*Writing by Ikram Kouachi