'War Crimes of Wanton Destruction': Amnesty Condemns Israeli Attacks on Gaza High-Rise Buildings

Amnesty International released a report Tuesday detailing the Israeli military's leveling of more than a dozen high-rise residential and commercial buildings in the Gaza Strip late last year, attacks that the leading human rights organization said must be investigated as "war crimes of wanton destruction and collective punishment."

The new report cites "celebratory and gleeful" comments from Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz as evidence that there was no plausible military objective for Israel's destruction of at least 13 multistory residential and commercial buildings in Gaza City between September and October 2025. In one mid-September social media post, Katz boasted that Israeli bombs sent one Gaza university "soaring to the heavens."

Amnesty, which has called Israel's assault on Gaza a genocide, notes that the Fourth Geneva Convention bars occupying powers from engaging in collective punishment and property destruction "except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations."

“In the month preceding the so-called ceasefire in October 2025, Israel expanded and escalated its relentless assault on Gaza City, causing one of the worst waves of mass displacement during the genocide," said Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnesty's senior director for research, advocacy, policy, and campaigns. "A key pattern of this assault was the deliberate destruction, through aerial bombardment, of multi-story civilian buildings, leveling the homes of thousands of civilians, and destroying makeshift camps in their vicinity."

"All the available evidence indicates that Israel’s destruction of these 13 high-rise buildings was not ‘rendered absolutely necessary by military operations’ and as such must be investigated as war crimes," she added.

""Our children are sick from the rain and cold. It is especially difficult to raise a baby in such disastrous conditions. We lack everything."

Amnesty said that satellite imagery, interviews with residents displaced by Israel's large-scale destruction of Gaza buildings, and verified video footage revealed "a chilling pattern of deliberate destruction of the civilian structures by Israeli forces without requisite military necessity." A 32-year-old IT engineer told the group that his family, including three children, is now living in a tent in southern Gaza after Israel bombed the 10-story Al-Najm building in Gaza City.

"Our children are sick from the rain and cold," the man said. "It is especially difficult to raise a baby in such disastrous conditions. We lack everything. My other children, a six-year-old girl and a seven-year-old boy, are traumatized; we had to run away from home and they saw it bombed into rubble in front of their eyes. They don’t understand and I can’t explain it to them."

The United Nations has estimated that Israeli attacks have damaged or destroyed more than 80% of structures in the Gaza Strip since October 2023, when Israel's assault began in response to a deadly Hamas-led attack.

“The widespread destruction of life-sustaining infrastructure, including homes, either through bombardment or demolitions with explosives, combined with Israel’s ongoing restrictions on the entry of shelter material into Gaza and the prohibition on the return to the areas east of the yellow line, have inflicted catastrophic suffering on Gaza’s population," said Guevara Rosas. "Israel must allow immediate, unfettered access to indispensable aid and goods, including shelter material."

"Israeli officials who ordered unlawful destruction, collective punishment, or acts of genocide must be held accountable," she added.