( Middle East Monitor ) – As Palestinians continue to make their way back to the remnants of Gaza – a place that is now unrecognisable since Israel destroyed nearly 70% of all buildings in the small but densely populated area, it is deeply misleading to describe this situation as a return “home”. According to the UN, approximately 245,123 housing units were demolished in the region over the last 15 months, leaving over 1.8 million Palestinians in need of emergency shelter. This systematic destruction of residences, termed “domicide”, is a micro-reflection of the underlying policies used by modern-day authoritarian regimes and colonial powers, culminating in ethnic cleansing and geopolitical control.
US President Trump recently called on Jordan, Egypt, and other Arab nations to “clean out” the Gaza Strip by taking in up to 1.5 million displaced Palestinians either “temporarily or long term”. Aside from the intentionally ambiguous timeline, he calls the area “a real mess”, suggesting that there are no solutions for the reconstruction of Gaza and that mass displacement is the only available option left for the Palestinians of Gaza.
This seemingly casual remark is indicative of an intent to permanently alter the demographics of Gaza while absolving Israel of its responsibility as an occupying power under international law not to carry out ethnic cleansing. Furthermore, it exhibits a mindset completely uninterested in assisting with Gaza’s reconstruction, a process that would be costly and lengthy but certainly not impossible, evidenced by both Beirut’s partial reconstruction after their civil war in 1990 and Iraq’s start at rebuilding post-2003.
Two major trends have emerged in the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict that can be demonstrated by taking a closer look at domicide. Each is rooted in settler-colonial ideologies that use logic to dehumanise the “other”, prioritising economic and geopolitical interests above humanity and life itself.
The first is Israel’s manipulation of the legal and moral frameworks of modern bureaucratic structures and policies to achieve its own goals of vilifying Palestinians. International humanitarian law states that civilian objects, including residences, are protected spaces in war, yet Israel has continuously rationalised and justified tactics such as domicide on the international stage as necessary to further its agenda in Gaza. Policies including unlawful property expropriation, land redistribution and unreasonable housing demolitions are all tools used historically by colonial powers to displace and disempower indigenous populations. Israel has utilised such policies to remove Palestinians from their homes and replace them with an ethnically homogenous Israeli society. Zoning and planning laws prevent Palestinians from building homes in East Jerusalem due to the denial of permits while Israelis can freely claim Palestinian residential properties under the Legal and Administrative Matters Law.
While displacement is one policy tactic of domicide employed by Israel, residential destruction is another. Israel frequently targets residential areas under the guise of attacking “Hamas infrastructure”, leading to the destruction of entire civilian communities. The occupying power frequently conducts punitive housing demolitions as a form of collective punishment and deterrent for those who have been suspected of attacking Israeli occupation forces, a policy which has no proof of efficacy. Pursuing policies without evidence-based support is both ethically questionable and strategically flawed, leading to an erosion of civil liberties and principles of accountability. Perhaps the most obvious subjugation of modern bureaucratic structures is Israel’s denial of the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) authority and jurisdiction, reaching a pivotal moment when the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister and then-defence minister for their war crimes in Gaza.
The second major trend is the rapid innovation in technology, which has shifted the nature of warfare to enable further levels of domicide. Advanced military capabilities such as precision-guided missiles, drone warfare and AI-driven targeting systems have increased the scale and efficiency of destruction in Palestine. Already, Israel has dropped over 85,000 tonnes of bombs on Gaza. The gamification of warfare through the use of remote-controlled drones to conduct air strikes on residential areas shows the extent of the dehumanisation of Palestinians as subjects that must be exterminated.
“Gaza Domicide,” Digital, ChatGPT, 2024
Social media has also acted as a double-edged sword in the war. While it has amplified the visibility of the conflict through Palestinian content creators’ livestreams of on-the-ground realities, its algorithms consistently skew information by censoring and suppressing Palestinian content. As Palestinians attempt to reassert their humanity by showcasing their daily lives and moments with families inside their homes, they are simultaneously diminished and reduced to data by the very technology they are utilising to share these experiences. The observers of the streamed violence are also stripped of their moral agency, as individuals who share such content on their social media are blocked or their posts removed without their consent. More accessible forms of AI, such as ChatGPT, have also been shown to give a biased view of the events happening in Gaza, displaying how the same innovations that foster global awareness are still rooted in dominant Western colonial frameworks.
While the Israel-Hamas ceasefire has allowed some Palestinians to return to Gaza, there is little that awaits them after their homes have been destroyed. Modern bureaucratic structures have failed the Palestinians in upholding the fundamental human rights of dignity and peace in their homes, while technology enables domicide to continue to be livestreamed not only in Gaza, but now in the occupied West Bank.
Gaza should serve as the beacon to challenge and rethink aspects of modern governance and technology, which on the one hand have created an ethical vacuum that rationalises destructive actions, and on the other, is unable to prevent such atrocities. If Gaza is to rebuild itself, it must be given the space to conceptualise a governance structure that is uniquely suited to its context – locally led, decentralised and rooted in the aspirations and morals of the Palestinians, without pressure to conform to unethical external frameworks that have failed them time and time again.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor or Informed Comment.
Jibran Syed is an independent policy researcher studying political science and the dynamics of humanitarian aid in the Middle East.
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