[News] Destruction of al-Rimal Neighborhood in Gaza City, an Attack on the Economic Existence of a National Group

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Destruction of al-Rimal Neighborhood in Gaza City, an Attack on the 
Economic Existence of a National Group
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*Destruction of al-Rimal Neighborhood in Gaza City, an Attack on **the 
Economic Existence of a National Group *

Date: 19 October 2023
Throughout a night of intense bombing into the early morning hours of 10 
October, targeted Israeli airstrikes extensively leveled 
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al-Rimal neighbourhood, considered ‘the beating heart’ of Gaza City. The 
attack on al-Rimal is part of the latest full-scale Israeli military 
offensive against the population in the Gaza Strip, the most intense and 
violent in living memory. The specific targeting and destruction 
inflicted on al-Rimal neighbourhood is intended to cause physical, 
psychological and economic distress as a form of collective punishment 
on the people of Gaza. This constitutes a war crime, and may give rise 
to evidence meeting the threshold for the crime of genocide.

*/Al-Rimal’s Significance /*
Al-Rimal, an affluent neighbourhood in the heart of Gaza City, is of 
significant value to all Gaza’s residents. It stretches over an area of 
about five square kilometres and is home to about 70,000 residents. 
Besides being one of the most densely populated residential 
neighbourhoods in Gaza, al-Rimal was considered the ‘economic and 
administrative backbone of the Gaza Strip’, was home to commercial 
shops, residential towers, hotels, restaurants, banks, schools, 
universities, local and international media offices, telecommunications 
companies, healthcare facilities, as well as international and local 
organisations, including the headquarters of UNRWA. Al-Rimal has been 
massively levelled in Israel’s military reprisals and collective 
punishment of the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip.

*/Previous Israeli Targeting of al-Rimal/*
During Israel’s six previous full-scale military offensives against the 
Gaza Strip over the last 15 years, the people of Gaza, struggling to 
find pockets of safety from relentless bombardment, would look to urban 
centres such as al-Rimal to find refuge. This calculation changed in May 
2021, when Israel’s military eleven-day onslaught on Gaza directly 
targeted al-Rimal, killing 30 Palestinians in the neighbourhood alone 
and 240 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip overall.

The al-Shorouk Tower and the al-Jalaa building, landmarks which dotted 
the skyline of Gaza City and were used by both locals and visitors to 
orient themselves within the city, were demolished in the bombing 
campaign. The Associated Press, Al-Jazeera, medical offices, residential 
apartments and a radio station were all housed in the al-Jalaa building 
and reduced to rubble. The road leading to al-Shifa Hospital, a place 
which acted as a sanctuary for the sick and wounded amid the rubble of 
previous Israeli military offensives, was severely damaged and rendered 
unusable by ambulances trying to reach the hospital. The intense 
targeting of al-Rimal in May 2021 marked a turning point for the 
neighbourhood, which had been spared the worst in past offensives.

On 10 October 2023 the IOF extensively destroyed al-Rimal neighbourhood, 
turning many of its buildings into rubble.


*/Al-Rimal’s destruction is a form of collective punishment /*

This destruction is a physical, psychological and economic attack 
intended to collectively punish the Palestinian population in the Gaza 
Strip amidst an ongoing military offensive underpinned by statements 
inciting acts of genocide.

*/Physical /*
Since the start of the military offensive on 7 October, the 
neighbourhood has been directly targeted by Israeli bombings. On the 
first day of the offensive, Israeli warplanes bombed and completely 
destroyed the Palestine Tower, a 14-storey building compromising 78 
residential apartments and offices. On 9 October the Israeli Coordinator 
of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) called on residents 
of al-Rimal to evacuate their homes. Throughout a night of intense 
bombing into the early morning hours of 10 October, Israeli warplanes 
destroyed residential buildings, cafés, a mosque, notable institutions 
such as the Islamic University of Gaza 
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and the Ministry of Culture, and roads once lined with trees and street 
vendors. Drone footage 
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shows entire neighbourhood blocks reduced to rubble. UNRWA headquarters 
in al-Rimal also suffered damage due to the airstrikes.

International humanitarian law prohibits the targeting of and 
indiscriminate attacks against civilian objects during hostilities. As 
such, the physical destruction of al-Rimal and the killing of civilians 
there may amount to war crimes. The Rome Statute stipulates in Article 
8(2)(a)(iv) that the ‘extensive destruction and appropriation of 
property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully 
and wantonly,’ constitutes a war crime. Furthermore, Articles 
8(2)(b)(i)-(ii) state that war crimes include ‘intentionally directing 
attacks against the civilian population as such or against individual 
civilians not taking direct part in hostilities,’ and ‘intentionally 
directing attacks against civilian objects, that is, objects which are 
not military objectives’. Within six days, the IOF dropped more than 
6,000 bombs on the Gaza Strip. On 10 October 2023, after the destruction 
of al-Rimal, the Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari stated that 
‘[In Gaza], the emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy’. Levelling 
the entire neighbourhood of al-Rimal and destroying numerous residential 
blocks, cafés, ice cream parlours, a university, a mosque and 
institutions such as the Palestinian Telecommunications Company and the 
Palestinian Bar Association are undoubtedly evidence of a scorched earth 
policy.

*/Psychological /*
The decision to destroy al-Rimal was not only a physical attack on a 
significant centre of life in Gaza City but was also a collective 
psychological attack as well. Article 51(2) of Additional Protocol I to 
the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949 states that ‘the civilian population 
as such, as well as individual civilians, shall not be the object of 
attack. Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to 
spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited.’ As 
previously mentioned, al-Rimal was considered ‘the beating heart of 
Gaza’, home to hundreds of families and the centre of commercial and 
financial life, from local businesses to world-renowned media 
institutions and iconic landmarks that identified Gaza City. Customary 
international law requires that military operations be targeted and 
proportionate. Indiscriminate attacks and mass destruction in a densely 
populated neighbourhood cannot be considered proportionate. Instead, it 
is intended to enact collective punishment and instil fear in a 
population that is safe nowhere. This destruction is an additional step 
in a concerted effort to collectively break the psychological welfare of 
Palestinians under siege.

Shukri Al-Ahwal, a resident of al-Rimal, shared his testimony 
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with B’Tselem while standing on the rubble of his neighbourhood, stating 
that: ‘Even in nightmares, we have not seen anything like this. This was 
the safest place in Gaza. Everyone would come here. As you can see, 
unspeakable destruction. There are no military headquarters or outposts 
here. We are civilians. They tell us: “evacuate”, but where can we 
go? We are all displaced.’

*/Economic /*
Finally, the levelling of al-Rimal constitutes an economic attack that 
falls into the larger context of Israel’s efforts to de-develop the Gaza 
Strip through an ongoing 16-year air, sea and naval blockade. The 
decision to relentlessly bombard al-Rimal was a calculated one against 
the economic survival of Gaza’s residents. Al-Rimal was considered an 
upscale neighbourhood, home to middle-class families many of whom were 
financially successful due to businesses that survived despite the 
crippling economic blockade on Gaza. Through tightly controlling the 
movement of all people and the import and export of all goods in and out 
of the besieged enclave, Israel has enacted a policy of de-development. 
They have attempted to keep the residents of Gaza subjugated in a state 
of economic insecurity and at the complete mercy of Israel for access to 
food, fuel, electricity, medical equipment and basic construction materials.

For example, Israel has weaponised its control of the flow of food and 
water into the besieged enclave, employing a ‘calorie-counting’ 
technique, where it made precise calculations of the daily caloric need 
of every individual in Gaza to determine how much food to allow into the 
Strip, stunting the growth of Gaza’s economy and its people. The 
‘dual-use’ policy, which prohibits the importation of medical equipment, 
raw materials, chemicals and fertilizers into the Gaza Strip if the 
goods can conceivably be used for a ‘military purpose’, stunts the 
economic growth of Gaza to such a degree that lifting the policy would 
increase the GDP by about 40 percent. This means that after six 
successive full-scale Israeli military offensives against Gaza in the 
last 15 years, residents have been unable to fully rebuild all that was 
bombed because they lack access to basic materials such as cement.

Israel’s policy of economic de-development of the Gaza Strip 
‘deliberately inflicting on the group [the Palestinian people] 
conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in 
whole or in part’, may meet the threshold of genocide. In addition to 
the ‘calorie-counting’ technique and the ‘dual-use’ policy, al-Rimal’s 
destruction, as the commercial and financial centre of Gaza City, is 
significant. According to Raphael Lemkin, proponent of the Genocide 
Convention:

The destruction of foundations of economic existence of a national group 
necessarily brings about a crippling of its development, even a 
retrogression. The lowering of the standard of living creates 
difficulties in fulfilling cultural-spiritual requirements. Furthermore, 
a daily fight literally for bread and for physical survival may handicap 
thinking in both general and national terms.

The crime of genocide includes the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, 
racial or religious group in whole or in part, by ‘causing serious 
bodily or mental harm to members of the group’ and ‘deliberately 
inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its 
physical destruction in whole or in part’. The destruction of al-Rimal, 
the relentless bombardment of the Gaza Strip since the onset of the 
latest military offensive starting on 7 October 2023, the genocidal 
language employed, which stated an intention to ‘flatten’ Gaza and 
referred to its residents as ‘human animals’, taken together with the 
Israeli policy to prevent the economic growth of the Gaza Strip from its 
imposed crippling siege, may amount to the crime of genocide, should the 
special intent for the crime be met.

*/Conclusion/*
The destruction of al-Rimal will have an irreversible and lasting impact 
on the economic and social development of Palestinian society for years 
to come. And its destruction is a microcosm of the larger Israeli 
strategy of domination and subjugation, part of an attempt to de-develop 
the Gaza Strip, which constitutes, at a minimum, a war crime against the 
targeting of civilian property, and may, given the preceding statements 
of genocidal intent, be considered an act of genocide.

Al-Haq urges the international community to take immediate and effective 
measures to hold Israel accountable for the indiscriminate targeting of 
civilian homes and infrastructure, the killing of entire families and 
the strategic deprivation and subjugation of the people of Gaza. We also 
call upon the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to 
investigate Israeli crimes in accordance with the Rome Statute and hold 
accountable every individual who has incited, carried out or ordered the 
commission of such crimes.


Al-Rimal after October 10 devastation. Credit: Anadolu 
(https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/10/11/rimal-gaza-hamas-israeli-bombardment-palestinian/ 
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