section_path: Scale of destruction
section_name: Scale of destruction
paragraph_text: Scale of destruction
  
  The scale and pace of destruction and damage of buildings in the Gaza Strip ranks among the most severe in modern history, surpassing the bombing of Dresden, Hamburg, and London combined during World War II, and included apartment buildings, hospitals, schools, religious sites, factories, shopping centres, and municipal infrastructure. As of January 2024, researchers at Oregon State University and the City University of New York estimated that 50–62% of buildings in the Gaza Strip had been damaged or destroyed. The damage to buildings in northern Gaza reportedly exceeds that in Bakhmut and Mariupol in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Aleppo in the Battle of Aleppo, and Mosul and Raqqa in the War against the Islamic State. The 29,000 munitions Israel had dropped on Gaza in three months exceeded the amount (3,678) dropped by the US between 2004 and 2010 after its invasion of Iraq. According to satellite analyses, 68% of roads, 70% of greenhouses, and nearly 70% of tree crops have been damaged or destroyed. After a year, the UN estimates that a total of 42m tonnes of rubble clutter the Strip, to clear and rebuild which might take 80 years and cost over $80bn.
  
  The Guardian reported that the scale of destruction has led international legal experts to raise the concept of domicide, which it describes as "the mass destruction of dwellings to make territory uninhabitable". The term urbicide has also been used to refer to the destruction of Gazan cities and their institutions. In October 2024, after monitoring and analyzing Israel's war conduct in Gaza for more than a year, Forensic Architecture published a cartographic map platform detailing Israel's campaign in Gaza titled "A Cartography of Genocide", accompanied by an 827-page text report that concludes that "Israel's military campaign in Gaza is organised, systematic, and intended to destroy conditions of life and life-sustaining infrastructure".