Tal as-Sultan was the site of the Rafah Playground project in 2005. It was during the original creation of the “Philadelphi Corridor” along the Egypt border in 2003 that whole neighborhoods were razed and Rachel Corrie was killed. Israel now wants to expand the Corridor by 800 meters, and is destroying more than that.

Jake Godin, Bellingcat, August 27, 2024

. . . Israel Defense Forces (IDF) invaded Rafah in May this year in order to establish control over the Gaza-Egypt border – an eight-mile-long strip of land referred to as the “Philadelphi Corridor”. . . Satellite imagery shows that the Israel Defense Forces demolished entire city blocks along this route, including the Brazil Refugee Camp and the Al Salam Neighborhood. . .  

. . . Recent imagery provided by Planet Labs PBC showed a large amount of destruction not only along the corridor but in neighbourhoods two kilometres from the border such as eastern [Tal as-Sultan]. . .

. . . Using OpenStreetMap building data, Bellingcat found that out of the roughly 670 buildings in an eastern neighbourhood of [Tal as-Sultan], only 224 remained standing. . .

. . . A video found on Instagram and shared by Younis Tirawi, a Palestinian open source researcher, showed IDF soldiers demolishing part of a water well facility in an area near the eastern part of [Tal as-Sultan]. While the large water tank appears to still be standing, the most recent satellite imagery shows the smaller buildings in the facility were destroyed in the demolition.

Before and after satellite imagery from Planet Labs shows the damage at the Canada Well located at 31.311417, 34.247442 in Rafah’s [Tal as-Sultan] neighbourhood after a video shared by an IDF soldier on Instagram showed part of the facility being destroyed in a planned demolition.

The IDF told Bellingcat the circumstances of the video and demolition were under review and that it “acts to address exceptional incidents that deviate from the orders and expected values of IDF soldiers.” . . .

. . . Nadia Hardman, the Refugee and Migrant Rights Researcher at Human Rights Watch told Bellingcat that the Israeli military should not be taking actions that render return impossible. 

“Most Gaza residents have fled – many multiple times – pursuant to Israeli orders, in search of safety. But there’s no safe place to go and no safe way to get there. International humanitarian law prohibits the forced displacement of civilians except temporarily when required for their security or imperative military reasons,” she told Bellingcat.

“We are seeing mounting evidence that the Israeli authorities may be committing the war crime of forced displacement by turning neighbourhoods into rubble and destroying or damaging the majority of homes and basic infrastructure in Gaza, making large parts of the Strip unliveable for years to come,” Hardman said.