'Nowhere and no one is safe': spatial analysis of damage to critical civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip during the first phase of the Israeli military campaign, 7 October to 22 November 2023

• Published in: Conflict and health 2024-04, Vol.18 (1), p.24-24, Article 24
• Main Authors: Asi, Yara, Mills, David, Greenough, P Gregg, Kunichoff, Dennis, Khan, Saira, Hoek, Jamon Van Den, Scher, Corey, Halabi, Saleem, Abdulrahim, Sawsan, Bahour, Nadine, Ahmed, A Kayum, Wispelwey, Bram, Hammoudeh, Weeam
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Artificial satellites in remote sensing; Built environment; Civilians; Clustering; Damage detection; Digital mapping; Earthquakes; Education; Evacuation of civilians; Gaza Strip; Health; Health facilities; Human rights; Humanitarianism; Infrastructure; Infrastructure (Economics); International law; Israel; Israel-Arab conflicts; Israel-Hamas war; Land settlement; Military; Military aspects; Military maneuvers; Palestinian people; Radar imaging; Spatial analysis; Statistical analysis; Statistical inference; Synthetic aperture radar; Truces & cease fires; Urban environments; Violence; War crimes; Water; Water damage; Water supply systems
• ISSN: 1752-1505; 1752-1505
• DOI: 10.1186/s13031-024-00580-x

Since the Hamas attacks in Israel on 7 October 2023, the Israeli military has launched an assault in the Gaza Strip, which included over 12,000 targets struck and over 25,000 tons of incendiary munitions used by 2 November 2023. The objectives of this study include: (1) the descriptive and inferential spatial analysis of damage to critical civilian infrastructure (health, education, and water facilities) across the Gaza Strip during the first phase of the military campaign, defined as 7 October to 22 November 2023 and (2) the analysis of damage clustering around critical civilian infrastructure to explore broader questions about Israel's adherence to International Humanitarian Law (IHL). We applied multi-temporal coherent change detection on Copernicus Sentinel 1-A Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery to detect signals indicative of damage to the built environment through 22 November 2023. Specific locations of health, education, and water facilities were delineated using open-source building footprint and cross-checked with geocoded data from OCHA, OpenStreetMap, and Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team. We then assessed the retrieval of damage at and with close proximity to sites of health, education, and water infrastructure in addition to designated evacuation corridors and civilian protection zones. The Global Moran's I autocorrelation inference statistic was used to determine whether health, education, and water facility infrastructure damage was spatially random or clustered. During the period under investigation, in the entire Gaza Strip, 60.8% (n = 59) of health, 68.2% (n = 324) of education, and 42.1% (n = 64) of water facilities sustained infrastructure damage. Furthermore, 35.1% (n = 34) of health, 40.2% (n = 191) of education, and 36.8% (n = 56) of water facilities were functionally destroyed. Applying the Global Moran's I spatial inference statistic to facilities demonstrated a high degree of damage clustering for all three types of critical civilian infrastructure, with Z-scores indicating