Rewarding War Crimes: How Israel Pays for the Destruction of Gaza

Discover how Israel's military is allegedly incentivizing the destruction of Gaza's civilian infrastructure with cash payments. This shocking Haaretz report reveals a "dirty economy of demolition" and raises urgent questions about war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and global complicity.

NEWS

Refaat Ibrahim

7/13/20253 min read

Rewarding War Crimes: How Israel Pays for the Destruction of Gaza
Rewarding War Crimes: How Israel Pays for the Destruction of Gaza

In a deeply troubling moral and legal revelation, the Haaretz newspaper has exposed shocking details about Israel’s military-backed, incentive-driven destruction of civilian infrastructure in Gaza.

According to the report, the Israeli army offers direct financial rewards to bulldozer and excavator operators for every building they demolish, turning the act of destruction into a profit-driven enterprise. This systematic practice forces the international community to confront an urgent ethical crisis and reevaluate the consequences of silence in the face of such actions.

A Dirty Economy of Demolition: Payment Per Rubble


According to Haaretz, the Israeli military is offering 2,500 shekels (approx. $750) to bulldozer operators for demolishing buildings up to three stories and 5,000 shekels for taller structures. This is not merely compensation for labor; it’s a performance-based incentive model that rewards the level of destruction achieved. Essentially, the more homes razed, the more money earned.

These inflated wages far exceed what operators would earn for similar work inside Israel, indicating an additional “bonus” for the risk, or rather, a cash incentive for contributing to mass destruction. This model undermines Israeli claims that the demolitions are military necessities and instead reveals a profit-oriented campaign of devastation.


Ideology on the Controls: Settlers Leading the Bulldozers

Haaretz reveals that many of those operating these bulldozers are Israeli settlers, known for holding radical ideological stances toward Palestinians. For them, destruction isn’t just a task; it’s a mission. Meanwhile, Palestinian citizens of Israel, who make up a significant portion of Israel’s heavy machinery sector, are conspicuously absent from these operations.

This discrepancy signals something darker: a deliberate selection of personnel based on ideology. When demolition is assigned to individuals who already believe in removing Palestinians from the land, the operation becomes not just tactical, but ethnic. The bulldozer, in this context, becomes an ideological weapon, not just a machine of war.


Testimonies from the Ground: Demolition as Collective Punishment

Firsthand accounts from military contractors and reservists, as reported by Haaretz, highlight the disturbing psychology behind the scenes. Many operators view their mission with a sense of vengeance, driving through the ruins of Gaza not with reluctance, but with purpose. These aren't accidental casualties of conflict. This is deliberate, large-scale collective punishment.


Perhaps the most alarming insight from Haaretz is the conclusion that the destruction of homes and infrastructure is not collateral damage but the objective itself. If so, this constitutes a serious breach of international humanitarian law, especially when civilian buildings, schools, hospitals, and religious sites are targeted without an immediate military need.

This pattern violates multiple tenets of the Geneva Conventions and could fall under war crimes as defined by international law.


Rendering Gaza Uninhabitable: Ethnic Cleansing by Bulldozer?

The report points to a chilling possibility: that the widespread destruction is meant to make Gaza permanently uninhabitable. This suggests a long-term strategy, not just to destroy, but to ensure Palestinians cannot return to their neighborhoods, effectively laying the groundwork for forced displacement or population transfer.


When homes, hospitals, mosques, and schools are flattened indiscriminately, and when no safe place remains, the goal is no longer military; it’s demographic engineering. Turning Gaza into a wasteland serves a clear political function: preventing any future Palestinian claim to the land by erasing both infrastructure and memory.

A Global Ethical Crisis: Silence Is Complicity


What Haaretz has revealed is not just an internal scandal; it’s a direct challenge to the global conscience. When bulldozers become tools of ethnic erasure and operators are financially incentivized to destroy civilian life, the issue transcends national boundaries and enters the realm of crimes against humanity.

Rewarding war crimes with cash is more than a tactic; it is a message. It says destruction pays. It says vengeance is a job. And it says that humanity can be bulldozed, so long as the price is right.


Every dollar paid to demolish a Gaza home is not just money; it’s an indictment. It implicates the army, the state, and every institution that turns a blind eye. It raises the question: Who funds this destruction? Who remains silent? And who dares to claim this isn’t their responsibility?

No Reconstruction Without Justice


Discussions of “rebuilding Gaza” are meaningless if the root cause, the deliberate destruction and incentivized war crimes, continues unaddressed. Reconstruction must begin with accountability, not just cement and steel.

It’s not enough to stop the bombs. The world must also stop the systems that reward violence and demand justice for the tens of thousands of civilians whose homes were turned into targets, whose cities were erased, and whose future has been bulldozed.


This isn’t a fog-of-war accident. This is a documented pattern, a strategic choice, and a moral catastrophe.

Because when war crimes are rewarded, they are repeated.