This is what the disaster looks like - they were completely razed to the ground PHOTO/VIDEO

Several human rights lawyers spoken to by BBC Verify suggested the campaign could amount to war crimes.

Ethan Diamond, a senior legal expert at the Diakonia Center for International Humanitarian Law in Jerusalem, said there was very little justification for this under the Fourth Geneva Convention, the document that generally covers the protection of civilians in wartime.

"International humanitarian law prohibits such controlled destruction of civilian property during armed conflict, except under the narrow conditions of absolute military operational necessity," Diamond said.

"Destruction of property due to concern or speculation about its future use (for example, that it will be used to launch an attack in the future) falls well outside this exception."

Professor Janina Dill, co-director of the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict, said the occupying power must govern the region for the benefit of the population, which she says is "incompatible with a military approach that simply renders the territory uninhabitable and leaves nothing standing".

But some analysts tried to defend the IDF campaign.

"Many of the buildings demolished by the IDF have already been left in ruins by shelling and airstrikes," said Professor Eitan Shamir, director of the BESA Center for Strategic Studies in Israel and a former official at the Ministry of Strategic Affairs.

He told BBC Verify that this posed a security risk to civilians who would return, especially "during the winter rains when they are more likely to collapse".

Professor Shamir also alluded to tactical issues.

"That area is a battle zone," he said.

"Even when the IDF enters the building and clears it, once the Israelis leave, the terrorists often come back to plant bombs or hide in it to shoot at them."

There are no signs of letting up the pace of demolition. Israeli media reported last week that the IDF had received dozens of D9 bulldozers from America, suspended under the Biden administration.

BBC Verify has identified dozens of ads posted in Israeli Facebook groups offering jobs in Gaza for demolition contractors. Most of these posts have been shared since May.

Many ads specifically name the areas of Gaza where work will be done, such as the "Philadelphia Corridor" and the "Morag Axis" - both areas under IDF control.

When BBC Verify asked for a comment, one contractor replied: "Go to hell, both you and Gaza".

Analyst Adil Haq of Rutgers Law School suggested that the goal of the IDF's overthrow could be a desire to create a "security zone" that they could "permanently control."

Other analysts say the demolitions could clear the ground for the construction of a proposed "humanitarian city" in Rafah.

The president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, Efraim Inbar, suggested that they may want to encourage Palestinians to leave the Strip entirely by "increasing the strong desire to emigrate."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier told a group of lawmakers in a closed-door meeting that was widely reported in Israeli media that the IDF was "destroying more and more homes" leaving Palestinians "no place to return to." For the residents of Gaza, the destruction was a harrowing experience.

Homes completely destroyed

Moataz Youssef Ahmed Al-Absi from Tel al-Sultan said his home was wiped out.

"I had just moved into my own home a year before the war started and I was extremely happy with it, with great hope for the future. Now it is completely destroyed," he said.

"After I lost everything, I no longer have a home or a roof over my head."

Before and after

Check out videos and photos below that show Gaza before and Gaza today.