Soldiers called the mass arson of Gaza City their “final touches.”
In the immediate aftermath of Donald Trump’s announcement on Thursday (October 09) that both Hamas and Israel had signed off on an agreement to stop the fighting, the Israeli military launched an arson spree, setting fire to civilian infrastructure, including the destruction of an essential sanitation plant in Gaza City. After publication, the Israel Defense Forces told Drop Site it “is aware of the incident and it is being reviewed.”
The destruction of Palestinian structures following the departure of soldiers who had used them as temporary bases has been a hallmark of Israel’s approach to Gaza for two years. In July, Israeli reporter Yuval Abraham collected testimonies from soldiers describing a myriad of arson methods. “Every Arab house we entered had olive oil […] We poured the oil on the sofas, on anything flammable in the apartment, and then we ignited [it] or threw in a smoke grenade. This was a common practice,” one of them described.
The agreement came after months of a concerted effort to render Gaza uninhabitable by destroying residences and civilian infrastructure, culminating in the ground invasion of Gaza City and the leveling of several high rises in Gaza City. In September, Israeli government minister Gila Gamliel told Channel 7 News, “We have already completely annihilated 75% of the entire [Gaza] Strip. There remains 25%, which, as you know, it too…we are now taking over [the city of] Gaza—there will be nothing left there that would really [have] the potential to be habitable.”
The scope of the arson perpetrated in Gaza City on the night of October 9th and early morning of October 10—Thursday night into Friday, just after the ceasefire was agreed to but before Israel’s cabinet approved it—was broader than at any other time Drop Site has tracked during the assault on the strip. Its perpetrators were not confined to a single unit, nor was the burning confined to a specific neighborhood.
Drop Site News identified members of the Israeli army originating from several different brigades, including the Golani, Givati, Nahal Brigades, and the newly formed ultra-orthodox Hashmonaim Brigade, who posted dozens of photos and videos of buildings engulfed in flames during their withdrawal from Gaza City to the “yellow line” defined in the Trump agreement, still deep within Gaza’s territory.
On Sunday, an Israeli soldier from the Kfir Brigade posted a photo showing himself standing in front of a set of burning wooden pallets. “On Friday, just before departure. Burning food so that it won’t reach the Gazans, may their names be erased,” the caption reads. The post also includes a song called “L’Chaim!” (Cheers!), whose music video uses footage from Gaza.
The images posted to social media stand in stark contrast to the message put out on Truth Social by Trump: “Israel will withdraw their Troops to an agreed-upon line as the first steps toward a Strong, Durable, and Everlasting Peace. All Parties will be treated fairly!” The burning of buildings taken over and used as command centers upon departure has been a consistent Israeli policy in Gaza, Lebanon, and the West Bank. The scope of the carnage on Thursday night, however, went beyond any previously recorded individual arson spree.
Among the structures Drop Site discovered that had been set on fire by the departing soldiers was the Sheik Ajlin Sewage Treatment Station, a central component of Gaza City’s sanitation network. Monther Shoblaq, Director General of the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility (CMWU) in Gaza, said the attack is a blow that could push Gaza City’s wastewater system “to point zero.” He added that the plant is “one of Gaza’s oldest” and warned that its destruction will set back planned reconstruction efforts by years. “I mean, they signed a ceasefire,” Shoblaq said. “Why set it on fire?”
The Torching of Gaza City’s Sewage Treatment Plant: “[One] last memory”
In social media posts, one soldier can be seen posing in front of the burning treatment plant, smiling; another captioned a photo of the flames “[one] last memory.” The plant is operated by the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility (CMWU), a Palestinian NGO which is managing much of the water and sanitation infrastructure in Gaza.
Drop Site News spoke with CMWU’s director, Monther Shoblaq, who said the arson fits a clear pattern of Israel’s attacks on Gaza’s water system. (Drop Site News has previously reported on the destruction of Rafah’s main water reservoir in July 2024 and the Israel military’s conversion of Gaza City’s only desalination plant into a military base in autumn 2024.)
CMWU convened in May, Shoblaq noted, for an internal damage assessment of Gaza’s water system. During the meeting, the authority reviewed satellite imagery showing that the plant appeared to be partially intact and drew up a plan stipulating that, once the assault stopped, CMWU teams would visit Sheikh Ajlin and attempt to relaunch operations from the site to provide services for people in Gaza City.
Sheikh Ajlin was the sole facility remaining that was capable of providing sewage services to Gaza City after earlier Israeli attacks destroyed the Central Gaza Wastewater Treatment Plant east of Bureij in the process of establishing the “buffer zone” around Gaza’s perimeter. UN bodies have assessed the buffer zone to be “part of a widespread and systematic attack directed against the civilian population in Gaza” and “a crime against humanity”.
Shoblaq told Drop Site that the torching of the Sheikh Ajlin plant, five kilometers from the border, dispelled any notion that targeting Gaza’s sanitation infrastructure could have been driven by security considerations related to its location. “If the pretext for blowing up the Bureij plant was its proximity to the border, why set on fire such a crucial civilian water facility that is nowhere near the border?”
For over a year, senior Israeli officials have advocated for wastewater treatment plants in Gaza to be rendered inoperable. In March 2024, current Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Sa’ar criticized the government for permitting repair works on the Central Gaza Wastewater Treatment Plant by Gazan authorities.
Earlier this year cabinet member Itamar Ben-Gvir, in the course of congratulating the government for imposing an electricity blackout on Gaza, noted, “The only thing left in Gaza for The Electricity Company to disconnect now is the wastewater treatment plant.” (The Electricity Company is Israel’s electric utility company, which sells electricity to Gaza, complementing the strip’s domestic electricity production, which has been severely curtailed by Israeli bombardment and restrictions on fuel entry.)
The Sheikh Ajlin plant had benefited from a significant international investment of more than $19 million from Germany in 2012, and was also included in a wider KfW (German Development Bank) upgrade program announced in 2019 as part of an approximately $5 million package to enhance Gaza’s water network.
According to CMWU’s May reconstruction plan, once a ceasefire was in place, sewage from Gaza City was to be routed to Sheikh Ajlin, treated there, and then safely discharged into the sea. “But from the images you showed me,” Shoblaq explained, “the biotowers are seen in flames, which is very bad. If the plant was burned down, I cannot yet assess the extent of the damage; our teams must visit and evaluate the site.
But without Sheikh Ajlin, raw sewage will have to be dumped directly into the sea. Remediation could take years and would cause massive contamination. You are talking about Gaza without sewage treatment, shorelines covered with waste, groundwater at risk, and untreated sewage flooding the streets if pipes and pumps are not repaired after this assault.” At the time of writing, CMWU staff informed Drop Site that they have not been able to safely access the facility.
Since October 7, raw sewage has been dumped in the sea, leading to the spread of waterborne disease. A recent assessment by OCHA, the office coordinating the UN’s humanitarian operations in Gaza, found that over half of the population in Gaza is “exposed to sewage or fecal matter within 10 meters of their homes, posing severe health risks”, with 57% of households reporting at least one member suffering from skin conditions.
According to Shoblaq, Sheikh Ajlin plant’s design capacity of about 75,000 cubic meters would have barely been enough to meet Gaza City’s needs, in the absence of support from the Central Gaza Wastewater Treatment Plant. Its destruction potentially leaves the city without any functioning centralized sewage treatment at all.
Mass Arson Campaign Around Sheikh Radwan Market, Gaza City
Drop Site News was able to geolocate many of the photos posted by soldiers to a cluster of buildings in the Sheikh Rawdan neighborhood in Gaza City. Residents had been told to displace from Sheikh Radwan as recently as last month, as the ground occupation spread through Gaza City. As Israeli soldiers withdrew from the area, they set fire to multi-story residential buildings, a frequent target of the Israeli military.
The INSS, a highly influential national security think tank with deep ties to the upper echelon of the Israel Defense Forces, commented in 2014 that destruction of high-rise buildings proved the most effective means to “break the spirit of the people of Gaza.” Over the course of a few days in September, the Israeli military had toppled several residential high buildings, and over 50 buildings in total.
The posts, uploaded by soldiers to their social media accounts, were accompanied by captions like “Leaving a mark,” “a small souvenir,” “bye,” and “good riddance.”
The aftermath of the mass arson was also documented by local residents upon returning to the area. The homes that were burned had been some of the only ones remaining, left intact because they were used as military staging areas, according to a review of satellite imagery of the area.
Not all homes taken over by Israeli forces were burned down. Social media posts indicate some units simply left them trashed, and vandalized their walls with graffiti. “Enjoy, sluts,” one soldier wrote on social media to the Palestinians returning to find their homes ransacked. “We shall return here” was spray-painted over the wall of a house taken over by Israeli forces in Gaza by another.
Burning Homes Across Gaza City
Israeli troops also shared photos of torched houses in other locations, accompanied by captions musing about the arson. One soldier dubbed the burning of several buildings the “finishing touches.”
The houses of Palestinians going up in flames also became the canvas on top of which soldiers shared their views on the future of Israeli presence in Gaza, with some expressing relief about leaving: “Goodbye and never to be seen again to [what was] my home recently.”
Others vowed to return, even mimicking a review of a hotel or Airbnb. “It was brief but high quality [stay], we shall come back,” wrote one Israeli arsonist.
As the ceasefire takes hold, Gaza has already been rendered largely uninhabitable. One Israeli colonel recently bragged to the Israeli media, “We are leaving behind us only dust. There’s nothing here.” For officials like Gamliel, who have expressed satisfaction with the level of destruction in Gaza, the upshot is clear:
“Look at the hypocrisy of all European countries. They constantly go ‘starvation, starvation’ Well…? Open [your] doors! Why, when it was about Ukraine, it was fine, when it was about Syria, it was fine. When it comes to the Palestinians, they want to perpetuate this conflict structurally.
Now, just for your information: one million and seven hundred thousand inside the Gaza Strip are defined as UNRWA refugees. Meaning, once they get out of there, they are not coming back! Because as refugees, this is not the place where they actually have the right of basic belonging.”
Younis Tirawi is a Palestinian journalist covering politics and security in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, primarily sharing updates on X.
Yaniv Cogan is a writer based in Tel Aviv.
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