A human rights group has accused Israel of exaggerating the threat posed by Palestinian arms-smuggling tunnels to justify a military thrust into a Gaza refugee camp.
The US-based Human Rights Watch said Israeli forces had trampled on international law by razing swathes of Rafah to broaden a buffer zone along Gaza's border with Egypt and by carrying out raids that had killed many civilians as well as militants.
"Expansion of the patrol corridor has brought Israeli army fortifications closer to the camp, exposing them to risks subsequently invoked to justify further demolitions," the group said in a study published at a news conference.
Israel has said that it has flattened houses hiding more than 90 tunnels or serving as gun nests in Rafah over the past four years of a Palestinian revolt waged by militants.
The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees put the number of Rafah residents made homeless by demolitions at 16,000, a fifth of the population in the camp.
Human Rights Watch - in a 133-page report quoting interviews with scores of Palestinians, Israelis and Egyptians in the region - said most of the roughly 1,600 demolitions of homes in Rafah were not warranted by "military necessity".
It said army officers admitted to its researchers that the figure of 90 included entrance shafts, some of which led to existing tunnels and others to nothing at all.