Apex Classes listed in pre-destructive-changes are getting deleted from the org and not deployed

[TrevorAGill]

Here is the cli command in our pipeline:
- sf project deploy start -o Validate2 -x imeManifest.xml -l NoTestRun -w 120 -g --pre-destructive-changes destructiveChangesPre.xml --post-destructive-changes destructiveChangesPost.xml

For the last month or so, we've noticed that metadata files include in destructiveChangesPre.xml are getting deleted from the org, but are not getting re-deployed during the actual deployment. So effectively, it's exactly the same as using destructiveChangesPost.xml. We did just switch over from sfdx commands to sf commands somewhat recently, so I'm not sure if it coincides with that.

Why do metadata files included in pre-dectructive-changes not get redeployed to the org after being deleted during the pre-deployment destructive changes?