As the sun set over the Mediterranean, mortar shells fired from a hidden Hamas garrison came closer and closer. When a shell landed 200 meters from an Israeli brigade’s command post in a neighborhood north of Gaza City, soldiers immediately went on the defensive. “A mortar shell hit near here last night,” an official reveals. “Most of the Hamas terrorists in this sector have been eliminated or have fled, but there are still enough of them that we must never let up.”
As he speaks, the artillerymen continue to observe the last remaining high-rise buildings from the turrets of the Merkava 4 tanks around the command post. They use heat-sensitive video cameras to detect the slightest signs of movement and then open fire on suspicious points with machine guns. “The Hamas militiamen have all sought refuge underground,” a brigade commander, a lieutenant colonel, tells me. “They don’t fight us openly. And it is difficult for us to identify them when they emerge for a few moments from one of the entrances to the tunnel network to attempt an ambush.”
The red sofas
The command post is located on the veranda of a villa overlooking the sea, now a pile of rubble. The soldiers arranged their rations on a table. It is difficult to understand how many floors the house originally had, only the ground floor remained almost intact. A water pipe, useless and twisted, points from one corner to the ceiling. From the remains of the first floor, some red sofas can be seen hanging from some ceiling beams in a room without walls.
“We have seen very few civilians in the eight days we have been here so far,” says the lieutenant colonel. They didn’t spot the Hamas men either. There is a school building next to the train station, the left wing of which is a pile of rubble. “We had no intention of attacking the school,” the official explains. “But Hamas opened fire from that direction and if they shoot at us, we will respond.” They also fired from the mosque.” The mosque’s minaret is now tilted to the side because it was directly hit by an artillery shell .
Despite the constant vigilance of Israeli drones buzzing in the air, Hamas still finds ways to target the troops. The opportunity to take note of the devastation came yesterday as we followed from behind the 401st Armored Brigade as it was busy clearing its way into the city. In a war where facts and details are disputed with the same tenacity as meters of territory, access is tightly controlled and this story has been submitted to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for approval.
– The destruction
We are surrounded by the remnants of the last firefight. It is immediately clear that the population centers in the northern part of the Gaza Strip have almost all been razed to the ground. In Gaza City itself, the damage is extensive, although some buildings remain standing after four weeks of bombing that have claimed over nine thousand victims (according to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health in Gaza). One hundred and sixty kilometers to the east, in the Jordanian capital Amman, diplomats from Arab countries called for an immediate ceasefire.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken disagreed: a ceasefire would have left Hamas “in its place, waiting to regroup and repeat what was perpetrated on October 7.” Some time ago, when our tank convoy crossed the former border barrier, which had now been almost completely dismantled, two very fast rows of yellow and red lightning flashed over our heads. They come from the south. Moments later, sirens wail in the Israeli city of Ashdod. The missiles are neutralized in flight by the Iron Dome defense system. As the column of armored vehicles moves south, taking a sandy path dug by the tracked vehicles along the coast, an improvised device behind the lead tank explodes without causing any damage.
Further down, a mortar hit the first vehicle in a logistics column. The two columns block for a few minutes while the artillerymen carefully observe the rubble. The convoy finally reached the command post building without further incident. But not everyone was as lucky. A few days ago, a Namer armored personnel carrier was hit by two anti-tank missiles, killing all occupants, around ten soldiers.
Just a month ago, over a million Palestinians lived in and around Gaza City, the area currently surrounded by the Israeli army. Most of the citizens fled to the south, but Israeli military authorities estimate that about a quarter remained in place, mostly in the city center. Today, the efforts of the Israeli offensive on the ground in Gaza City are directed downward. “We have already identified dozens of entrances to the tunnel network,” says Yiftach, a major who remembers the front from his law studies. “We never go through the tunnels. As soon as we find an exit, we’ll call the bomb squad to blow it up.”
The armored vehicles
Instead of an infantry squad, one of the armored vehicles houses a medical team. A mobile intensive care unit was set up, with a refrigerator for blood bags, a doctor and a paramedic. Yonat, 32, a mother of two young children, was recalled to the front lines from her job as an operator at the National Emergency Medical Service in Israel.
“It’s my second war in Gaza,” he says. “During the 2014 operations, I was among the rescuers, albeit on foot. Now we always travel with armored vehicles and this allows us to stabilize wounded soldiers and evacuate them as quickly as possible to take them to the hospital by helicopter.”
Before he was recommissioned, Yonat was among the first to rush to the communities attacked on October 7th. But he doesn’t want to talk about what he saw that day. “This war is different than 2014. It affects me on a much more personal level.” We must protect our civilian population and ensure that something like this never happens again.”
The tragedy
“I can’t forget what I saw in a car as we drove to Kibbutz Kfar Aza. A mother holding her baby in her arms, both killed by gunfire,” reports the lieutenant colonel who was sent to the scene with a tank column on October 7th after dozens of people were massacred in the kibbutz.
“All of us here in the brigade know someone who was killed on October 7th, and we have no doubt at this time about the importance of our mission.” Senior officials are well aware that international pressure could soon force Israel to give up part of its mission to withdraw armed forces. “We only have a short time left before we are forced to change tactics, we know that very well.” That is why we are not giving up and are moving forward with all the strength available.”
This is his third war in Gaza. He fought in 2009 and 2014. His father is a reservist now serving on the northern border. “Hamas must be eliminated once and for all,” he explains. “I don’t want my son, who is now four years old, to be forced to come to Gaza and fight there when he grows up.”
© Copyright The Sunday Times/News Licensing