From the sky, satellite images of Gaza show entire neighborhoods reduced to rubble and scores of buildings leveled by Israeli airstrikes, particularly in the northern third, which includes the capital caused destruction that was unprecedented in the last century. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict continues. About 45% (222,000) of Gaza’s housing units were damaged, with almost a fifth (41,000) completely destroyed, according to the United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), citing data from the United Nations Hamas Public Works and Housing Department -Government. Both the statements of residents and journalists and the images – both professional and those taken on mobile phones – from the ground show a scenario that will prevent hundreds of thousands of people from returning to their homes the day after the war. Especially those displaced in the south, like Nur Swirki, who on October 13th, on the orders of the Israeli authorities, left her home in the capital Gaza City to settle in Khan Younis, the city whose population is estimated at 400,000 has doubled in which 26 people died in bomb attacks on apartment blocks this Saturday.
“[Los israelíes] They told us to come here [al sur] because this was a safe place. And that’s not it at all. There are no safe places in Gaza. Sometimes we wake up to the sound of bombing. “It is not comparable to what is happening in Gaza City, but there is also a lot of destruction,” says Swirki from Khan Yunis in audio messages, taking advantage of the partial restoration of communications after the entry of two tank trucks for the first time since the start of the war 43 days ago. The UN Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has provided a portion to the largest Palestinian telecommunications company Paltel, it said in a statement.
The army advances and destroys – with bombing or bulldozing – any building from which it believes the militants can fire grenades, anti-tank rounds or fire rifles (Israel lost 57 soldiers in the offensive). Also those that are suspected of being weapons or that cover access to tunnels. An Israeli journalist stationed with troops last week noted that “hardly a single habitable building remains” in Beit Hanun, a ghost town on the northeastern tip of the Gaza Strip with 50,000 residents.
A large part of the capital is also reduced to rubble. Swirki’s house is in Rimal, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods and business district with a mix of ministerial buildings and streets full of restaurants and offices. Bombings occurred on a scale previously only reserved for cities and refugee camps in border areas. Swirki, a journalist and activist, doesn’t know if her house is still standing. A report by two United Nations agencies on the 5th estimated that 390,000 jobs would be destroyed by the war and poverty would increase by between 20 and 45%.
Most of the destruction is concentrated in the north. Dozens of people died in a bomb attack on a UNRWA school there this Saturday and the troops are taking up new positions as part of the “expansion of activities” announced by the army, for example in the Zeitún district or in the Yabalia refugee camp. Here, even after three weeks of heavy air strikes (6,000 in the first week alone), the Israeli armed forces warned everyone with leaflets that “they could be viewed as an accomplice of a terrorist organization.” Five days later the ground invasion began. The soldiers were photographed earlier this week posing with the Israeli flag at the parliament headquarters in Gaza.
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About 12,000 Palestinians have died along the way, 5,000 of them minors, according to figures from the Hamas government’s health ministry in Gaza, which Israel and United States President Joe Biden have consulted but which the UN considers reliable. In any case, it is an estimate that has hardly been updated in recent days due to the difficulty of getting to the bodies and those believed to be under the rubble.
Destruction as a deterrent
Israel appears to be guided by an unofficial doctrine known as Dahiya, named after the Hezbollah stronghold outside Beirut that Israel relentlessly bombed in the 2006 war. This involves using “disproportionate force,” causing “immense harm and destruction,” and “causing harm to people.” Civilian population” as a deterrent, as defended two years later by Gadi Eizenkot, then in charge of the northern front of the Israeli army and later chief of the general staff. Today, along with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he is one of only five men in the war cabinet that makes important decisions. the chief of defense, Yoav Gallant; and his predecessor Benny Gantz. Eizenkot and Ron Dermer, Netanyahu’s right-hand man, act as observers.
The day after the surprise attack in which Hamas and Islamic Jihad killed around 1,200 people, the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot quoted a “former air force commander” who “quickly” called for a “Dahiya 2 in Gaza.” “We have to demolish civil infrastructure and raze residential towers to the ground. The more you see [la milicia libanesa] If Hezbollah realizes that our response is weak, it will be even more motivated to act. And vice versa.” Military spokesman Daniel Hagari then admitted that the “emphasis” in the bombings was on “damage, not precision.”
Khalil Abu Shammaleh, 53, also escaped “massive bombing and destruction” in the north. He is in his father’s house in Khan Yunis. “Hundreds of thousands of people live here spread out in schools, hospitals and even on the streets, without the slightest living conditions.” It is difficult to imagine that most of them have not showered for three weeks due to a lack of water. The services provided by the United Nations do not meet needs. Meanwhile, the bombings continue everywhere,” he says. Shammaleh, former director of Addameer, an NGO that defends Palestinian prisoners, describes his daily life this way: “From the moment we get up in the morning, our job is to deal with the crisis, especially to try to find water.” “We only receive it every four or five days, so we have to buy it, but it is very expensive.”
Residents of Khan Younis search through the rubble after an Israeli bombing last Friday.Ahmad Hasaballah (Getty Images)
Two-thirds of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents were forced to leave their homes. This is the largest Palestinian forced displacement since the Nakba, the flight or displacement of around 750,000 people – two-thirds of those who lived in the territory that had just become Israel. and the destruction of 400 of its cities between 1947 and 1949, before and during the first Arab-Israeli war. Some of the displaced people are currently living in tents. “The South is becoming a concentration camp […] “It will be a cold season and there will be those who sleep on the beach,” complained Palestinian Prime Minister Mohamed Shtaye this Friday at a press conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah with the head of EU diplomacy, Josep Borrell. .
“There is very little food. Just the most basic things. Bread, some legumes, vegetables. And it costs double or triple the usual price. Many rely on the help of international organizations. I drink water from wells even though I know it’s not healthy. There is also no gas so you cannot cook. “People use wood to cook,” Swirki explains, recalling that the weather was mild to warm on October 7, when Israel began its offensive following the Hamas attack. Now the days are cold when the sun goes down and sometimes it rains.
This week, UNRWA Gaza Director Thomas White explained the overcrowding and shortages in the organization’s schools and hospitals in the south. “When you come in, the hallways are dark. [por la falta de electricidad] and you can feel the humidity that comes from having so many people living in such a small space,” he said from Rafah, the starting point for the limited humanitarian aid from Egypt that Israel allows.
There is one bathroom for every 500 people and one shower for every 31 people. 70% of the population does not have access to drinking water. In the three southern administrative regions, the two most important drinking water facilities as well as 76 wells and 15 waste disposal facilities have ceased operations. The streets have been filled with sewage because their management system requires the fuel, which does not penetrate. This Friday, the Netanyahu government’s national security adviser, Tsaji Hanegbi, justified the announcement by saying that he would allow the entry of two trucks with fuel every day, in which the development of a pandemic such as cholera would also affect the troops and armed forces. to stop the war.”
The situation of the population in the south is expected to worsen soon. This Wednesday, the army airdropped thousands of leaflets in various parts of the Khan Yunis region, similar to those it had dropped weeks earlier in the north. Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi announced on Friday the expansion of the offensive to “more and more regions” of the Gaza Strip, despite the “work still to be done” in the north.
“Who is in the western part? [del norte de Gaza] has known the deadly power of the Israeli army. Those in the eastern part will find out this evening and in the coming days. And whoever is in the south of Gaza will soon find out,” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in a late evening address to the nation.
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