Israel’s military campaign in Gaza seen as among the most destructive in history, experts say
After 11 weeks of war in Gaza, the Israeli military campaign against Hamas now sits among the deadliest and most destructive in history, exp
JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military campaign in Gaza, experts say, now sits among the deadliest and most destructive in history.
In just over two months, the offensive has wreaked more destruction than the razing of Syria’s Aleppo between 2012 and 2016, Ukraine’s Mariupol or, proportionally, the Allied bombing of Germany in World War II. It has killed more civilians than the U.S.-led coalition did in its three-year campaign against the Islamic State group.
The Israeli military has said little about what kinds of bombs and artillery it is using in Gaza. But from blast fragments found on-site and analyses of strike footage, experts are confident that the vast majority of bombs dropped on the besieged enclave are U.S.-made. They say the weapons include 2,000-pound (900-kilogram) “bunker-busters” that have killed hundreds in densely populated areas.
“Gaza is now a different color from space. It’s a different texture,” said Scher, who has worked with Van Den Hoek to map destruction across several war zones, from Aleppo to Mariupol.
25,000 deaths in Gaza: Why the destruction of this war exceeds that of other major conflicts
Eight out of every 10 victims in the Palestinian enclave since last October 7 are women or children
The health authorities in Gaza ... on Sunday raised to 25,105 the death toll from Israel’s attacks on the Gaza Strip since October 7. Five out of every 10 victims are minors, three out of 10 are women and two out of 10 are men aged 18 or over. To this figure must be added 62,681 people who have been wounded since the beginning of the bombings.
The figure implies that more than one in every 100 Gazans has died in the 105 days of conflict, just over 1% of the population.
It is difficult to find similar numbers in other recent conflicts. The available data, compiled by the United Nations in the academic project Cost of War, indicate that more people are dying per day in Gaza than in Iraq (even in the worst month of fighting in that country), in Syria or in the first month of war in Ukraine.
Those conflicts lasted longer (the first invasion of Iraq, eight years) and resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths. The one in Gaza is still at the beginning and there are no signs of it ending in the near future.
This pace has caused the death toll in Gaza to reach 10,000 after just the first month of attacks. In Ukraine, it took a year and a half to reach that number (including civilians only). The following graph shows how death figures evolved in each conflict until the third month of war.
These numbers are explained, in part, because the magnitude of Israel’s attack is unprecedented. There have never been as many airstrikes with civilian casualties in the Middle East conflicts as those that were recorded in October and November in Gaza and the West Bank: 1,614, almost all of them in Gaza, according to data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED).
Israel appears to be applying what is known as the Dahiya Doctrine, so named after a stronghold of the Hezbollah militia in the south of Beirut that Israel bombed intensively after the kidnapping of two of its soldiers that started the 2006 war. Gadi Eizenkot, then the Chief of General Staff and now a member of Israel’s war cabinet, explained it two years later as “using disproportionate force and causing immense damage and destruction” by considering any location from which shots are fired at Israel as “military bases.” In the background is the idea that this tough strategy will lead the population to rebel against Hamas.
A direct consequence of these bombings is the destruction in Gaza. Around half of the buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, a figure that rises to between 72% and 84% in the north of the Palestinian enclave, according to an analysis based on images from the Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite.
There were not as many attacks and deaths in previous conflicts between Gaza and Israel, either. The figures recorded this year multiply by 10 the highest levels of previous years. Since reliable data became available (2008), only in 2014 had there been more than 2,000 deaths in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank (and it was over the course of a year).
Eight out of every 10 victims in the Palestinian enclave since last October 7 are women or children
There is now an article discussing the recent attacks utilizing a chemical agent on Colombia University’s grounds.
Two people reportedly sprayed an odious chemical at protesters, leaving students with burning eyes, nausea, and chest pain.
The article interviewed a victim of the attack that had to seek medical attention after the fact. She is still experiencing the affects of it more than three days after being sprayed with the substance.
Layla and other students have reported that the school is not taking this seriously, other than banning the unidentified (to school admin, the victims have already identified their assailants!) perpetrators from the campus. Accommodations are not even being given to victims that have had to go to the ER and are suffering debilitating symptoms.
I’ll be keeping a lookout for Layla. She lost multiple family members in the IOF bombardments across Gaza, and now she has to deal with this! Colombia University’s administrative staff, President..whoever else needs to have some heavy pressure applied to them for such obvious injustices.
A little girl died from hunger in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, despite being in the area where aid trucks are distributed. Another family in the north in Gaza city was forced to eat a donkey, which for many in Palestine is inconceivable culturally. Bisan says there isn't even water (clean OR dirty) for them to drink or wash with.
Majd Arandas was a Palestinian photographer described as a “kind and gentle soul”. On Wednesday, November 01 2023, Majd was killed by an Israeli airstrike near his home in Deir al-Balah Governorate, central Gaza. He was only 29 years old.
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