Gaza has been in a cycle of destruction and construction since Israel evacuated the enclave in 2005 and Hamas took absolute power two years later. Since then, attacks by Palestinian militias and Israeli military responses have been linked, none, however, more intense than the current Iron Swords operation. The break has ended and, after the expiration of the period for extending the truce in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas, which was finally seven days, the Israeli army announced a few minutes after 6:00 a.m. (Spanish peninsular time) the resumption of the fighting.
The UN estimates that, before this brief truce, in seven weeks of relentless attacks, some 46,000 homes have been completely destroyed and more than 230,000 have suffered more than 50% damage. This means that 60% of family units are uninhabitable. As a result, there are 1.7 million homeless people who will take many months, if not years, to have their own roof over their heads again. They are 80% of the population of Gaza.
The intensity of the bombings on such a dense urban area can only be compared, according to the UN, with the worst air campaigns of the Second World War. The same is argued by Emily Tripp, director of Airwars, an organization dedicated to conflict observation based in London. “In the first week of the war alone, Israel dropped six thousand bombs,” she told the Associated Press. And in the seven weeks of the campaign, Israel has dropped more bombs than the United States has in any of the years it has fought the Islamic State.
The victims are, for the most part, women and children. According to the count of the health authorities in Gaza – quite reliable in previous Israeli military operations – more than 15,000 people have died, of which at least 6,500 were children and 4,000 were women. The proportion remains between the more than 36,000 injured (75% women and children) and the approximately seven thousand missing (70% women and children), victims who must be under the rubble of the destroyed homes.
Israel, through its military spokespersons, maintains that “the main reason” that so many civilians have died and there has been so much destruction is that Hamas has camouflaged itself among the population.
Hamas, for its part, estimates that some 40,000 tons of bombs have fallen since October 7 and that the main objective of these bombings has been to “turn Gaza into an uninhabitable place.”
During the first two weeks of the war, 90% of the ammunition used by the Israeli army were very heavy bombs, weighing 450 kilos and also 900 kilos, guided by satellite, according to an analysis by PAX, the main pacifist organization in the Countries. Low.
The United States, when it fought the Islamic State in Mosul and Raqqa, did not use bombs of such caliber. He considered anything over 500 pounds too big for an urban area. The risk of serious harm to civilians was too high. It did not compensate for any strategic advantage.
Israel insists that only with the heaviest bombs in its arsenal has it been able to destroy a large part of Hamas' tunnels, an essential objective of its mission.
The destruction is especially extensive in the north of the strip, as shown by data collected by Corey Scher, from the Municipal University of New York (CUNY), and Jamon Van Den Hoek, from Oregon State University, who have used the satellite Copernicus Seninel-1 of the European Union.
In Beit Hanun, a town of 52,000 inhabitants before the war, there are no buildings left standing, as confirmed by satellite images and Israeli journalists who have visited it embedded in the army.
Further south, in the Al Shati refugee camp, an area of just half a square kilometer, 14,000 “war damages” have been recorded, that is, from a destroyed building to the crater of an explosion. Only 30% of the houses are still standing. Among the first to be destroyed is that of Ismail Haniye, political leader of Hamas, who took refuge in Doha. First it was knocked down by a bulldozer and then a fighter plane bombed the remains.
The damage is also enormous in the south of the strip, in towns like Khan Younis, despite the fact that Israel asked the northern Gazans to go there for their safety.
The census of destroyed homes is carried out by the United Nations office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which uses data from the Palestinian Housing and Public Works office. Among the damaged buildings there are 279 schools, 51% of the total.
The WHO confirms that only nine of the 35 hospitals are operational, validating data from Palestinian health services. He also warns that many more people may now die from diseases than from bombs. Access to drinking water, for example, remains very difficult due to the destruction of infrastructure and the lack of fuel.
OCHA reports that the last flour mill was destroyed on the 15th. Without flour, water or electricity, bread, a basic food in any conflict zone, cannot be made. There are no operational bakeries in Gaza.
Before the war, about 500 trucks entered the strip every day with humanitarian aid and all kinds of construction materials. Now, since the truce was declared last Friday the 24th, only about 150 enter daily.
The United Nations agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNWRA) estimates that about 200 are needed per day during the two-month truce to meet the basic needs of the population. Additionally, tanker trucks should enter to feed the desalination plants, generators and sewage service pumps.
Before October 7, Gaza had not yet recovered from the previous war. The reconstruction work has never stopped. In the last fifteen years, the international community has contributed some $5 billion to rebuild buildings that Israeli bombing had reduced to rubble.
Shelter Cluster Palestine, an aid consortium coordinated by the UN, states that the destruction in the north of the strip “very severely compromises the possibility of the basic requirements to sustain life being met.”
Even if the war were to end today, it will be years before the population can return to normality. In Mosul, Iraq, a city of 1.8 million people destroyed in 2017 during the US war against the Islamic State, reconstruction is far from complete. Six years have passed. In Gaza everything indicates that many more will be needed.
