{"id":12151,"date":"2023-11-10T12:28:52","date_gmt":"2023-11-10T12:28:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/infundpros.com\/business\/beach-umbrellas-and-missile-launch-pads-inside-the-wreckage-of-northern-gaza\/"},"modified":"2023-11-10T12:28:52","modified_gmt":"2023-11-10T12:28:52","slug":"beach-umbrellas-and-missile-launch-pads-inside-the-wreckage-of-northern-gaza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/infundpros.com\/?p=12151","title":{"rendered":"Beach umbrellas and missile launch pads: inside the wreckage of northern Gaza"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The beachfront in Gaza has been churned up by war. Ragged parasols poke out of the sand, next to a buckled lifeguard\u2019s chair. And just to one side is the incongruous sight of a Hamas missile launch pad with 20 rockets, aimed, said the Israeli army, at Tel Aviv.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a beach, the kind used by normal civilians like us,\u201d said Major Maayan of the Israel Defense Forces engineering corps. \u201cBut they also store rockets here. Typical Hamas.\u201d<\/p>\n

A short time later, IDF sappers rig the pad with explosives and blow it up, sending a fireball into the sky and a dust cloud that blots out the sun. The smell of burning spreads across the seafront. <\/p>\n

It is another small operation in what is turning into the deadliest war in the long, bitter conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, a reckoning of sorts that has ratcheted up tensions across the Middle East and is reverberating across the societies of Europe and the US.<\/p>\n

As pressure mounts on Israel to agree to a humanitarian ceasefire, its army took a group of foreign journalists to Gaza on Thursday to justify the military tactics that they are deploying against Hamas, a foe that is embedded in the civilian fabric of the enclave.<\/p>\n

The group saw a hellscape reminiscent of Stalingrad, Grozny or Aleppo. At times, it seemed not a single building had been spared the destruction.<\/p>\n

<\/source><\/source>\"A<\/picture>
The IDF blew up stores of rockets that had been left by Hamas on a beach in Gaza<\/span> \u00a9 Guy Chazan\/FT<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Normally one of the most densely-populated areas on earth, northern Gaza is eerily empty. From the start of the war, Israel has been ordering its inhabitants to move south, away from the fighting, a process that aid groups have denounced as a forced displacement. <\/p>\n

Vast numbers have heeded the warnings to relocate, although thousands remain in pockets of northern Gaza, some prevented from leaving by poor health. UN agencies said that even in the south civilians are not safe from Israeli strikes, while Israel\u2019s siege of the strip, home to 2.3mn people, has deepened its humanitarian crisis.<\/p>\n

At the same time, the exodus from large areas of the north has given Israel a freer hand to act against what it calls Hamas\u2019s terror infrastructure \u2014 its launch pads, underground tunnels and command posts, which it says are often in or near civilian installations like schools, mosques and residential blocks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe moment we evacuated civilians from here, the fighting became much easier,\u201d said lieutenant-colonel Adoniram, also of the engineering corps. \u201cHamas has no one, no women and kids, to hide behind any more.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is a new experience for Adoniram, who IDF rules dictate can only be referred to by his first name and rank. He is a veteran of the war with Lebanese militant group Hizbollah in 2006 and the 2008-9 and 2014 campaigns in Gaza. \u201cBut then we fought differently,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

This conflict is altogether on a larger scale. The IDF has gone deeper into Gaza and bombed harder, in pursuit of much more ambitious objectives: destroying Hamas and eradicating it from the strip.<\/p>\n

It was Hamas\u2019s devastating rampage through the kibbutzim and small towns of southern Israel on October 7 that triggered such vehement retaliation. The attack left more than 1,400 people dead, according to Israeli officials, and 240 hostages remain in Hamas\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n

In the weeks since, Israel has mounted a ferocious bombardment of Gaza and a ground invasion that encircled its main population centre, Gaza City. More than 10,800 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli air and artillery strikes, according to the enclave\u2019s health ministry, many of them women and children. The death toll is already far higher than from all previous conflicts in Gaza combined. <\/p>\n

Israel is of the view that a lot of civilian buildings are fair game. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as we realised that all the infrastructure here is linked to terrorism, you have to do something about it,\u201d said Adoniram. \u201cWhen a mosque is stuffed full of weapons, it\u2019s a military installation, not a civilian one. And the same goes for a kindergarten and a hospital.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hospital he and most other Israeli commanders have in mind is al-Shifa, where thousands of people have sought sanctuary. The Israel Defense Forces said it sits atop Hamas command centres and a vast network of underground tunnels. Hamas itself and the hospital staff deny that, saying the IDF is trying to create a pretext to strike it. Several hospitals in the strip have already been hit, driving its health system to a state of collapse.<\/p>\n

Yet despite the ferocity of the Israeli operation, it may struggle to achieve its war aim of removing Hamas, an organisation that is deeply embedded in Gazan society. It is a social movement as well as a militant group, winning Palestinian elections in 2006 and controlling the enclave for the past 16 years.<\/p>\n

In its attempts to eradicate Hamas, Israel has reduced entire streets to rubble and flattened multistorey buildings like pancakes. Resort hotels, beachside caf\u00e9s and blocks of flats have crumpled into the sand.<\/p>\n

<\/source><\/source>\"Destroyed<\/picture>
Israeli forces have mounted a ferocious bombardment of Gaza and claims \u2018all the infrastructure here is linked to terrorism\u2019<\/span> \u00a9 Guy Chazan\/FT<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In one block near the seafront, rocking chairs are still visible on the warped concrete floor of a balcony, and bits of the ceiling hang down like eerie vines. A lone camel wanders nonchalantly along the seaside promenade, past date palms reduced to stumps by shelling and bent and toppled lamp-posts, their wires hanging out.<\/p>\n

The scale of the destruction and loss of life has exposed Israel to mounting international scrutiny. UN secretary-general Ant\u00f3nio Guterres this week warned that Gaza was becoming a \u201cgraveyard for children\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cGround operations by the Israel Defense Forces and continued bombardment are hitting civilians, hospitals, refugee camps, mosques, churches and UN facilities, including shelters,\u201d said Guterres. \u201cNo one is safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maayan, whose surname can also not be named, said that the destruction was not gratuitous. \u201cWe bombed buildings we were being fired [at] from, or our intelligence said were Hamas-related,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He pointed to a flat on the outskirts of the al-Shati refugee camp where Israeli intelligence officers discovered a huge cache of weapons. They proudly display their find on rugs on the living room floor: grenades, bullets for AK-47s, RPG-launchers, and a bomb-making kit.\u00a0All around were the trappings of normal life \u2014 a child\u2019s bedroom and a lounge with cane furniture and big cushions scattered on the floor.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt looks like an apartment, but it\u2019s actually a military base,\u201d said Maayan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/source><\/source>\"Weapons<\/picture>
A cache of weapons discovered in a flat on the outskirts of the al-Shati refugee camp<\/span> \u00a9 Guy Chazan\/FT<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A tattered Palestinian flag lies spread on a chunk of mangled concrete in the street outside, which is littered with the debris of demolished buildings, mixed up with children\u2019s clothes, school textbooks and a boy\u2019s bike.<\/p>\n

A few blocks down, IDF soldiers have discovered the shaft of a huge tunnel, in the ground floor of a 3-storey building that, Maayan said, was a drone factory. He said Hamas operatives used the tunnel to move the drones between some of this area\u2019s main population centres, al-Shati, Gaza City and Beit Hanoun in the north-east of the strip.<\/p>\n

The IDF soldiers moving around northern Gaza in armoured personnel carriers, tanks and troop carriers are the only signs of life in an area now largely devoid of civilians. It is giving the army a huge advantage in its battle to take out Hamas, said Adoniram.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like before, we locked up the lion in a cage,\u201d he said. \u201cNow, they\u2019ve freed him and told him to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

This story was viewed by Israeli censors as a condition of accompanying troops into Gaza. Nothing was changed as a result.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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