On the Ground
Roughly half of Gaza’s buildings have likely been damaged or destroyed, based on satellite analysis. To add insult to injury, Israel is holding back millions of dollars due to the PA and the Palestinians. This happens regularly. The withholding of these funds adds to the misery of the Palestinians.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week that the option of an attack to isolate Gaza from Egypt is on the table. The military plan aims to occupy the Philadelphi Route or Corridor, a region extending between the Gaza-Egypt borders, which Rafah is at the center of, to block Resistance tunnels and routes. However, Israeli media reported that It will be impossible for Israeli occupation forces to fight inside the densely populated Rafah refugee camps due to the high civilian cost of such a ground offensive, which neither the entity nor the United States can handle at this point. This comes as global popular pressure is constantly growing against the occupation entity for its ongoing genocide in Gaza, with brutality and destruction unforeseen in long decades.
Retired Israeli General Brik said that any attempt “to take control of the refugee camps in Rafah would lead to mass killing of civilians, and the United States and the world as a whole would not allow us to do that.” On that premise, he denied that “Israel would initiate a large-scale ground operation in the Rafah camp.” There are no solutions to the Rafah tunnels, and the cost of that on “Israel” will be hefty, he added. “Israel does not have any solution to the tunnels in the Philadelphi Route at the moment, as blocking them requires building a wall 13 kilometers long and 40 meters deep inside the Gaza Strip, and Hamas will never allow that, and on the Egyptian side, it is technically possible to build the wall, but the Egyptians do not agree to it so far,” the general said.
Meanwhile, Brik said that in order for “Israel” not to pay a heavy price, it must change its strategy and withdraw from Khan Younis and the camps in central Gaza in the third stage of the war. The General added that “Israel should then besiege them from the outside, carry out precise operations, and infiltrate Hamas forces surgically with the help of intelligence information.” He stressed that the ultimate goal is still achievable, which is to bring back all Israeli captives through an agreement with the Resistance Hamas, even if it comes at the expense of a ceasefire in Gaza so that “Israel” does not leave empty-handed, having failed to achieve all the objectives it set.
Haaretz said in a report on Tuesday that the price of a prisoner exchange deal with the Palestinian Resistance in Gaza without achieving the war objectives is a recognition of failure on behalf of the government and army. According to the newspaper, this will deepen the internal disputes among Israeli officials.
IDF Losses
The IDF press service reports casualties in small portions. Moreover, it only reports KIA (killed in action) numbers. The actual number of wounded as well as losses of military and special equipment remain undisclosed. The number of Israeli military KIAs is magnitudes higher than official figures. As of January 10th, the real “undisclosed” casualties among the IDF and other security, defense and law enforcement agencies reached more than 5,000.
The official number the IDF press service gave for the wounded was around one thousand. Though in reality, the number of wounded exceeded 30 000 people, including 15 500 irrecoverable losses, i.e. those who became disabled. Of these, more than 300 soldiers and officers went completely blind. These numbers were described by Ynet as markers of a “national event of a historical magnitude,” in the entire history of the occupation. Over the course of hostilities, more than 1,000 armored combat vehicles of all types (tanks, armored personnel carriers, army vehicles) and army bulldozers were completely or partially destroyed.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government are deliberately withholding from the Israeli public the actual number of the IDF casualties in the current Palestinian-Israeli conflict. This is so not as to “demoralize” the Israeli society. The Israeli news website Ynet, an online version of Yedioth Ahronot on December 9, 2023, stated that head of the IDF rehabilitation department, according to which every day the department received about 60 new wounded security officers and reservists. This figure did not include IDF military personnel. This indicates that the actual figures of wounded may be higher than is officially recognized. Over 58 percent of the wounded had severe hand and feet injuries, including those requiring amputations. Around 12 percent of injuries are damaged visceral organs, such as spleen, kidneys, and rupture of internal organs. About 7 percent of military personnel suffer from mental disorders. Add that the suicide rate amongst Israeli soldiers has gone up- but this information is censored. The increasing casualties among the IDF personnel and security forces, and the uncertainty of the future of hostages still held by Hamas are provoking growing dissatisfaction with Netanyahu’s government among Israelis, which is starting to break through Israel’s highly disciplined media space fully controlled by the IDF command. The authorities fear that acknowledging heavy casualties inflicted on a regular army by irregular forces may raise doubts in Israeli society about the effectiveness of the established security system, which cost billions of taxpayers’ money.
With a handful of hospitals continuing to operate amid severe fuel and supply shortages, the International Committee of the Red Cross said a humanitarian aid convoy came under fire in Gaza City on Tuesday but managed to complete its delivery.
Gaza’s Interior Ministry said all bakeries in Gaza City and the northern Gaza governorates have stopped operating due to systematic targeting and a lack of fuel and flour.
About 70 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have fled their homes since the war began. Food, medicine, fuel and water are running low, and UN-run schools-turned-shelters are beyond capacity. Many people are sleeping on the streets and on the beaches.
Israel has reportedly dropped more than 65,000 tons of bombs and missiles on the Gaza Strip since 7 October. The report states: “Occupation aircraft dropped over 45,000 missiles and giant bombs, some of them weighing two thousand pounds of explosives, during the comprehensive genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, deliberately targeting entire residential areas.” It added that the weight of explosives dropped by the Israeli army “exceeded 65,000 tons, which is more than the weight and power of 4 nuclear bombs like those dropped [by the United States] on the Japanese city of Hiroshima [in 1945].”
Over 24,200 Palestinians have been killed as a result of Israel’s ethnic cleansing campaign, most of whom were women and children.
Two-thirds of the bombs and missiles are unguided and imprecise, commonly known as dumb bombs.
Dumb bombs are known as unguided missiles, are not precise and kill more civilians, especially in densely populated areas like Gaza. This has led to speculation that the IDF is terrified of engaging in firefights with Hamas units, preferring to bomb everything into dust prior to moving their huge armored columns forward, inch by inch. The IDF with a total force of now over 500k against a Hamas force of as little as 5,000 barefooted soldiers has advanced a couple kilometers in 3 months of war, and has shown no serious evidence of having even eliminated an appreciable amount of enemy combatants.
Moreover, the al-Qassam Brigades, announced Tuesday that they successfully hacked an Israeli Skylark drone that was on a reconnaissance mission east of al-Zaytoon neighborhood in Gaza.In the same direction, al-Qassam announced that they had blown up two tunnels with Israeli infantry units inside them after they approached the tunnels’ openings. All the Israeli members were either killed or wounded. The Resistance fighters also engaged an invading force of Israeli soldiers using small arms before they engaged with an RPG an Israeli Hummer that arrived as backup to support the struggling soldiers, which could be seen blowing up in a video shared by the Resistance. The al-Qassam brigades also announced that its fighters in Khan Younis targeted an Israeli Merkava tank with a Yassin-105 armor-piercing rocket. Despite the constant blackout and censorship imposed by the Israeli occupation forces, the accurate statements issued by the Resistance, and the video clips that document its targeting, directing of specific strikes, and ambushes of the invading forces have shown that losses incurred by the IOF are extremely high. The Martyr Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Hamas movement, announced that its fighters successfully targeted two Israeli tanks with Al-Yassin 105 shells and an occupation military bulldozer using two anti-armor devices in Khan Younis located in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.The Brigades added that it confronted an Israeli occupation foot force from close range, and destroyed a gathering of occupation vehicles and soldiers with mortar shells, also in the city of Khan Younis.
In Gaza City, particularly east of the al-Tuffah neighborhood, al-Qassam launched mortar shells at Israeli gatherings and aimed at an Israeli troop carrier on Jabal al-Rais. This led to confrontations with soldiers who were close to the carrier.The al-Qassam Brigades also confirmed that these soldiers were killed or wounded, adding that Israeli ambulances and helicopters were seen rushing to recover the dead and wounded. Furthermore, al-Qassam fighters targeted a gathering of Israeli forces to the north of the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip, bombarding them with heavy-caliber mortar shells.
In turn, the al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad Movement, targeted a gathering of occupation forces and a military excavation machine, east of Souq al-Hob, opposite the cemetery in Khan Younis, with a barrage of mortar shells.South of Khan Younis, the al-Quds Brigades targeted occupation sites and vehicles with mortar shells, in the vicinity of the College of Science and Technology.
The National Resistance Brigades, the military wing of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, confronted the Israeli vehicles raiding Jabal al-Rais, east of the town of Jabalia and west of Beit Hanoun, in the northern Gaza Strip. The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the military wing of the Fatah movement, announced that its fighters destroyed invading occupation vehicles and targeted forces using mortar shells near the College of Science and Technology.
Over the past few days the frequency and intensity of the attacks on Israeli soldiers has increased.The loss rate of Israeli soldiers is approaching the 100 KIAs a day. Add around 10 tanks, APCs, bulldozers and other vehicles are being destroyed – per day! And, yet, the Israeli government is hiding these losses from their public.
Covert military alliances: SAS in Gaza
It goes without saying that Britain’s involvement in Israel’s genocidal assault in Gaza is shrouded in intense secrecy. The British Special Forces, the SAS, are active on the ground in Gaza and Lebanon.
Mainstream media reports in late October hinted at the elite squadron being “on standby” at British military and intelligence bases in neighboring Cyprus, preparing to conduct daring hostage rescue operations in Gaza.
True to form, there has been no further reporting on the SAS interest in Gaza by mainstream British media. Yet, the reference to “security, intelligence and counter-terrorist operations” points to a very different purpose to their presence in the region than mere hostage rescue.
Independent investigations reveal 33 military transport flights traveling to Tel Aviv from the same British bases in Cyprus where SAS operatives are stationed. These flights, including daily ones in the fortnight following Israel’s attack on Gaza, are no mere coincidence. As recently as 12 December, Britain secretly deployed 500 additional troops to its Cyprus bases in response to Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
It was also revealed that Britain dispatched additional troops to the occupation state and its neighbors Egypt and Lebanon, justified only by vague references to “operational security reasons.”
Multi-Front War
Gaza
Israeli military experts described how the Palestinian group has used a big weapons stockpile, its knowledge of the terrain and a vast tunnel network to turn Gaza’s streets into a deadly maze.
At their disposal they have arms ranging from drones rigged with grenades to anti-tank weapons with powerful twin charges. Besides, the Gaza Resistance groups have multiple types of rockets and missiles, which they launch towards targets within Israel, on a daily basis.
Hamas – daily-posts videos on its Telegram channel showing fighters with bodycams weaving through buildings to launch shoulder-held rockets at armoured vehicles. In another post, a camera emerges from a tunnel, like a periscope, to scan an Israeli camp where soldiers rested. The post said it was later hit by an underground blast.
A Hamas source, who spoke to Reuters from inside Gaza on condition of anonymity, said fighters moved as close as possible to launch ambushes “taking advantage of the land we know like no others do”, often moving around or emerging from tunnels. “There is a huge discrepancy between our power and their power, we don’t fool ourselves,” he said.
Hamas has not said how many of its fighters have been killed. The losses of the Resistance are very small. Israel lies about everything; it hides its true losses in men and machines, while conflating the losses of the Resistance. To date, Israel has not shown the world a video of a single resistance fighter killed. Neither has Israel captured any resistance fighters on the battlefield. Now, that’s saying something. While the resistance holds between 200 and 300 high-value powers, Israel does not even have a single one! Rather, what the cowardly Israeli army does is to arrest civilians from their homes, and bombs the civilians.
The terrain in Gaza favors the Resistance. Too much rubble, bombed out buildings make ideal ambush pints. Videos released by the Resistance show countless examples of Israeli vehicles being hut with anti-tank rockets and being destroyed. This is classic urban warfare.
In many other cases, Israeli soldiers get ambushed, or are led into traps, and minefields are blown up around them. Then, there is the strategy of luring the soldiers into tunnels and houses, and blowing them up. Snipers, ambushes, trap and the downing of drones and helicopters is happening all the time.
The DAILY loss rate for Israel in Gaza is running at more than 50 killed and about a 100 plus wounded. Plus, about TEN merkava tanks, APC’s, bulldozers and other vehicles are being destroyed on a daily basis. In addition to this, the Resistance has captured many soldiers – Israeli, American, British, and mercenaries (who are getting paid up to $15,000 per month). Videos of these POW’s have been sent to their respective governments. Amongst the prisoners are many high-ranking officers, including an Israeli general. Obviously, the western media will not speak about this. Whenever Israel makes a claim that it has secured a certain area in Gaza, the Resistance taunts them by firing rockets and missiles from that very same spot! This is to prove that Israel lies. The munitions reserves by the Resistance in Gaza can support this level of war for many months.
The Resistance may have lost less than 300 fighters over the past 100 days. This low figure is due to their guerilla-style hit-and-run attacks. Many Israeli soldiers complain of “ghosts” attacking them- and this has driven 100s of soldiers to insanity, saying “they can’t see where these fighters are. “
An Israeli commander, who fought in 2014, said the expanded scope of this operation meant more troops were on the ground, giving Hamas the “defender’s advantages”, so higher troop casualties were to be expected. Even in some districts in north Gaza where many buildings have been pounded into rubble, bouts of fierce fighting have persisted and the militants now had a bigger munitions reserve. Hamas posts have said the group’s weaponry includes “tandem” anti-tank weapons with two charges to pierce armor. Hamas videos often show big blasts when vehicles are hits aid militants moved as close as possible to launch missiles and “locally-made projectiles”.
The Ground Conditions
‘Every single person in Gaza’ is grappling with hunger: UN
Israel is using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare in Gaza. Israeli forces are deliberately b t, nothing at all,” said one man who had left northern Gaza, “we don’t know how we survived. “In locking the delivery of water, food and fuel, while deliberately impeding humanitarian assistance, razing agricultural areas, and depriving the citizens of objects indispensable to their survival.
People describe their profound hardships in securing basic necessities, “we had no food, no electricity, and no internet”. In southern Gaza, those interviewed described the scarcity of potable water, the lack of food leading to empty shops and lengthy lines, and exorbitant prices. “You are on a constant search for things needed to survive,” said a father of two. The United Nations World Food Program reports that more than 80% of the households in Gaza had spent at least one full day and night without food.
Prior to the current hostilities, 1.2 million of Gaza’s 2.2 million people were estimated to be facing acute food insecurity and over 80 % were reliant on humanitarian aid.
Israel maintains overarching control over Gaza, including the movement of people and goods, territorial waters, airspace, the infrastructure upon which Gaza relies, as well as the registry of the population. This leaves Gaza’s population almost entirely dependent on Israel for access to food, fuel, electricity, medicine and other essential commodities.
Notably, Israeli’s bombing of Gaza’s last operational wheat mill on November 15 ensures that locally produced flour will be unavailable in Gaza for the foreseeable future. Additionally, the decimation of road networks had made it more difficult for aid organizations to deliver aid to those who need it. Bakeries and grain mills have been destroyed, along with agriculture, water and sanitation facilities.
The sustained bombardment, coupled with fuel and water shortages, alongside the displacement of more than 1.6 million people too southern Gaza has made farming nearly impossible. Crops are increasingly abandoned and damaged. Over a third of agricultural land in the north had been damaged, including orchards and greenhouses, razed by Israeli forces.
The IOF repeated attacks on medical facilities, personnel, and transport are further destroying Gaza’s health care sector, thereby affecting the population’s ability to access life-saving treatment, including to prevent diseases and deaths linked to malnutrition, worsening the prospects and ramifications of starvation. In short, both starvation and diseases are on the rise in Gaza. The WHO said, “We will see more dying from disease than from bombardment”.
The IOF has bombed hospitals, schools, mosques, churches, bakeries, water and sewage facilities, universities, government buildings, power plants and transport infrastructure, amongst other targets.
Some 200 trucks, including 4 tankers carrying up to 130,000 liters of fuel and 4 tankers of cooking gas, entered Gaza each day of the ceasefire. In comparison, an average of 500 trucks of food and goods entered Gaza each day before the conflict and 600,000 liters of fuel are needed in Gaza per day just to operate water and desalination plants. As the bombing resumed and Israeli forces advanced south, aid access was severely hindered.
Infectious diseases are ravaging Gaza. According to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, Hepatitis A is spreading in Gaza due to overpopulation in refugee-full areas. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has previously warned against the spread of infectious diseases in the Gaza Strip. Factors, deliberately induced by the Israeli occupation’s aggression, have spurred the spread of infectious diseases in the besieged Gaza Strip. Israeli measures, such as the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from the northern Gaza Strip toward southern regions, have contributed to the proliferation of diseases, as thousands of people were clumped up in severely underequipped shelters, schools, and hospitals. Combined with the onset of cold weather, reports are emerging of children are dying of hypothermia. OCHA revealed on December 30 that about 180,000 people have been diagnosed with upper respiratory infections, while more than 136,000 cases of diarrhea were recorded among Gazans. This comes as Israeli authorities tighten their siege on the Strip, allowing measly amounts of water into the Strip, forcing Gazans to turn to salinated and untreated sources of water, which has had detrimental effects on their health.
On the other hand, overcrowding and the lack of sanitary products have led to at least 55,400 cases of lice and scabies, as well as 5,330 cases of chickenpox, in 12 weeks as of December 30. Our correspondent described the situation in northern Gaza as a “real war of starvation” stressing that no food aid has been able to reach Gaza and most wells are non-functional. Moreover, the Israeli occupation has cut off means of communication and the Internet on a wide scale, especially in Khan Younis, in turn disrupting the mobility of ambulances, making navigation very difficult. This was confirmed by the Government Media Office in Gaza which emphasized further that this is the 10th time the occupation has committed this inhumane and illegal act since October 7. The Office revealed that “this crime has been going on for many days,” stressing the fact that there are many martyrs and wounded Palestinians that no one will be able to reach due to this widespread interruption of communications. The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor confirmed yesterday that the northern Gaza Strip is facing “a terrible tragedy resulting from the catastrophic scarcity of drinking water sources, and the prevention of its access, which represents an actual death sentence.” It added that thirst is drastically invading the areas of Gaza City and its north, due to the cutting off of water supplies to the Gaza Strip and the systematic and deliberate Israeli bombardment of water wells and sources, in addition to the lack of fuel essential for operating water transfer and distribution stations. According to Oxfam, Palestinians are at serious risk of starvation due to the occupation’s restrictions on the entry of aid into Gaza as only 10% of the weekly food aid that is needed gets in.
Civilians who evacuated northern Gaza to the perceived safety of the south due to heavy bombing, fear of airstrikes, or because Israel ordered them to evacuate. Several said they were displaced a number of time before reaching the south, as they struggled to find suitable shelters and safety along their journey. In the south, they found overcrowded shelters, empty markets and soaring prices, and long lines for limited supplies of bread and drinking water.
- 30-year old Marwan who fled south with his pregnant wife and 2 children on November 9 said, “I have to walk 3 kilometers to get one gallon of water, and there is no food. If we are able to find food, it is canned food. Not all of us are eating well.”
- Then there is 36-year old Hana, who fled her home in the north to Khan Younis in the south with her father, his wife and her brother on October 11. She said that in the south they don’t always have access to clean water, forcing them to drink unpotable, salty water.” Bathing has become a luxury, she said, due to lack of means to heat water, requiring them to scavenge for wood. In desperate situations, she said, they even resort to burning old clothes for cooking.
- Majed (34), who fled with his wife and 4 surviving children to the south on November 19, said that while the situation in the south is dire, it was incomparable to what he and his family had to endure while staying in the north. They had been in an area near Shifa hospital in Gaza City for just over a month after their house was bombed on Oct 13, killing Majed’s 6-year old son: “In those 33 days we didn’t have bread because there was no flour, there was no water – we were buying water, sometimes for $10 a cup.It wasn’t always drinkable, sometimes the water we drank was from the bathroom and sometimes from the sea. The markets around the market were empty. There wasn’t even canned food.
- Taher (32), who fled south with his family on Nov 11, described similar conditions in Gaza City, “The city was out of everything , of food and water, if you find canned food, the prices were so high. We decided to eat just once a day to survive. We were running out of money. We decided to just have the necessities, to have less of everything.”
- “Our lives 100 days ago were excellent. We had cars and houses,” said Halima Abu Daqa, a Palestinian woman who was displaced from her home in southern Gaza and is now living in a tent camp. “We have been deprived of everything,” she said. “Everything has changed and nothing remains.
Egypt’s State Information Service (SIS) said in a statement on Sunday that one of the biggest obstacles to the timely delivery of sufficient aid to Gaza was Israeli inspection of the aid. The statement came after Israel blamed Cairo for the delay in aid delivery to Gaza during its defence at the ICJ. Since the start of the IJC hearings, a deal was reached to allow the resumption of aid to enter Gaza, especially food, water, fuel and medicines. On top of the genocide being conducted against the Palestinian peoples, reports have emerged of even more atrocities being conducted by Israeli soldiers. Such as:-
Stealing cash from bombed out homes, atms, business safes and banks and jewellery. In addition, many Palestinian bodies are taken by the Israeli army to certain hospitals and steal vital human organs. The Zionists have become world-class at this trade of human organs.
The Palestinian Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs in Gaza reports that since October 7, more than 1,000 out of 1,200 mosques have been razed, with an estimated reconstruction cost of $500 million. The ministry further lamented the destruction of churches, including the historic Saint Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church, Zakat religious committees, Quran-teaching schools, and the headquarters of the Islamic Endowment Bank. The report adds that the invading IOF have killed more than 100 religious figures: scholars, preachers, imams, and Muezzins (who perform the daily call for prayers) since the beginning of the military onslaught. Additionally, the statement detailed that the Israeli Occupation Forces’ desecration and destruction of dozens of cemeteries amounts to a violation of international laws.
During their desecration of the cemeteries, the IOF also violated bodies buried in graves, and the destruction of burial grounds was carried out in clear violation of established norms.
Back in December, The al-Omari Mosque, which was built more than 1400 years ago, one of the largest and oldest mosques in Gaza, and the third-largest mosque in Palestine, was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike. Gazans refer to al-Omari as the “Little al-Aqsa Mosque” due to its resemblance to the Holy al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied al-Quds. The al-Omari Mosque covers an area of about 4100 square meters, and its courtyard extends to 1190 square meters, with the building including about 38 marble columns adorned with artistic patterns from different eras.
Back in October, the IOF also targeted the ancient Greek Orthodox church of St. Porphyrius, which was sheltering dozens of displaced families and asylum seekers. The targeting of the church came shortly after the massacre committed in the Baptist Al-Ahli Hospital in central Gaza, killing over 500.
Finally, in order to debunk the lies by the Israeli military when they declare a certain area in Gaza under “their control”, the Resistance shows up and fires multiple rockets, mortars and missiles, like what happened on the 15th. Israel stated that north Gaza is “cleared of Hamas” and a short while later, Hamas fires off a salvo of 50 rockets to an Israeli town in the south-of which 20 were intercepted by the Iron Dome, while 30 landed.
All of the events described above are a DAILY occurrence. This shows that Hamas and the Resistance are very active, have not been degraded and are in fact INCREASING their attacks on the occupation forces.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday Israel would wage war “until absolute victory”. Israeli officials have said it could take months before being complete. He is either lying or being delusional.
We now move onto the next front, where we continue the story, with the title Gaza-The Conflict Expands.
Hola buenas noches ante todo excelente artículos,lo felicito, esperó que siga así, consulta me parece que esté sería la segunda parte de dos artículos, puede ser?, saludos.