The few buildings that still stand in the vast expanse of the north stick out of the earth like broken bones. All around them, where once there was a densely populated, urban neighborhood, everything has been blown up, demolished or crumbled into rubble and dust.
On Wednesday 5/11 the Israeli military and other journalists in an area on the eastern outskirts of Gaza City that has been leveled as part of an operation to demolish infrastructure that Israel says was a base for Hamas militants.
φωτ. AP/Abdel Kareem Hana
The elimination of Shajaya, a neighborhood visible from a kibbutz that was the target of Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war, is part of a wider campaign.
Since January, the army has been systematically leveling neighborhoods in northern Gaza, Rafah at the southernmost tip of the Palestinian territory, as well as neighboring Khan Younis, satellite images show.
“What we need to do in these areas is to ensure that they are terror-free zones so that Hamas does not come back here,” army spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani told reporters during the visit.
AP photo/Ohad Zwigenberg
“An area cannot be rebuilt if it is a terrorist infrastructure, you cannot rebuild if there is a tunnel 100 meters deep under the house or under the ruins,” he added.
Sosani said that even recently militants were trying to set up new weaponry in the area. During the two-hour visit on Wednesday, there was no sign of anyone but Israeli soldiers, one of them wearing a T-shirt with a slogan that clearly described their mission.
“Hamas Hunting Club,” it read, above a graphic depicting a military boot stepping on the skeleton of a fighter. “Good Hunting”.
AP photo/Ohad Zwigenberg
AP photo/Ohad Zwigenberg
photo. AP/Jehad Alshrafi
photo. AP/Jehad Alshrafi
