Almost 70% of Gaza homes damaged or destroyed: WSJ

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: The Wall Street Journal
30 Dec 2023 16:32
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The WSJ bases its assessment on an analysis of satellite imagery of the Gaza Strip and other advanced remote sensing techniques.

Palestinians inspect the damage following Israeli strikes on the Zawayda area of the central Gaza Strip on December 30, 2023. (AFP)

The Wall Street Journal highlighted that by mid-December, the Israeli occupation forces had dropped 29,000 bombs, munitions, and shells on the Gaza Strip.

According to the newspaper, "Nearly 70% of Gaza’s 439,000 homes and about half of its buildings have been damaged or destroyed."

The WSJ's assessment is based on an analysis of satellite imagery of the Gaza Strip and other advanced remote sensing techniques.

The report emphasized that "the bombing has damaged Byzantine churches and ancient mosques, factories and apartment buildings, shopping malls and luxury hotels, theaters and schools," adding that "much of the water, electrical, communications and healthcare infrastructure that made Gaza function is beyond repair."

For the past two months, Israeli airstrikes have caused significant destruction in the #Gaza Strip, particularly in the densely populated northern region, which prompted #Palestinians to evacuate.

"Israel's" aggression has resulted in the martyrdom of more than 18,600… pic.twitter.com/OGeAJ5I9O4
— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) December 15, 2023

Moreover, the newspaper pointed out that only eight out of 36 hospitals in the Strip can accommodate patients.

"The word ‘Gaza’ is going to go down in history along with Dresden and other famous cities that have been bombed," the WSJ quoted Robert Pape, a political scientist at the University of Chicago who has written about the history of aerial bombing, as saying.

This comes as the Ministry of Health in Gaza announced that the number of Palestinians killed since the start of the Israeli aggression has risen to 21,672 martyrs, in addition to over 56,000 injuries.

According to the Ministry, the Israeli occupation forces committed 14 massacres in a single day, resulting in 165 martyrs and 250 injuries.

Israeli bombing of Gaza most destructive in recent history: Experts

Analysts who spoke to the Associated Press, on December 22, described "Israel's" war on Gaza as currently among the bloodiest and most devastating in recent history.

In just over two months, the aggression destroyed more than what was seen as a result of the battle in Syria's Aleppo between 2012 and 2016, Ukraine's Mariupol, or the Allied bombardment of Germany during World War II and killed more people than the fight against ISIS.

Meanwhile, an analysis of new satellite imagery and video footage by The New York Times on December 15 revealed that at least six cemeteries were desecrated and destroyed by "Israel" during its invasion of northern Gaza.

One satellite image displayed damaged graves in parts of the Tunisian cemetery in Gaza's al-Shujaiya neighborhood, where heavy combat is focused. Armored vehicles were seen on top of where those graves once were, indicating the cemetery's use as a temporary military set-up.

On December 6, an article published by the Financial Times revealed that the damage caused by "Israel's" bombing campaigns in the Gaza Strip has approached the UK and US's years-long bombing of German cities in the Second World War.

Rober Pape, a US military historian and author of Bombing to Win, told FT that Gaza like Dresden, Hamburg, and Cologne "will also go down as a place name denoting one of history's heaviest conventional bombing campaigns."

On November 21, 42 days into the aggression on Gaza, satellite data imaging showed that "Israel's" bombing of Gaza leveled most of northern Gaza, severely damaging more than half of the structures and big swathes of whole neighborhoods.

Social media videos, images from reporters, and images from the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) themselves have depicted a shattered landscape, a report by the Financial Times revealed.

The complete size of the damage has been calculated using radar signals received by the European Space Agency's Sentinel-1 satellite.