Severity of Destruction of Gaza
On December 30, the Wall Street Journal carried a report which said the destruction generated by Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip is comparable to the bombing of Germany during World War II.
According to the analysis of satellite data by remote-sensing experts at the City University of New York and Oregon State University, "As many as 80 per cent of the buildings in northern Gaza, where the bombing has been most severe, are damaged or destroyed, a higher percentage than in Dresden [after the Allied firebombing on February 13-14, 1945 ...] Nearly 70 per cent of Gaza's 439,000 homes and about half of its buildings have been damaged or destroyed," the WSJ wrote, adding that most of the Strip's 36 hospitals are shut down, and only eight are accepting patients.
Robert Pape, a political scientist at the University of Chicago and the author of a history of aerial bombing, told the WSJ, "What you're seeing in Gaza is in the top 25 per cent of the most intense punishment campaigns in history."
According to U.S. officials cited in the report, "Israel dropped 29,000 weapons on Gaza in a little over two months."
"By comparison, the U.S. military dropped 3,678 munitions on Iraq from 2004 to 2010," the report added.
Analyzing the kind of weapons that were used to inflict "maximum damage," as announced by Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari, the WSJ reported that "Among the weapons provided by the U.S. to Israel during the Gaza war are 2,000-pound "bunker buster" bombs designed to penetrate concrete shelters, which military analysts said are usually used to hit military targets in more sparsely populated areas." The Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated areas in the world.
On December 30, 2023, U.S. Secretary of State Blinken bypassed the congressional review requirement for foreign military sales and announced an emergency determination for a $147.5 million sale of further military equipment to Israel. The equipment includes fuses, charges and primers necessary to make the 155 mm shells that Israel has already purchased. "Given the urgency of Israel's defensive needs, the secretary notified Congress that he had exercised his delegated authority to determine an emergency existed necessitating the immediate approval of the transfer," the department said.
This article was published in
Volume 54 Number 2 - January 5, 2024
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2024/Articles/MS54026.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca