At the beginning of the war, the Israeli Heritage Minister, Amaikhai Elihao, did not rule out the use of his country’s army for an atomic bomb on Gaza, but after 20 months of the war, the Hebrew newspaper “Haaretz” says that in reality the percentage of buildings that destroyed Rafah and Jabalia refugee camp is higher than in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
On the eve of the war, the population of the Greater Rafah area in Gaza was 275,000. The population of Jabalia Refugee camp was 56,000, and the population of Beit Lahia was 108,000.
Today, according to “Haaretz”, there is nothing left of them except ruins, as the size of the destruction caused by Israel emerges even among the most severe cases of war in modern history.
In October 2023, a satellite passed over Rafah and took a picture of the city, showing a wide city, with dense mosaics of buildings, solar power panels, mosque domes, roads, public squares, agricultural lands and orchards. At the beginning of this month, another satellite passed over the city, or rather, over what was a city in the past, according to the “Haaretz”.
The newspaper adds, “Rafah is almost nothing left. The current image shows a two -dimensional gray surface covered with rubble. The vast majority of buildings were destroyed and flattened on the ground. The roads were plowed. The greenhouses and many orchards disappeared as if they were never present.”
“Haaretz” says that the Israeli army practiced a curriculum, as it destroyed entire neighborhoods in the two large cities, Gaza and Khan Yunis, and settled it on the ground, and examples of this are Al -Shujaiya neighborhood, the great eastern neighborhood of Gaza City, which was erased from the face of the earth.
In all, two thirds of the buildings in the Gaza Strip were destroyed or damaged – 174,000 buildings out of about a quarter of a million buildings, in addition to residential buildings. The Israeli Defense Army destroyed hospitals, infrastructure facilities, factories, mosques, churches, markets and commercial centers.
It also destroyed 2,300 various educational facilities, and today, 501 schools out of 564 schools in the sector need to be rebuilt or comprehensive reforms. It was destroyed or brought to a grave destruction of approximately 90,000 buildings, or more than a third of those in the sector.
In addition to 52,000 buildings, they suffered moderate damage, these buildings already constitute more than 50% of the total of what they were inflicted on before the war. According to the United Nations, 33,000 buildings show signs of damage, although it is difficult to estimate its size.
