The British newspaper "Financial Times" said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was frank in expressing what Israel needed to destroy the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) when he told a group of government officials, "We need 3 things from the United States: munitions, then munitions, then munitions."

The newspaper explained - in a report by John Paul Rathbone from London - that Netanyahu, who was concerned that political pressures abroad would hinder US arms shipments, said, “There are huge demonstrations in Western capitals. We need to exert counter-pressure. There have been disagreements with Afzal.” "Our friends."

The newspaper pointed out that Israel consumed huge amounts of ammunition in its war against Hamas in Gaza, and used modern Western weapons, from satellite-guided bombs to laser-guided precision missiles, thus bringing the damage caused by the Israeli attack closer - as military analysts say - and the destruction caused. In northern Gaza in less than 7 weeks, from the damage caused by the years-long comprehensive bombing of German cities during World War II.

The most violent bombing campaigns

American military historian Robert Pape says that Dresden, Hamburg and Cologne are cities whose names recall the most violent bombing campaigns in the twentieth century, and “the name Gaza will also be included as a place where the heaviest conventional bombing campaigns in history took place,” as entire neighborhoods were leveled to the ground.

By December 4, about 60% of the buildings in northern Gaza had been severely damaged, according to analysis of satellite data, meaning the destruction of between 82,000 and 105,000 buildings, despite the Allied bombing of 61 major German cities over the course of Two years ago, it destroyed only an estimated 50% of its urban areas.

The newspaper attributed some of the reasons for the extent of the destruction to the munitions used by Israel, which include 250-pound precision-guided small-diameter bombs, laser-guided Hellfire missiles, and Spike missiles, but among them are also unguided “dumb bombs” of the M117 model. , and 2,000-pound bombs.

Mark Garlasko, a military advisor to the Dutch organization PAX and a former employee at the Pentagon, said that the size of the smart bombs, or so-called joint direct attack munitions, is so enormous that survivors of the explosion said they felt like they were “sliding on liquid ground.” He explained that “the buildings are disintegrating, collapsing, and fragmenting.” Concrete, metal, cell phones, and everything else is blown away by the explosion at supersonic speeds.”

“The only reason I can think of why they would be used is that the Israeli army is trying to destroy Hamas’ network of tunnels, but their widespread use is remarkable,” Garlasco added. Amnesty International this week called for a war crimes investigation into Israel’s use of such munitions. Heavy.

Civil punishment campaign

The second reason for the high level of destruction is the speed and intensity of the Israeli bombing, and military analysts said that the military campaign was based on relaxed targeting rules that allowed a large number of expected civilian casualties to occur, because Israeli officials said from the first moment that their response would be of a completely different magnitude than previous operations. .

In the first two weeks of its campaign, Israel used at least a thousand “air-to-surface” munitions per day, while during the most intense periods of the air campaign it launched in Mosul, Iraq, the United States and coalition forces did not use more than 600 munitions per week, and the pace of bombing increased. Very fast, it takes less than 10 minutes between identifying the target and hitting it with an air strike.

The newspaper concluded that more than 16,000 Gazans were dead before Israel began its southern attack last week. Israel claims that 5,000 of them were Hamas fighters. Military historian Pape said, “Gaza, by all standards, is a severe civil punishment campaign that will be recorded in history as the most violent one.” Of the operations ever carried out using conventional weapons.”