Israel levels 50 high-rise buildings in large-scale Gaza occupation campaign

Israel called the campaign “Operation Gideon Chariots II”, which Hamas said it will counter with a series of operations dubbed “Moses’ Staff”.

Chief of the General Staff, LTG Eyal Zamir, in a field visit in Gaza City, overseeing Operation Gideon’s Chariots. Photo: IDF / X

By People's Dispatch

“The bolt is now being removed from the gates of Hell in Gaza,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said early Friday, September 5, in a statement he wrote on X, signaling the start of “Operation Gideon Chariots II” in Gaza City.

“When the door is opened, it will not be closed, and IDF activity will intensify,” Katz added, threatening Hamas “to accept Israel’s conditions for ending the war”, otherwise “they will be destroyed”.

A couple of hours later, Katz posted a video of a high-rise building being flattened by Israeli warplanes in Gaza City, commenting: “We started”.

The posts were published almost simultaneously as the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) announced that it will target multi-story buildings in Gaza City for allegedly being used by Hamas as military infrastructures.

Dozens of towers located in densely populated areas, some surrounded by makeshift tents of displaced people, have been destroyed since the IOF made the announcement.

On Monday, September 8, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bluntly boasted about the demolition of 50 towers in Gaza City within a couple of days.

“In the past two days, 50 of these towers have fallen. The air force brought them down,” Netanyahu said in a video statement.

“Now all of this is just an introduction, just a prelude, to the main intense operation – a ground maneuver of our forces, who are now organizing and gathering in Gaza City,” he threatened.

Reiterating his intention to forcibly displace the people of Gaza, Netanyahu said: “This is just the prelude to the main powerful operation, so I tell Gaza residents: you have been warned, get out of there.”

Netanyahu’s boasting about towers destruction is sadism and criminality, says Hamas

In a statement issued on Tuesday, September 9, Hamas slammed Netanyahu’s remarks as “one of the most heinous images of sadism and criminality perpetrated by a war criminal, who has continued to commit brutal crimes against civilians for about two years.”

Hamas added that “the threat of terrorist Netanyahu to the residents of Gaza City and warning them to flee, is an explicit practice of the full-fledged forced displacement crime, under the pressure of airstrikes, massacres, starvation and threats.”

The Palestinian movement further condemned the silence and inability of the United Nations institutions, primarily the UN Security Council, in confronting these brutal crimes, and accused the US administration of complicity.

Moses’ Staff vs. Gideon Chariots II

Four months after “Operation Gideon Chariots” was launched without achieving any of Netanyahu’s “total victory” delusions, the second version of the expanded ground offensive was launched under the name “Operation Gideon Chariots II”.

Israel has used a biblical name for its operations in an attempt to sanctify the continuation of its 23-month genocidal aggression in Gaza, at least in the minds of religiously-oriented people within Israeli society, amid a growing opposition that has been calling for a ceasefire deal.

Gideon was a military leader, celebrated in the Torah for his victory over his enemies through unconventional strategy and tactics.

For its part, Hamas’s military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, responded to the denomination of the new Israeli operation, by announcing that it will be launching a series of operations dubbed “Moses’ Staff”.

The name implies a connotation of a religious narrative believed by Jews and Muslims alike, about the miraculous ability of the oppressed (Moses) to defeat the oppressor (Pharao), despite limited capabilities.

Although the Al-Qassam has mainly relied on street fighting and ambush tactics, Israel’s huge military arsenal has not enabled the IOF to defeat the brigades. It has not prevented the Israeli military from suffering major losses either.

According to the latest figures published by the Israeli occupation authorities, at least 904 Israeli soldiers have been killed since October 7, 2023, out of whom 460 were eliminated in ground battles across Gaza.

In order to pressure Hamas to surrender, the Netanyahu administration has not used lawful military strategies, but criminal genocidal tactics, targeting areas densely populated by civilians, and using hunger as a weapon of war. It also recruited local militias of mercenaries to loot aid, spread chaos, and ignite infighting among Palestinians in the war-torn strip.

The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said on Friday, September 12, that the official death toll of Palestinians killed by Israel across the besieged enclave since the beginning of the genocide has risen to 64,756.

Assassinating Hamas’s top military commanders and political leaders in Gaza and exile, has been another heinous strategy adopted by the Israeli government to undermine the Palestinian resistance group.

The aggression which rocked the Qatari capital, Doha, on Tuesday, September 9, was the latest operation carried out by the IOF to assassinate senior Hamas leaders, who survived the assault.

Even though Israel has implemented every lethal and illegitimate method to eradicate the Al-Qassam, the resistance has demonstrated solidity with an extraordinary ability to recover, and continuously recruit new fighters.

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