January 2, 2024
As
many as 80 percent of buildings in northern Gaza have been destroyed, a recent
analysis found.
Israel’s
U.S.-sponsored ethnic cleansing campaign in Gaza has destroyed 70 percent of
homes in the area in less than three months, according to a report released
last week as the U.S. State Department announced that it is once again
bypassing Congress to send more arms to Israel.
According
to a Wall Street Journal report released on Saturday, by mid-December, Israel’s
bombardment had destroyed roughly 300,000 of Gaza’s 439,000 homes and 50
percent of buildings in the region. Israel has used roughly 29,000 bombs in its
bombardment, according to U.S. officials, which the analysis finds has
destroyed a wide range of buildings, including residential areas and hospitals,
as well as shopping malls, historic sites, and places of worship.
“The
word ‘Gaza’ is going to go down in history along with Dresden and other famous
cities that have been bombed,” University of Chicago political scientist Robert
Pape told the WSJ, referring to the Allied bombing of Dresden, Germany, that
leveled nearly the entire city and killed tens of thousands of civilians. “What
you’re seeing in Gaza is in the top 25 percent of the most intense punishment
campaigns in history.”
An
analysis of satellite imagery by City University of New York and Oregon State
University found that, in northern Gaza, as many as 80 percent of buildings are
destroyed, which is a higher proportion than the destruction in Dresden.
So
far, Israel’s genocide has killed over 22,000 Palestinians, including more than
9,100 children. The genocide has also displaced roughly 85 percent of the
region’s 2.2 million people. Rebuilding after the destruction — something that
Israel is unlikely to allow, with officials seemingly set on total ethnic
cleansing of the region — and finding homes for displaced will take “decades,”
Kingston University London post-conflict expert Caroline Sandes told WSJ.
This
destruction has been heavily enabled by the U.S., with at least 22,000 of the
bombs used by Israeli forces so far being U.S.-provided. The Biden
administration is currently seeking to send yet more weapons to Israel.
On
Friday, the State Department announced that it is circumventing Congress for
the second time to send weapons to Israel, approving a nearly $150 million sale
of artillery munitions and equipment to the Israeli military. Officials used
the same provision to authorize a sale of tank ammunition to Israel just weeks
before.
These
sales are on top of the billions of dollars of military support and tens of
thousands of bombs that the U.S. has sent to Israel over the past decades, as
well as access to a normally strictly-guarded U.S. stockpile of weapons in
Israel that the Israeli military has reportedly been drawing a significant
number of arms from in its current genocide, according to U.S. military
officials.
Bombs
and artillery are not the only weapons Israeli forces are using against
Palestinians — human rights experts have warned that Israel is also using
starvation and disease as weapons of war, citing its assault on Gaza’s health
system and blockades of food and water.
Progressives
have denounced the Biden administration for its continued support of the horror
in Gaza, and expressed anger over the latest arms sale.
“The
White House cannot have it both ways: calling on the Israeli government to
uphold international law while bypassing Congress to send weapons that are
leading to violations of international law,” Rep. Cori Bush (D-Missouri) said
on social media last week. “How many innocent people must die before [Biden]
will demand a ceasefire?”
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