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Israel-Hamas war: Northern Gaza was destroyed – what will happen next?
Four cats walked back and forth under the tanks, armored personnel carriers, jeeps, and engineering vehicles across the street from Shifa Hospital in Gaza and meters from Hamas’s underground tunnel network.
I and a group of other Israeli journalists had been waiting about an hour for our pickup to return to Kibbutz Be’eri after visiting the Shifa Hospital and tunnel network area on Wednesday. Our armored personnel carrier driver, Oren Rimon (an oleh from Los Angeles), said sometimes there is “traffic” because “there are a lot of armored fighting vehicles, tanks, and infantry. You will feel it during the trips.”
We only spoke to one Palestinian briefly and saw only one family, who said they were staying in a tent near the hospital to wait for and support a sick family member, so the cats were actually the most local contact we had.
They looked thirsty, hungry, beaten up, and dirtier than even the desolate, dust-filled, and smoke-filled Gaza City neighborhoods we had driven through.A very tall and broad-shouldered special forces soldier was also eyeing the cats. He meticulously ripped a piece of a paper cup in half, filled it with water, and placed it under one of the armored vehicles where one of the cats was taking shelter.
I eventually figured out that he had torn the cup in half because otherwise it would have been too hard for the cat to reach its neck down to drink the water.
First, I thought about how thoughtful and careful the soldier had been for the cat. Then I thought about the “day after,” when the war is over (probably another month or so from now), and the other “day after,” when an expected Hamas insurgency might be put down and someone else will need to run Gaza, probably six months or years down the line beyond the end of the war. What will happen to the cat then?
ISRAEL AND the IDF have managed an impressive air campaign and ground invasion. At press time, around 75 IDF soldiers had been killed during the ground invasion of Gaza. While each life is a universe, from a cold military analytical perspective, that number is stunningly low.
The IDF controls almost all of northern Gaza other than the Shejaia neighborhood in Gaza City, portions of Jabalya and Zeitun, and a few smaller neighborhoods, and accomplished this in a period of weeks.
All key military and governance symbols of Hamas in the north, with Shifa Hospital being the most important and last to fall last week, are under IDF control.
Specifically, in Shifa around 40,000 civilians were evacuated without any deaths inside the hospital during the IDF’s incursion (though there are claims, which are hard to judge, that during the several days of the IDF siege on the complex, some dozens of patients died due to lack of electricity or harsher conditions).
Only 300 civilian patients and medical staff remain inside the hospital, unharmed and stable, while the IDF has managed to uncover significant aspects of Hamas’s underground tunnel network, which The Jerusalem Post viewed up close on Wednesday.
That half of the story, the powerful IDF vehicles surrounding Shifa and the IDF special forces soldier sensitively providing water to the local cats, is metaphorically analogous to the IDF seizing northern Gaza while trying to mitigate harm to Palestinian civilians.
But there is another half of the story of what will happen not only to the cat on the “day after,” but to all of Gaza and its 2.3 million civilians, and how that will affect Israel and the region.
Northern Gaza has been destroyed by the Israel-Hamas war
NORTHERN GAZA is destroyed. Not just a war zone, not just worn down – utterly destroyed.
The cat may not live long enough to see the “day after.”
Probably some number of Palestinian civilians will also not make it despite humanitarian aid.
Still, assuming the vast majority of Palestinian civilians make it, living off humanitarian aid, they will have nowhere to come back to.
From what the Post saw, it will not be a question of rebuilding houses on one side or the other side of the street as in past rounds. Whole neighborhoods will need to be reconstituted from scratch, or maybe worse, because any building that has not collapsed is probably not safe to maintain, and will probably need to be demolished before rebuilding can start.
Once rebuilding starts, it will need to start with relaying out entire neighborhoods with infrastructure and roads that regular cars, not just tanks and armored personnel carriers, can drive on.
Clearing the debris will be an enormous effort.
It will be years before large numbers of Palestinians can return to live in northern Gaza, and that is assuming the expected insurgency leads mostly to “only” gunfights, and does not lead to additional large-scale destruction. If it does, then even initial rebuilding phases could be delayed deep into 2024 or later.
This article does not delve into whether the extent of the destruction by the IDF of northern Gaza was necessary or not.
In the meantime, the IDF has put out select snapshots of individual battles and the general vague picture that Hamas booby-trapped an unprecedented number of houses and civilian locations – way beyond even what it had done in past conflicts – and that this left the IDF no choice.
This in addition to Hamas having fired rockets and anti-tank missiles, and having directed gunfire from civilian locations, which gave the IDF the right to return fire, including whatever damage might be caused to the location, provided the IDF did its best to avoid civilian casualties.
But making a full judgment on that issue will need to wait until after the war, when the IDF produces far more specific and comprehensive data on its attacks.
THE BIG question here is what happens next? How can there be a “day after” and how can anyone or any entity start managing Gaza if it may take five years to get Palestinian civilians out of refugee camps and into areas of northern Gaza where they used to live?
Isn’t it likely that any insurgency will be worse, and many new Gazans will join Hamas, if they have no work, school, or regular living conditions – with nothing to do and a lot of anger at their situation?
Coming back to the fact that we saw almost zero Palestinians, this brings into the forefront that around 200 Hamas terrorists escaped Shifa.
The Post saw the extensive tunnel network firsthand, and this was not a tunnel network for a couple dozens of fighters, but likely hundreds, including some senior commanders with first-rate (for a tunnel) quarters, as the IDF has asserted.
Ongoing statements by multiple senior IDF officials suggest that the IDF either actively or passively allowed them to escape in order to avoid a firefight within Shifa and the dead doctors and patients that could have led to, not to mention IDF losses.
This same strategy was repeated in many other sensitive civilian locations, including, it seems, allowing Hamas to smuggle many Israeli hostages to southern Gaza.
Again, putting aside the question of the wisdom of that strategy, it seems that one of the consequences has been that the IDF to date has still not managed to kill or arrest more than 30% of Hamas’s 30,000 fighters, and probably less (without counting a possible additional 10,000 for Islamic Jihad).
Returning to a distant “day after,” when Israel will pull its forces out of Gaza (it has said it would, even if it maintains some security imperatives for hot pursuit of terrorists into Gaza), the Post saw how easily and quickly the prized border obstacles and fences could be breached while being driven through it.
In one spot or another, a much larger troop presence will need to be placed permanently on that border so that Israel can stop any future surprise attack, even if its technologies are fooled. This will change the social contract in Israeli society, with adolescents expected to serve in larger numbers and for longer periods of time.
Visiting Shifa and driving through destroyed northern Gaza was eye-opening. But even as the visit confirmed IDF supremacy on the ground for now, it raised many more dramatic questions than it gave answers about the future. •
The United States is deferring the removal of certain Lebanese citizens from the country, President Joe Biden said on Friday, citing humanitarian conditions in southern Lebanon amid tensions between Israel and Hezbollah.
The deferred designation, which lasts 18 months, allows Lebanese citizens to remain in the country with the right to work, according to a memorandum Biden sent to the Department of Homeland Security.
“Humanitarian conditions in southern Lebanon have significantly deteriorated due to tensions between Hezbollah and Israel,” Biden said in the memo.
“While I remain focused on de-escalating the situation and improving humanitarian conditions, many civilians remain in danger; therefore, I am directing the deferral of removal of certain Lebanese nationals who are present in the United States.”Increased attacks since Oct.7
Israel and Hezbollah have been trading fire since Hezbollah announced a “support front” with Palestinians shortly after its ally Hamas attacked southern Israeli border communities on Oct. 7, triggering Israel’s military assault in Gaza.
The fighting in Lebanon has killed more than 100 civilians and more than 300 Hezbollah fighters, according to a Reuters tally, and led to levels of destruction in Lebanese border towns and villages not seen since the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war.
On the Israeli side, 10 Israeli civilians, a foreign agricultural worker and 20 Israeli soldiers have been killed. Tens of thousands have been evacuated from both sides of the border.
Hezbollah is an Iran-backed terrorist group and the most powerful military and political force in Lebanon.
world news
Preparing for war: Haifa mayor describes city’s infrastructure changes tensions in North escalate
Haifa mayor Yona Yahav spoke this past Monday with Lior Rosenfeld on Radio North 104.5FM about the escalation of the war in the North and his entry into political office amidst the security situation.
Yahav began, “I cannot speak on behalf of the North as I don’t know exactly what’s happening there. No one updates me, as if we are not the largest and most important city in the North. Tomorrow, the Home Front Command is coming to see us for the first time, and we will see what they have to say. We are doing everything to ensure that the city itself and our residents are safe and know what to do in case, God forbid, missiles fall on us. They are more accurate than those in 2006.”
Yahav also discussed the city’s preparations for a war in the North.
“We are now changing the entire method of building public structures,” Yahav said. “We are preparing them for prolonged stays. The minimum will be four consecutive days in shelters and such buildings, which require preparation. For example, installing toilets, which we don’t have today, and we have given instructions to build them in places close to where new houses are being built. This has been fully understood, and developers have begun to understand that the talk about evacuation and reconstruction has undergone drastic changes in light of the security situation. For example, road width needs to be maintained for the sake of evacuating residents on these roads. These are things that were not considered until now and must now be taken into account.”
Yahav’s plans for the success of Haifa’s future
Yahav then discussed his appeal to the transportation minister to stop the Highway 23 Carmel Tunnels’ toll charge.
“We called on the transportation minister to stop the discrimination. Haifa and the North are always discriminated against compared to central Israel, and there’s no reason for this. There are huge tunnels dug in Jerusalem that do not cost residents any money to pass through. There’s no reason why the tunnels dug in Haifa should include a toll. I speak on behalf of Haifa residents, and we are preparing to petition if we do not receive an answer.”
Regarding his entry into his mayoral role about three months ago, Yahav said, “I found a completely ruined city. They destroyed the municipality, and it’s very difficult to move things around. I don’t understand how residents sat idly by and kept quiet. We are trying to go to government offices to fix relations, to get funds, to move projects to bring in fees – and we are doing all this in a short time.
“The ministers are acting openly and with the goodwill to help. I am now waiting for the money on the table. The casino building in Bat Galim will be a luxurious hotel on the Bat Galim seashore. This neighborhood will undergo a complete transformation and will be the most beautiful neighborhood in the country. It will also be the only neighborhood facing a recognized beach. We came to make a change, and we will succeed.”
In conclusion, he touched on the issue of wild boars: “You won’t be able to follow them because soon you won’t see them anymore.”
world news
‘Psychological operation’: Turkey condemns FM Katz social media post depicting toddler Erdogan
Turkey’s Foreign Affairs Ministry released a statement on Sunday condemning a social media post made by Foreign Minister Israel Katz, in which Katz presented Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan as a toddler on the lap of Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Katz, in a Sunday post on X, wrote “Erdogan @RTErdogan finances and arms terrorist organizations of Hamas to carry out attacks and murder against Israelis. The General Security Service captured a squad of students from Bir Zeit who were employed by the Hamas headquarters in Turkey to carry out murder attacks in Israel, through training and weapons and tens of thousands of dollars provided to them.
“Erdogan turned Turkey into a state that supports terrorism and subjects Turkey to the Iranian axis of evil in the name of extreme ideology and blatant anti-Semitism.”
Katz’s comments were made in reference to a recently thwarted terror attack planned by the student Hamas cell in Bir Zeit University, north of Ramallah. The attempted attack, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) said, was directed by Hamas’s base in Turkey.ארדואן @RTErdogan מממן ומחמש ארגוני טרור של החמאס לביצוע פיגועים ורצח נגד ישראלים. שירות הביטחון הכללי לכד חוליית סטודנטים מביר זית שהופעלו ע”י מפקדת החמאס בטורקיה לביצוע פיגועי רצח בישראל, באמצעות אימונים ונשק ועשרות אלפי דולרים שסופקו להם.ארדואן הפך את טורקיה למדינה תומכת טרור… pic.twitter.com/R0SCjYdngN
— ישראל כ”ץ Israel Katz (@Israel_katz) July 21, 2024
Turkey condemns the social media post
The Turkish ministry responded “The Israeli Foreign Minister is trying to hide Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians behind a series of lies, slander and disrespect.
“Israel’s dirty propaganda targeting Türkiye and President Erdoğan, and psychological operation attempts will not bear fruit.
“The members of the Netanyahu Government, who have killed nearly forty thousand Palestinians in Gaza and are now trying to start a regional war in order to stay in power, will be tried in international courts and held accountable for their crimes.
“Türkiye will continue to speak the truth and defend the right of the Palestinian people to live in justice and peace.”
The ministry cited data provided by the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.
Additionally, Turkey has repeatedly asserted that it does not categorize Hamas as a terrorist organization – despite its western allies acknowledging it as such and its proven attacks on Israeli civilians.
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