Israel’s challenge: Explaining how Hamas’ war led to destruction of Gaza

Jabaliya is a dense urban area with multi-story buildings lining streets that curve along low hills. It is connected to other neighborhoods and towns, such as Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun.

By SETH J. FRANTZMAN NOVEMBER 11, 2024 23:46

Palestinians gather to collect water from a house in Jabaliya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip. February 7, 2024 (photo credit: MAHMOUD ESSA/REUTERS)

A large amount of Gaza’s landscape has been impacted by the last year of war. This includes the destruction of many neighborhoods, towns, and cities. For instance, the Israel Defense Forces have been fighting in Jabalya for the past month, trying to root out up to 2,000 terrorists who were hiding among 70,000 civilians.

Jabalya is a dense urban area with multi-story buildings lining streets that curve along low hills. It is connected to other neighborhoods and towns, such as Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, as well as Gaza City.

These areas are devastated by a year of war. Large buildings lie in ruins; floors pancaked on top of one another, windows were blown out, doors ripped off hinges, and whole sides of buildings collapsed or open to the elements. Much of the damage is due to the fact that Hamas used civilian areas to hide its tunnels and shoot its rockets. It uses buildings to make improvised explosive devices.

It booby-traps the buildings and roads. It fires RPGs from sites and then runs away. Soldiers in Gaza have described how Hamas left AK-47s and ammunition in many of the buildings that were searched. This is so terrorists are always within a few meters of weapons, but the terrorists can walk in the street unarmed and appear like civilians.

Uprooting Hamas has been difficult. However, many of the members of the international community who visit Gaza, and those who will visit if the war winds down more, will witness the destruction and likely blame Israel. The UN and other NGOs working in Gaza never seem to blame Hamas or even mention Hamas. When they do mention Hamas, they often call it an “armed group.” Even when shown evidence of tunnels under UNRWA facilities or Hamas hiding in hospitals and schools, they don’t condemn Hamas or mention Hamas.

IDF soldiers operate in the Gaza Strip, November 11, 2024. (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)

How can Israel confront the narrative that is forming about the level of destruction in Gaza and the inevitable reconstruction that will follow? “As ever in this conflict, the effect will be mistaken for intent. The IDF’s targeting processes match those of Western armies. The IDF has taken unprecedented measures to protect civilian life; we can see this in the fact that so few civilians have died for the enormous amount of ordinance dropped,” says Andrew Fox, a former British army officer and research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society.

Israel called to show how Hamas lead to Gaza's destruction

Fox pointed out recently how Israel should be confronting this narrative. When I noticed he posted about this issue on social media, I reached out to him. I had recently returned from Jabalya doing a report about the IDF fighting Hamas there, and I was struck by the level of destruction of the urban areas in the vicinity. “Israel has fought a just war in a just manner, but for many, this will be irrelevant.

Gaza lies in ruins, and it is a horrifying sight. It is vital that the IDF get ahead of the narrative on this. Show the world their workings: show targeting packs, show the tunnel network, show the extent to which Hamas’s infrastructure demanded this scale of destruction,” Fox says. “When this damage is fully shown to the world, Israel will be condemned for this.

They need to own it and show the world first, and show the world why it happened. If I were a senior Israeli official, I would also show the world how it is going to be rebuilt. The innocents in Gaza have unquestionably gone through hell, and they deserve this answer,” he adds.

Fox is correct in understanding the ramifications and what is coming. For some people who have an ingrained anti-Israel view, the information won’t matter. They dislike Israel anyway. However, there are many people who are sympathetic to Israel or may not have a strong opinion. They will see images of destroyed cities, and they will want to know why this happened. They will be told Israel bombed and destroyed things. Will they learn how Hamas festooned these areas with weapons and tunnels?

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I remember the battle of Mosul against ISIS. While the battle for eastern Mosul was difficult, it didn’t result in that much destruction to civilian homes because it took only two months, and the area was relatively suburban, owing to how Saddam’s regime had planned the growth of Mosul back in the 1970s and 1980s. The battle for the old city of Mosul on the western side of the Tigris was different.

The Iraqi military had to fight street by street. Buildings were destroyed, and infamously, ISIS even blew up the historic Nuri mosque. When the battle was over, some commentators slammed the US-led anti-ISIS coalition for destroying Mosul. They mocked this “victory.”

However, they were wrong. ISIS was defeated, and today, much of Mosul is rebuilt, including old mosques and churches. War is hell, and defeating evil enemies leads to destruction. It can lead to rebirth as well.

In Gaza, there is destruction on a scale that surpasses Mosul. I’ve seen both cities at the height of the war, and this is the reality. Jan Egeland, the Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council, recently posted photos from Gaza. “Returning to Gaza now, I see the destruction that defies belief, from Rafah, via Khan Yunis, to Gaza City,” he wrote on social media. “This is the destruction of an entire society of more than 2 million people in a densely populated, small, confined territory.”

Arwa Damon also posted a video showing the destruction in part of Gaza. “No one is ‘used to’ the apocalyptic scenes, how hard it is just to survive,” she wrote on social media recently. Damon is a former CNN Senior Correspondent who covered the battle for Mosul and is now back in Gaza on her fourth humanitarian mission with her charity INARA, which helps war-wounded children.

Philippa Greer, a Human rights lawyer and head of Legal for UNRWA, also posted a video of the destruction in Gaza on November 9. “Today, entering Gaza City. The ruins of life. A donkey laying dead attached to a cart with someone’s possessions,” she wrote in the introduction, posted on social media.

The destruction is clear, and the question that must be asked is about how Hamas led Gaza to this destruction by taking over every civilian area and exploiting these areas to hide weapons. Israel will need to wrestle with how to tell this story in the coming months.