Gaza City During the Israeli Attacks on Gaza: An Interior Designer’s Journey to Israel’s War-Gaza-Naw Bank
Majdi Ahmed, 32, a taxi driver taking a shelter in a hospital, said that he and his friends can hear the news because they don’t have internet.
Other residents of Gaza City were trying to listen to the sound of gunfire and assess the Israeli advance because of the unavailability of mobile networks.
Saher Abu Adgham, a Palestinian graphic designer, searched the streets of Gaza City for firewood to boil some rice. He slept at his house as dusk approached to be prepared for the army to advance at nightfall.
Many buildings were wrecked, their walls sprayed with bullet holes. Some were most likely hit from the air during an Israeli bombing campaign that has killed more than 9,000 Gazans, according to Gaza’s health authority, which is controlled by Hamas.
The wall of the school had collapsed. The minaret was tilted toward the other side. A maroon sofa is exposed to the elements as the beachfront villa’s roof has vanished.
Source: Blinken Travels to Israeli-Occupied West Bank
The Israeli Army Gets a Glimmer Inside Israel’s Invasion of the Gazan Strip: Two Days After the Fourth Israeli Army Arrived on Gaza
Eight days later, the Israeli army has fought its way several miles to the south, reaching the outskirts of Gaza City, Hamas’s stronghold, and establishing control over the northern stretch of Gaza’s coastal road.
Israeli military leaders brought a small group of foreign journalists into northern Gaza on Saturday for four hours to witness the extent of the advance. A reporter for The New York Times was among them.
Thousands of troops began their incursion down the coastline on Oct. 27, one part of a three-pronged invasive force that aims to vanquish Hamas, which led a brazen raid on Israel last month that killed roughly 1,400 people.
The infantrymen blew the dust into the air as they marched along the road. Tanks and armored vehicles dominated the landscape in the sand dunes east of the road.
Colonel Ben-Anat said catching an enemy is like catching a mouse. “You have to find him. You know he’s there. You don’t know where he is but you know when you catch him.
Source: Blinken Travels to Israeli-Occupied West Bank
A Colonel in Israel tries to rob a soldier in the tunnel network: Palestinians and the Committee to Protect Journalists
Nearby, groups of soldiers gathered around portable camping stoves, boiling sweet corn and carrots, chatting and joking. Men grow mustaches during the month of November to raise funds for Movember, a charity that supports men’s health issues.
All the political divisions in Israel of the past year — in which thousands of military reservists had threatened to refuse to serve in protest of the Israeli government — had vanished, the colonel said. Many of his men were members of the military reserve.
Even as some soldiers cooked and rested, others had their guns drawn, scanning the horizon for assailants. At any time, the Colonel said, Hamas could come out of hidden shafts and attacks the Israeli troops in a huge underground tunnel network.
To reach the front, the journalists drove in a convoy of five tanks and two armored vehicles. A reporter for The Times was in a vehicle. The driver looked at a screen that showed a live video of the road ahead, and it had no windows.
The Committee to Protect Journalists says that dozens of Palestinians have been killed since the beginning of the war.
On the nature of the military: commanders in the army waiting to deploy and how they influence the political discourse around the Israeli prime minister
Military officials insist that the training and equipment of regular soldiers is up to the task in Gaza and other areas despite the fact that some reservists are older and in less prime physical shape. The former commanders say that their accomplishments outside the military are positive for the war effort.
The economic and social background of the people who are volunteers in the army means that they are open to criticism of the prime minister. Along with their army-issued fatigues, some wear T-shirts emblazoned with the symbols of the mass rallies last summer against Mr. Netanyahu’s overhaul of the Israeli judiciary.
political debates can happen with time. “You’ll have guys poking fun at each other, saying, ‘I hope you don’t go back to the demonstrations when you go home,’” Dr. Erez said. It is not very heated. People realize that this is crucial, and they agree that something bigger is going on.
Being too outspoken can have consequences. The air force member was fired for making a statement about the prime minister in a private group. Israeli military spokesman said that political comments are against the rules.
Yagil Levy, professor and expert on the military at the Open University of Israel, said that the hostages are in danger if the issue of their captivity isn’t resolved soon. In the military, you may see a kind of protest and even resistance.
There are rumors and dark theories during the off hours. “They tell me that they take a kid who is 8 or 9 years old, pack him with an explosive vest and send him,” Sergeant Schnider said of the militants in Gaza. “What are you supposed to do? I don’t want to get into that situation.
“You can’t do anything without the rank or rank”: a reflection of Singer, an officer in Israel’s military reserve unit
The level-minded military personnel may run slower than before, but they are still fast. Gen. Ari Singer was a reserves officer in the Israeli military. “The leadership in the reserves is more authentic, not related to the ranks you have on your shoulder.”
About half a million workers were off the clock as a result of the call to duty, according to the director of the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University.