Fluent Essays

Chapter Title- Israel Has the Right to Defend Itself.pdf For this assignment, please write a half to 1-full page, single-space and 11 to 12 font in Times New Roman , a critical analysis summation on the piece assigned in relation to some of the key thematics for this week: emerging global cultures, clashing of cultures, decolonization, state of alterity (otherness), moral relativity, alienation of the other, counter-violence, state-sanctioned violence, globalization, modernity, post-colonial democracy, white (body) patriarchal supremacy, colonization, colonialism, western imperialism, western hegemony, manifest destiny, counter-hegemony, identity politics, self-hate, genocide, ecocide and ethnocide. In other words, deconstruct, deconstruct, deconstruct. There is no right or wrong answer, all I ask is to think critically about the reading and find relevancy in it and most significantly your positionality in the world. If you can not relate, state why. Chapter Title: Israel Has the Right to Defend Itself Book Title: Gaza Book Subtitle: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom Book Author(s): Norman G. Finkelstein Published by: University of California Press Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctv1xxxwn.15 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected] Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms University of California Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Gaza This content downloaded from ������������130.65.109.155 on Tue, 01 Jun 2021 01:17:17 UTC������������� All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctv1xxxwn.15 211 e l e v e n Israel Has the Right to Defend Itself on 8 j u ly 2014, isr a e l l au nch e d Operation Protective Edge. It marked the longest and most destructive of Israel’s recent attacks on Gaza; indeed, it was “the most devastating round of hostilities in Gaza since the beginning of the Israeli occupation in 1967.”1 Operation Cast Lead (2008–9) lasted 22 days, whereas Protective Edge lasted fully 51 days (it ended on 26 August). Some 350 children were killed and 6,000 homes destroyed during Cast Lead, whereas fully 550 children were killed and 18,000 homes destroyed during Protective Edge. Israel left behind 600,000 tons of rubble in Cast Lead, whereas it left behind 2.5 million tons of rubble in Protective Edge. What’s more, Protective Edge “impacted an already paralyzed economy at a time when socioeconomic conditions were at their lowest since 1967. Th is operation therefore had a more severe impact on socioeconomic conditions compared to the previous two military operations in 2008 and 2012.”2 But in contrast to Cast Lead and the 2006 Lebanon war, Protective Edge was not preplanned long in advance; the decision to attack resulted from contin- gent factors.3 Israeli offi cialdom also thought twice during Protective Edge before making those brazen incriminating statements that got it in legal hot water in the past. On the morrow of Cast Lead, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni 1. United Nations Country Team in the State of Palestine, Gaza: Two years aft er (2016). 2. United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, “Report on UNCTAD Assistance to the Palestinian People: Developments in the economy of the Occupied Palestinian Territory” ( July 2015), paras. 27, 42 (2.5 million tons). 3. Julia Amalia Heyer, “Ex-Israeli Security Chief Diskin: ‘All the conditions are there for an explosion,’ ” Spiegel Online International (24 July 2014). On the preplanning for Cast Lead, see Chapter 2; on Lebanon in 2006, see Benjamin S. Lambeth, Air Operations in Israel ’s War against Hezbollah: Learning fr om Lebanon and getting it right in Gaza (Arlington, VA: 2011), p. 97. This content downloaded from ������������130.65.109.155 on Tue, 01 Jun 2021 01:17:17 UTC������������� All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 212 • O p e r a t i o n P r o t e c t i v e E d g e publicly bragged about the criminal orders she issued, but she then found herself the target of criminal prosecution.4 Sobered by this brush with the law, Livni sang a diff erent tune as minister of justice aft er Protective Edge: “When the fi re stops, the legal fi re directed at Israel, its leaders, its soldiers, and its commanders will begin. I . . . intend to stand at the frontlines in this battle . . . and will give each soldier and each commander in the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] a legal bulletproof vest.”5 Still, many of Israel’s tactics— provocations, massive force—conformed to a decades-old pattern. Protective Edge also ended on a familiar note: Israel was unable to claim decisive mili- tary victory, while Hamas was unable to extract concrete political gain. Protective Edge traced back to yet another reckless display of Hamas prag- matism. At the end of April 2014, the Islamic movement and its secular Palestinian rival Fatah formed a “consensus government.” Th e United States and the European Union did not suspend engagement but instead “cau- tiously welcomed” the Palestinian initiative, adopting a wait-and-see approach.6 It was evidently payback time, as Israel had aborted the 2013–14 peace initiative of US secretary of state John Kerry.7 If only through a back door, Hamas had won unprecedented legitimacy, but it also made an unprec- edented concession. Th e United States and the European Union had long predicated diplomatic engagement with Palestinian leaders on a trio of pre- conditions: recognition of Israel, renunciation of violence, and recognition of past agreements.8 Hamas did not object when Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, speaking on behalf of the new unity government, reiter- ated his support for the preconditions. As these developments unfolded, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu erupted in a rage.9 Th e pros - pect of “Palestinian unity” was a “red line” for Netanyahu (and Israeli leaders 4. See Chapter 3 and Chapter 5. 5. B’Tselem (Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories), Whitewash Protocol: Th e so-called investigation of Operation Protective Edge (2016), pp. 4–5. 6. Peter Beaumont, “Palestinian Unity Government of Fatah and Hamas Sworn In,” Guardian (2 June 2014); “Why Hamas Fires Th ose Rockets,” Economist (19 July 2014). 7. Nahum Barnea, “Inside the Talks’ Failure: US offi cials open up,” ynetnews.com (2 May 2014). 8. See Chapter 1. 9. Jack Khoury, “Abbas: Palestinian unity government will recognize Israel, condemn terrorism,” Haaretz (26 April 2014); Jeff rey Heller, “Netanyahu Urges World Not to Recognize Palestinian Unity Government,” Reuters (1 June 2014); Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, “Th e US Stance on the Palestinian Unity Government” (Doha: 19 June 2014). This content downloaded from ������������130.65.109.155 on Tue, 01 Jun 2021 01:17:17 UTC������������� All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms http://www.ynetnews.com I s r a e l H a s t h e R i g h t t o D e f e n d I t s e l f • 213 in general), so he refl exively sought to sabotage it.10 In the event that the Palestinian consensus held, he could no longer invoke standard Israeli ali- bis—Abbas represented only one Palestinian faction; Hamas was a terrorist organization bent on Israel’s destruction—to evade a settlement of the con- fl ict.11 Th e prime minister’s ire was yet more aroused as the United States and the European Union had already ignored his premonition that Iran was intending to visit a “second Holocaust” on Israel. Instead, they had entered into diplomatic talks with Tehran to obtain an agreement on its nuclear weapons program. In June 2014, a gift dropped into Netanyahu’s lap. A rogue Hamas cell abducted and killed three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank. Netanyahu was aware early on that the teenagers had been killed (not captured for a future prisoner swap) and that Hamas’s leadership wasn’t responsible.12 “Th e gov- ernment had known almost from the beginning that the boys were dead,” J. J. Goldberg, the former editor in chief of the ( Jewish) Forward, observed. “Th ere was no doubt.”13 But never one to pass up an exploitable moment, Netanyahu parlayed this macabre “boon”14 to break up the Palestinian unity government. Feigning a rescue mission, Israel launched Operation Brother’s Keeper in mid-June. At least fi ve West Bank Palestinians were killed, homes were demolished and businesses ransacked, and seven hundred Palestinians, mostly Hamas members, were arrested, including many who had been released in a 2011 prisoner exchange.15 Th e rampage was patently tailored to elicit a violent response from Hamas, so as to “prove” it was a terrorist organi- zation. Netanyahu could then, and in fact later did, rebuke Washington to 10. Th e imminence of a Palestinian unity government in 2006 precipitated the identical Israeli response. Jean-Pierre Filiu, Gaza: A history (New York: 2014), p. 295. 11. Idan Landau, “Th e Unfolding Lie of Operation Protective Edge,” +972 (15 July 2014); Avi Issacharoff , “PM: Palestinian unity government would kill off the peace process,” Haaretz (18 March 2011). 12. Amos Harel and Yaniv Kubovich, “Revealed: Behind the scenes on the hunt to fi nd kidnapped teens,” Haaretz (1 July 2014); Katie Zavadski, “It Turns Out Hamas May Not Have Kidnapped and Killed the 3 Israeli Teens Aft er All,” New York (25 July 2014); “Hamas: We wouldn’t target civilians if we had better weapons,” Haaretz (23 August 2014); Amos Harel, “Notes from an Interrogation: How the Shin Beth gets the lowdown on terror,” Haaretz (2 September 2014). 13. J. J. Goldberg, “How Politics and Lies Triggered an Unintended War in Gaza,” Forward (10 July 2014). 14. Landau, “Unfolding Lie.” 15. Human Rights Watch, “Serious Violations in West Bank Operations” (3 July 2014). This content downloaded from ������������130.65.109.155 on Tue, 01 Jun 2021 01:17:17 UTC������������� All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 214 • O p e r a t i o n P r o t e c t i v e E d g e “never second-guess me again.”16 Hamas at fi rst resisted the Israeli provoca- tions, although other Gaza factions did fi re projectiles. But in the ensuing tit-for-tat, Hamas entered the fray and the violence spun out of control.17 Once hostilities broke out, Israel faced a now familiar dilemma. Short- range projectiles of the kind Hamas18 possessed couldn’t be disabled from the air; they had to be taken out at ground level. But a ground invasion would cost Netanyahu either too much domestically, if many Israeli soldiers were killed fi ghting Hamas street by street, or too much internationally, if Israeli soldiers immunized themselves from attack by indiscriminately targeting the civilian population and infrastructure as they advanced.19 Unable to carve out a safe path through the thicket of political unknowns, Netanyahu initially held back from launching a ground invasion. But then two more gift s dropped into his lap. First, former British prime minister Tony Blair apparently contrived, while Egyptian strongman Abdel Fattah el-Sisi20 formally presented, a cease- fi re deal (on 14 July), according to which Hamas would stop fi ring projectiles into Israel and Israel would ease the blockade of Gaza when “the security situation stabilizes.”21 Th e prior cease-fi re agreements Hamas had entered into with Israel did not contain such a “security” caveat.22 Insofar as Israel desig- nated Hamas a terrorist organization, the security situation in Gaza could stabilize only when Hamas either was defeated or disarmed itself, in the absence of which the siege would continue. It surely didn’t come as a shock when Hamas rejected these cease-fi re terms. Whereas el-Sisi’s proposal did not bring a halt to armed hostilities, it did hand Israel a credible pretext for a brutal ground invasion. What choice did it have (Israel could protest) in the 16. “Netanyahu to US: ‘Don’t ever second-guess me again,’ ” ynetnews.com (2 August 2014). 17. Christa Case Bryant, “Ending Détente, Hamas Takes Responsibility for Today’s Spike in Rocket Fire,” Christian Science Monitor (7 July 2014); David C. Hendrickson, “Th e Th rasybulus Syndrome,” National Interest (29 July 2014); Nathan Th rall, “Hamas’s Chances,” London Review of Books (21 August 2014); Assaf Sharon, “Failure in Gaza,” New York Review of Books (25 September 2014). 18. Here as elsewhere, Hamas is used as shorthand for all Palestinian armed groups in Gaza when referring to Palestinian military actions and capabilities. 19. See Chapter 10. 20. In July 2013, el-Sisi had replaced Egypt’s democratically elected government led by the Muslim Brotherhood in a bloody coup. 21. “Th e Full Text of the Egyptian Ceasefi re Proposal,” Haaretz (15 July 2014); Barak Ravid, “Secret Call between Netanyahu, al-Sissi Led to Abortive Cease-fi re,” Haaretz (16 July 2014). 22. “Israel and Hamas Ceasefi re Begins,” BBC (19 June 2008); “Ceasefi re Agreement between Israel and Gaza’s Palestinians,” Reuters (21 November 2012). This content downloaded from ������������130.65.109.155 on Tue, 01 Jun 2021 01:17:17 UTC������������� All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms http://www.ynetnews.com I s r a e l H a s t h e R i g h t t o D e f e n d I t s e l f • 215 face of Hamas’s intransigence? Second, on 17 July, a Malaysian airliner fl ying over Ukraine was downed.23 Th e politically charged incident instantly dis- placed Gaza as the headline news story. Ever the consummate and cynical politician, Netanyahu seized on this golden opportunity. Shortly aft er the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, Netanyahu reportedly declared that Israel had committed a major blunder when it didn’t expel “fi ve, 50 or 500” Palestinian “inciters” of the fi rst intifada while the media was riveted on China.24 Th e downed Malaysian airliner was Netanyahu’s “Tiananmen moment.” Freed up by the diversion to unleash a no-holds-barred attack, Netanyahu launched the ground invasion hours later, on the night of that very day.25 Th e new regional constellation, as the Arab Spring degenerated into the Arab Winter, further emboldened him. Hamas was left out in the cold, with- out any states willing to go to bat for it and many rooting for its defeat. Fate had lined up Netanyahu’s ducks: the perfect pretext, the perfect decoy, the perfect alignment of earthly bodies politic. He could fi nally settle scores with Hamas and, incidentally, exact sweet revenge for the humiliation he suff ered in Operation Pillar of Defense (2012).26 As ground troops crossed into the Strip, Israel let loose with abandon its explosive arsenal. Gaza’s civilian population and infrastructure—homes and businesses, schools and mosques, hospitals and ambulances, power stations and sewage plants, civilian shelters and civilians fl eeing in panic—came under relentless, indiscriminate, disproportionate, and deliberate attack. Israel reportedly fi red 20,000 high-explosive artillery shells, 14,500 tank shells, 6,000 missiles, and 3,500 naval shells into the enclave.27 Th is breakdown 23. Sabrina Tavernise, Eric Schmitt, and Rick Gladstone, “Jetliner Explodes over Ukraine; Struck by Missile, Offi cials Say,” New York Times (17 July 2014). 24. Menachem Shalev, “Netanyahu Recommends Large-Scale Expulsions,” Jerusalem Post (19 November 1989). Th e fi rst intifada began in 1987 and was still going strong in 1989. 25. In a retrospective one year aft er Protective Edge, Haaretz observed that one of the “external factors” operating in Israel’s favor during Protective Edge was “the July 17 downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17.” Chemi Shalev, “Israel’s Deceptive Diplomatic Success,” Haaretz (n.d.). For a rigorous study demonstrating that “Israeli authorities may choose the timing of their attacks strategically to minimize negative international publicity,” see Ruben Durante and Ekaterina Zuravskaya, “Attack When the World Is Not Watching? International media and the Israeli-Palestinian confl ict,” Becker Friedman Institute for Research in Economics (2015). 26. See Chapter 10. 27. United Nations Offi ce for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aff airs (OCHA), Humanitarian Bulletin—Monthly Report ( June–August 2014); “Taking Stock,” BaYabasha (Ground Forces Journal) (October 2014), p. 47 (Hebrew). This content downloaded from ������������130.65.109.155 on Tue, 01 Jun 2021 01:17:17 UTC������������� All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 216 • O p e r a t i o n P r o t e c t i v e E d g e did not yet include bomb tonnage—over 100 one-ton bombs were dropped on the Shuja’ iya neighborhood alone. More than 1,500 Gazan civilians were killed during Protective Edge. (In Israel, six civilians were killed.)28 In a 2014 global ranking of the number of civilian casualties resulting from explosive weapons, tiny Gaza placed third—below Iraq and Syria, but ahead of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Ukraine.29 Large swaths of Gaza were reduced to rubble; Gaza’s economy “eff ectively collapsed,” while recovery was “expected to take decades.”30 Th e overwhelming violent force Israel unleashed was designed to limit IDF combat casualties by blasting everything and everyone within sight of the invading army, and to subvert Gaza’s will to resist by ter- rorizing the civilian population and pulverizing the civilian infrastructure. But it also indexed the sadism and brutalized indiff erence permeating the ranks of the IDF. Th e Goldstone Report had concluded that the Israeli objec- tive in Cast Lead was to “punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population.”31 Protective Edge was a repeat Israeli performance but on a vastly greater scale. Peter Maurer, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, observed aft er touring the ravaged Strip, “I’ve never seen such massive destruction ever before,” while the UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process observed, “No human being who visits can remain untouched by the terrible devastation that one sees.”32 It was a “wild war of revenge,” Haaretz journalist Zvi Bar’el recalled, that “turned the entire Gaza population into an ‘infrastructure’ to be destroyed.”33 “In the 30 years that I have spent researching and writing about Gaza and her people,” Sara Roy of Harvard University refl ected aft er Protective Edge, “I can say without hesitation that I have never seen the kind of human, physical, and psychologi- cal destruction that I see there today.”34 Even UN secretary-general Ban 28. See Chapter 12 for sources. 29. Action on Armed Violence (AOAV), Explosive States: Monitoring explosive violence in 2014 (2015). Th e ranking was based on Gazan casualties throughout 2014, not just during Protective Edge. 30. Sara Roy, Th e Gaza Strip: Th e political economy of de-development, expanded third edition (Washington, DC: 2016), p. 401 (“expected to take” quoted from United Nations special coordinator for the Middle East peace process). 31. See Chapter 5. 32. Sudarsan Raghavan, “Month-Long War in Gaza Has Left a Humanitarian and Environmental Crisis,” Washington Post (9 August 2014); “Arriving for Talks in Gaza, New UN Envoy Urges Palestinian Unity, End to Israeli Blockade,” UN News Centre (30 April 2015). 33. Zvi Bar’el, “Israeli Security Assessments Are Reality Built on a Lie,” Haaretz (19 April 2016). 34. Roy, Gaza Strip, p. 395. This content downloaded from ������������130.65.109.155 on Tue, 01 Jun 2021 01:17:17 UTC������������� All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms I s r a e l H a s t h e R i g h t t o D e f e n d I t s e l f • 217 Ki-moon, who habitually took his cues from Washington, was moved (or felt compelled) to tell the UN General Assembly during the operation, “Th e massive death and destruction in Gaza have shocked and shamed the world,” while a few months later he told a press conference aft er visiting Gaza, “Th e destruction I have seen coming here is beyond description.”35 Meanwhile, the consensus opinion inside Israel was that Protective Edge constituted a “lim- ited military operation.”36 To extenuate Gaza’s civilian death toll, Israel, per usual, accused Hamas of using civilians as “human shields.”37 But reputable human rights organiza- tions and journalists, per usual, found no evidence to sustain Israel’s allega- tion.38 In a comprehensive defense of its conduct during Protective Edge, Israel professed that the “IDF sought to achieve the goals set by the Government of Israel while adhering to the Law of Armed Confl ict—and in certain respects, the IDF went beyond its legal obligations.”39 As if reading from the offi cial Israeli script, an international High Level Military Group— sponsored and selected by the “Friends of Israel Initiative,” and including perennial Israel pom-pom Colonel Richard Kemp—proclaimed, “Th e IDF not only met its obligations under the Law of Armed Confl ict, but oft en exceeded them.” Indeed, it purported that the “IDF showed signifi cant restraint,” and that a “life-preserving ethos . . . is propagated throughout its ranks.” It even went so far as to “express strong concerns that the actions and practices of the IDF to prevent collateral damage were so extensive . . . that they would curtail the eff ectiveness of our own militaries, were they to become constraining norms of warfare enacted in customary law.”40 Th e 35. Raghavan, “Month-Long War”; Peter Beaumont and Hazem Balousha, “Ban Ki-moon: Gaza is a source of shame to the international community,” Guardian (14 October 2014). 36. Meron Rapoport, “Th e Coup against Israel’s Army,” Middle East Eye (21 May 2016). 37. State of Israel, Th e 2014 Gaza Confl ict, 7 July–26 August 2014: Factual and legal aspects (2015), paras. 161–65. 38. Amnesty International, Israel/Gaza Confl ict: Questions and answers (25 July 2014); “Jeremy Bowen’s Gaza Notebook: ‘I saw no evidence of Hamas using Palestinians as human shields,’ ” New Statesman (25 July 2014); Kim Sengupta, “Th e Myth of Hamas’s Human Shields,” Independent (21 July 2014). For Hamas’s alleged “human shielding” in Operation Cast Lead, see Chapter 4; for Protective Edge, see also Chapter 12 and Chapter 13. 39. State of Israel, 2014 Gaza Confl ict, para. 15. 40. High Level Military Group, An Assessment of the 2014 Gaza Confl ict (2015), paras. 7, 59, 119, 216, 207 (see also paras. 12, 24, 30, 54, 63, 103, 113, 169, 180, 205). Th e group described itself as “top-level practitioners from democratic nations whose expertise covers the entire This content downloaded from ������������130.65.109.155 on Tue, 01 Jun 2021 01:17:17 UTC������������� All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 218 • O p e r a t i o n P r o t e c t i v e E d g e credibility of these attestations, however, crashed up against the testimonies of Israeli soldiers who actually saw combat during Protective Edge. In con- trast, the “assessment” of the High Level Military Group largely consisted of a stenographic transcription of what senior Israeli offi cials told it. Th e IDF eyewitness accounts were compiled by Breaking the Silence, an Israeli non- governmental organization comprising former Israeli soldiers. None of the hundreds of testimonies collected by this organization over more than a dec- ade has ever been proven false, and all of them were approved for publication by the IDF censor. Th e politics of Breaking the Silence were not aberrantly left ist (it did not support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, and opposed criminal prosecution of Israeli offi cers), while most of the sol- dier-witnesses did not even appear contrite.41 Th e criminal dimensions of Protective Edge could be gleaned from these IDF eyewitness accounts (see Table 4). Although Israel fl inches at juxtapositions of its own conduct with that of the Nazis, one of the Breaking the Silence testimonies (no. 83) breached this taboo: “Th ere’s that famous photo that they always show on trips to Poland [in which Israeli youths visit Holocaust memorial sites] that shows Warsaw before the war and Warsaw aft er the Second World War. Th e photo shows the heart of Warsaw and it’s this classy European city, and then they show it at the end of the war. Th ey show the exact same neighborhood, only it has just one house left standing, and the rest is just ruins. Th at’s what it looked like.” To avoid mind-numbing redundancy, Table 4 omits the suc- cession of combatants who testifi ed that the IDF’s modus operandi during the operation was shoot to kill anything that moves, oft en on explicit orders but also because it was “cool.”42 If the High Level Military Group perempto- rily dismissed all these combatant testimonies, it was because “senior [Israeli] commanders as well as those leading the fi ght on the ground” contradicted gamut of the conduct of warfare, its strategic, tactical, operational and legal frameworks” (paras. 1, 201). Kemp alleged that if the High Level Military Group’s fi ndings were “the diametric opposite of those of the UN Human Rights Council, human rights groups,” it was because these groups “analyze the situation based on human rights law, not the laws of armed confl ict.” Th e most charitable thing one can say is that Kemp didn’t read a single word in any of these critical reports, which of course based their analyses overwhelmingly on the laws of armed confl ict. Richard Kemp, “We Put Our Reputations on the Line: Th is is why,” Jewish Chronicle (16 December 2015). For Kemp, see Chapter 4 and Chapter 5. 41. Haggai Matar, “Why Do So Many Israelis Hate Breaking the Silence?,” +972 (14 December 2015). 42. Curious readers should consult numbered testimonies 2, 3, 16, 17, 22, 24, 28, 40, 51, 52, 55, 56, 63, 75, 81 (reference at Table 4). This content downloaded from ������������130.65.109.155 on Tue, 01 Jun 2021 01:17:17 UTC������������� All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms ta ble 4 How Israel Fought Operation Protective Edge: A Selection of IDF Testimonies 18a When we left aft er the operation, it was just a barren stretch of desert. . . . We spoke about it a lot amongst ourselves, the guys from the company, how crazy the amount of damage we did there was. I quote: “Listen man, it’s crazy what went on in there,” “Listen man, we really messed them up,” “Fuck, check it out, there’s nothing at all left . . . , it’s nothing but desert now, that’s crazy.” 21 I remember that the level of destruction looked insane to me. 22 We entered Gaza . . . with an insane amount of fi repower. 25 It all looked like a science fi ction movie . . . serious levels of destruction everywhere. . . . [E]verything was really in ruins. And non-stop fi re all the time. 30 Before the entrance on foot [to the Gaza Strip], a crazy amount of artillery was fi red at the entire area. . . . Before a tank makes any movement …