Newly obtained images shed light on the destruction of homes and the mistreatment of Palestinian civilians by Israeli forces in Gaza’s Shejaiya neighborhood.
Al-Jazeera has obtained exclusive footage captured by an Israeli soldier following clashes with Palestinian resistance fighters in the Shejaiya neighborhood of eastern Gaza City last July.
The footage documents raids on homes and the abuse of Palestinian civilians in the area.
The Israeli soldier reportedly lost his camera during the fighting in Shejaiya.
The footage shows Israeli forces storming a house that had just been forcefully evacuated. Israeli soldiers are seen ransacking the home.
In another clip, soldiers, including reservists, can be seen awkwardly practicing how to storm a house through a kitchen window.
The home appears recently occupied, with unfinished food still left behind.
The images reveal how, for Gaza’s civilians, their homes have been turned into battlegrounds — and even training grounds — for Israeli soldiers who appear unprepared and unfit for combat.
This lack of readiness, according to the report, may help explain the high casualty rates among Israeli reservists and the growing reluctance among them to return to the battlefield.
Since the beginning of the war, Israeli forces have destroyed approximately 165,000 housing units, including 15,000 units in the weeks following the time this footage was taken, according to official reports. By that point, about 35,000 housing units had already been rendered uninhabitable.
The footage also captures a more harrowing scene: in broken Arabic, Israeli soldiers are heard abusing Palestinian civilians who were unlawfully detained. The detainees are stripped naked, verbally insulted, and left lying under the blazing summer sun.
According to the latest figures from the Government Information Office, 6,633 Palestinians have been detained since the war began.
(PC, AJA)
The term “War” should be for two opposing armed parties (ie countries) fighting over land or resources or other dispute. It should not be used for the systematic extermination of a people and its culture, its artefacts and history, while the population is caged, starved and deprived of medicines and health. If one party has access to weapons of mass destruction and the other, makeshift ordnance and small arms, then again there is no contest. Casualties should be approximately similar for both parties so that each party “feels” the suffering, the weight and losses of war. It is important that these wars become more balanced soon. Otherwise, it will be too late.