KHAN YUNIS, Gaza Strip – If the Khan Yunis area is indicative of the rest of the Strip, Gaza is in ruins. The destruction is a testament to the folly of the territory’s ruling power, Hamas – a shameful waste of everything Palestinians and their supporters claim to hold dear.
In the heart of the Bani Suheila Municipality, looking through a rifle scope and a meurtrière (arrowslit) carved into a wall, I couldn’t fathom why anyone would invite such a disaster upon their people and country. I couldn’t see a single building left unmarred by Hamas and IDF operations.
Apartments are riddled with holes from bullets of every relevant caliber, with chains of dark spots from Negev, FN MAG, and RPK machine guns; pockmarks from micro-Tavor, M4, and Kalashnikov rifles; deep gouges from sniper fire. The interiors of homes were laid bare by tank shells, the remnants of their exterior faces scarred by shrapnel from grenades, IEDs, RPG-7s, and LAWs.
The roads have been torn into dirt wadis, shaped by the treads of Merkava tanks and armored personnel carriers. Periodic winter squalls have filled putrid pools where swarms of chickens, ducks, cats, and dogs sate their thirst when they cannot rely on the goodwill of soldiers. When hungry, the myriad of farm animals dine on the garbage strewn in alleyways – spoiled food from refrigerators, stores, and the leftovers of soldiers.
Among the garbage, I found a leaflet dropped by the IDF, urging residents to flee the area so they would not be caught in the exchange of fire. The danger of civilian collateral damage had been abated by the warnings, the city emptied and turned into a ghost town.
Gaza, by no means a paradise
Deep sandy pits have been dug in the ground in the search for the Hamas tunnels that honeycomb the city’s foundations. The corpse of one terrorist was found half-buried in the excavated sand. Many structures have been leveled as part of the anti-tunnel effort, or because they had been turned into IED-laden death traps or positions for sniper or anti-tank guided missile fire.
The Khan Yunis outskirts have been similarly scoured to rout the Hamas cells and hives of tunnels. The orchards and greenhouses were scraped from the earth by D9 military bulldozers searching for shaft entrances, usually in response to hit-and-run attacks launched by hiding terrorists. There is no greenery; everything has been rendered to the dull color of dirt.
Despite what would be believed from the propaganda pumped out by Gazan terrorist organizations for the consumption of naïve Westerners, Gaza seemed to have once been a fine place. While anti-Israel activists might have once believed that the Strip was an “open-air prison,” it was a place filled with life, with farms and orchards, stores, schools, and apartment buildings. There were beautiful homes filled with marble countertops, elaborately decorated salons, flat-screen televisions, smartphones, and modern amenities.
All these have been wasted by Hamas, and there is no pleasure to be had from such sights. Such destruction is the wages of war, willingly paid by Hamas terrorists just so they could wantonly slaughter Israelis. The October 7 massacre, which resulted in the loss of almost 1,200 lives and the kidnapping of hundreds, was an act of spiteful, suicidal hatred, intended to harm Gazan and Israeli citizens alike.
Hamas knew that Israel would need to remove the threat of further pogroms when it attacked; it knew that Israel would need to strive to free the captives, which could only be responsibly achieved with an unprecedented ground incursion.
Gaza was by no means a paradise, and there were many in poverty and unemployed. Yet the shame of Gaza is not just that Hamas sacrificed the territory it ruled for the opportunity of barbaric violence; it is also that the potential of the Strip had been wasted for the last 20 years.
Soldiers repeatedly remarked to me as we patrolled the ruins that Gaza could be an amazing place. It lies on a beautiful plot of land – a green coastal state bordering on a desert. There are villas that lord over orchards from atop hills with views of the Mediterranean Sea. The beaches could have drawn visitors from across the Middle East. The same coastline hosts successful Israeli cities, such as Tel Aviv, Ashkelon, and Ashdod.
Gazan cities could have rivaled their Israeli counterparts if the concrete and resources for hundreds of kilometers of underground terrorist infrastructure had instead been invested into civil amenities. Instead of producing unguided rockets to indiscriminately attack Israeli cities, munitions workshops could have been devoted to local industry.
I saw beautiful fields torn up during operations. These fields could have been fertile ground for a thriving Palestinian agricultural industry. Given the prominence of the Palestinian cause, Gazan olives and citrus could have been a boutique product sought across the world. Instead, Gaza’s chief export has been rockets and murder.
Gaza could have been another United Arab Emirates; it could have been a jewel of the Levant. Instead, it was yet another failed Middle Eastern kleptocracy.
The dream of the establishment of a Palestinian state could have been realized in Gaza. Instead, Hamas pursued nationalist irredentism and jihadist endeavors, not satisfied or appreciating what it had.
I wish I could show what I saw to Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif and ask them if this destruction was worth it. But the evil of Hamas and those cheerleading their operations from the West is that the blood of Palestinians is cheap.
I hope from the ashes of Gaza, a new generation of Palestinian leadership will rise and see that the strategies pursued by Palestinian factions for the last 75 years do not work and are not worth acts of “resistance.”
I hope that together, we can rebuild Gaza, and that I can someday return to Khan Yunis not in uniform but as a guest of a thriving city.
The writer is an IDF reservist deployed in the Gaza Strip.