Hamas attacks: Israel has hit the Gaza Strip with 6,000 bombs since the war began

Relentless pace, regulated like a clock. Every 30 seconds, Israeli artillery engages a target that is barely visible from firing positions somewhere in the Gaza Strip. Since the start of the conflict and the Hamas attack on Saturday, which killed at least 1,200 people in Israel, some 6,000 bombs have been dropped on the area, “with a total weight of 4,000 tons of explosives,” the Israeli army said this Thursday.

“Hamas is Daesh, and we are going to crush and destroy it, just as the world destroyed Daesh,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, head of the emergency government created on Wednesday, referring to the jihadist group Islamic State (EI).

Each salvo shakes bodies as well as the asphalt of the expressway connecting Netivot and Sderot, two communities on the front lines of Hamas rocket attacks.

Shortly before Israeli fire began at this intensity, around 12 noon (11 am Paris time), two of these Made in Gaza rockets fell on Sderot, injuring four Israeli civilians, two of them seriously.

At least 1,300 Palestinians died

The 155-mm cannons are located in the fields, on the edge of the border with the Gaza Strip, at a distance of several tens of meters from each other.

In addition to the deafening noise, which contrasts sharply with the silence of the plain, flames erupt with every salvo of Israeli cannons pointed to the west.

In the distance, in the fog and dust kicked up by the latest generation of Merkava tanks that come and go nearby, we see a plume of black smoke rising into the sky from the Rimal area of ​​Gaza City.

More than 1,300 Palestinians, including many civilians, were killed in six days in the Gaza Strip by drowning in the attacks, which reduced entire buildings to rubble, according to Hamas authorities who control the enclave.

Israeli Air Force Apache helicopters equipped with missiles fly at low altitude and briefly penetrate the tiny territory (360 km²), home to 2.4 million inhabitants.

“We’re going to wipe them off the map”

In this sector, Tom, a 24-year-old reservist, came from Rishon Lezion, near Tel Aviv (centre), to join his unit. His younger brother Adam, surprised by conflict midway through his military service, is already in uniform, his M-16 rifle slung over his shoulder.

“I can’t say what I’m going to do. Only one thing (…) we are going to wipe them off the face of the earth. No one has killed Jews like this since the Holocaust,” says Tom, still dressed in shorts, a T-shirt and sandals. “Soon there will be no one left in front of us to fight against us, to attack us, to destroy our lives,” he adds, his voice filled with anger.

The artillery fire is not slowing down. Volunteers from all over the country distribute sweets, sandwiches and soft drinks to soldiers under the scorching sun. Everyone wears heavy body armor and helmets. “I will come back tomorrow and every day to bring them good things,” promises Yuval, 49, who runs a transport company near Herzliya, on the coast.

The army has set up checkpoints throughout to limit the risk of infiltration by armed Palestinians. A few kilometers away is Kibbutz Nahal Oz, a site of murders of women and children and kidnappings, which is inaccessible to the press.

The soldiers, young conscripts aged 19 to 20, sometimes show nervousness and abruptly force the few journalists present to turn back. “There’s nothing to see here. This is war,” says one of them: “Come back when they are all dead in Gaza.”