HARROWING images lay bare the extent of the ruin of Gaza – as the scale of Israel’s devastation of the territory is exposed in aerial footage.
Films shot from planes flying over the besieged Palestinian territory show a grey landscape of rubble, crossed by empty roads pitted with craters and swathes of buildings flattened after almost two years of Israel’s assault on Gaza.
Journalists have taken footage from Jordanian planes airdropping aid to the survivors of Israel’s genocide as prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu mulls occupying the territory wholesale.
Footage from The Guardian contrasted images of the Nuseirat refugee camp, in the middle of the Gaza Strip, from Tuesday to how it looked on October 30, 2023.
Streets have been levelled virtually in their entirety; green spaces have been left barren.
It provides a window into Gaza which the Israeli authorities have sought to keep closed during the genocide. Foreign journalists have been barred from entering Gaza; the only footage has come from Palestinian journalists on the ground, many of whom have been killed in targeted Israeli attacks, while suffering from hunger and the risk of disease.
Israel has also reportedly threatened to stop the aid drops if journalists use them to take pictures.
Netanyahu on Tuesday postponed a meeting of his security cabinet which had been called to discuss the his plans for the “full occupation” of Gaza. It came as the Palestinian death toll reached more than 61,000.
The plans for a full-scale invasion come despite hardening Israeli opposition to the continued assault on Gaza.
Former senior military and intelligence chiefs earlier this week staged a co-ordinated intervention in a social media clip speaking out against further military action.
The former security officials speaking out included those who led Israel’s Shin Bet internal security service, Mossad spy agency, and the Israeli military – as well as former prime minister Ehud Barak.
In a roughly three-minute video, they demanded an end to the war and said the far-right members of the government are holding the country “hostage” in prolonging the conflict.
“This is leading the state of Israel to the loss of its security and its identity,” Ami Ayalon, former head of Shin Bet, said in the footage.
Yoram Cohen, another former head of Shin Bet, called Netanyahu’s objectives “a fantasy”.
“If anyone imagines that we can reach every terrorist and every pit and every weapon and in parallel bring our hostages home, I think it is impossible,” he said.
US president Donald Trump has, however, effectively given the green light to yet more slaughter in Palestine.
Asked whether he supported the reoccupation of Gaza, Trump said he wasn’t aware of the “suggestion” but that “it’s going to be pretty much up to Israel”.
