The center of Gaza City, once known for its traffic jams, shopping malls and cafes, was transformed this week into an “apocalyptic” landscape, with bodies strewn in the streets and flattened buildings, after particularly intense clashes between Hamas and Israel.
“The Israeli army withdrew from the Al-Rimal neighborhood, leaving behind massive destruction and burned buildings. We are patient but the situation is so difficult that we cannot bear it,” despairs Tariq Ghanem, 57, a teacher.
“There have been bodies on the road for several days, even a week, and no one to pick them up,” he continues.
The Israeli army has not confirmed that it has withdrawn from Gaza City, where it had stepped up its offensive this week and called on 300,000 to 350,000 people to flee, according to the UN.
On Friday morning, when residents heard that soldiers had left the area, some went to the scene to assess the damage and the Civil Defence dispatched its teams.
She said she found around sixty bodies in two districts in the southwest (Tal al-Hawa, al-Sinaa) which are in addition to the approximately 60 other bodies found the day before in an eastern district, Choujaïya, the scene of fighting for two weeks.
According to Mahmoud Basal, spokesman for the Civil Defense, dozens of other bodies still litter “the roads and rubble” of Tal al-Hawa and al-Sinaa, where the search continues.
Unimaginable destruction
Along the cornice that borders the Mediterranean Sea, in this city center where offices were located, where residents went out and shopped, entire buildings have been flattened, others burned.
The ten-story tower of the “Palestine Bank” is intact only at the top. The first levels appear to have been blown away.
Everywhere, the ground is covered in dust, debris, bits of scrap metal and concrete, an AFP correspondent noted.
“In Gaza City, you can look in every direction and the level of destruction will be beyond your imagination,” Louise Wateridge, a spokeswoman for UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, told AFP.
After a field visit, she describes the situation as “apocalyptic” as the war in Gaza enters its tenth month.
A promise
The hostilities were triggered on October 7 by the attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas against Israel, which resulted in the death of 1,195 people on the Israeli side, the majority of them civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas, which seized power in Gaza in 2007.
Its retaliatory military campaign has devastated the Gaza Strip and left more than 38,340 people dead, mostly civilians, according to data from the Hamas government’s health ministry in Gaza.
Already during previous wars, notably in 2021, the central Al Rimal district had been heavily damaged, the army had said it was targeting the underground galleries there.
This time, the army claims to have operated in particular in the UNRWA headquarters, accusing the UN agency of letting Hamas, which has taken up residence there, do what it wants.
It said it found numerous weapons, the entrance to an underground tunnel and an underground weapons-making workshop nearby, while UNRWA said it left the area in October.
On Friday, a wall of the building was black with soot.
On another partition, a message: “Gaza, we promise to rebuild it.”