While the Israeli government assures that the launch of its ground offensive in Rafah is only a matter of time, the situation further north in the Gaza Strip is alarming. This is confirmed by this Israeli soldier returning from the area, who spoke to franceinfo.
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“A kind of chaos“. Since October 7, the Israeli army has recorded the deaths of more than 600 of its soldiers, including nearly 260 during the ground offensive in the Gaza Strip. These soldiers, determined to dismantle Hamas, are also the first witnesses of the devastation in the Palestinian enclave. Among them, Daniel, in his thirties, who spent a month in the Gaza Strip. What struck this reservist was the scale of the destruction: “The landscape is destroyed. There isn’t a window that fits. That is to say that there are many houses which are totally destroyed. It’s a kind of chaos.”he describes.
A “chaos“widespread, and many victims of Israeli army strikes, recognizes this IDF soldier: “I actually saw corpses, obviously people who had been killed during bombings, which were in the rubble. No one is prepared for something of this magnitude in terms of destruction, in terms of dead bodies in the Gaza Strip.”
“We must bring in humanitarian aid en masse”
This Franco-Israeli also witnessed the suffering of the inhabitants of the Palestinian enclave. “The Palestinian civilian population that we see is in a fairly advanced state of despair. Personally, I am not one of those who are against the entry of humanitarian aid. On the contrary, we must bring humanitarian aid into mass And I even think that this humanitarian aid is a condition for Israel to continue its operation in the Gaza Strip.“, he decides, in contradiction with the decisions of the government led by Benjamin Netanyahu.
After this mission, Daniel admits that he, like thousands of soldiers of the Hebrew State, needs psychological assistance. “It sure works for us. I think there are soldiers who need it more than me at the moment. When the situation calms down a little, we’ll take care of it..” Finally, what Daniel, who calls himself a leftist, wants above all else, is that those responsible for the security fiasco of October 7 “give account“.
