Identifying the Israeli Defense Forces from Airborne Missions: A Survey of Gaza City and its Associated Traffic, Images, and Social Media
The Defense Department say that the flights are not supporting military operations on the ground. Two officials said the goal was to help in locating hostages, monitor for signs of life, and pass leads to the Israel Defense Forces.
The flights are concentrated in southern Gaza close to the Israeli military’s initial push in the north. Amelia Smith, an aviation researcher who has tracked the flights, said there were at least six different MQ-9 aircraft involved in the effort. The aircraft analyzed by The Times and Ms. Smith were over Gaza for three hours.
The flights are operating at a point in time. Israel says that Hamas is holding more than 250 hostages, many of which are believed to be Americans, and that it is starting a ground invasion in Gaza.
An image from Planet taken Oct. 30 shows dozens of Israeli tanks and armored vehicles arrayed in staging areas along the northern edge of Gaza City. Film and still images released by the Israeli military show forces in the same area.
Sean MacFarland, a retired three-star general who spent time in Iraq and Syria, says the Israelis probably have a brigade of several thousand troops in the northwest part of the city.
“It looks like they’re starting to push in to establish a presence on the outskirts that they can use to launch operations deeper into the city,” he says. Iraqi forces used the same tactic in 2015 when trying to regain control of the city of Ramadi.
But even if the other two axes also contain about a brigade, that wouldn’t be nearly enough to fully occupy or even conduct a building-by-building sweep of a dense, urban environment like Gaza City, says Gentile.
“What they may choose to do instead is control the city from the outskirts and conduct operations inside,” he says. Such raids might allow them to destroy tunnels and other key parts of Hamas infrastructure without committing to a full occupation.
NPR examined available satellite images, as well as social media posts from both bystanders and the Israel Defense Forces. What can be gleaned from those images and conversations is what we know today.
A high-resolution satellite imagery taken by the company Planet shows Israeli armored vehicles near a road.
He believes that Israel is more likely to use airstrikes, armor and dismounted infantry to strike at individual targets. “I think that is what they’re doing, it’s very specifically designed to go after infrastructure,” Jones says.
On Oct. 31, Israeli fighter jets conducted a massive airstrike on a section of the Jabalia refugee camp just north of Gaza City. According to the Israel Defense Forces, the strike was conducted with intelligence gathered by Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service.
The Israeli military said that a number of Hamas fighters and a senior Hamas commander were killed. Photos from the site showed a massive crater, consistent with a collapsed tunnel beneath the site, and many injured civilians. The Health ministry in Gaza says over 200 people have died and over 120 are still missing.
The incident underscores a dangerous new phase of operations, says an intelligence officer who used to work at the Pentagon. Israel launched strikes on targets in the beginning of the war. Now they’re striking quickly at “dynamic targets” with little warning or no warning for civilians in the area.
Israel has tried to warn civilians in broad terms to leave northern Gaza, says Alex Plitsas, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in the Middle East programs group. “They’ve attempted to clear the battlefield; they’ve asked people to leave,” he says.
Israel has the right to defend itself, but that right is not unlimited, he says. They must target military objects and not civilians, he says, and they must also operate under the principle of proportionality. He says “any attack they make, the military gain can not be overcome by the civilian harm.”
In a statement Wednesday, the United Nations’ human rights office appeared to echo those concerns, warning that strikes on the Jabalia camp “could amount to war crimes.”
“We don’t need to stop fighting, but we can do better,” said Dr. E. Gentile during a 2006 Urban Warfare
Gentile was in Iraq during urban warfare in 2006 and says that those numbers will grow. That’s in part because both Israel and Hamas view this as an existential battle.
They were only treating burns with the two drugs. Hospitals were performing surgery without anesthesia because they didn’t have any choice.
He says it’s difficult to imagine Israel can maintain international support if it can’t show it’s trying to help civilians.
“I think the humanitarian conditions on the ground are an Achilles heel for the operation,” he says. That needs to be addressed very quickly.