Satellite imagery from those early days of the war reveals more than 500 impact craters over 12 meters (40 feet) in diameter, consistent with those left behind by 2,000-pound bombs. Those are four times heavier than the largest bombs the United States dropped on Daesh in Mosul, Iraq, during the war against the extremist group there.
Weapons and warfare experts blame the extensive use of heavy munitions such as the 2,000-pound bomb for the soaring death toll. The population of Gaza is packed together much more tightly than almost anywhere else on earth, so the use of such heavy munitions has a profound effect.
“The use of 2,000-pound bombs in an area as densely populated as Gaza means it will take decades for communities to recover,” said John Chappell, advocacy and legal fellow at CIVIC, a DC-based group focused on minimizing civilian harm in conflict.
Israel has come under pressure internationally over the scale of the devastation in Gaza, with even staunch ally US President Joe Biden accusing Israel of “indiscriminate bombing” of the coastal strip.
Israeli officials have argued that its heavy munitions are necessary to eliminating Hamas, whose fighters killed more than 1,200 people and took more than 240 hostages on October 7. They also claim that Israel is doing all it can to minimize civilian casualties.
Since Oct. 7, the Israeli army has been waging a destructive war on Gaza, resulting in at least 20,057 deaths and 53,320 injuries, most of whom are children and women.
Israel has dropped more than 22,000 guided and unguided bombs on the Gaza Strip in the first six weeks of its war on the besieged enclave, a report has recently revealed.
Citing intelligence data supplied to Congress by the US administration, The Washington Post reported that weapons developed by the United States have played a central role in Israel’s brutal onslaught on Gaza, one of the most densely populated areas on Earth.
In just six weeks into the onslaught, the US supplied the occupying regime with at least 15,000 bombs, including 2,000-pound (900 kilograms) bunker busters, as well as 50,000 155mm artillery shells.
The figures suggest Israel dropped roughly one American-made bomb on Gaza for every 100 people living there.
