11 days, 4,340 rockets and 261 dead: The Israel-

Gaza fighting in numbers

According to UN humanitarian office, at least 129 out of 248
people killed in Gaza were civilians and 1,042 housing and
commercial units were severely damaged
Sam Sokol |
May 23, 2021 | 9:28 PM
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The fighting between Israel and Hamas this month saw the Israel Defense
Forces attack more than 1,500 targets and Palestinian militant groups launch
more than 4,300 rockets at Israel, while hundreds were killed, thousands
injured and hundreds of millions of dollars of property and infrastructure was
estimated damaged or destroyed.

The latest round of fighting began after Israel refused to comply with a
Hamas ultimatum to withdraw its forces from the East Jerusalem
neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah and the Temple Mount by 6 P.M. on May 10,
following weeks of increasingly violent clashes between Jews and Palestinians
in Jerusalem in which hundreds were wounded.

The flare-up was by far the worst since the 2014 Gaza war, with the Tel Aviv
area seeing the heaviest rocket attack in its history, and lasted from May 10
until a cease-fire came into force on May 21. During the course of the conflict,
“air raid sirens sounded 389 times” in Ashkelon alone, the military said.

According to the army, over 11 days of fighting, approximately 4,340 rockets

were fired into Israeli territory, 640 of which fell short and impacted within
the Gaza Strip. The army also claimed a 90% success rate for the Iron Dome
missile defense system.

However, with an average of nearly 400 rockets being launched per day, even
Iron Dome was unable to prevent all of them from getting through and 13
civilians were killed, either directly from the rockets or from injuries
sustained while running for shelter. Two of them, five-year old Ido Avigal and
16-year old Nadine Awad, were children and three were foreign workers. A
soldier was also killed when an anti-tank missile fired from the Gaza Strip hit
his jeep. This toll does not include Arabs and Jews killed in clashes within
Israel.

Several of those killed, including a disabled cancer patient living in a shack

and a father and daughter from an unrecognized village, did not have access
to bomb shelters. According to a 2018 state comptroller report, nearly half of
Israel’s non-Jewish population, some 550,000 people, have no access to
shelters or protected spaces in the event of hostilities.
In a first, the Iron Dome system also intercepted several armed drones
launched from the Gaza Strip as well as an attack by a Hamas cell that
intended to use an underwater drone to disable Israel Navy ships.

According to the Israel Tax Authority, Israelis filed 3,424 claims of

compensation for property damage sustained during the fighting and 1,724
for damage to motor vehicles. This includes 228 claims of damage to property
in Ashdod, 792 in Ashkelon, 29 in Be'er Sheva, 77 in Sderot, 227 in Ramat
Gan, 182 in Petah Tikva, 188 in Holon and 77 in Tel Aviv.

In a tweet, the military stated that during the course of Operation Guardian of
the Walls, it hit over 1,500 “terror targets” in Gaza, including 675 “rocket-
launching capabilities damaged” and more than 200 “terrorists neutralized.”
Over 60 miles of Hamas’ so-called metro underground tunnel network was
also destroyed, it said.

The damage extended beyond Hamas and Islamic Jihad rocket sites,
however, and Israel has come under harsh criticism for its choice of targets as
well as the operation’s body count, which has continued to rise since fighting
ended.

Among the buildings destroyed or damaged by Israeli forces were several

high-rise towers that housed media outlets, including one which served as
military headquarters of the Associated Press’ Gaza bureau, which the IDF
said “contained military assets belonging to Hamas military intelligence.”

In response, Reporters Without Borders issued a statementcalling on the

International Criminal Court’s prosecutor “to determine whether these
airstrikes constitute war crimes.”

While no proof of Israeli assertions was shared with the media, senior Israeli
defense officials were reported to have passed on classified intelligence to
Pentagon officials about Hamas military activity in the building.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian

Affairs (UNOCHA), 1,042 housing and commercial units in 258 buildings
were destroyed in Gaza and 769 units were severely damaged. Fifty-three
educational facilities were also damaged, as were six hospitals and 11 clinics.

“The hostilities have also caused serious damage to vital civilian

infrastructure in Gaza, affecting water, sanitation and hygiene services for
hundreds of thousands of people,” the UN agency said, noting that around
800,000 people in the coastal enclave lacked “regular access to safe piped
water.”
“Electrical power shortages and the damage to the Gaza Ministry of Health
Central Laboratory, which processes COVID-19 tests, hinder health-care
provision at dozens of centers throughout Gaza,” it added, putting current
electrical service availability at five hours a day.

UNRWA spokesman Adnan Abu Husna told Haaretz last week that the
shutdown of Gaza’s coronavirus testing lab would make it more difficult to
root out the pandemic. So far, only some 39,000 of Gaza’s 2 million
inhabitants have been vaccinated.

“People who fear that an F-16 is going to drop bombs won’t get excited about
the coronavirus,” he said, adding that anyone in Gaza can see that no steps
are being taken to fight the virus. “Nobody goes around with a mask and
people gather at funerals. The fear is that missiles will fall or the ground will
shake.”

According to UNOCHA, at least 129 out of the 248 people killed in Gaza were
civilians, 66 of whom were children. Six hundred and ten children, 398
women and 940 men were wounded during the fighting. Prior to the cease-
fire, when people started returning home, there were 71,000 internally
displaced persons sheltering in UNRWA schools and 25,000 staying with
host families within the Gaza Strip.

While most returned home after the cease-fire was announced, “about 1,000
people whose homes were destroyed or severely damaged still remain” in
UNRWA shelters, UNOCHA said.

Last Wednesday, Hamas’ information office estimated that direct material

damage to infrastructure and buildings in the Gaza Strip totaled about a
quarter of a billion dollars, with some $92 million dollars of damage was
done to residential housing and the offices of various non-governmental
organizations throughout the Strip.

On Friday, the United Nations announced that it was contributing $22.5

million “towards the response to rising humanitarian needs in Gaza.”