Gaza City’s Zeitoun Neighborhood Is Now Wasteland: Satellite Images

Gaza (Quds News Network)- Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighborhood has been turned into a “barren wasteland” as Israeli forces have expanded their assault in the area as part of a stated plan to occupy the city.

A large part of the Zeitoun neighborhood was still standing just three weeks ago, according to satellite images reviewed by The New York Times.

Israel’s security cabinet three weeks ago approved plans to seize Gaza City, despite international condemnation from the United Nations and states.

The plan reportedly involves forcing around one million residents southwards before surrounding the city and launching incursions into residential areas, followed by an expansion into refugee camps in central Gaza.

Netanyahu said he will give final approval for the seizure of Gaza City despite talks for negotiations.

Speaking to soldiers near Gaza, Netanyahu said he was still set on approving plans for seizing Gaza City, the densely populated centre at the heart of the Palestinian enclave, forcibly displacing close to 1 million people and carrying out the systematic demolitions of Palestinian homes.

The wide-scale operation in Gaza City could start within days after Netanyahu grants final approval.

Israeli forces have already stepped up attacks there, and thousands of Palestinians have left their homes as Israeli tanks edged closer to Gaza City over the last 14 days.

In Zeitoun, forces have already been operating for weeks, forcing residents to flee under heavy bombardment.

Israeli forces have completely destroyed more than 1,000 buildings in the Zeitoun and Sabra neighbourhoods of Gaza City since it started its invasion of the city on August 6, trapping hundreds under the rubble, the Palestinian Civil Defence said on Sunday.

A satellite image from Aug. 8 showed scores of buildings intact and what appear to be several tent encampments. A separate image of the same area from Aug. 25 showed many, if not most, of the buildings reduced to piles of rubble and the apparent encampments gone.

In recent days, Israeli tanks were seen in Zeitoun, according to the satellite images.

The scale of the destruction resembles that of places in Gaza that have been largely flattened over the course of the war, such as Rafah in the south and Beit Hanoun in the north.

“It’s enormous,” said Fadl al-Saifi, 33, a resident of Sabra, an adjacent neighborhood. “It’s heartbreaking to see your friends’ homes in ruins.”

He said that, in the past week, he visited Zeitoun to observe the damage.

In recent days, al-Saifi said that he heard explosions throughout the day and that they would make his home shake.

“It is so routine that it has become background noise,” he said, adding that he and his younger brother had not evacuated so as to protect their home from looters.

Eli Cohen, a minister in Israel’s high-level security cabinet, has said the Israeli operation in Gaza City should reduce the city to rubble. “Gaza City itself should be exactly like Rafah, which we turned into a city of ruins,” he told Channel 14, a right-wing television station, this month. Some of Israel’s European allies have condemned its plans for an expanded offensive.