The second stage of restoring Gaza homes from the damages of May 2021 Operation Guardian of the Walls has begun, but the high-rise towers that the IDF destroyed will not be rebuilt for a long time.

Hamas deployed military units and command posts in the high-rise towers that housed residential apartments and offices that served as “human shields” for the buildings. In the next war, Israeli security officials estimate that the IDF will deal with terrorist targets on a pinpoint basis and avoid large-scale, high-rise demolitions.

In the Gaza Strip, after completing the first stage of clearing the debris of the houses destroyed during the 11 days of fighting in May 2021, the second phase of rebuilding began.

According to data from the Gaza Government Information Ministry in the Gaza Strip run by Hamas, 1335 homes were totally destroyed during Operation Guardian of the Walls. In addition, another 12,886 homes were moderately or lightly damaged by Israeli Air Force bombings.

During the operation, the IDF destroyed seven high-rise buildings in Gaza to deter the terrorist organizations’ rocket fire on Israel’s main cities. In addition, Israel destroyed miles of Hamas’ extensive military tunnel network located under roads and commercial and residential buildings, and in some cases, the structures collapse.

In fact, this was an extension of the IDF policy that began in Operation Protective Edge in 2014, when it demolished, for the first time, 10 high-rise buildings that also housed residential apartments. Israeli security officials claim that the demolition of the towers during the 2014 operation accelerated the end of that war and stripped away Hamas’ demand to end the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip, as a ceasefire condition.

Seven months have passed since the end of May 2021 Operation Guardian of the Walls, and the construction of the destroyed towers seems farther away than ever. They are at the bottom of the list of donor countries’ priorities; the high-rise buildings are considered “economic projects” and not residential homes, despite hundreds of families who lived there. According to Gaza officials, 450 residential tower apartments, housing 3,000, were demolished in the war.

Is it possible that donor countries are reluctant to fund the towers today because of Hamas’ practice of using the buildings for military purposes, offices, and housing for Hamas officials?

The Next Round of Fighting

The IDF is re-examining the possibility of attacking the towers and high-rise buildings in the next round of fighting with Hamas, in light of the May 2021 IDF attack on the 13-story Hanadi Tower in Gaza, which housed offices of Palestinian media outlets and residential apartments. At that time, the al-Shoroukh, al-Jawhara, and al-Jalaa towers were also destroyed.

Some senior Israeli officials today regret the May 15, 2021 decision to attack the al-Jalaa Tower in Gaza City, which housed international television networks such as Al-Jazeera, Associated Press, and the AFP news agency offices.     

Hamas took advantage of this situation and placed its cyber unit headquarters in this tower with electronic equipment designed to disrupt the Iron Dome system’s radars that protect Israel from rockets launched from the Gaza Strip. According to several reports, the Hamas offices housed a sophisticated cyber facility – a server farm.

The first five floors of Al-Jalaa were Hamas technology offices that were off-limits to the families who inhabited floors 6 – 10. The press offices were on the 11th and top floors. Befitting media and military intelligence offices, many antennae populated the roof.

Was the Attack on the Towers “Worth It?”

The attack on the high-rises was justified militarily, politically, and even juristically.  Some in Israel, however, considered it a public relations mistake because it provoked international outrage against Israel. Senior political sources told The New York Times after the war that “the damage done to Israel in the international arena outweighed the advantages of the military attack.”

Of course, the IDF warned the residents of the Al-Jalaa Tower with preemptive phone calls prior to the attack and the building’s collapse. that gave them sufficient time to evacuate it. However, its destruction led Hamas to declare a new equation with Israel: “Any destruction of a high-rise or civilian building in the Gaza Strip will result in hundreds of rockets being fired at Tel Aviv,” which indeed happened and intensified the escalation.

Hamas exploited the presence of Palestinian and foreign media outlets and hundreds of Palestinian families residing in the towers and used them as human shields. The terrorist organization continues to deploy its military assets in the heart of civilian concentrations in the Strip, assuming that Israel would not dare to attack these targets in fear of hitting innocent civilians.

The Stiletto, not the Sledgehammer

Israel has managed to “burn into the Palestinian consciousness” that it will not hesitate to hit terrorist organization targets anywhere in the Gaza Strip. Apparently, the extensive damage and economic difficulties caused by the demolition of the towers destroyed by Israel have proven that no target in the Gaza Strip is immune to destruction even if located in the heart of the civilian population.

The towers in the Gaza Strip were one of the symbols of the development of the Gaza Strip: they contained private offices, headquarters of companies, and spacious residential apartments, which were the icon of a prestigious Palestinian construction project located in the heart of the Gaza Strip, crowded with refugee camps.

All this has now been erased. The restoration of the towers demolished in 2014-2021 will take several more years. Israel has learned the lessons from the last round of fighting and may no longer destroy high-rise buildings and apartments in the Gaza Strip to reduce the concomitant public relations damage. However, senior Israeli security officials estimate that Hamas’ military wing will continue to use the towers and the high-rise buildings for its military purposes and deploy headquarters there. This, in turn, will change Israeli tactics to hit terrorist targets inside the towers, striking them with a stiletto and not a sledgehammer.