IntelScoops

Gaza, Palestine — In less than a year, Israel has dropped more than 85,000 tonnes of explosives on the Gaza Strip — a figure that exceeds the total munitions used during the firebombing of Dresden, the London Blitz, and even the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

This staggering figure, released by multiple international observers and corroborated by independent weapons analysts, underscores the unprecedented scale of destruction inflicted on one of the most densely populated civilian areas in the world. Gaza, home to more than 2.2 million people, is now largely reduced to rubble — its homes, hospitals, schools, and shelters systematically targeted and obliterated in what many humanitarian and legal experts are now calling a campaign of extermination rather than conventional warfare.

According to data from the United Nations and other humanitarian agencies, the rate and density of Israel’s bombardment surpass any urban military campaign in recent history. Entire neighbourhoods in Gaza City, Khan Younis, and Rafah have been razed. Casualties now number tens of thousands, the majority being civilians — including a disproportionately high number of women and children.

The London Blitz, carried out by Nazi Germany between 1940 and 1941, dropped approximately 18,000 tonnes of bombs over eight months. The firebombing of Dresden in February 1945 dropped an estimated 3,900 tonnes, killing 25,000 people in a single night. Even the “Little Boy” atomic bomb, dropped on Hiroshima, released about 15,000 tonnes of TNT equivalent — less than a fifth of the payload dropped on Gaza.

Experts argue that while comparisons to historical bombardments illustrate the scale, they do not fully convey the brutal asymmetry and the civilian suffering that distinguishes the Gaza campaign. The use of high-yield bombs in densely packed civilian areas, coupled with a blockade on food, water, fuel, and medical supplies, has created conditions that rights organisations describe as deliberate and calculated deprivation.

“We are not witnessing a war,” said a legal scholar specialising in international humanitarian law. “We are witnessing the systematic decimation of a civilian population, carried out with near-total impunity.”

The term genocide — often invoked cautiously in international discourse — is now being openly debated in the halls of the UN and in courtrooms across The Hague. South Africa has formally accused Israel of genocide at the International Court of Justice, while dozens of human rights groups, legal experts, and independent fact-finding missions have echoed similar concerns.

On the ground, more than half of Gaza’s population is now displaced, often multiple times. Hospitals are overwhelmed or destroyed, ambulances targeted, and entire families wiped out in single strikes. Survivors speak of digging through rubble with bare hands, of days without food, and of watching children die from treatable injuries due to lack of medical supplies.

In diplomatic circles, Israel maintains that it is acting in “self-defence” against Hamas, and that it aims to dismantle the group’s military infrastructure. However, with the scale of destruction laid bare, and with civilian death tolls soaring, critics argue that the moral and legal justifications have collapsed under the weight of mounting evidence.

As the bombardment continues and the world watches, the question that remains is not only how Gaza will survive — but how the global community will answer for its silence.