Israel under pressure as use of destructive bombs in Gaza raises international alarm

The stark contrast between the number of victims from Hamas's October 7th attack on Israel and the number of Palestinian civilians killed during operations in the Gaza Strip by the Israeli army, deployed by Benjamin Netanyahu's extreme right-wing government, is coming under scrutiny. All the while, international pressure on Israel for a lasting ceasefire mounts.

In early October, militants were responsible for the deaths of 827 Israeli civilians, alongside 401 soldiers and 72 police officers. They also took approximately 240 people hostage, some of whom have since been released. The bombing of densely populated buildings and ground operations in the Gaza Strip have taken the lives of over 20,000 individuals, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, with the majority being women and children.

While Washington ostensibly supports Israel in its combat against Hamas, it has progressively voiced greater disapproval of Israel's actions, joining the American media in this stance. CNN recently revealed an analysis that provided new perspective on the weapons used in the Gaza Strip, conducted with the assistance of Synthetaic's artificial intelligence experts.

The analysis, which partially focused on studying the resulting damage, determined that Israel used hundreds of bombs weighing approximately 1984 pounds in its conflict with Hamas. According to Tel Aviv, Hamas is hiding within a complex network of tunnels. The bombs used by Israel are four times heavier than those used by the Americans in their fight against ISIS in Iraq.

These bombs can be identified from satellite images, which show craters measuring over 39 feet in diameter. Over 500 such craters have been discovered. Each bomb has the potential to kill or injure individuals located over 984 feet away from the epicenter of the blast.

It's important to consider over 2 million people inhabit the 102-square mile enclave. To put this into perspective, the Warsaw agglomeration, which spans approximately 1620 square miles, was home to about 2.6 million people as per data from 2006.

"The use of 2000-pound weights [1997.31 pounds - editor's note] in an area as densely populated as Gaza implies that community reconstruction will take decades," John Chappell, an advisor and attorney at CIVIC, a Washington-based group that aims to reduce civilian casualties during conflicts, told CNN.

Quoted on the website of the American news channel, Marc Garlasco, a former US intelligence analyst and previous UN war crimes investigator, said "the intensity of the Israeli bombing in Gaza in the first month had not been seen since the Vietnam War.

On Friday, the UN Security Council passed a resolution urging for unrestricted access to humanitarian aid and the establishment of conditions for a lasting cessation of hostilities. Thirteen members of the Security Council voted for the document, with the United States and Russia being the sole abstentions.