NEW YORK, December 22. /TASS/. Israel's ground operation in the Gaza Strip now ranks among the deadliest, most destructive military actions in history, the Associated Press (AP) reported, citing experts.

According to an analysis of data from the Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite by Corey Scher of the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center and Jamon Van Den Hoek of Oregon State University, the Israeli offensive has destroyed more than two-thirds of all buildings in the northern part of the Palestinian enclave and a quarter of the buildings in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis. "Gaza is now a different color from space. It’s a different texture," Scher said.

By some estimates, the wanton destruction wrought by Israel's assault on Gaza has surpassed even the intensive Allied bombing of Germany during World War II and the US-led coalition's operation to destroy the Islamic State (IS, outlawed in Russia) terrorist group in Iraq. According to University of Chicago political science professor Robert Pape, a US military historian, the Allies destroyed about 10% of all buildings in Germany between 1942 and 1945, while more than 33% of the Gaza Strip’s entire building stock has now been destroyed by Israel. According to the UK nonprofit Airwars, cited by the AP, the US-led coalition carried out nearly 15,000 strikes on Iraqi territory during the 2014-2017 campaign against IS. By contrast, in just the last week alone, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had carried out 22,000 strikes in the Gaza Strip.

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7 when militants from the Gaza Strip-based radical Palestinian movement Hamas staged a surprise attack on Israeli territory from Gaza, killing residents of Israeli borderline kibbutz settlements and taking over 200 hostages, including women, children and the elderly. Hamas described its attack as a response to the aggressive actions of Israeli authorities against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. In response, Israel declared a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, home to 2.3 million Palestinians, and has been delivering air strikes on Gaza as well as some parts of Lebanon and Syria. Clashes are also underway in the West Bank.