As we approach the Gaza border, explosion after explosion is heard. Even though we are still three miles away, the windows of the building we are standing next to are rattling. Repeatedly. Inside the Gaza Strip, it is of course not windows that rattle, but entire buildings that collapse. Sometimes with people inside.
A man we meet says that since Friday night there has been non-stop bombing. Sometimes the whole sky is lit up by a flash of fire after some explosion. Sometimes revenge comes, in the form of rocket attacks from Gaza. Many rockets are taken care of by the Israeli Iron Dome, but not all.
An elderly man a few floors up in the building throws down a piece of crooked pipe and shouts:
– It is part of the Hamas rocket.
Then he aims his binoculars at Gaza again.
That the bombings increase as ground troops slowly make their way into Gaza is quite common. Israeli air force simply facilitates the ground troops to advance.
But is this the land invasion? everyone asks. The one people talked about for three weeks. Is it now happening?
We don’t know that. The only thing we know is that Israeli soldiers are inside Gaza and that the war is entering a new phase, as the Israeli Defense Minister says. Whether they go in and out or stay may not be so important. We don’t have to follow military terminology. Israeli soldiers are simply in Gaza with the goal of killing Hamas. Part of Israel’s revenge for the Hamas attack on October 7 when around 1400 Israelis were murdered.
What we will not know, however, is how civilians are affected. Not if Israel continues to throttle the internet and mobile networks as they did on Friday night. We can assume that the purpose is to make it difficult for Hamas to communicate and plan attacks, but it stifles everyone’s voices. Anyone who wants to contact the ambulance, the family or someone outside Gaza.
A few journalists living in Gaza will manage to get some pictures out, but extremely limited. I haven’t heard from the families I’m usually in contact with for two days. Then they sent a picture of their house being bombed. Since then it has been quiet. Now I see that my messages are not even going through. The Palestinian colleague I usually work with in Gaza is usually always able to mediate, but after he wrote “no safe space” on Friday night, we had no contact for 20 hours. Only on Saturday night did I receive a card: I’m still ok.
A war without voices is worse than a war with sounds.