Israel's intense bombardment of the Gaza Strip in the first six days of the war with Palestinian military group Hamas almost matches the year-long campaign unleashed by the United States (US) in Afghanistan in 2019. Here's a closer look at the tally:
Just a week into the Israel-Hamas war, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) had said it had "dropped about 6,000 bombs against Hamas targets" by October 12. This was only a thousand bombs less than what the United States (US) had dropped on Afghanistan in 2019.
As per the US Air Forces Central Command (CFACC) data report, the US dropped as many as 7,423 weapons on Afghanistan in 2019. The 2019 tally was slightly higher than the 7,362 weapons dropped in 2018
The report further stated that the US released a total of 4,729 weapons on Iraq and Syria in the same year. These statistics included the numbers of sorties (not strikes) and munitions expended by aircraft under the CFACC control, the report added.
Now, as the Israel-Hamas war neared one month, the Israeli forces pushed on with intense strikes targeting Palestinian militants in Gaza on Monday. Israel's army was quoted by news agency AFP as saying on Monday it had pounded Gaza with "significant" new strikes, having earlier said it had already hit over 12,000 targets.
Israel authorities declared a war against Hamas on October 8, a day after the Palestinian military group launched surprise attacks on parts of Israel. The death toll in Gaza has already approached 10,000, according to the Hamas-run health ministry data. More than 1,400 people were killed in Hamas’s attack on Israel.
Determined to destroy Palestinian military group Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed no letup despite mounting international calls for a ceasefire, news agency AFP reported.
As of now, ground forces have flooded the northern half of the Gaza Strip and tightened an encirclement of Gaza City even as hundreds of thousands of civilians remain there despite Israeli evacuation orders.
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