How Israel deployed exploding armored personnel carriers during Gaza City offensive |
In the weeks before the Gaza ceasefire on October 10, Israel widely deployed a new weapon: M113 Armored Personnel Carriers repurposed to carry between 1 and 3 tons of explosives, Reuters has found.
As Israeli troops pushed toward the center of Gaza City, these powerful bombs, along with airstrikes and armor-plated bulldozers, leveled swaths of buildings, drone footage and satellite images show.
Israel deployed decommissioned M113 APCs by packing them with explosives and attaching remote-control capabilities in order to drive them into areas with Hamas infrastructure without risking the lives of troops. It stressed throughout the war that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.
The massive blasts from the APCs were used to destroy Hamas infrastructure, including booby-trapped residential buildings.
In most cases, but not all, the inhabitants fled ahead of demolitions due to Israeli warnings, according to residents, Israeli security sources and Gaza authorities.
Hesham Mohammad Badawi’s five-story home on Dawla Street in the affluent Tel-al-Hawa suburb of Gaza City, damaged by an airstrike earlier in the war, was completely destroyed by an APC explosion on September 14, he and a relative said, leaving him and 41 family members homeless.
Badawi, who was a few hundred meters away, said he heard at least five APCs detonate in roughly five-minute intervals. He said he received no evacuation warning before the demolition and family members escaped “by a miracle” amid explosions and heavy gunfire.
Several buildings in the same block were demolished around that time, satellite images show.
The family is now staying with relatives in different parts of the city, Badawi said, while he lives in a tent by his former home. The Israel Defense Forces did not respond to Reuters questions about the incident. Reuters could not establish what was targeted in the attack or independently verify all the details of Badawi’s account of the events.
When Reuters visited in November, remains of at least one of the vehicles were strewn among large piles of rubble.
“We could not believe this was our neighborhood, this was our street,” Badawi said.
To compile a detailed account of the role of APC-based bombs by the military in Tel-al-Hawa and the neighboring Sabra district in the six weeks before the ceasefire, Reuters spoke to three Israeli security sources, a retired Israeli military brigadier, an Israeli reservist, Gazan authorities and three military experts.
Seven Gaza City residents said their homes or those of neighbors were leveled or severely damaged by the explosions, which several likened to an earthquake. Analysis of Reuters footage by two of the military experts confirmed wreckage of at least two exploded APCs among the rubble at sites in Gaza City.
Israel packed 1 to 3 tons of ordnance in APCs, three military experts estimated, based on cabin space and wreckage of vehicle armor. Some of the ordnance was likely non–military ammonium nitrate or emulsion, though without chemical testing that conclusion is not certain, they said.
Such a multi-ton explosion could approach an equivalent power to Israel’s largest airborne bombs, the 2,000-pound US-made Mark 84, said two experts, who examined Reuters footage of the blast area and vehicle remains.
It could scatter........