Al-Monitor reports on the forthcoming publication of the Shapira report into Israel’s summer 2014 assault on Gaza:
As one senior Israeli security official confided to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, “If data on the number of missiles and shells fired during Operation Protective Edge was released to the public, everyone would be horrified.” Since it had no other solution, Israel used an enormous amount of JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munition) bunker busters in an effort to destroy the tunnels. The system failed, but Israel had already used up a significant part of its stockpile, which it had accumulated for other, more worthy strategic purposes. Four tank brigades from the regular army (about 400 tanks) that participated in the campaign fired vast amounts of shells, almost depleting their stockpiles.
As Norman Finkelstein points out in a recent interview:
In July-August 2014, Israel launched another murderous assault on Gaza. This time it destroyed, not 6,000 homes [as in the 2008-9 attack on Gaza], but 19,000 homes. This time it killed, not 350 children, but 550 children. How many Israeli children were killed? One. A ratio of 550:1. How many Israeli homes were destroyed? One. A ratio of 19,000:1. While Hamas fired ‘bottle rockets’—as Foreign Affairs journal described them—at Israel, Israel dropped as many as twenty thousand tonnes of explosives on Gaza. Israeli soldiers who did combat duty subsequently described the ‘insane’ and ‘crazy’ amounts of firepower used in Gaza, and testified that the formal and informal rules of engagement were to ‘shoot to kill’ at ‘anything that moves’.
Below is a sample of testimonies of Israeli combatants who fought in Gaza:
Jamie Stern-Weiner 