Old tanks loaded with remote-controlled explosives: Israel's other weapon to devastate Gaza City

Barcelona"Since yesterday, the airstrikes on Gaza City have not stopped for a moment. The Israeli army continues to bomb homes with people inside, in some cases without warning. We have seen how they have demolished two large blocks of flats right next to the house we had just evacuated. Al Rantisi ophthalmological center, which is opposite the house where we are now. Sobhi Abu Warda, an electronic mechanics student displaced to Gaza City, explains this on ARA via WhatsApp. It is the second day of the Israeli ground offensive on the city, where approximately 850,000 Palestinians remained with nowhere to flee. Benjamin Netanyahu's government has ordered its army to occupy the city before October 7.

Like other witnesses reported by international media these days, Abu Warda explains that he has seen up close how the Israeli army "detonates remote-controlled vehicles loaded with thousands of kilos of explosives."

This practice had already been documented between March and October 2024 in northern Gaza, which was razed by the Israeli army in the first months of the genocide, and also in Rafah, on the border with Egypt, in the south. These are old military vehicles, such as M113 armored personnel carriers, no longer used in operations, equipped with a remote piloting system and thrown loaded with explosives at buildings. Some explode directly, while others, however, leave the load and withdraw before it explodes.

Remote-controlled warfare is not only waged with drones: it is also being waged on the ground. The Geneva-based NGO Euro-Med Monitor, with a network of researchers in Gaza, has documented the Israeli army's intensified use of armored robots loaded with explosives to demolish residential areas at an accelerated rate. A few weeks ago, it documented how 15 of these "Robots," loaded with 100 tons of explosives, were destroying 300 homes every day in Gaza City and Jabalia. "This reflects an organized military strategy aimed at systematically destroying residential neighborhoods and maximizing the scale of devastation," the NGO concludes.

Most of the homes and infrastructure in Jabalia al-Balad and Jabalia al-Nazla have already been destroyed, and the army is advancing with systematic destruction toward the heart of Gaza City from the south, east, and north. "The unprecedented pace of destruction of residential neighborhoods in Gaza City by explosive-laden robots indicates Israel's determination to wipe the city off the map," they say. At the current pace, they estimate that "the rest of the city could be destroyed in two months or less, given the enormous firepower of the Israeli army and the absence of international pressure to stop its crimes against Palestinians."

The organization also warns that the impact of these robots goes beyond the destruction of homes and sees them as "a form of psychological terror against civilians." The detonations occur at night or at dawn, with a deafening sound and a shock wave that makes the surrounding buildings tremble. The sound of explosions has been heard up to 40 kilometers away. The aim is to force people to move south, clear the city so that Israeli troops can enter and take control.

The explosive-laden robots—explicitly prohibited by international humanitarian law due to their inability to accurately target military targets—are part of a broader arsenal of destruction, including aerial bombardments with missiles and heavy bombs, artillery, the deliberate laying of booby-trapped light bulbs, the detonation of buildings, and the use of military and civilian bulldozers to level infrastructure.

Second day of the offensive

This Tuesday, Israeli troops continued to penetrate the urban fabric of Gaza, triggering another exodus. According to the army, the infantry entry was preceded by 150 airstrikes, which destroyed high-rise buildings near which displaced people had settled in camps during nearly two years of war. The official death toll is approaching 65,000 after the 40 counted on Wednesday.

The Netanyahu government overrode its own generals when it ordered the takeover of Gaza City by October 7. Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir and the heads of the domestic and foreign intelligence services (Shin Bet and Mossad) opposed it, arguing that invading the capital would endanger the Israeli hostages still held in the Strip and would entail massive casualties among troops and military personnel, as well as governing a hostile population of more than two million people. However, Zamir and his generals ultimately agreed to the plan, which they are now executing. Some 20,000 soldiers are taking part in the assault on the Strip's capital.

Military analyst Rob Geist Pinfold of King's College London shares Zamir's view. "This is not an open-field battle that can be won by having a large number of troops. Basically, Hamas has returned to its roots as a guerrilla movement practicing an insurgency strategy against the army. This attack has no military logic. It only responds to Netanyahu's political logic of staying in power."