Let's talk about Israel and Palestine...

[Cyclefrance]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

I thought about your earlier post and there is one more item I must take issue with. You believe that Israel would strategically bomb crop fields. This idea is ridiculous on its face for no other reason than no army in the world would waste expensive munitions bombing dirt. But what you should also know is that Israel provides almost all the fresh water for Gaza, and if it doesn't want Gaza growing crops, or if it wants to maximize suffering, it can merely shut the water off for a while.

If you saw images or video of dirt being bombed I will guarantee you that the rockets that rained down on the crops were fired by Hamas. Like all modern militaries, Israel actually tries to aim their bombs. Hamas points in the general direction and lets Allah do the aiming part. Their bombs often hit their own territory and/or citizens.

It does seem ridiculous but maybe that's a reason that no one will beleve it happened when it did. It looks like I got it wrong that tunnels could be under farmland. I read today that the tunnel network is far more extensive than first believed, and this article, albeit from Palestinian sources seems to bear that out. So there would be justification in Israel's eyes to destroy the land under which the tunnels ran. The first article in which I found this information about farms and orchards being decimated was quite long and on a Palestinian news site, so there's always the possibility it was embellished. I've extracted the relevant text:

Qte
I’m writing now from my home, but I still feel dizzy from shock and nauseated by the sights and smells on my visit to Khan Younis and Khuza’a.
Yesterday I decided to use the opportunity of the ceasefire to visit my family in Khan Younis. I especially wanted to see my sister who had open heart surgery before Israel’s assault. I hadn’t seen her for 36 days. I’m lucky that I have enough fuel in my car to drive 24 kilometers (15 miles) so I struck out towards the south.
I drove down Salaheddin Road and passed rubble from mosques, houses, and factories. Some buildings were destroyed completely and some partially. Later on in my drive, I saw dozens of big trees uprooted and smashed, fruit trees destroyed and farms and gardens decimated and ruined. The Israeli bombs were aimed to destroy the infrastructure, to destroy Gaza’s economy. Even the main cookie factory was targeted and destroyed.
I passed UN trucks distributing food to people in long lines. This siege and assault by the Israelis has made everyone in the Gaza Strip live as a refugee, missing basic needs and struggling to survive.
As we set out to the east, my niece pointed out the devastation, “You can see where the Israeli tanks were—here and here.” We continued toward Khuza’a. It was a model Palestinian agricultural village with open fields and green everywhere. They had fruit trees and vegetable fields. But there was nothing left of the village I remembered.
The smell and the sights we saw were shocking. The moment we parked and I got out, a very strange smell hit us—the smell of dead bodies. That smell will never leave me; it is still stuck in my nose. We saw totally flattened houses and other houses partially destroyed. It reminded me of pictures from war-torn areas where years of fighting erased a village. This Israeli assault has hit the Palestinian people more deeply than the last two military attacks. This one is even more deadly and destructive. Whole neighborhoods and villages have been wiped off the map.
I ask myself now how can we start again?

By Dr. Mona El-Farra, Director of Gaza Projects, who is a physician by training and a human rights and women’s rights activist by practice in the occupied Gaza Strip.


Unqte

I looked for other reports of farmland destruction resulting from the current conflict and found a quite a few - some from Palestinian sources and others with UN tags being more factual with rather short references.