By mid-December, Israel had dropped 29,000 bombs, munitions and shells on the strip. Nearly 70% of Gaza’s 439,000 homes and about half of its buildings have been damaged or destroyed. The bombing has damaged Byzantine churches and ancient mosques, factories and apartment buildings, shopping malls and luxury hotels, theaters and schools. Much of the water, electrical, communications and healthcare infrastructure that made Gaza function is beyond repair.

Most of the strip’s 36 hospitals are shut down, and only eight are accepting patients. Citrus trees, olive groves and greenhouses have been obliterated. More than two-thirds of its schools are damaged.

If anyone wants to dismiss this as a statement by an irrelevant fringe person, remember this: Poll results were also hawkish when it came to the use of force in Gaza: 57.5% of Israeli Jews said that they believed the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were using too little firepower in Gaza