Israel dropped more bombs on Gaza in 6 days than US-led coalition dropped in any month fighting ISIS
Israel dropped more bombs on the Gaza Strip in the first six days during war with Hamas than the United States-led coalition dropped in any month of its fight against the Islamic State, even during the height of the multi-national air campaign against the terrorist group, reports Business Insider.
Israel started its aerial bombardment of Gaza on Saturday immediately after Hamas fighters launched a series of surprise attacks, killing at least 1,300 people — mostly civilians — and injuring over 3,200 more. The group also took an estimated 150 people hostage.
By Thursday, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) said it had dropped "about 6,000 bombs against Hamas targets in the densely populated coastal enclave."
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The relentless campaign has reduced entire neighbourhoods to rubble and sent people scrambling for shelter. More than 2,000 Palestinians have been killed so far and more than 6,600 injured, according to Gaza's health ministry.
The figure provided by the IAF far exceeds the maximum number of bombs dropped in any given month from 2015 to 2019 during Operation Inherent Resolve, which is the US army's name for the multinational campaign against ISIS.
According to unclassified airpower data published in December 2019 by the US Air Forces Central Command (AFCENT), during the first two years of that stretch, the coalition averaged some 2,500 bombs dropped each month on targets across Iraq and Syria.
But the air war seriously intensified in 2017 with an average of around 3,300 bombs dropped each month from fighter jets and drones. August saw a record 5,075 bombs dropped, which coincided with the brutal months-long Battle of Raqqa — a Syrian city that served as the de-facto ISIS capital in 2014.
On average, Israel's 6,000 bombs dropped on Gaza between 7 October and 12 October comes out to 1,000 per day — smashing the average of 164 bombs dropped per day by the US-led coalition in August 2017.
Both Israeli and US officials, including President Joe Biden, have compared Hamas to ISIS in the wake of last weekend's attacks.
