Israel turns beating heart of Gaza to ruins, with Jon Elmer

But maybe we can go to to number three tomorrow here. This is in this is in the Al Remal neighborhood and and and Leila talked about on this on the show the other day what they've done to the downtown of Gaza. So we're watching here a sniper with a rangefinder. We're watching Israeli dismounted soldiers walking amid just total ruins of what used to be the downtown core of Gaza. The beating heart of Gaza where you have the commercial center. You know, you it's the beachfront Promenade. You have all the government ministries, Shifa Hospital, the legislative council. It's the downtown public heart of the Gaza Strip and you're watching two soldiers here overseeing a bulldozer bulldozing what used to be massive civilian towers. And again, we're going to just to keep this show online. You're going to have to use your imagination what happened in the next scenes, but they're direct hits. Maybe this is a a chance to say these full videos are on my Twitter feed unedited, but we are trying to skate around the YouTubes here and keep these shows online by making wise edits. And in this in the dialogue in this scene, you can hear the the you can hear them talking to each other and the spotter says here they come as they walk in and the and and the shooter says, "Wait a second. Let's be patient. Let's wait for them to feel comfortable." Which is what you see there, them feeling comfortable and the next scenes is the Israeli on the right is hit. Israel last week admitted to one of the sniper victims, but they haven't admitted to these sniper victims killed in the north. And so you can see with the Algol sniper rifle that there's a range. You can see here the the shooter is using a rangefinder there to find to get the proper distance the exact distance to get the topography of the land and then he's moving to his sniper rifle which has a range an effective range of more than a kilometer. A maximum range of 2 kilometers. So with the size of the Gaza Strip, that puts most of these soldiers in range of the Al-Ghoul sniper rifle and Qassam has shown this rifle being developed. It's it's a copy of an American of an Austrian rifle that the Iranians broke down and into component parts and Palestinians have several of the original rifles but then they're manufacturing the parts for the additional rifles which is something that the Palestinian resistance has done with all of these weapons. And so you can see again whatever the opposite of soldiers in a window is, this Palestinian sniper's on a mattress. He's at the back of the room. He's completely away. His muzzle is inside the window so the muzzle flash doesn't show outside the window. And what we're seeing of course I guess they don't put their misses on the videos but on the videos that we've seen these sniper hits are dead shots. They are perfect shots. They're not glancing blows that we've seen. So they're they're clearly as skilled with the Al-Ghoul rifle as they are with the Yasin. John one one question I have about this video and about the part that we're not showing which is the the the hit but you actually see a flash when when it hits. Is it is it an exploding bullet? They have they have several types of rounds but those rounds penetrate the armor plating of uh the flak jackets of these soldiers. So, you're probably seeing that. Um but there's there's several different types of rounds that they that they produce. But yeah, the flash the one on that one I believe the flash you're seeing is it is it penetrating Because just the amount of energy that is released as heat. Yeah, well we'll see in this next video if you want to pull up the next video tomorrow we can see the round in his hand there which um you know, roughly the size of an expo marker maybe we could say. It's it's a significantly large round. Um it's twice the size of a dollar bill stacked on top of itself. Um and so you can see the sniper's holding that round here and he's drink he's having a drink. He's in a position where he can sit back from the window and relax. And if we just play the video Tamara, he says here he says this one he says this operation God willing is dedicated to the resistance in Yemen. To the resistance in Lebanon. To the resistance in Iraq. And then we show what they show us here of the clumsy Israelis smashing out a loophole for their sniper. And you can see through there what we're looking at is we can see the rangefinder that the Israeli is using that we just watched the Palestinians use. And we're watching here the opposite of that. We here see on the sniper shot there he's got his scope covered right until the moment that he's going to shoot so that he doesn't reflect the way that that Israeli sniper is reflecting. So, this is sniper on sniper. Um and that um plume of smoke that you use that comes up there after the shot is fired is again something that you can use as your imagination. Um so we're seeing the the tactically um the Palestinian resistance tactically and this is another sniper shot uh, of dismounted troops. But, yeah, if we just pause it there, Tamara, you can see there his his the flash of his Well, you can you can see in this, yeah, his flash um, the the uh, reflection off of his rangefinder, which is a mistake for him as a sniper that apparently cost him his life. And if we look when we loop back around the video, we'll see the Palestinian sniper has a a cover over what can flash for him. Um, and so, he's sitting here very nonchalant. You can see he's got his position set up. Um, and he dedicates this because the Palestinians are clearly aware of what's happening on all fronts while the Israelis are saying their communications are cut off between the north and the south. It's clearly not true. Uh, it's not cut off even between the outside world because they're very aware of the resistance happening um, elsewhere. So, you can see that's two loopholes poked in the wall by the Israelis. Um, and see how he's got his scope covered there by a t-shirt? And now watch when they flip back, the t-shirt will be gone and he fires. So, we're seeing um, tactical supremacy um, from the Palestinian resistance and using the Al Ghoul sniper rifle. And the Al Ghoul Adnan Al Ghoul is the founder of the uh, Hamas weapons industry. He was the one who said, "We need to have uh, an indigenous weapons industry to produce not the most special weapons, but to produce the most usable um, and repeatable weapons and get those in the hands of all the fighters rather than having specialized units that can do this um, to do this on a mass scale. And we can see there in this shot, maybe if we pause nice that's nicely done. Um, we can see their Jeep destroyed there. Um, which is something that because the fighters aren't lingering on the site, we haven't seen as much destroyed um vehicle as many destroyed vehicles, um but we can clearly see there that that Jeep did not do well. And just to say again what Leila said, what we're looking at right there, that pile of sand and rebar um and dirt, that used to be the most densely populated area of the Gaza Strip, the the seat of public life, the promenade along the beach. It's completely erased. It's completely gone. The entire neighborhood um you know, the neighborhood that Leila knows, uh just completely gone. And it's the same for me. This is the neighborhood that I lived in. Um the buildings that I lived in in my time in Gaza, they're all gone. And my very, very limited time uh compared to people who live in Gaza, you can imagine just um the the the level of devastation that people are trying to absorb that's happened in the Gaza Strip. This photo is is This is This would be where literally where the postcard of the Gaza Strip, where the drone photo of how beautiful Gaza is on the Mediterranean coast. Um and the Israelis have just completely destroyed it. And there you see dismounted soldiers um out of their vehicles um getting hit by snipers. And John, just I want to highlight one comment somebody made that I I just think is is so um perceptive. And that And one of those uh sniper videos that we were just talking about and I think this is cut out. Uh when the soldier on the right is hit uh his buddy on the left immediately runs away, runs for his life uh while his comrade is injured or or likely killed. Uh And just what a contrast that is with Dr. Amira al-Assouli, who Nora mentioned at the beginning, who ran into the face of his Israeli Yeah, oh, sorry. I didn't know you had I don't want to spoil it then. You just It's okay. It's okay. Yeah, so no, actually because we cut off uh the videos at the sniper shots, we don't actually see what you and the commenter just described, which is that the Israelis run. Um they literally stepped over that guy's body. Um and they're not running for cover to then um take up a shooting position. They're just running. Um and each of the three main sniper videos that we've seen in the last couple of weeks, that we've seen the same thing. Just They don't even try to pull him out of the way. Um they just leave them, and they're not taking up a position right beside him trying to um cover for him so that someone can get him out. Um they're just clearly fleeing um fleeing the scene, and we'll show that video uh that you talked about after. So stay tuned for that. Um uh Yeah, so now we'll go um this week also uh Qassam released some information about the Yasin, which is the um RPG that we've talked about uh on this show every single time, because it's the most used weapon. They've used it 1,100 times um against Israeli vehicles. Um and and they've talked about um they they produced this week sort of a tribute to the Yasin, and they talked about um its development and the development between um the from the lessons learned of the 2014 war um when they had the RPGs, and because of the um improvements of Israeli armor, um those RPGs weren't working um as well during the 2014 war. In the 2014 war, um the Palestinians used Cornet anti-tank missiles, um wire-guided anti-tank missiles that are a bit more cumbersome. You have to set them up on a tripod, um and the shooter has to be in position to fire and then track the shot. Um, and so while they were somewhat effective with that weapon, um, they were cumbersome and they were deadly for Palestinian forces. And so the, um, 2014 war, um, informed the engineering units of the Qassam Brigades who set about solving this problem of having a light infantry weapon, anti-tank weapon, um, that could be in the hands of all of their fighters. And they talk about in this tribute to them, um, to the Yassin, how they, um, spent the time both, um, in research and development on how to make exact replicas, um, of the RPG-7 that, um, that the Russians were using with the tandem warheads, um, that they set about the research and development in the years 2015, 16, 17, and 18. And also while they were, um, getting the specs and everything, um, uh, locked in on the engineering side, that on the fighters side, they were training their fighters, um, with these weapons. And they talk about something that we've talked about on the show, too, where we showed, um, the footage of, um, miniature, uh, replicas, both miniature replicas, um, but even full-size replicas of Israeli, uh, armored vehicles, um, that Palestinians were training on for years and years before, um, Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7th, using this weapon. And of course, since October 7th and on October 7th, the Yassin was, um, you know, was the primary weapon. And it has been, um, for this entire war. And when history looks back on this war, um, it'll be what historians focus in on. Um, and so they gave a, uh, a a history of that. And they juxtaposed it with the $6 million dollar, um, tank that the Israelis, uh, are so proud of, the Merkava tank, um that costs $6 million, $3 million in armor, um a million for its cannon and aiming systems, and then $2 million in uh technology that's attached um to this. And the Qassam Brigades say that over the entire process of research and development and weapons production of the Yassin, that each Yassin um comes out at less than $500. Um and we're seeing them disable um these tanks. So, thanks for watching this video. Please subscribe to our YouTube channel, hit like, leave a comment. These engagements help us with the YouTube algorithm, and it helps us to get around Silicon Valley censorship as much as possible. It does make a difference. You can also support our journalism by going to ElectronicIntifada.net and clicking on donate now. Thank you.