Nearly three months after the horror of October 7, Israel continues its offensive in the Gaza Strip. With one objective: to eliminate Hamas, at the origin of the terrorist attack which killed more than 1,100 Israelis, mainly civilians. Invited this Tuesday morning at the microphone of Europe 1, Noam Ohana, reservist in an elite paratrooper commando unit within the IDF, underlines the difficulty of intervening in the Gaza Strip.
In this enclave where nearly two million people live, there are two parallel worlds, explains the man, an account manager in civilian life. “The complexity can be summarized as follows: there is civil infrastructure, a city with people who get up in the morning and go to work. And then underneath, there is another city and another life. There has military infrastructures that have been built and which are truly mind-blowing,” underlines Noam Ohana.
“The two coexist”
“I went into these tunnels and seeing the level of engineering that went into it and all the resources that were used to build this infrastructure of death, it’s quite disturbing,” he continues. “We say to ourselves that something else could have been done with the aid” which was used to build the tunnels, he continues.
“As a result, you have a school that can be both a military target because it has all the elements of a military target with an arms depot and a rocket battery. And at the same time, it remains a school with its images of books, schoolbags. And the two coexist,” adds the soldier.
A heavy price for Israeli and Palestinian society
Resident in Tel Aviv, Noam Ohana volunteered on October 9 to intervene in Gaza. Among the missions of the Israeli army: trying to free the hostages still held by Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip. But the war weighs heavily: “I had a reservist in my unit who was killed in combat while going to look, on the basis of information, for the bodies of hostages. He was the son of the former chief of General Staff Gadi Eisenkot. So, that gives an idea of the price that Israeli society is paying, including the establishment.”