"Our Job Is to Flatten Gaza. No One Will Stop Us."Inside one Israeli battalion's yearlong mission of destruction
In mainstream Western media, the coverage of Israel’s year of scorched-earth destruction often touches on the victims and events happening in Gaza in the passive voice. Death and destruction befall Palestinians the way a city suffers from a hurricane or an earthquake—though in those cases, the media has little difficulty identifying the natural disaster as the cause of the destruction. When it comes to Gaza, buildings mysteriously explode and people die. Rarely do we see the Israeli military identified as having carried out the act—and never do we see individual members of the military named and identified, their actions described in detail, broken down by unit and task. In fact, doing so in Israel is illegal. The stated rationale for that censorship is operational security, but according to a report from Israel’s Channel 13, the real aim is to dodge accountability for war crimes. If that’s true, the soldiers themselves work against this cover up on a daily basis—posting endless photos, videos, and montages from the homes and neighborhoods of Gaza they are razing. That’s where this investigation begins. Journalists Younis Tirawi and Sami Vanderlip have managed to find and archive all the Instagram stories and daily posts shared by the soldiers of one key unit, Israel’s 749 Combat Engineering Battalion. They’ve mapped out the structure of the unit and identified the individual soldiers and officers involved, along with their various roles in operations. They have tracked the activities of each company in the battalion, including what they were doing, when, and where, as the force shred their way through Gaza. The mission is nothing less than a systematic, concerted, and deliberate effort to erase the intellectual, cultural, and social future of the Palestinian people. “Our job is to flatten Gaza,” the soldiers of the official D9 company of the battalion wrote on their Instagram page. They added, accurately: “No one will stop us.” You likely heard about some of the atrocities described in this article in real time and if you follow our work here at Drop Site, learned of the impact on the population. But now you can see it from the perspective of those carrying out and reveling in them. The following is a thorough account of the acts committed by the 749 battalion, complete with the evidence they post themselves. These are not just isolated events, but represent a pattern that runs through the very heart of the Israeli military—a sadistic attitude toward the civilians of Gaza, whose futures they have been tasked with blowing up or flattening. If sadistic sounds harsh, read through this dispatch and ask yourself if it’s not, in the end, too soft of a description. We shared the social media videos with the Israeli military and asked for comment as to whether the behavior portrayed was appropriate and what military mission or value was behind them. A spokesperson said:
The type of investigation you’re about to read is extraordinarily time- and resource-intensive. And that doesn’t end after we publish. There will be new leads to follow, as well as intense pushback. All that requires us to build the strongest organization possible. To help make that a reality, please upgrade to a paid subscription if you haven’t already. If you can go further and make a tax-deductible contribution, please do so here. —Ryan Grim Drop Site News is a reader-supported publication. To support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. "Our Job Is to Flatten Gaza. No One Will Stop Us": Inside One Israeli Battalion's Yearlong Mission Of DestructionAn investigation into 749 Combat Engineering Battalion’s mission to destroy “the symbols of Gaza’s future.”“Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.” This is what the deputy commander of Israel’s 749 Combat Engineering Battalion, Lieutenant Colonel Adi Bekore, posted on his personal Facebook account on October 9, 2023, just two days after the Hamas attacks of October 7. Numerous soldiers from the battalion he had command over liked the post. It is a quote from a biblical passage in which the biblical nation of Israel is commanded to attack the Amalekites, an ancient biblical nation that was a recurrent enemy of the Israelites. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also invoked this reference early in the war—a moment cited by South Africa in its case to the ICJ as a piece of genocidal rhetoric: Like much of the rhetoric coming from all organs of the Israeli military since its assault on Gaza started, these words served as a stark warning of what was to come. One year later, countless homes, schools, hospitals, and residential buildings have been bombed and destroyed. 42,718 people have been killed, according to the most recent Gaza Health Ministry figures. The actual figure is certain to be a lot higher: An estimated 10,000 people are buried in the rubble, and the official count doesn’t include those indirectly killed by Israel’s assault on Gaza. Over the past year, the 749 Battalion has played an indispensable role in Gaza. Its soldiers are reservists—alumni of the combat engineering corps, which trains soldiers in demolition. The battalion comes in after combat units, toppling buildings and homes that managed to survive air strikes. The 749 Battalion was among the first to enter the strip through the Netzarim corridor, the four-mile-long road separating Gaza City and Deir al-Balah that Israel occupied early in the war in order to divide the north and south of Gaza. After helping to cement control of south Gaza City, including the Netzarim corridor, the battalion later advanced into areas like Shuja’iya in Gaza City, the Bureij Refugee Camp in Central Gaza, and even Rafah. At the time of writing, the 749 Battalion is operating in northern Gaza and Jabalia, where, even following Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar’s killing in southern Gaza, Israel’s campaign has intensified to the point of executions and depopulation. There, the battalion is seemingly racing to destroy as many buildings as possible. As one soldier put it, “We will leave them nothing!” The images in this investigation come primarily from the group’s own social media page, which Drop Site News gained access to, as well as the personal accounts of dozens of soldiers from various companies within the battalion. By stitching together the information shared within the battalion, we were able to clearly map out the unit’s organizational structure and identify over a hundred of its members. Drop Site News was also able to use the videos to determine the areas where the 749 Battalion was operating and document their activities in the Gaza Strip in detail. They are not the only battalion tasked specifically with demolitions—if it was, Gaza wouldn’t look the way it does—but a close examination of its daily activity offers a rare window into the Israeli operation on the ground in Gaza. December 2023: Blowing Up Al-Azhar University“Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined” In December 2023, Company A of the 749 Battalion was tasked with rigging up the south Gaza City campus of Al-Azhar University with explosives and detonating the, reducing Gaza’s second-largest university to rubble. "On Shabbat, we loaded the mines, and I signed off on the shipment with a modification due to the sanctity of Shabbat,” First Master Sergeant David Zoldan, the operational officer of Company A of Israel’s 749 Battalion wrote in a Facebook post on December 20. “A few days later, we assembled them and booby-trapped one of Gaza’s symbols of the future—Al-Azhar University in the northern part of the strip—and blew it up.” An operation of this size would generally have required sign-off not just from the deputy commander, Bekore, but also from the battalion commander. Zoldan—a reservist who normally works as a journalist at ICE, a local Israeli news outlet—attached several photos and videos of the entire operation “from the unloading stage to the massive explosion.” In one of the videos, he cheers as the three buildings of the university campus are prepared to be blown up. “This is the explosion before redemption. December 2023.” As the university is blown up, Zoldan tells his fellow soldiers, “Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined, did you see?!” Zoldan did not provide a military justification for the explosion and the Israeli military have not reported to have found anything at this campus. In a chilling post ahead of the explosion, Zoldan wrote on his Facebook page on November 19, 2023: "Gazan student, you could have been a doctor of nuclear physics, you could have studied philosophy in your fifth year, and now, what now? Nails and feathers and the destruction of dreams." The 749 Battalion, he wrote after the explosion, “is working day and night and performing holy work in the Gaza Strip.” Other soldiers from the battalion made no effort to conceal their intentions, gleefully mocking the destruction of civilian and educational property. Maya Radoszkowicz, another soldier in the 749 Battalion, was among them. She filmed the explosion of Al-Azhar University, captioning it, "Goodbye to higher education in Gaza” with an emoji of hands in the form of a heart. She is one of 27 soldiers Drop Site News identified as being deployed to blow up Al-Azhar University. This group also includes Royi Wickes, who fights with an American-flag patch sewn on his sleeve and was involved in planting the explosives that led to the destruction of the institution. The destruction of the university campus by the 749 Combat Engineering Battalion, a reserve unit within the IDF’s 5th Brigade, was a reflection of the unit’s special mission: to destroy the livelihood and symbols of Gaza’s future—from mosques, shops, universities, and even homes. November-December 2023: Creating the Netzarim CorridorOver several weeks in November and December 2023, Israel used its siege of Gaza to justify the total annihilation of the civilian infrastructure in towns and suburbs throughout the strip. The military not only worked to establish a half-mile “buffer zone” inside the Gaza border by demolishing homes and buildings. It also flattened a four-mile-wide stretch in the heart of Gaza separating the north from the south of the strip. Very little is allowed to be published about the demolitions done to establish the Netzarim corridor due to Israel’s stringent military censorship rules. Only in February was a reporter with Israel’s Channel 14 able to publish a video investigation revealing the “latitudinal highway,” with significant razing and paving underway. But multiple demolition videos posted by members of the battalion show them paving the corridor through Gaza. They played such an integral role in this effort that the main road dividing North Gaza from the South, in the Netzarim corridor, was named Road 749, in recognition of the battalion’s work in constructing it amid the ruins of Palestinian homes and properties. Many of the videos are edited together into montages celebrating the destruction of Gaza and summarizing the battalion’s operations. One video, uploaded to YouTube by battalion member Alon Lev-Ari on January 2, shows the munitions used and the faces of many of its members, and features footage of demolitions and the destruction of homes in Gaza City. The video begins with an explosion with fireworks accompanied by Disney’s opening theme music: Pieces of this montage video had been posted by other soldiers in the unit. On December 30, Nerya Ram, another soldier in 749, posted extended footage of a significant remote detonation of a set of buildings and land. December 2023: Company D, Shuja’iya Neighborhood“May your village burn.” The 749 Battalion was hard at work. According to satellite data from the UN, more than 750 structures within the Israel-imposed “buffer zone” and beyond were severely damaged or destroyed from air strikes and demolitions between November 26, 2023 and January 6, 2024. Gaza City lies to the north of the Netzarim corridor, with Shuja’iya being one of its largest neighborhoods. On December 20, a massive detonation was carried out by soldiers from Company D under the command of Major Amit Pinto, the company commander, and its operational officer Master Sergeant Tom Mor, resulting in the destruction of over 56 civilian buildings in the area of Qubba, east of the Shuja’iya neighborhood. The video of the detonation was first leaked to right-wing Israeli journalists and subsequently spread widely on social media. In the background, Israeli soldiers can be heard chanting, “May your village burn,” after the explosion. It’s a reference to a song known for inciting violence and celebrating harm against Palestinians and their properties, often chanted by ultra-extremists in Israel. The song has recently taken Israel by storm, even being played in nightclubs, at weddings, and at schools. Soldiers from the battalion shared multiple versions of the explosion online—reported at the time by Israeli news outlet Ynet News. Itamar Levy, a soldier in Company A, posted various clips celebrating the battalion’s work to his Instagram, including an aerial view of the Shuja’iya detonation. The destroyed homes belonged to the Abu Kombaz, Abid, and Jondia families, along with several smaller families. On the same day, Master Sergeant Ori Fadida, a team officer in the battalion who participated in the operation posted a video to his Instagram story captioning it: “We won’t leave a single mouse breathing on the face of the earth, We are done with Shuja’iya Neighborhood.” Satellite images from January 2024 confirm the destruction. Earlier, on December 3, Fadida posted a video on his Instagram story depicting the detonation of a home in the Shuja’iya neighborhood. He commented, “House by house, street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood ... Everything will be erased from you … until nothing remains of you.” In early September 2024, Amnesty International published an investigation calling for the Israeli military to be investigated for the war crime of wanton destruction in Gaza—in particular in the Shuja’iya neighborhood where 749 was operating. January 2024: Bureij Refugee CampThe battalion worked both sides of the Netzarim corridor. On January 2, Fadida, now operating south of the corridor, shared another story on Instagram, this time from the Bureij Refugee Camp in central Gaza. It showcased a massive controlled demolition that destroyed many residential buildings within the camp, including several already damaged homes. He captioned the post, “Bye Bye Bureij Refugee Camp.” The timeline of destruction aligns with the Israeli military’s offensive in the area. Again, they provided no evidence or explanation of the military necessity for destroying the area along the eastern areas of Bureij Refugee Camp. January-June 2024: The Battalion RelaxesIn January, the reservists were sent home for a nearly six-month break. The change in their posts on social media is jarring, as soldiers shared images of themselves doing the things that every Palestinian in Gaza dreams of being able to do: Going out for meals with friends and family, without dreading the fear of being hit by an airstrike. Some even posted about their travels on holiday to Europe and Asia. Others were seen to be enjoying snowboarding holidays. All the while, the Israeli assault on Gaza ratcheted up to deadly new heights, with the official death toll blowing past 35,000 Palestinians. June 2024: The D9 Company Enters Rafah“Once, there was a home here.” In May, Israel’s offensive pushed south to the city of Rafah, blowing past Biden’s supposed “red line.” The next month, June 2024, the D9 Company of 749 Battalion was deployed to the city for a two-week mission aimed at flattening the remaining homes. The company was under the command of Major Tal Peretz and its Operational Officer Sergeant Major Sahar Antonitch. Footage from June 2 uploaded to the battalion’s Instagram page shows an Israeli soldier named Yossi Nahari from the “Tzama” D9 company demolishing a house in the southern city. On June 14, another video was uploaded, showing the destruction of yet another home, captioned: “Once, there was a home here (Rafah).” Their mission complete, they withdrew from Gaza again. September 2024: South Gaza City“Our Job is to Flatten Gaza” In September, the 749 Battalion was brought back into Gaza, this time mainly positioned in south Gaza City, where the Israeli military has been engaged in a project of rampant destruction and depopulation. “Our job is to flatten Gaza,” read the caption on a video first posted by a soldier in the D9 company in September and later uploaded to the official D9 company’s own Instagram page. In the video, the unit is in the process of bulldozing several homes in the neighborhood of Zaitoun. The company’s comment on the post reads, “No one will stop us.” Since then, soldiers of the 749 Battalion have made a concerted effort to continue systematically blowing up homes and residential buildings in an area they have been controlling for almost a year already. In none of the videos do the soldiers explain the military rationale for such actions. Ahead of yet another round of assaults on Gaza, David Zoldan, the operational officer who had signed off on the mine shipment intended to destroy Al-Azhar University, mocked the devastating epidemics sweeping through the besieged Palestinian population—epidemics caused by the Israeli military's deliberate destruction of Gaza's medical infrastructure. On September 11, Zoldan was vaccinated just before entering Gaza. On Facebook, he posted: "Vaccinating against the polio and jaundice epidemics raging in Gaza, but no vaccination will help Gaza anymore. She is terminally ill, and it is our job to disconnect her from the oxygen devices, and the sooner, the better." On September 13, the D9 company was deployed to south Gaza City. It posted a video to the unit’s Instagram page showing a D9 operative from the battalion flattening a home in the strip. The caption read: “Bye Bye”. On September 14, Company B of the 749 Battalion, under the command of Major Yaakov Sattler, announced its reentry into operations in the Gaza Strip by blowing up a mosque and another house in the Netzarim area in south Gaza City: Source: @rafael_ben_ishay0 on Instagram The next day, on September 15, Company C under the command of Daniel Vidaker, posted a video of a house being blown up near Zaitoun. Another explosion conducted by the battalion was posted to its Instagram page later that day. On September 17, Omri Heller, a soldier from the D9 company, posted a video to his Instagram page showing him demolishing a building in the area of south Gaza City. On September 18, the battalion’s social media page posted before and after images of more than 14 buildings blown up simultaneously, this time by company B under the command of Major Yaakov Sattler in Netzarim, South Gaza City. On September 19, the battalion posted more than 10 buildings being detonated in a joint operation by Company B and Company C near Zahra town south Gaza City. On September 20, Company A, under the command of Oz Veiner, recorded themselves carrying out a controlled demolition, blowing up homes in the Zaitoun neighborhood. They also published before-and-after pictures of the explosion. Photos posted in the aftermath of the explosion show soldiers planting explosives and rigging the houses, appearing relaxed and under no threat during the process. Three days later, on September 25, Company D, led by Major Amit Pinto, blew up another building in Zaitoun, continuing the work started by Company A on September 20. On the same day, Yehuda Efraim from the D9 company also posted a video on his Instagram page showing the demolition of a building seen through the window of a truck he was operating in south Gaza City. On September 26, they posted a video of Company B blowing up more than seven other buildings in south Gaza City. On the same day, they posted a video of a house in Zaitoun being blown up by Company A. One soldier claps. On the next day, they posted several more houses being detonated from afar. October 2024: South Gaza City“We will leave them nothing!” As the world’s eyes have turned to the Israeli military invasion of Lebanon over the past month, the destruction that Israel has wrought on Gaza has not relented. It has reached such catastrophic levels that UNICEF has described Gaza as “the real-world embodiment of hell on earth.” Israel’s campaign of the ethnic cleansing of northern Gaza continues unabated; no food has been let in to the northernmost governorate since the start of October. Though Israeli officials have denied it, their actions appear to be the execution of what’s known as the “General’s Plan.” Devised by former general Giora Eiland, it would use the lack of access to water, food, and medicine as a weapon of war to force the besieged Palestinians in the north of Gaza to starve or surrender. All the while, the battalion’s habit for posting its destruction of Gaza has only grown more intense. On October 3, Israeli soldiers posted photos of themselves planting explosives inside civilian homes in Zaitoun. Later that day, a video was posted showing Company A setting up detonations at even more homes. In another Instagram story, showing the same event, one of the soldiers writes mockingly, “They prepared quite a birthday for us,” followed by another story showing the explosion from a different angle, captioned “with fireworks.” On October 6, soldiers from Company A blew up a house in Zaitoun: On October 10, Israeli soldiers from Company B showed themselves blowing up a building in the neighborhood of Tel Hawwa. On October 12, on the occasion of Yom Kippur, Company B posted videos of its soldiers blowing up at least nine buildings in southern Gaza City. In the video of the remote detonation, the voice of a soldier can be heard dedicating the explosions: “To all the dear families, to the women, to the parents, to the children, to the brothers, and to the sisters … Only thanks to you are we here, continuing to destroy the enemy and helping to locate our brothers and sisters.” With its desire for revenge clearly stated, the company then destroyed what were once homes for dozens of Palestinian families: Like the war on Gaza itself, the explosions are unrelenting. On October 13, soldiers of the battalion published footage of another controlled demolition from south Gaza City, this time filmed by a drone: On October 14, 2024, a massive detonation leveled at least 11 residential buildings simultaneously in Tel Hawwa, near the Christian-Rosary Sisters School. In the background, soldiers can be heard cheering, “Woohoo! We put 2.5 tons of explosives there.” Shay Cohen, a soldier in the battalion, proudly boasted about the destruction he left in the week of October 7 to 15, captioning a video showing him running over a vehicle and writing, “We will leave them nothing!” On October 16, Zoldan from Company A published a video showing him planting explosives comfortably inside a residential building with no threat visible, then blowing the building up—what he calls a “Birthday gift” leaving him with an “unforgettable experience.” Zoldan is heard saying in the video, “Battalion 749, you’re family forever … To next year, in a built [resettled] Gaza… Mazel tov, David! Thank you very much, you’re the best!” On October 17, a video shows soldiers from Company C blowing up yet another building: On October 20, Saar Hirshoren, another member of the battalion, posted a video dedicating a remote detonation of more than seven buildings near Mosab Ben Omair mosque, beyond the Gaza river line in north Nuseirat, to one of his fellow soldiers who died in Gaza: Notably, the battalion is currently using a school in Zaitoun as its operational headquarters. Footage from October 16 obtained by Drop Site News shows soldiers stationed at the location. Additional footage from Zoldan’s page reveals that firing positions are being set up on the school’s second floor: The Plan to Settle GazaThe ruling party in Israel, Likud, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, hasn’t hidden its desire to resettle Gaza. On Monday, it held an event near the border with Gaza in support of resettling it. The event featured Likud ministers, Knesset members, and party members. Following the Israeli military’s announcement of the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar on October 17, the event organizers released a new flyer stating: “We’ve eliminated Sinwar, (now) we continue to settle in Gaza.” One of the leaders of the settler movement, Daniella Weiss, spoke at the event, telling a group of foreign journalists: “Each of you will witness how Jews go to Gaza and Arabs will disappear from Gaza”. Weiss went on. “We came here with one clear purpose: to settle the entire Gaza Strip… Every inch from north to south. We're thousands of people and ready to move to Gaza at a moment's notice. October 7 changed history. As a result of the brutal massacre, the Gazan Arabs have lost their rights to be here forever, they'll not stay here." Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far-right national security minister, also attended the event. "What we have learned this year is that everything is up to us. We are the owners of this land,” Ben-Gvir said. “Yes, we experienced a terrible catastrophe. But what we need to understand, one year later—so many Israelis have changed their thinking. They have changed their mindset. They understand that when Israel acts like the rightful owners of this land, this is what brings results.” 749 Battalion: Race Against TimeThe footage Drop Site News has documented in this investigation comes from just one battalion and yet the level of destruction remains absolutely staggering. It seems as if the battalion is in a desperate race against time, flattening as much as possible with disturbing intensity even as it becomes a daily routine. None of this is actual combat. It’s pure devastation aimed at civilians, aided and abetted by the staggering level of impunity given to them by their western benefactors in the Biden White House. Nowhere in these videos is there any mention of Hamas. Instead, soldiers make mocking comments, calling it “Urban Renewal,” while others joke about “pre-registration for lands within walking distance of the sea.” The destruction inflicted by the Israeli military not only wipes out the current livelihood of the Palestinian people—it also erases their entire future. As soldiers have shared on social media, their goal is not just demolishing buildings; it is to crush the dreams, hopes, and symbols of those who live there. While many speak of the “day after,” what we see from these soldiers forces us to ask: What will be left of Gaza when that day comes? Nicholas Rodelo contributed reporting.
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