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An estimated 282,904 housing units have been damaged. Nearly the entire population of the Gaza Strip has been displaced multiple times since the Israeli genocide in Gaza began in October 2023." |
Published date: 6 September 2025
Hamza Shabaan woke up mid-air.
A massive blast had hurled him off his mattress, leaving him disoriented and shocked.
Outside, an Israeli explosive-laden, remotely controlled “robot” was crawling through the streets of Gaza City, spreading terror in its wake.
“I looked out the window to see where the robot was, whether it was beside me or nearby,” said Shabaan, 35, speaking to Middle East Eye.
“It turned out it was about 100m away.”
Then another explosion hit, blowing him 2m back from the window.
“I started crawling on my hands and knees, escaping to the living room,” he recalled.
“I could hear the sound of shrapnel and debris hitting everything, horrifying noises.”
Shabaan’s experience is becoming all too common for Palestinians in Gaza City.
Since Israel announced last month that it was expanding its assault on the city, home to nearly one million people, massive explosions have rocked the area almost nightly.
At the centre of this new wave of violence is Israel’s latest battlefield tactic: remotely controlled, explosive-packed vehicles.
Rather than deploying troops on the ground, the Israeli military has been sending decommissioned armoured personnel carriers (APCs) into densely populated residential areas.
These APCs, packed with tonnes of explosives, are remotely navigated into neighbourhoods and then detonated, causing widespread devastation.
In some cases, the vehicles drop explosive barrels along streets and detonate them simultaneously, maximising the destruction across entire blocks.
“The explosions usually start just when you’re trying to sleep, around 10 or 11pm,” said Shabaan, adding that eight to ten blasts can be heard every night.
“They’re extremely powerful. They reduce entire buildings to crushed rubble,” he said.
Though he lived through many Israeli wars in Gaza and witnessed first-hand the destruction caused by F-16 fighter jets, this was on a different level.
“Nothing compares to these robots,” he said. “They are far more devastating than air strikes.”