Operational environment in Gaza like nothing I've seen before, says former British DSACEUR

A former Nato Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe (DSACEUR) has described the operational environment in Gaza as  "extraordinarily complex".

On a recent trip to Israel, General Sir John McColl received a briefing from the general commanding all the forces in Gaza in which he said was "described an operational environment which I have never seen before". 

When asked by the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg about the continued loss of Palestinian lives, General Sir John said it was "dreadful".

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General Sir John compared it to "dealing with Falluja in 2004 where British troops dealt with suicide bombers hiding behind civilian shields, booby traps everywhere, but the difference in Gaza is the extraordinary tunnel mechanism that they have there.

"Two hundred kilometres discovered so far, potentially up to 500km underneath a piece of ground 25x7 miles and those tunnels are popping up either side of Israeli troops and behind them, and so an extraordinarily complex environment and urban and, of course, one of the most built-up areas of the world."

General Sir John served as a British Army Officer between 1992 and 2000 and held the position of General of Command of the 3rd UK Division in Afghanistan in 2002.

He later served as DSACEUR, which he stepped down from in 2011.

In the BBC interview, he said he told the Israeli government three things: "They must open up Gaza to the world's media to allow them to comment objectively on what's going on.

"They must have a political objective for military activity otherwise it's just violence and that leads to more violence, more hate.

"The final thing we said to them is there must be a plan now - and we learned this in Iraq - you must have a plan for the reconstruction of Gaza and that needs to be on the table now.

"Otherwise, the two million people who have been displaced will be sentenced to that for many years to come."

Israeli forces have waged a campaign against Hamas in response to the group's unprecedented attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, resulting in the death of 1,200 people and 251 others being taken hostage.

Since the conflict began, over 41,110 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.