Yesterday the Israeli Army detonated 315 mines to destroy Al-Israa University in Gaza – it was the last standing university in the Gaza Strip. In the campus there was also a museum that preserved 3,000 rare artifacts.

Till October there used to be seven universities in Gaza. Now there is not a single one left.

Al-Israa was occupied by the Israeli Forces seventy days ago and turned into a detention centre where they kept in isolation the Palestinian civilians they arrested before interrogating them. The Israeli Army published a video of the detonation: it only took a bunch of seconds to turn into dust and eliminate any physical presence of a cultural institution.

As I write, there’s also the news of the complete destruction of the last functioning hospital in Gaza.

Till October there used to be thirty-six hospitals. Now there is not a single one left.

It is a list of horrors that does not seem to have an end.

News of war come to our homes as fait accompli. What we witness every day are the end results, the outcomes: a certain number of casualties; the toll of displaced people; the success or failure of a military operation; the raids and round-ups; the arrests; the number of destroyed homes, villages, schools, hospitals.

What is usually not completely visible in the journalistic narration we receive is the extreme complexity of the logistics behind such operations.

I keep thinking about those 315 mines that destroyed Al-Israa – it’s a huge number. Huge.

It takes a perfect coordination of forces, means and resources, but most of all of wills and intentions to be able to destroy a building complex with 315 mines.

To observe the logistics of war with its apparent banality made of chains of command, mechanisations and gestures in themselves “innocent,” is a tremendous way to look at cruelty in the eye.

Besides the political decision, there is a lot of people who spend a lot of time understanding and deciding how to destroy a university, how many bulldozers it takes to raze a village to the ground, how many soldiers are needed for a night raid.

For me, the biggest horror of war is here. In the minds, daily activities and routines of all those who create the conditions to destroy and inflict death and desolation.

The devastating outcomes we witness in the news are the product of a million little gestures, of infinite micro-complicities. It’s for this reason that it makes no sense to speak about collateral damages or involuntary errors – this is a benefit of the doubt that perpetrators of such horrors do not deserve.

War is never necessary; it is instead always deliberately cruel.