JERUSALEM, Israel (PNN) - September 17, 2025 - Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Wednesday, "We have poured a lot of money into this war. We have to see how we are dividing up the land in percentages" amid the ongoing Gaza military operation. Importantly, he further described "the demolition" of Gaza City as "the first stage in the city’s renewal, we have already done. Now we just need to build."
How does Israel's military plan to do this? First, the IDF is utilizing airstrikes involving powerful missiles hitting the bases of high-rise buildings in order to collapse them in their own footprint. For other buildings and structures in tightly packed urban areas, there is increased reliance on explosive-laden robots, or something that might look straight out of Terminator 2 and Skynet.
Walla News outlet says "unprecedented" numbers of explosive-laden, remote-controlled vehicles are being prepared to invade Gaza City alongside the ground infantry troops.
The Israeli military commonly refers to them as "suicide APCs" - and they are capable of being driven deep into urban environments before causing huge explosions.
They have been able to cause “mega-blasts” so powerful that in some instances they can be heard as far away as central Israel. Palestinians have described "earth-shaking" explosions, with one eyewitness recently telling Middle East Eye that "they are far more devastating than air strikes."
Gaza's Government Media Office has said over one hundred of these explosive robots have been used in about the past month alone. Hundreds of residential units and small business buildings have been destroyed.
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor details the following on how each of these robots is loaded with highly explosive materials, sometimes weighing up to seven tons, and is directed to detonate in Jabalia al-Balad and Jabalia al-Nazla north of Gaza City; the Zeitoun, al-Sabra, al-Shuja’iyya and al-Tuffah neighborhoods south and east of Gaza City; as well as the al-Saftawi and Abu Iskandar areas northwest of Gaza City.
The unprecedented pace of destruction of residential neighborhoods in Gaza City using explosive-laden robots indicates Israel’s determination to wipe the city off the map. At the current rate, the rest of the city could be destroyed within two months, a timeline that may shorten further given the Israeli army’s massive firepower and the absence of any pressure to halt its crimes against Palestinians.
Often it is outdated M113 armored personnel carriers that are turned into autonomous vehicles and strapped with large explosives. The fact that they are modified personnel carriers means that they can carry a very large payload.
It was only as recently as 2024 that these suicide robots were observed operating and conducting destruction on the Gaza battlefield. Israeli ground troops have been the subject of ambushes by well-armed Hamas militants who can swiftly emerge from Gaza's underground tunnel network. Sending robots to clear areas ahead of time is a tactic on which Israel's infantry increasingly relies.