AN ISRAELI STRIKE flattened a high-rise in Gaza City today – the second in as many days – after the military warned people to flee south to a “humanitarian zone” ahead of a planned offensive to capture the area.
Israel has been warning for weeks of a new assault on the territory’s largest urban centre, without issuing a timeline.
It has stepped up air strikes in the area and operations on the city’s outskirts despite calls to abandon the plan, which has sparked widespread fears it could worsen already-dire humanitarian conditions.
Today, the military announced it struck a Gaza City high-rise, saying “Hamas terrorists installed intelligence gathering equipment and positioned observation posts in the building in order to monitor” Israeli troops, adding it had taken “measures to mitigate harm to civilians”.
Witnesses identified the building as the Sussi residential tower and said it was destroyed, with video shared by Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz showing the roughly 15-storey structure buckling to the ground in a cloud of dust and smoke.
“We’re continuing,” Katz said in the post, after having shared a video the previous day of another Gaza City high-rise being destroyed.
The military has said that in the coming days it will target structures deemed to be used by Hamas, particularly tall buildings.
It also issued an evacuation order for another high-rise today, warning of an imminent strike and telling people to leave to the south.
Earlier, in a message to the city’s residents posted on social media, army spokesman Avichay Adraee said: “Take this opportunity to move early to the (Al-Mawasi) humanitarian zone and join the thousands of people who have already gone there.”
The UN estimates there are about a million people in and around Gaza City, warning of a coming “disaster” if the Israeli military goes ahead with its plans to seize the city.
Israel has come under mounting pressure at home and abroad to call off the offensive and end the war in Gaza.
Hamas agreed to a ceasefire proposal last month that involved a temporary truce and the staggered release of hostages held in Gaza.
Israel, however, has demanded the Palestinian militant group release all the hostages at once, lay down its arms and give up control of Gaza, among other conditions.
In a separate statement Saturday, the military said the humanitarian zone in the south had essential “infrastructure such as field hospitals, water pipelines, and desalination facilities, alongside the continued supply of food, tents, medicines, and medical equipment”.
It added the humanitarian efforts in the zone “will continue on an ongoing basis in cooperation with the UN and international organisations, in parallel to the expansion of the ground operation”.
Israel first declared Al-Mawasi a safe zone early in the war, but has since carried out numerous bombings in the area since then, saying it was targeting Hamas fighters hiding among civilians.
Dozens of Palestinians interviewed by AFP in Gaza City in recent weeks have said there is “no safe place” in the territory, with many saying they would rather die than be displaced again.
