Israel army begins targeting Gaza City high-rises

GAZA CITY: The Israeli military destroyed a high-rise in Gaza City on Friday (Sep 5), shortly after announcing it would target tall buildings identified as being used by Hamas ahead of Israeli forces' planned conquest of the urban hub.

Despite mounting pressure at home and abroad to halt its nearly two-year offensive in Gaza, Israel has been shoring up its troops, intensifying its bombardments and operating on the outskirts of Gaza City ever since announcing its intention to capture the Palestinian territory's largest city.

In a statement Friday, the military said it had "identified significant Hamas terrorist activity within a wide variety of infrastructure sites in Gaza City, and particularly in high-rise buildings", adding it would target those sites "in the coming days".

Less than an hour later, it issued another statement announcing it had struck one such high-rise, accusing Hamas of using it "to advance and execute attacks against (Israeli) troops in the area".

The army said that before the strike, "precautionary measures were taken in order to mitigate harm to civilians", including prior warnings.

AFP footage showed the Mushtaha Tower in the city's Al-Rimal neighbourhood collapsing after a massive explosion at its base, sending a thick cloud of smoke and dust billowing into the sky.

HAMAS RELEASE HOSTAGE VIDEO

Hamas released a video on Friday of two Israeli hostages seized from a music festival in Israel in October 2023, and one said he was being held in Gaza City, where the Israeli military has launched a major offensive to wipe out the militant group.

Guy Gilboa-Dalal and Alon Ohel are two of 48 people still being held by Hamas in Gaza, with 20 thought to be still alive.

The video was edited and featured an exhausted-looking Gilboa-Dalal speaking for around three-and-a-half minutes. He is seen in a car during some of the video dated August 28. Reuters could not independently determine when the video was recorded.

He says that he is being held in Gaza City along with several other hostages and that he is afraid of being killed by Israel's offensive on the city. 

AFP photographs of the aftermath showed Palestinians inspecting the rubble and debris of a collapsed building.

Arej Ahmed, a 50-year-old displaced Palestinian who lives in a tent in the southwest of Gaza City, told AFP that her husband "saw residents of the Mushtaha Tower throwing their belongings from the upper floors to take them and flee before the strike".

"Less than half an hour after the evacuation orders, the tower was bombed," she said by telephone.

Israel "orders the residents of towers to evacuate, claiming it wants to avoid civilian casualties. But what about us - hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians in the tents surrounding these buildings?" she asked.

Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli strikes killed at least 19 people on Friday in and around Gaza City, an area the United Nations estimates is home to nearly one million people and where it has declared a famine.

"NO SAFE PLACE"

Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military requested timeframes and coordinates to comment on specific incidents.

Defence Minister Israel Katz said in a statement on Friday that "the bolt has now been removed from the gates of hell in Gaza", vowing to intensify operations until Hamas accepts Israel's terms to end the war.

"The news about Israel beginning to bomb towers and apartment buildings is terrifying. Everyone is scared and doesn't know where to go," said Ahmed Abu Wutfa, 45, who lives in his relatives' partially destroyed fifth-floor apartment in western Gaza City.

"My children are terrified, and so am I. There is no safe place - we only hope that death comes quickly."

Israeli military spokesman Nadav Shoshani said Thursday that the start of the campaign to seize Gaza City would not be announced in advance to "maintain the element of surprise".

Another army spokesman, Effie Defrin, said Thursday that Israeli troops already controlled 40 per cent of the city.

Israel expects its new offensive will displace around a million people towards the south.

The head of Israel's Southern Command, Major General Yaniv Asor, told reservists on Friday: "You are the ones carrying the nation's security on your shoulders.

"It is your determination that will defeat Hamas," he said during a visit to a training ground, according to an army statement.

Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by the civil defence agency or the Israeli military.

The war in Gaza was sparked by Hamas's October 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 64,300 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza that the United Nations considers reliable.