Israel has bombed and destroyed the tallest residential building in Gaza, the Al-Ghafri high-rise, as it launched a massive wave of strikes on Gaza City on Monday evening, forcing hundreds of thousands of residents to continue to flee the city.
Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, says Israel is using unconventional weapons to forcibly evict Palestinians from Gaza City, the largest urban centre in the enclave.
Israeli media source Channel 12 reported that “exceptionally intense air strikes” were concentrated in the city’s north and west, while the Palestinian Civil Defence said at least 50 multistorey buildings had been levelled in recent weeks as Israeli forces intensified attacks to seize the city.
Other neighbourhoods have been reduced to rubble. In Zeitoun, more than 1,500 homes and buildings have been destroyed since early August, leaving entire blocks with nothing left standing.
For the third day in a row, Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Israel Katz has posted videos of the attacks. “The terror tower… crashes into the sea off Gaza. Sinking the centres of terror and incitement,” he wrote on X. Katz offered no evidence for his claim that the residential tower was being used by Hamas.
Israel has repeatedly attacked residential areas, schools and hospitals during its 23 months of genocidal war.
Gaza’s Ministry of Health said that 51 Palestinians, including six-year-old twins, were killed in Gaza City in the past 24 hours.
Three journalists were also killed in separate Israeli strikes: reporter Mohammed al-Kouifi in the Nassr neighbourhood, photographer and broadcast engineer Ayman Haniyeh, and journalist Iman al-Zamili. These killings take the number of journalists and media workers killed in Israel’s war on Gaza to nearly 280. Media watchdogs say this war is the deadliest conflict for journalists.
Since October 2023, Israel has killed at least 64,905 Palestinians and wounded 164,926, with thousands more still buried under rubble.
