The Israeli army has bombed another high-rise in Gaza City after telling Palestinian residents to evacuate or face being killed amid its ongoing siege and imposed mass starvation in the enclave.
The Israeli military designated more high-rise towers as targets in a map released on Saturday. Shortly after releasing the map, it bombed the 15-storey Soussi Tower, which is located opposite a building belonging to the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in the Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood.
“These attacks are causing panic amongst the people, especially considering the time they are given to evacuate. Half an hour or an hour is not enough time for people to escape from these buildings,” Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said, reporting from Gaza City.
The Israeli military said in a statement, without offering evidence, that the buildings struck were used by Hamas to gather intelligence to monitor the locations of the Israeli army. It also said armed Palestinian groups planted “numerous explosive devices” and dug a tunnel in the area.
Gaza’s Government Media Office rejected the claims and called them “part of a systematic policy of deception used by the occupation to justify the targeting of civilians and infrastructure” and forcibly displace Palestinians from their homes. It said 90 percent of Gaza’s infrastructure has been destroyed by Israel.
The targeted buildings were near the 12-storey Mushtaha Tower, which on Friday was similarly bombed and razed to the ground, as Israel moves to seize Gaza City despite international criticism.
At least 68 Palestinians were killed and 362 wounded across the Gaza Strip by the Israeli military over the past day, the enclave’s Ministry of Health said on Saturday afternoon.
The toll includes 23 aid seekers killed and 143 wounded by Israeli forces. At least six more Palestinians also died of Israeli-induced starvation, bringing the total number of starvation deaths during nearly two years of war to 382, including 135 children.
At least 64,368 Palestinians have been killed and 162,367 wounded by Israel since the start of the war in the aftermath of the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
Israel declares new ‘humanitarian zone’, bombs the area
Sources at Nasser Hospital, located in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, told Al Jazeera that at least two Palestinians were killed and many wounded in an Israeli air strike on a tent housing displaced people in the al-Mawasi area.
While this area was designated as a “humanitarian” or “safe” zone by the Israeli army early in the war, it has been repeatedly bombed, leading to the deaths of hundreds of displaced civilians.
Hours before the latest bombings, the Israeli army had announced the establishment of another similar zone in al-Mawasi, which runs along Gaza’s Mediterranean coast. It claimed the area will have infrastructure such as field hospitals, water lines, desalination facilities and food supplies.
Reporting from central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary said Palestinians do not trust the so-called humanitarian area as tents in similar zones have been attacked by Israel many times before and nowhere is safe.
But people in Gaza City have few options: If they stay, they risk being killed, and if they leave, they face dangers on the road and may have to spend considerable money to move their belongings south.
Those who have returned to their homes in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood, where Israeli forces withdrew recently after weeks of ground assaults, have found everything they owned destroyed.
“What we have built in 50 years was flattened in five days,” resident Aqeel Kishko told Al Jazeera. “Nothing remains standing – buildings, roads and infrastructure. We are walking not only on ruins but also on dead bodies of our loved ones.”
Nohaa Tafish said it would be impossible for Gaza’s largest urban centre to be revived.
“What would people return to? There is nothing to return to,” she said.
Ahmed Rihem also had his home in Gaza City reduced to rubble. “It is as if the entire Zeitoun neighbourhood was hit with a nuclear bomb,” he said.
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