Israel expanded its preparations for a full-scale assault on Gaza City on Friday and targeted a prominent local landmark, a day after a military spokesman said it was in control of almost half the city.
A broad evacuation order has yet to be issued for the city, where hundreds of thousands of people are believed to be sheltering in ruined buildings and tents.
But on Friday, Israel warned people to leave a high-rise building in Gaza City shortly before it destroyed it in a military strike. It was unclear how many people had been killed or injured.
Announcing the evacuation order on social media, Israel Katz, Israel’s defense minister, said: “The gates of Hell are being unlocked in Gaza City.” After the strike, Mr. Katz posted a video of the tower collapsing along with the words: “We started.”
Israel said the building had been used by Hamas for military and intelligence-gathering activities.
Hamas denied the accusation and said Israel had targeted “residential towers densely populated by displaced persons.”
Last month, Israel announced that it planned to expand its military offensive in Gaza City, which Israeli officials have portrayed as one of Hamas’s last strongholds in Gaza.
Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin, a military spokesman, said on Thursday that Israeli forces had taken control of 40 percent of the city and were active in the neighborhoods of Zeitoun, Sheikh Radwan and Shuja’iyya.
The military has already carried out widespread destruction in parts of Gaza City in recent weeks. Israeli forces have turned large parts of Zeitoun, a once bustling urban neighborhood, into a barren wasteland, according to satellite images reviewed by The New York Times.
On Friday, the strike on the Gaza City high-rise caused the building to collapse in a pillar of dark smoke, according to a Reuters video from the scene. The video also showed a large tent encampment around the tall tower.
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In recent days, residents of Gaza City have described nights punctuated by Israeli airstrikes and shelling. Large crowds of people have been fleeing to what they hope are safer neighborhoods.
The prospect of a full-scale offensive on the city would likely exacerbate a humanitarian crisis for the hundreds of thousands of civilians sheltering there. Many of them have fled Israeli bombardment in other parts of Gaza multiple times since the war began 22 months ago, crisscrossing territory to escape attacks, and are now struggling to find food and clean water.
The war began after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack on Israel, in which roughly 1,200 were killed and 250 more taken hostage. Since then, the Israeli military response has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. More than half of those killed have been women, children and the elderly, according to local health officials.
The war has destroyed most of Gaza’s infrastructure and parts of the territory are suffering from famine, according to a U.N.-backed group of food experts.
Elham Shamali, 47, who taught at Al-Azhar University before the war, said she fled Gaza City’s Senaa neighborhood with her family two weeks ago when Israeli strikes and shelling came close to their home.
Since then, Ms. Shamali said, they have been staying in Sheikh Radwan, where their neighbor’s home was hit by an airstrike a few days ago. “The building was badly damaged and seven were killed,” she said. “I saw the dead bodies and knew the people, they were our neighbors.”
Ms. Shamali said she and her family planned to flee again, this time to the Tal Al Hawa neighborhood in the west of the city.
Israel’s planned take over of Gaza City has been criticized by the families of Israeli hostages held in Gaza, who say any large-scale operation could imperil their loved ones further. Those concerns were renewed on Friday when Hamas released a video of two hostages, Guy Gilboa-Dalal and Alon Ohel.
Mr. Gilboa-Dalal said in the video that it was filmed on Aug. 28 and that he and other hostages were being held in Gaza City. Israeli officials have said they believe roughly 20 living hostages are still being held in Gaza.
Rights groups and international law experts say that hostage videos are made under duress, and that the statements in them are usually coerced.
In a post on social media, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s minister of national security, called the release of the video “psychological terrorism intended to stop us from pursuing the action in Gaza.”
Abu Bakr Bashir and Johnatan Reiss contributed reporting
Liam Stack is a Times reporter who covers the culture and politics of the New York City region.
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