The Israeli military destroyed a second high-rise residential building in the span of two days. On Friday, an Israeli missile strike leveled the Mushtaha Tower, then on Saturday, Defense Minister Israel Katz posted video of the Sousi Tower collapsing with the caption “We continue.”
The IDF claimed without evidence that the Mushtaha building was being used by Hamas. NBC News reported that the tower’s management, though, denied these claims, and said displaced persons had been living in Mushtaha.
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Israel dropped leaflets on Saturday telling Palestinians to leave Gaza City before it struck Sousi Tower, the BBC reported, while Israel Defense Forces spokesman Avichay Adraee told residents to go to al-Mawasi. The IDF has said there are medical supplies, food and drink in the area, which is in western Khan Younis.
However, the United Nations previously said this is not the case. Despite the fact that Israel deemed it a humanitarian zone, the UN previously said al-Mawasi “lacks basic infrastructure, such as shelter, water and sewage systems, solid waste removal, latrines and medical facilities.”
In a Thursday briefing from Gaza, UNICEF’s Communication Manager for the Middle East and North Africa Regional Office Tess Ingram said children “are being killed or maimed in their sleep, almost every night.”
“Gaza City, the last refuge for families in the northern Gaza Strip, is fast becoming a place where childhood cannot survive,” Ingram said. “It is a city of fear, flight and funerals.”
Five children were killed Tuesday while lining up for water in al-Mawasi, the BBC said. Witnesses said the kids were struck by an Israeli drone, the BBC wrote, and the IDF said the incident is “under review.”
Mass displacement
Also making it hard for Palestinians to evacuate Gaza City is that most families were displaced multiple times before since Oct. 7,2023, when the Israel-Hamas war started. The Associated Press wrote that the Israeli military has repeatedly bombed tent encampments it deemed humanitarian zones. Some in Gaza city have been injured in other attacks.
“There is no safe tent, no safe house, no safe place, no safety at all,” Nadia Marouf, a mother who already left the north part of the strip with her children and resettled in Gaza City, told the AP. Marouf’s tent was destroyed Saturday in an Israeli airstrike that wiped out Sousi Tower and a surrounding encampment.
“I can’t walk, I am in pain, and I do not know what to do or where to go,” said Ala Alfarani in an interview with the AP. His tent was crushed beneath a pile of rubble in Israel’s strike on a high-rise in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood of south Gaza City.
Israel, since Oct.7, has killed more than 64,000 Palestinians, per Gaza’s Health Ministry. It escalated its offensive in Gaza City in August.
Hundreds have also died of famine brought by Israel’s aid blockades, as well as killings at aid sites run by the Israel and United States-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. An August report by The World Health Organization showed over half a million residents are facing extreme food shortages, widespread starvation and preventable deaths.
