THE ISRAELI MILITARY has destroyed a high-rise in Gaza City today, shortly after announcing it would target tall buildings it claims are being used by Hamas.

Despite mounting pressure at home and abroad to halt its nearly two-year offensive in Gaza, Israel has been calling up reinforcements, intensifying its bombardments and closing in on Gaza City ever since announcing its intention to capture the Palestinian territory’s largest city.

The attack come as the country’s Defence Minister Israel Katz said 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.

In a statement today, the Israel’s army claimed to have “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 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.

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

The latest attacks from Israel come on foot of a number of the world’s foremost scholars who study the crime have concluded that genocide is occurring in Gaza and South Africa has accused Israel of the same in a case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Further pressure has come from Teresa Ribera, the European Commission’s executive vice president, who broke with her colleagues to describe Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip as a genocide, apparently breaking from the EU executive’s official position on the conflict.

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 strikes.

Defence Minister Katz said in today’s statement 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 yesterday 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 has said that Israeli troops already controlled 40 percent of the city.

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

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.

With reporting by © Agence France-Presse

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