Hamas urged Palestinians to stay put in defiance of the latest evacuation orders. Exhausted and despairing, many Palestinians had their own reasons for refusing to pack up and uproot themselves again.
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“I can’t walk, I am in pain, and I do not know what to do or where to go,” said Ala Alfarani, whose tent was crushed beneath a pile of rubble in Israel’s strike on a high-rise in the Tel al-Hawa neighbourhood of south Gaza City.
Israel targets high-rises in Gaza City
Israel on Saturday issued evacuation warnings for two high-rises in Gaza City, with Adraee, the military spokesperson, accusing Hamas of operating inside or near the towers.
Soon after, Adraee said the military had struck one of them.
Hamas rejected the allegations, insisting the high-rises were residential towers.
Residents of Sousi Tower, a prominent 15-storey building, told The Associated Press that the Israeli army gave them about 20 minutes to grab their belongings and flee before warplanes razed the building.
“We were sitting at home and people started shouting,” recalled resident Aida Abu Kas, describing panic and confusion rippling through the building. “Some said it was a lie and others said it was real. We went out and didn’t know what to do.”
It was not immediately clear if people had been killed or wounded in the strike.
Israel Katz, Israel’s defence minister, posted a video of the Sousi Tower collapsing in an enormous cloud of smoke, along with the words: “We continue.”
Smoke rises following Friday’s strike on a high-rise building.Credit: AP
It was the second Gaza City tower demolished in as many days. On Friday, Israel hit Mushtaha Tower, a local landmark that housed dozens of families, saying that Hamas militants had used it for surveillance. Hamas denied those claims.
The levelling of high-rises comes as Israel ramps up its offensive against Hamas after announcing plans to take control of Gaza’s largest city, where displaced Palestinian families have pitched tents on the ruins of bombed-out buildings.
Earlier this week, the Israeli military said it had seized control of 40 per cent of the city.
Israel says the assault is aimed at pressuring Hamas to surrender. Critics of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accuse him of prolonging the war for political reasons.
More Palestinians killed by Israeli fire at aid sites
Medical officials at Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital reported receiving the bodies of 11 Palestinians, whom they said had been shot and killed by Israeli soldiers on Saturday while gathering to get food at the Zikim crossing between Gaza and Israel.
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The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the shooting deaths. But it has previously acknowledged its forces opening fire to disperse large crowds at food distribution sites or as warning shots when Palestinians approach in what it says is a threatening manner.
Such deadly episodes often occur at Zikim crossing, where desperate Palestinians rush toward United Nations humanitarian aid trucks entering the enclave as hunger spreads across the territory. Netanyahu has rejected reports of famine in Gaza as a “global campaign of lies”.
The director of Shifa Hospital, Mohamed Abu Selmiya, said that on Friday, another 23 Palestinians were killed across the Gaza Strip while seeking aid, six of them at Zikim.
“It’s the same every day, gunfire and tank shelling whenever we try to approach the aid trucks,” said Ibrahim al-Taweel, 24, who endures the mayhem at Zakim to get food otherwise unaffordable in Gaza City due to shortages and price gouging.
The Gaza Health Ministry reports that over 2000 Palestinians have been killed at distribution sites in recent months, many by Israeli fire.
Thousands protest for return of hostages
Thousands of Israelis rallied across Jerusalem and Tel Aviv on Saturday evening to increase pressure on Netanyahu to reach a deal with Hamas that would free the remaining 48 hostages held in Gaza.
Displaced Palestinians fleeing northern Gaza carry their belongings along the coastal road toward southern Gaza on Friday, September 5.Credit: AP
The protesters vented their outrage at the military’s renewed assault on Gaza City, fearing the escalation would further endanger their captive loved ones. The Israeli military estimates that 20 hostages in Gaza are still alive.
“That is not how you return abducted men and women,” said Gil Dickmann, whose cousin Carmel Gat, was killed in captivity last year. “That is how you kill abducted men and women.”
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In Jerusalem, massive crowds marched through the city shouting “all of them now!” and spilled into the streets outside Netanyahu’s residence, chanting “traitor, traitor!”
“The government is burying them alive,” one protest sign read. “An unsigned deal kills them all,” read another.
A Hamas propaganda video released on Friday, the 700th day of the war, has intensified anxiety over the fate of the hostages. The apparently recent footage showed two hostages – Guy Gilboa-Dalal and Alon Ohel – looking gaunt and exhausted while being driven around Gaza City.
“Enough waiting, enough understanding, enough already!” Michel Iluz, whose son Guy Iluz was killed while captive in Gaza, shouted into the microphone at the Jerusalem protest, the pain in his voice mounting to a howl. “We’re fed up! How much longer can you abuse us?”
In Tel Aviv, demonstrators poured into Hostages Square for the weekly Saturday night demonstration, unfurling a massive banner appealing to US President Donald Trump to “save the hostages now!”
A lasting truce has proven elusive. Hamas said it accepted a ceasefire proposal from Arab mediators last month. Israel has not yet responded to the offer, vowing to continue the war until Hamas disarms and releases all hostages.
Israel has also insisted on retaining open-ended security control of the territory of some 2 million Palestinians – a condition unacceptable to Hamas.
The war erupted when Hamas-led militants invaded southern Israel and killed around 1200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 others on October 7, 2023.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 64,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants beyond saying that women and children make up around half the dead.
AP
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