Gaza City ‘on the threshold of a new bloody chapter’
A number of civilians were wounded in the Israeli attack on the 12-storey Mushtaha Tower and were transported to al-Shifa Hospital complex to receive emergency treatment.
The shockwave of the attack spread over the entire area, triggering chaos. A number of makeshift tents have been affected by the attack, which signals a new phase of the Israeli military campaign.
The Israeli military generally tries to show the international community that they are taking enormous precautions to prevent harm to civilians, but the destruction left behind by these attacks is pervasive and heartbreaking as families try to find any place with a sense of refuge.
Many areas of Gaza City contain high-rise buildings, which makes all of the city an active epicentre for Israeli strikes.
Witnesses on the ground now say the sky above Gaza City is full of drones and fighter jets operating to pummel residential areas, makeshift tents, and civilian vehicles. Even areas where people have been told to flee are still under very strict surveillance by Israeli drones.
Critics and legal experts say that targeting high-rise buildings is a stark escalation of urban warfare that endangers the lives of hundreds of thousands of people taking refuge around them.
So Gaza City is really on the threshold of a new bloody chapter and a deepening Israeli campaign that will destroy what’s left of the urban centre.
Palestinians run as the Mushtaha Tower collapses in Gaza City
Israeli attack on high-rise building leaves ‘trail of destruction’ in surrounding area
Israel’s strike on a tower in Gaza City has left behind a trail of destruction and led to significant casualties among civilians – a number of whom have been transferred to al-Shifa Hospital for urgent medical treatment.
We need to highlight the huge scale of devastation left behind in tents around the high-rise where families were taking refuge. Many families have been left stranded without any kind of makeshift tents, while Israel still imposing strict limits on the entry of much-needed tents to Gaza.
People in Gaza City are now saying they fear the next wave of attacks on high-rise buildings, given the fact that Gaza City has hundreds of these. So the strike was huge in its intensity, huge in its symbolism and its effect on civilians living nearby.
Palestinians check the debris of the Mushtaha Tower in Gaza City
Israel trying to ‘punish civilian areas’, drive Palestinians out of Gaza
Mohamed Elmasry, media studies professor at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, says Israel’s latest attack on a high-rise building in Gaza City “may well be the start of a new phase of the war”.
The level of destruction Israel is willing to inflict in civilian areas, he says, is rooted in several Israeli military doctrines.
The first is the Dahiyeh doctrine, which, as explained by former Israeli military chief of staff Gadi Eizenkot, aims to “punish civilian areas” from which Israel says attacks have been launched, Elmasry told Al Jazeera
The second is the “100:1 ratio”, he added, citing Israeli media outlets such as +972 Magazine.
“At the very beginning of the war, according to Israeli media outlets, local high-ranking Israeli officials authorised this ratio whereby Israel gives itself the right to kill more than 100 civilians in order to try and kill a single military commander,” Elmasry said.
“That’s why you get bombings, attacks like [the one on the Gaza City tower],” he added. “You don’t have to be an expert in international law to know that this is a violation of international law … a gross violation of the principle of proportionality.
“The ultimate aim here is to drive the people out of Gaza altogether.”
