The shift in tactics has provoked fear in the Strip’s largest city.
“The news about Israel beginning to bomb towers and apartment buildings is terrifying. Everyone is scared and doesn’t know where to go,” Ahmed Abu Wutfa, 45, who lives in his relatives’ partially destroyed fifth-floor apartment in western Gaza City, told the AFP news agency.
“My children are terrified, and so am I. There is no safe place – we only hope that death comes quickly.”
A young boy who witnessed the attack told Al Jazeera that he was lining up waiting for food when the attack hit the nearby Mushtaha Tower.
“It is now reduced to dust,” he said. “We were told the Israeli warplanes would strike. We kept waiting for food – we would rather die of Israeli missiles than of hunger.”
The Zionist regime’s defense minister has said the “gates of hell” are opening in Gaza, as the military said it will target more multistory buildings, intensifying its campaign to seize control of the capital.
Gaza’s Ministry of Health said Israeli forces have killed at least 69 Palestinians and wounded 422 in Gaza over the past 24 hours.
The ministry added that the total number of casualties of Israel’s war on Gaza since October 7, 2023, has risen to 64,300 killed and 162,005 wounded.