Israel says ‘gates of hell’ opening as army targets Gaza high-rises
US sanctions Palestinian groups for seeking Israel war crimes probe
Monitoring Desk
GAZA: The Israeli military destroyed a high-rise in Gaza City on Friday, shortly after announcing it would target tall buildings identified as being used by Hamas ahead of its planned seizure of the urban hub.
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.
In a statement Friday, the military said it had “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.
The Israeli military said it would in the coming days target a range of Gaza City sites it had identified as being used by Hamas
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.
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.
Meanwhile, the United States has imposed sanctions on three Palestinian human rights groups that asked the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate Israel over allegations of genocide in Gaza, according to a notice posted to the US Treasury Department’s website on Thursday.
The three groups – Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights and Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and the Ramallah-based Al-Haq – were listed under what the Treasury Department said were International Criminal Court-related designations.
The groups asked the ICC in November 2023 to investigate Israeli air strikes on densely populated civilian areas of Gaza, the siege of the territory and displacement of the population.
A year later, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence chief, Yoav Gallant, as well as a Hamas leader, Ibrahim al-Marsi, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
US President Donald Trump’s administration has imposed sanctions on ICC judges as well as its chief prosecutor over the Israeli arrest warrants and a past decision to open a case into alleged war crimes by US troops in Afghanistan.
The ICC, which was established in 2002, has jurisdiction over war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in its 125 member countries. Some nations, including the US, China, Russia and Israel, do not recognise its authority.
