By TEL AVIV, Sept 6 (AfrikTimes) – The Israeli military warned Palestinians in Gaza City to leave for the south on Saturday before bombing a high-rise tower as its forces advance deeper into the enclave’s largest urban area.
Israeli forces have been carrying out an offensive on the suburbs of the northern city for weeks after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the military to capture it. Netanyahu says Gaza City is a Hamas stronghold and capturing it is necessary to defeat the Palestinian resistance group, whose October 2023 attack on Israel sparked the war. The assault threatens to displace hundreds of thousands of Palestinians sheltering there from nearly two years of fighting. Before the war, around a million people, nearly half of Gaza’s population, lived in the city.
Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee wrote on X that residents should leave the city for a designated coastal area of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, assuring those fleeing that they would be able to receive food, medical care and shelter there. The designated area is a “humanitarian zone”, Adraee said. The military also issued so-called “evacuation warnings” to civilians in certain areas of the city, warning it was about to carry out attacks. The military later bombed a high-rise Gaza City tower that it said was being used by Hamas, without providing evidence to support the assertion. It said civilians were warned in advance.
Devastation is seen in the area of Al-Rimal at the heart of Gaza City after Israeli bombing, October 23, 2023.
Israel’s Defence Minister, Israel Katz, shared a video on X of what appeared to be the multi-storey building collapsing after the strike, sending a cloud of dust and debris into the air. It was not immediately clear if there were any casualties. The Israeli military said Hamas used the building to gather intelligence and that explosive devices had been planted nearby. Hamas denied using the building for military purposes, and Palestinians said it had been used to shelter the displaced.
“These towers are strictly monitored, entry is permitted exclusively for civilians,” Hamas said in a statement, adding the Israeli allegations constitute “a systematic forced displacement” plan.
Gaza health authorities said Israeli strikes and gunfire killed at least 40 people across the Gaza enclave on Saturday, at least half of them in Gaza City.
HEAVY STRIKES
The Israeli military bombed another high-rise tower on Friday that it had also said was being used by Hamas.
A man reacts outside a burning collapsed building following Israeli bombardment in Gaza City on October 11.
On Thursday, Israeli forces said they had gained control over nearly half of Gaza City, while asserting control over roughly 75% of the entire Gaza Strip. Many residents of Gaza City had been displaced earlier in the war but had returned, with some refusing to leave again despite ongoing military operations.
The military has been carrying out heavy strikes on the city for weeks, advancing through outer suburbs, and this week forces were within a few kilometres of the city centre. Netanyahu, backed by right-wing coalition allies, ordered the capture of Gaza City against the advice of Israel’s military leadership, according to Israeli officials. Despite its hesitation, the military has called up tens of thousands of reservists to support the operation.
The war in Gaza has increasingly left Israel diplomatically isolated, with some of its closest allies condemning the campaign that has devastated the small territory. Amnesty International on Friday urged Israel to halt its offensive on Gaza City and the mass displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, warning that the military had destroyed homes and killed “scores of civilians” in recent days.
Smoke rises following an explosion in North Gaza, as seen from the Israeli side of the Israel-Gaza border, March 25, 2025.
ALL-OR-NOTHING DEAL
Palestinian resistance group took 251 prisoners of war into the enclave after a Hamas-led cross-border attack on southern Israeli communities on October 7, 2023 that killed about 1,200 people.
More than 64,000 Palestinians have since been killed in Gaza, local health authorities say, with much of the enclave reduced to ruins and its residents facing a humanitarian crisis.
There are also growing calls within Israel, led by families of POWs and their supporters, to end the war in a diplomatic deal that would secure the release of the remaining 48 captives. Israeli officials believe 20 of the prisoners are alive.
Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli air strike from earlier today that destroyed a residential building, in Gaza City, September 6, 2025.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is pushing for an all-or-nothing deal that would see all of the prisoners of war released at once and Hamas surrendering. A video released by Hamas on Friday showed two captives, one of whom said they were being held in Gaza City and that they feared being killed in Israel’s military aggression in the urban centre.
Israeli military officials say they have killed many of Hamas’ key leaders and thousands of its fighters. Hamas has reportedly offered to release some war captives in exchange for a temporary ceasefire, a proposal similar to discussions that collapsed in July despite mediation by the United States and Arab states.
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday that Washington is in “very deep” negotiations with the Palestinian resistance group. Hamas, which has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades but today controls only parts of the enclave, has long said it would release all Israeli prisoners if Israel agrees to end its genocidal war against Palestinians and withdraw all its forces from Gaza.
The al-Soussi tower, a residential tower in Gaza City, collapses after an Israeli strike, amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, in this screengrab obtained from a social media video on September 6, 2025. @yazan_ra5a via Instagram.
Reporting by Adebukola Samuel Adeagbo and Alexander Cornwell in Tel Aviv, with additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo. Editing by Jan Harvey, William Mallard, and Alex Richardson.
