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Israel struck Rafah’s largest residential tower last week, claiming that Hamas has been using the 14-story building to conduct military activities.
The Al-Masry Tower, which was built in the 1990s and is about 500 meters from the Egyptian border, suffered extensive damage in the strike. The IDF said it “precisely targeted a military asset.”
Reuters reported that dozens of families were made homeless, but there was no immediate word of casualties. Israel reportedly gave residents in the building a 30-minute warning before the nighttime strike.
Mohammad Al-Nabrees, a witness, told the news outlet that residents were startled and ran down the stairs.
“Some fell, it was chaos. People left their belongings and money,” he said.
The attack on the residential building was seen as yet another example of the brutality that Israel has inflicted on Palestinians in Gaza, who have nowhere else to go.
More than 31,000 Palestinians have been killed since the beginning of the war.
On Sunday, 730 Israeli academics urged the government to end the blockade into Gaza to prevent famine in this strip.
The signatories said they “cannot stand opposite to the humanitarian catastrophe taking place before our eyes in the last few weeks in the Gaza Strip,” according to Anadolu Agency.
These academics said the mass deaths in Gaza would turn into an “indelible stain” on Israel.
UNRWA posted on X on Sunday that hunger is “everywhere in Gaza.”
Dozens of children have died of hunger and more than half a million Gazans face starvation, the agency said.
“Children who survived bombardment may not survive a famine,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the World Health Organization, said. One in six youngsters in Gaza is currently dangerously malnourished.
The UN World Food Program (WFP) was forced to pause lifesaving aid deliveries to northern Gaza on 20 February due to a lack of security. A WFP 14-truck convoy tried to deliver aid on 5 March, but was turned away by the IDF, the UNRWA said.
Bombed University
Haaretz reported that the IDF said the Israa University building its forces blew up in Gaza City was used by Hamas for military purposes.
The officer behind the 17 January demolition was identified as Brig. Gen. Barak Hiram, commander of Division 99, the paper said.
The Times of Israel, citing a report on Channel 12, reported that Hiram, who was formally censured, recently met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to possibly become his military secretary.
The report said Hiram has also been criticized over his order to fire a tank shell “at a home in the southern community of Kibbutz Be’eri amid a hostage situation during Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, possibly killing some of the captives.”
Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi on Monday issued a letter of reprimand to a top commander for authorizing the demolition of the Israa University building in Gaza City without proper authorization.
“The collapse of the building and the process of approving its demolition will be thoroughly investigated by the commander of the southern command and presented to the IDF chief of staff,” a spokesperson from the IDF told the newspaper. “While the investigation revealed that Hamas utilized the building and its vicinity for military activities against our forces, the demolition occurred without the necessary approvals.”
TRENDPOST: It is worth noting that Hiram justified the bombing of the university by saying he felt threatened because of the possibility of Hamas tunnels underneath this school. The act of destroying the school was not what was criticized, it was his decision not to get a formal approval from higher command.
Gen. Yaron Finkelman, his boss, said, “If you had submitted the request to collapse the university for my approval, I would have approved it.”
TRENDPOST: Israel can strike any building in Gaza—homes, schools, hospitals, mosques, refugee camps—and justify its act by simply saying Hamas was using the building as a headquarters. No other question needs to be asked. After all, ask any Western politician and/Presstitute: Israel’s right to defend itself is far more important than a Palestinian’s right to life… or their right to defend themselves.
Indeed, those who fight Israel after stealing their land in violation of the Geneva Convention and UN article 242 are demeaned as “terrorists” and “militants” … just as all of those who fought against France, U.K., Belgium, etc. who colonized their land were condemned for fighting to end foreign occupation.
The BBC, citing satellite images on 30 January, said between 144,000 and 175,000 buildings across Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, or between 50 percent and 61 percent of Gaza’s buildings.
Israel can continue to brutalize Palestinians in Gaza because they will always have the U.S. support. The genocide in Gaza will go down in history as one of the most outrageous crimes against humanity ever committed.