Israel Bombs Residential Towers, Unleashes ‘Gates of Hell’ on Gaza City
Gaza City, Palestine — “Gaza is burning,” says Israel’s Defense Minister as Israel starts their ground invasion of Gaza City after bombing over 50 residential towers in the biggest city in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip. Despite killing dozens of Palestinian civilians daily, being internationally condemned over assassinating ceasefire negotiators in Qatar, and facing isolation, Israel continues its Western-backed genocidal acts in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened Gaza City’s nearly 1.3 million residents to leave the city or face death as Israel unleashes explosive-laden robots and its forces level high-rise towers. Some reports note that up to 40% of the residents have recently fled south, while many others are staying in the city, fearing they’ll never be able to return if they leave.
In late June, the first independent survey of deaths in Gaza was released. The investigation found over 84,000 Palestinians have been killed as of January 2025, and a Lancet report notes a death toll of at least 186,000 people killed by Israel from October 2023 to July 2024, or 41% above official numbers. According to Israeli military intelligence, at least 83% of the victims are civilians.
Additionally, more than 428 Palestinians, including 146 children, have starved to death from Israel’s weaponization of food and blocking all crossings. Meanwhile, the aid distribution network has turned into a death trap for Palestinian civilians as Israel attempts to forcibly displace civilians and ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip.
Human rights organizations and international courts have called Israel’s actions genocidal.
Over 19,000 Palestinians have been arrested since October 2023 in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, with 77 prisoners having died while in Israeli custody.
Meanwhile, there are approximately 48 Israeli captives held in Gaza, with an estimated 20 still alive. The 48 are about a fifth of the total captives taken during the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack in which about 1,139 Israelis were killed.
At least four families of the captives started a protest outside Netanyahu’s home on Sept. 16 after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with other hostage families and publicly backed the destructive Gaza City operation while in Jerusalem. The protesting families feel like the government is risking their loved ones lives and are equipped with sleeping bags and plan to stay as long as they can. This happens one month after one million Israelis marched in the streets demanding an end to Israel’s genocidal war.
Days after a million Israelis hit the streets to protest the offensive, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz vowed on social media to open the “gates of hell” on Gaza City if Hamas didn’t hand over all of the hostages. Israel broke a previous ceasefire agreement in which all of the hostages would have been handed over.
On Sept. 5, when Israel began their bombings of residential towers in Gaza City, Katz gleefully posted “we started” with a video of the 12-story Mashtaha Tower being bombed.
As Israeli forces have leveled neighborhood after neighborhood in one of the world’s oldest cities, Katz’ has posted about the “hurricane storm” meant “to thwart observation and terror infrastructures and pave the way for maneuvering forces,” saying that “the skyline of Gaza is changing,” while showing videos of residential high rise towers which he called “terror tower[s]” being demolished by air strikes. Neither Katz nor the Israeli forces have provided evidence to back up their claim that every residential tower being bombed is run by Hamas, nor their claim that Hamas runs the Islamic University of Gaza.
Katz faced his own form of personal embarrassment last week after he answered a video call placed to him by pro-Palestinian Turkish hackers who leaked his number as a form of protest against Israel’s actions in Gaza.
Israeli ground forces have began their second invasion of Gaza City since the genocidal war on Gaza started — they invaded in November 2023 and had ground forces there until a ceasefire agreement was signed in January 2025. Among the war crimes committed by Israel in Gaza City was a massacre of at least 1,500 unarmed Palestinian civilians sheltering at Al-Shifa Hospital. The victims were buried in mass graves.
Along with the few ancient Islamic structures and antiquities left in the city, two of Christianity’s oldest churches are at risk from Israeli forces — the Holy Family and Saint Porphyrius churches. Holy Family, Gaza’s oldest Catholic Church, is housing hundreds of forcibly displaced Palestinian Christians. Holy Family was bombed by Israel for the second time in the last 23 months in July. Not far away from Holy Family is Saint Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church, which has also been bombed multiple times.
Netanyahu’s far-right Zionist government has plans to enact US President Trump’s Gaza Reconstitution, Economic Acceleration and Transformation, or the GREAT Trust plan, which includes ethnically cleansing and reconstructing a colonized Gaza into one serving America’s interests, including an Elon Musk manufacturing zone and the already infamous plans for the “Gaza Trump Riviera & Islands.”
Help support Unicorn Riot contributor Mohamed El Saife as he seeks to get his family out of Gaza.
See the latest two videos from Gaza:
Aid Death Trap: Firsthand Accounts of Israeli Weaponized Aid in Gaza [Vimeo / YouTube]
Mother’s Story Losing Her Child Due to Israeli Siege on Gaza [Vimeo / YouTube]
More media from Palestine linked in the image below.
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