Israel’s defense minister says it is ‘opening up the gates of Hell’ in Gaza as the IDF blew up a tower block, which it says was used by Hamas terrorists. The high-rise in Gaza City was destroyed on Friday after the army said it would target tall buildings taken over by Hamas ahead of its planned push into the city.

Despite growing pressure at home and abroad to stop its nearly two-year offensive, Israel has been calling up reinforcements, increasing airstrikes and closing in on Gaza City since announcing it plans to capture the territory’s largest urban area. Defense Minister Israel Katz wrote on X: ‘Now the bolt is being removed from the gates of hell in Gaza. First evacuation notice is given to a high-rise terrorist building in Gaza City before an attack.

‘When the door opens, it will not close and IDF activity will increase – until the Hamas murderers and [sexual assaulters] accept Israel’s conditions for ending the war, primarily the release of all hostages and disarmament – or they are destroyed.’ In a statement on 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 said it had struck one such building, 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 AFP footage showed the Mushtaha Tower in the city’s Al-Rimal neighbourhood collapsing after a massive explosion at its base, sending a thick cloud of smoke and dust into the sky.

Photographs showed Palestinians inspecting the rubble of the destroyed building. Arej Ahmed, a 50-year-old displaced Palestinian living in a tent in southwest Gaza City, told AFP that her husband ‘saw residents of the Mushtaha Tower throwing their belongings from the upper floors to take them and flee before the strike’. ‘Less than half an hour after the evacuation orders, the tower was bombed,’ she said by telephone.

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 defense 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.

Last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed: ‘ We will deepen the blows to the terror infrastructure above and below ground, and disconnect the reliance of the population on Hamas .’ At the time Katz issued his first ‘gates of hell’ threat on X when he wrote: ‘Soon the gates of hell will open for the murderers and [sexual assaulters] of Hamas in Gaza, until they accept the conditions set by Israel for ending the war.’

He added: ‘If they do not accept, Gaza, the capital of Hamas, will become Rafah or Beit Hanoun.’ Several countries have criticised Israel’s plan for a full-scale invasion of Gaza. UK prime minister Keir Starmer hit out against the move and said the country would recognise a Palestinian state if Israel did not meet certain conditions. Other countries such as France and Australia have shared a similar sentiment.