This article first appeared on our partner site, Independent Arabia
Israel has launched a campaign to target multistorey buildings in Gaza after the territory has already lost much of its urban landscape and civilian life is reduced to rubble. The residential Mushta Tower was demolished, Mecca Tower was threatened, and all high-rise buildings seem to await similar fates. The destruction of these “residential towers” carries long-standing political, military and civil implications.
While the inhabitants of Mushta Tower were going about their daily lives, Israeli military officers contacted one resident and ordered the evacuation of the 55-meter, 16-storey building, which housed more than 80 apartments that were home to some 400 people.
Located in western Gaza City with a view of the sea, Mushta Tower was one of the most prominent architectural landmarks in the territory’s largest urban complex. It housed restaurants, shops, offices, company headquarters and residential units, and was surrounded by the expansive Al-Kateeba Square.
During the current conflict, the Israeli army had already destroyed the building’s upper floors, a move it says it took to prevent the “detection and surveillance” of its soldiers from a high vantage point. When displaced residents returned to Gaza City, the partially destroyed tower became a temporary shelter for families whose homes had been destroyed, forming the site of the largest tent city in the area, hosting over 2,500 families.
Just hours after the warning was issued, Israeli warplanes struck the tower with four air-to-ground bombs, reducing the entire structure to rubble. Residents, along with the displaced families living nearby, were left homeless on the streets.
Gaza’s urban landscape
The demolition of Mushta Tower is just the beginning of Israel’s next operation in Gaza, as the army has announced a campaign to target multistorey buildings in central Gaza City. Israeli military spokesperson Ivi Devirin claimed that the strikes on taller buildings came after Hamas allegedly converted them into military infrastructure.
Gaza does not have true high-rise towers or skyscrapers in the conventional sense. Israel restricts the construction of large buildings in the territory, arguing that such structures could expose its own territory and pose a security risk.
Nevertheless, Gaza is home to multistorey buildings of varying heights, the tallest of which has only 16 floors. Each floor typically houses four to six residential units.
According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, Gaza City alone has 1,540 multistorey residential buildings, locally referred to as “towers”. Over the course of the 23-month-long war, Israel has destroyed a significant number of these buildings. However, the exact number of towers demolished remains unknown, as housing ministry teams are unable to conduct comprehensive surveys.
What parts of Gaza are still habitable?
During the first and second phases of the Israeli war on Gaza, the military focused on dismantling Hamas’s capabilities, destroying numerous buildings in the process. However, in the third phase of fighting, Tel Aviv has shifted its efforts toward systematically bombing and demolishing residential buildings.
Geographically, Israel has completely destroyed the northern Gaza Strip including Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahia and Jabalia. They left no buildings standing and destroyed all infrastructure leaving the north uninhabitable. The army also completely devastated the southern city of Rafah and destroyed nearly 70 percent of nearby Khan Younis.
