Israeli forces attacked one of the largest residential towers in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, residents said, increasing pressure on the last area of the enclave yet to be invaded and where more than a million Palestinians are sheltering. displaced.
The 12-story Burj al-Masri building, located about 500 meters (1,640 feet) from the Egyptian border, was damaged in the airstrike early Saturday morning.
Dozens of families were left homeless, although no victims were reported, according to residents. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the incident.
One of the tower's 300 residents told Reuters news agency that Israel gave them 30 minutes' notice to leave the building at night.
“People were startled, ran down the stairs, some fell, it was chaos. People left their belongings and money behind,” Mohammad al-Nabrees said, adding that among those who stumbled down the stairs during the panicked evacuation was a friend's pregnant wife.
An official from the Rafah-based Fatah party, which dominates the Palestinian Authority and has limited self-government in the occupied West Bank, said he feared that hitting the Rafah tower was a sign of an imminent Israeli invasion.
Five months after Israel's relentless air and ground attack on Gaza, health authorities say nearly 31,000 Palestinians have been killed, more than 72,500 have been injured and thousands more are likely under the rubble.
The offensive has plunged the Palestinian territory, already reeling from a 17-year Israeli-led blockade, into a humanitarian catastrophe. Much of it has been reduced to rubble and most of its 2.3 million people have been displaced, while the United Nations warns of disease and famine.
