Israel destroys buildings across Gaza City with explosive-laden robots

The Israeli military has continued to destroy residential buildings in northern and southern Gaza City amid a deepening ground invasion into the area and rising casualties across the enclave.

Israeli forces detonated a number of explosive-laden robots in buildings and facilities in the Al-Mukhabarat area in the northwest of Gaza City and the Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood in the south of the city, according to eyewitnesses. Israel has frequently used these robots to demolish buildings in its offensive.

Heavy strikes and artillery fire have hit the city’s Sheikh Radwan and Tal al-Hawa areas for days. Weeks before, the Al-Zeitoun neighbourhood came under intense bombardment, in what was seen as a preparation for a full-scale storming of Gaza City.

Earlier this week, Israeli tanks were seen rolling into the city centre.

Just under a million people remain in Gaza City, refusing to or unable to leave despite the impending invasion and repeated orders by Israel to evacuate.

Hundreds of thousands of people have already been forced to move south of the besieged coastal enclave.

Israel says it seeks to occupy Gaza City and what remains outside its control in the Strip amid global condemnation and calls for an immediate ceasefire to stop the nearly two-year war.

On Thursday, Israel’s main ally, the US, vetoed for the sixth time a UN Security Council resolution that called for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza.

Hamas, the Palestinian group which Israel has been fighting and says it seeks to destroy, says the Israeli offensive is putting the lives of remaining captives in Gaza at risk.

Israel says around 50 captives who were taken by Hamas and other Palestinian militants on 7 October 2023 remain held in the Palestinian territory, including 20 believed to still be alive. Some have been killed in Israeli strikes.

In the central Gaza Strip, medical sources say a Palestinian was killed and others were injured in shelling targeting a civilian gathering in Deir al-Balah, while another person was killed in shelling targeting the Nuseirat refugee camp.

In the southern part of the Strip, medical sources said two Palestinian brothers were killed in shelling which targeted a tent housing displaced people in the Al-Mawasi area west of Khan Younis.

Israel claims Al-Mawasi is a "humanitarian zone" to which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from the north have escaped, but the area has frequently been bombed, with hundreds of people killed.

More than 65,000 people have been killed in the war since it began on 7 October 2023, most of them women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

The true death toll is believed to be much higher because thousands of uncounted victims are buried beneath the rubble.

The Palestinian Telecommunications Company announced on Thursday that it had restored fixed internet and landline services to the northern Gaza Strip after a days-long blackout.

The company said that its crews were able to restore services despite the dangerous and difficult situation on the ground amid Israel’s airstrikes and ground operations.