Sally Ibrahim, The New Arab, 10 September 2025

 

On Monday, a suffocating evening, Gaza City's skyline lost another piece of itself. The 14-story al-Roya Tower collapsed into rubble after Israeli warplanes pounded it with a barrage of missiles.

 

Within minutes, what had been a mix of residential flats, media offices, and small businesses was reduced to rubble, leaving families to sift through ash and broken concrete for traces of their past lives.

 

For many Palestinians in Gaza, this was more than the loss of another building. Towers, or high-rise buildings, in the war-torn coastal enclave are more than concrete; they are community hubs, centres of livelihood, and collective memory.

 

Since the war began on 7 October 2023, Israel has repeatedly chosen these towers as deliberate targets, from Rafah and Khan Younis to Jabalia and Beit Hanoun. Gaza City, the cultural and symbolic heart of the Strip, is now facing the same fate.

 

On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proudly said that "in two days, we have taken down 50 towers, and this is just the beginning."

 

Defence Minister Israel Katz went further, describing the "complete destruction of Gaza" as the only way to guarantee Israel's security.

 

For Palestinians, these words reinforced what they had already come to believe: the strikes are not primarily about neutralising Hamas; rather, they are about uprooting civilians, erasing collective memory, and reshaping the very landscape of Gaza.

 

 

 

 

The targeting of high-rise residential buildings has become a defining feature of Israel's wars on Gaza over the years. 

 

In 2014, during Operation Protective Edge, Israel destroyed at least a dozen high-rises in Gaza City in the war's closing days.

 

At the time, analysts described it as an attempt to deliver a psychological blow, a tactic now magnified and expanded in the current war.

 

For Gaza-based writer and analyst Mustafa Ibrahim, the logic is clear. "These buildings carry not just people, but memories and history. Israel's claim that they are Hamas command centres is a cover," Ibrahim told The New Arab.

 

"Towers like al-Roya were home to families, shops, and offices of civil society. Their destruction is psychological warfare; it tells every Gazan that nothing, not even their memories, is safe," he said.

 

Ibrahim believes the demolitions serve a dual purpose: a weapon against civilian morale and a stage for Israel's defence industry.

 

"Every destroyed tower is an advertisement for a new weapon. Gaza has become a laboratory for war technology, later marketed to other conflicts. When towers fall, they are not just demolishing homes but also displaying military power," he added.

 

This interpretation aligns with the experiences of survivors. Umm Ahmed, 42, who lived on the sixth floor of al-Roya Tower, recalled: "I was tidying my daughter's room when the warning came. We fled with nothing but our clothes. Minutes later, everything was gone. My children now sleep on torn mattresses in a crowded school. A lifetime of work has turned into dust."

 

For Mohammed, 23, displaced from Al-Zafer Tower before its destruction, the loss was deeply personal: "My entire life was inside that tower—my childhood photos, my books, even my football. In an instant, I became homeless. They want us to despair, but we will not leave Gaza. This is our place, no matter how much they destroy."

 

Other residents echoed the sense that the destruction was deliberate and indiscriminate. "My shop had nothing to do with politics," Abu Wasim, a clothing store owner displaced after his commercial tower was levelled, told TNA.

 

"It was a livelihood for 20 workers. Now we have nothing. The occupation does not distinguish between people—it destroys everything in its path," he said.

 

 

 

 

The destruction of towers is also a tactic of displacement. When a single high-rise building is marked for bombing, thousands of residents are ordered to evacuate surrounding streets.

 

"When Israel bombs one tower, it forces the evacuation of an entire surrounding area—sometimes a whole square kilometre. If Netanyahu says 50 towers were brought down, that means almost the whole city is under evacuation orders. There is no longer a safe place," Gaza-based Political researcher Tayseer Abed described the effect to TNA.

 

With Gaza City covering just 50 square kilometres, the loss of each tower pushes civilians into ever smaller, overcrowded zones.

 

"This is not a balanced military operation," Abed argued. "It is psychological torment. Residents are pushed from one corner to another, with no exit but despair. Gaza is a boiling pot—there is no safety, no stability."

 

He also pointed to a deliberate erasure of Gaza's social reality. "At least half of Gaza's population does not support Hamas, and some have even protested against it. But Israel denies this diversity, painting all Gazans as terrorists. This narrative justifies collective punishment and creates international cover for indiscriminate bombing."

 

The result is a suffocating environment in which economic, social, and psychological life is dismantled. The bombing of towers has destroyed dozens of small businesses—cafés, clothing shops, law firms, private schools.

 

"My business supported my extended family. Now there is no work, no home, no future. We are simply waiting for the next strike," Abu Wesam Siam, a clothing shop owner, told TNA.

 

Israel frames its actions as military necessity. The army insists that towers serve as Hamas command centres, weapons depots, or communication hubs. Authorities in Gaza and international observers dismiss these claims as unsubstantiated.

 

The Government Media Office in Gaza said in a press statement that "the Israeli narrative is a systematic lie."

 

"Gaza City contains over 51,000 buildings and towers, all run by civilian councils. No resistance activity has ever been based inside them. Their destruction is part of a forced displacement policy amounting to a crime against humanity under the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Rome Statute," it added.

 

Hamas went further, accusing Israel of boasting about war crimes. "Netanyahu's statements reveal the ugliest images of sadism and criminality," the group said.

 

"What is happening is a crime of forced displacement, enforced through bombing, starvation, and death threats. These are war crimes carried out in full view of the world," it added.

 

International organisations have expressed similar alarm. The United Nations and UNRWA have warned that the attacks on towers displace entire communities, forcing families into overcrowded shelters or the streets. With aid restrictions deepening, displaced residents face hunger, exposure, and disease.

 

Human rights groups say the policy undermines Israel’s claim to be minimising civilian casualties. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have repeatedly stressed that towers flattened in previous wars were not legitimate military targets. The current war, they argue, shows a systematic pattern of disproportionate attacks aimed at collective punishment.

 

The repeated destruction of towers is more than battlefield tactics. It represents an attempt to dismantle the essence of urban life in Gaza. For Mustafa Ibrahim, the towers symbolise the heart of Palestinian existence. "The occupation doesn't just want to demolish concrete. It wants to erase the city's memory, spirit, and collective life. When towers fall, so does a part of Gaza’s identity," he said.

 

Tayseer Abed echoes the sentiment: "The city has turned into a boiling pot, with no safe place and no clear horizon. Every strike erases a piece of its future."

 

Yet amidst the devastation, Palestinians in Gaza continue to express resilience. Displaced families cling to symbols of endurance, refusing to see themselves as erased.

 

"They may take our towers, but they will never take Gaza from our hearts," Umm Ammar said.   - (ANA) -

 

AB/ANA/11 September 2025 - - -