Israel flattens more high rises in Gaza

National Post:

Israel bombed two Gaza City high-rises with dozens of homes and shops Tuesday, collapsing one building and severely damaging the other in a further escalation of seven weeks of cross-border fighting with Hamas.

In the past, the military has hit targets in high-rises in pinpoint strikes, but left the buildings standing. However, since Saturday, it has toppled or destroyed five towers and shopping complexes in an apparent new tactic aimed at increasing pressure on Hamas.

The objects of the latest strikes contain apartments inhabited almost exclusively by middle-class Gazans, who up until now have been largely spared the considerable dislocation that has affected tens of thousands of other residents in densely populated neighbourhoods of the coastal strip, like Shijaiyah.

That has raised the possibility that the Israeli military is trying to use better-off Gazans, like professionals and Palestinian authority employees, to put pressure on Hamas to end the fighting on Israel’s terms.

Tuesday’s strikes levelled the 15-storey Basha Tower with apartments and offices and severely damaged the Italian Complex, built in the 1990s by an Italian businessman, with dozens of shops and offices.

Both buildings were evacuated after receiving warnings of impending strikes. Gaza health official Ashraf al-Kidra said 25 people were wounded in the attack on the Italian Complex.

One resident of the Italian Complex, 38-year-old engineer Nael Mousa, said that he, his four children and 70-year-old mother had managed to flee the building late Monday night after a guard had alerted them of an impending strike, and that he was in his car some 300 metres away when it was bombed by an Israeli F-16 fighter jet.

Within two hours, he said, it had been levelled by at least five additional bombs.

“I have become homeless, my children’s fear will never be soothed, and something new has now been added to our feelings toward Israel and all the world, which has been looking on without doing anything,” he said.

The Israeli military said it targeted sites linked to militants Tuesday, but made no specific reference to the two buildings. Israel alleges Hamas often operates from civilian locations. The military has not said why it has begun collapsing large buildings, rather than carrying out pinpointed strikes against suspected militant targets located there.
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Some argue that this is an effort to get middle class Palestinians to force Hamas to stop it attacks on Israel.  I doubt these people have any influence of the death cult.  I think it is more likely that the Israelis are driving up the cost to those who are financially support Hamas.  If Qatar is going to pay to rebuild Gaza infrastructure, the cost is going up for every hour they delay cutting off Hamas.  It will also be much harder for them to get concrete after this war too, because of the tunnels they built after the last war.