The Israeli army has intensified its assault on Gaza City’s Al-Zaytoun district, unleashing one of the most ferocious bombardments since the start of the war. In just three days, more than 300 homes were levelled without warning, entire families buried alive beneath the rubble.

Residents say the strikes have spanned from Ard Al-Barasi to the vicinity of the Hassan Al-Banna and Ali Ibn Abi Talib mosques, with Israeli forces combining heavy airstrikes, bulldozers and even booby-trapped robots detonated inside civilian houses. Civil Defence spokesperson Mahmoud Basal confirmed that entire families, including the Husari, Dalloum and Abu Daf, have been wiped out, while rescue teams are unable to reach large sections of the district now sealed off by the military.

Gaza’s municipality described the devastation as “catastrophic in every sense,” with mass displacement under relentless bombing and whole neighbourhoods deliberately flattened. “What is happening in Al-Zaytoun is nothing short of a war crime,” said spokesperson Hosni Mehanna, warning that the systematic destruction is part of a broader plan to encircle Gaza City from the south.

Since October 2023, Palestinians in Gaza have endured a campaign of annihilation marked by mass killings, starvation, forced displacement, and famine. Local health authorities report more than 61,700 killed and 154,000 injured, most of them women and children, as Gaza’s very existence is brought to the brink.