GAZA CITY, Gaza, Aug. 26 (UPI) -- Israel has recently ramped up their airstrikes Tuesday resulting in the destruction of high-rises containing homes and shopping centers in Gaza.
Residents of the 15-story Al Basha Tower and the neighboring 17-story Italian Complex evacuated after people assumed to be Israeli military personnel called to warn of imminent airstrikes. After their evacuation, the Al Basha Tower as leveled and all but a fourth of the Italian complex was decimated
Previously the high-rises in Gaza had been targeted in pinpoint strikes that left the buildings standing and reparable. In what the Israeli Defense Forces are claiming is a stronger front against Hamas, it is destroying the buildings in an effort to destroy Palestinian militants' command centers.
Five towers have been toppled or destroyed since Saturday in the new airstrike campaign.
"You can stay home doing nothing and die out of hunger, or you will come here and take this risk," Hani Redwan, the father of a man who had a store in the Italian Complex, told the Wall Street Journal. "If the building collapses I'm dead, but I'm dying anyway."
Egypt was reported to have brokered an extended cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas Tuesday morning.
