Israeli airstrike destroys tower housing Al-Jazeera and other media outlets
‘This channel will not be silenced,’ anchorwoman says
An Israeli airstrike destroyed a building in Gaza that houses international media offices including Al Jazeera and the Associated Press. The Israeli army told the owner of the Al-Jalaa tower about the strike an hour before yesterday’s bombing. AP staff and others in the building evacuated immediately.
It is currently unclear whether there were casualties in the attack. Video footage shows the 12-storey building collapse, with smoke billowing from it and debris flying into the air. Al Jazeera, the news network funded by Qatar’s government, broadcast the airstrikes live as the building collapsed. “This channel will not
be silenced. Al Jazeera will not be silenced,” an on-air anchorwoman said. “We can guarantee you that right now.”
AP’s chief exective Gary Pruitt said he was “shocked and horrified that the Israeli military would target and destroy the building housing AP’s bureau and other news organizations in Gaza”. The tower also contained several apartments and other offices. An Israeli military spokesperson confirmed the army struck the media building in Gaza, saying it contained “Hamas military intelligence”.
“Hamas deliberately places military targets at the heart of densely populated civilian areas in the Gaza Strip,” the spokesperson added, also saying that the army gave people inside the building “ample time to evacuate”.
President Joe Biden’s envoy, Hady Amr, arrived in Israel on Friday for talks. Mr Biden spoke with both Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas late yesterday, and updated them on US diplomatic efforts, the White House said. The UN Security Council will meet today to discuss the situation.
Mr Biden called for the protection of journalists and told both leaders that he remained committed to finding a two-state solution to the conflict.
Israel bombed the home of Hamas’s chief in Gaza earlier today. At least three Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes across the coastal enclave, health officials said.
Official figures show that 148 Palestinians have been killed, including 41 children. At least 10 people have been killed in Israel.
Meanwhile, Israel said that since Monday the country has been under the “most intense rocket barrage ever” from Gaza, saying it was worse than the seven-week 2014 war in terms of quantity and speed.
The official, who spoke to foreign reporters on the condition of anonymity, said that since Monday Hamas and other militants in Gaza had fired over 2,300 rockets, which is five times the total amount of rockets fired at Israel during the whole of 2020.
He added that Israel has hit back with equally unprecedented intensity: during a 40-minute ground and air bombardment on Gaza on Friday early morning, he said, the military had dropped a 500 tonnes of munitions on the blockaded strip. The army said it was targeting an underground network of tunnels the call the “metro”.
We have to destroy their missile manufacturing infrastructure. What [rockets] they have now is what they already had
“The escalation this time is much more or intense and fast than the 2014 war,” he told The Independent during a briefing with foreign reporters. “It’s the most intense barrage of airstrikes ever.”
The senior official also claimed that that Israeli military had “totally destroyed” all of Hamas’s missile manufacturing capabilities in Gaza, after the air force struck 31 different production compounds. “We have to destroy their missile manufacturing infrastructure. What [rockets] they have now is what they already had,” he added. The Independent was unable to verify these claims.
It is hoped Mr Amr, the USA’s deputy assistant secretary for Israel and Palestinian affairs, can bring both sides down from the brink. Egyptian mediators, who were furiously shuttling between the two sides, have so far failed to broker a deal.
The Israeli official said his country would have “zero tolerance” towards any missile fired at the country.
The military admitted the army pretended to launch a ground invasion in Gaza to encourage militants to return to their tunnels which were then pounded.
There were reports that the army even deliberately misled foreign media with a tweet suggesting there were Israeli troops within the Strip. “[The bombardment] was a huge blow morally to Hamas,” he said, without ruling out that the barrage might “soften the ground” for an actual ground invasion.