[News] Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s towers seen as effort to erase collective memory, intensify genocide

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Reports <https://english.palinfo.com/category/reports/>


  Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s towers seen as effort to erase
  collective memory, intensify genocide

Saturday 6-September-2025

GAZA, (PIC)

Gaza, once etched in the collective Palestinian and Arab memory as a 
city of the sea and tall towers defining its modern skyline, now stands 
disfigured.

On Friday, Israeli warplanes bombed the Mushtaha Tower near Ansar 
Junction in Gaza City, one of the high-rise buildings that had served as 
a refuge for thousands of displaced families during nearly two years of 
continuous war. The strike came after weeks of Israeli military 
operations leveling hundreds of homes across Gaza’s northern, southern, 
and eastern neighborhoods.

Residents described receiving a brief evacuation call before rushing 
down stairwells to escape. “We thought being in a tower in the middle of 
the city might bring us some safety, but the occupation leaves nothing,” 
said Khalil Ubaid, a resident. “The moment the building collapsed before 
our eyes, it felt like everything we had left collapsed with it.”

The building’s administration denied Israeli claims that the tower 
contained Hamas infrastructure, saying it had only housed displaced 
families. Earlier in the day, Israel leveled the entire structure, 
repeating a pattern that has unfolded across the city.

Hours later, panic spread again when evacuation orders were issued for 
Makkah Tower, one of Gaza’s architectural landmarks. Families scrambled 
out within minutes, clutching children, identity papers, and a few 
belongings. “We thought we found temporary stability after losing our 
home in Shuja’iya,” one displaced mother said. “But they want us without 
shelter, without security, without anything.”

Systematic erasure of the city

Human rights activist Mohammed Amin noted that Israel’s destruction 
extends beyond scattered homes to the deliberate targeting of towers 
that embody Gaza’s urban identity. “These towers once symbolized limited 
progress under blockade; now they symbolize an organized erasure of the 
city’s past and present,” he told PIC.

According to rights groups, since August 11 Israel has destroyed more 
than 700 homes across Gaza City’s neighborhoods as part of a plan to 
depopulate and occupy the city. Analysts say the demolition of towers 
serves a double purpose: continuing systematic destruction that has 
already flattened more than 80 percent of Gaza’s structures, and erasing 
the city’s landmarks to strip Palestinians of their collective memory 
while forcing mass displacement.

The policy is not new. During the 2014 war, Israel destroyed 11 of 
Gaza’s most prominent towers, including Al-Basha and Al-Zafir. In May 
2021, Israeli army strikes leveled key towers such as Al-Shorouk, 
Al-Jawhara, and Al-Jalaa, which housed major international media offices.

Beyond military claims

Experts stress that the targeting of high-rises is not driven by proven 
military necessity but by a strategy of genocide. International law 
prohibits the deliberate targeting of civilian housing and 
infrastructure without clear military justification, something Israel 
has consistently failed to demonstrate. Instead, rights monitors say the 
objective appears to be emptying the city of its landmarks, plunging its 
residents into endless cycles of displacement, and reducing Gaza to ruins.

“These towers were not only homes but also offices, clinics, shops, and 
service centers,” Amin said. “Destroying them means depriving society of 
its functions and accelerating total collapse.”

In Gaza’s streets today, displaced families move from house to tent, 
carrying fragments of memory that no longer have walls. Women weep 
before rubble, children ask why they must flee again and again. Gaza is 
not just losing its buildings; it is losing its urban identity due to a 
systematic policy of annihilation.

Each tower that falls takes a piece of the city’s face with it, but its 
people insist that memory outlives rubble, bearing witness to crimes and 
holding fast to their right to life, return, and existence.

Gaza Strip <https://english.palinfo.com/tag/Gaza-Strip/> Gaza towers 
<https://english.palinfo.com/tag/gaza-towers/> Israeli genocide 
<https://english.palinfo.com/tag/Israeli-genocide/>
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