Israel destroys dozens of buildings in Gaza City as new offensive intensifies

Israeli strikes and demolitions have destroyed dozens of buildings in areas of Gaza City, satellite images show, as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said its offensive has established control over 40% of the city.

The new images reviewed by BBC Verify show that intensive bombardments and controlled explosions have levelled several neighbourhoods over the past four weeks.

Rows of tents - which have sprung up over the city to shelter Palestinians displaced by the Israeli military campaign - have also disappeared over the past month, the images show.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Israel's intention to seize all of the strip and launch an incursion into Gaza City after indirect talks with Hamas on a ceasefire and hostage release deal broke down in July.

UN humanitarian officials have warned that the impact of a full-blown offensive would be "beyond catastrophic". Strikes have intensified in areas of Gaza City in recent weeks and dozens of Palestinians have been killed in attacks this week alone according to the Hamas-run health ministry and civil defence agency.

Satellite images show that significant damage has already occurred in Gaza City's Sheikh Radwan, Zeitoun and Tuffah neighbourhoods in recent weeks. The photos show that dozens of buildings in the city were levelled between August and September.

In a statement to BBC Verify, the IDF said it was "locating and destroying terror infrastructures embedded, among other things, inside buildings".

In Sheikh Radwan - a neighbourhood located about three kilometres from Gaza City centre - a number of buildings have been wiped away. BBC Verify previously geolocated footage of strikes carried out by the IDF to the area on 29 August.

The images clearly show track marks left by Israeli armoured vehicles, many of which pass through sections of the neighbourhood where buildings and trees once stood.

BBC Verify also geolocated footage of an explosion which levelled dozens of high-rise buildings as part of a demolition in the adjacent Jabalia area.

The footage, which first appeared online on 31 August, mirrors similar demolitions carried out by Israeli forces in southern Gaza. Thousands of buildings in areas including Rafah and Khan Younis have been demolished by controlled explosions and demolition contractors in the area, a BBC Verify investigation revealed last month.

By 4 September the armoured vehicles had moved on, images reviewed by BBC Verify showed, with further damage inflicted on buildings in the area.

Elsewhere in Zeitoun, rows of tents set up by displaced Palestinians have disappeared in little over a month. According to the UN, more than 1.9 million Gazans - about 90% of the population - have been displaced by the Israeli military campaign.

According to the UN, hundreds of thousands of people displaced by fighting had returned to northern Gaza earlier this year after the Israeli military opened a corridor from the south of the strip during the short-lived ceasefire agreement.

High-rise buildings which had surrounded the tents have also been destroyed, while signs of activity on the streets have also disappeared. Fresh track marks left by IDF vehicles passing through areas where buildings once stood are also visible.

Similarly, in the Tuffah neighbourhood - where Israeli strikes killed at least eight people on Thursday, according to the Hamas-run Civil Defence agency - more buildings have been levelled.

On 1 August IDF armoured vehicles were visible in the area. By 1 September buildings near where the vehicles were active had been destroyed, including a school.

The images also appear to show fresh tracks left by armoured vehicles crossing through a cemetery, where over 3,000 troops killed fighting for the British Empire in World War 1 are buried. The cemetery has already been heavily damaged by bombardments earlier in the conflict, with a crater left by a previous strike also visible.

An IDF spokesperson told BBC Verify, without providing evidence, that: "In certain cases, entire neighbourhoods in the Gaza Strip are converted into combat complexes which are utilized for ambushes, housing command and control centres and weapon warehouses, combat tunnels, observation posts, firing positions, booby-trapped houses, and for setting explosives in the streets."

Last month, Hamas said it had accepted a plan from regional mediators Qatar and Egypt that would see 10 living hostages and the bodies of 18 dead hostages released during a 60-day truce in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees in Israeli jails.

Israel has not responded to the plan but insists all the hostages must be released in one go.

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led 7 October attack, in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 more were taken hostage.

At least 64,231 people have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.