Gaza, 11 September 2025 – Al Mezan is gravely alarmed as Israel’s campaign of destruction, mass killings, and forced displacement to take control of Gaza City marks one of the darkest phases yet of the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people.

On 9 September 2025, the Israeli military issued unlawful and inhumane displacement orders instructing all residents of the city of Gaza to move south. These orders were immediately followed by intensified aerial attacks on residential areas, targeting homes, multi-story residential buildings, and tents-turned-shelters. Among the destroyed multi-story buildings were the Mushtaha, al-Soussi, Tiba (2), and Al-Roya towers—which housed the main office of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights—as well as the Al-Roya building. Collectively, these buildings contained more than 300 apartments sheltering residents and displaced families, while the surrounding areas were filled with makeshift tents. Their destruction has left hundreds of families homeless yet again. Al Mezan previously and repeatedly warned that forcibly displaced persons from these recent attacks on Gaza City have nowhere to go due to Israel's continued genocidal attacks across the whole of Gaza.

Israel's focus on Gaza City marks a great escalation in the ongoing genocide, as the city alone contains more than 51,000 residential buildings and towers. These densely populated areas are now being systematically targeted after Israel  already devastated Gaza City's surrounding neighborhoods of al-Zaytoun, Al-Sheikh Redwan, and Jabaliya. This pattern indicates a clear objective to force residents southward into dangerously overcrowded areas where there is no space for more displaced families and where existence itself has been driven past the limits of human endurance. The Israeli Prime Minister has openly admitted that 50 residential towers have already been destroyed and pledged to destroy the rest—further proof of Israel’s intent to permanently depopulate Gaza by  erasing Gaza City and northern Gaza, as it previously did in Rafah.

A 47-year-old Gaza City resident, a father of five with two young children, told Al Mezan: “I lived in a residential tower in the Al-Sabra neighborhood. With repeated displacement orders and the intensifying attacks on towers, I moved to Deir al-Balah about a week ago to find shelter for my family. After two days of searching, the only option I found was a small tin-roofed storage room in the Al-Hikr area, which I rented for 800 shekels [~$240] a month. I left out of fear for my children’s lives, afraid our tower would be bombed without warning. Now we live in this stifling storage room, with no water nearby and long walks just to fetch some. I don’t know how long we can survive like this.”

Israel’s systematic destruction of homes is compounded by its ongoing siege. Since 2 March 2025, Israel has closed all Gaza crossings, deliberately blocking humanitarian aid. This follows months of the systematic destruction of essential infrastructure, leaving families unable to meet even their most basic food needs. As a result, famine was officially declared to be present in Gaza, as rates of  starvation-related deaths are  becoming more commonplace.

This man-made humanitarian catastrophe is also severely impacting access to healthcare, leading to a rise deaths related to untreated illnesses and infectious diseases. On 11 September 2025, the Palestinian Ministry of Health announced that deaths from malnutrition had reached 411 Palestinians, including 142 children. Hospitals, crippled by severe shortages, are operating at bare minimum capacity. Blood transfusion services are on the brink of total collapse, with 65% of laboratory materials and 53% of consumables already depleted. Essential diagnostic tests have been unavailable since the start of the genocide, fueling uncontrolled outbreaks of infectious diseases.

S.H., a father of six, told Al Mezan: “We eat only one meal a day, usually bread and lentils—or just bread. My children are wasting away. My four-year-old son, Ahmad, was diagnosed with malnutrition, but I cannot afford proper food. I fear I may lose some of my children.”

Families desperate for food are forced to risk their lives at the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) distribution sites, where they face sniper fire, bombardment, and overcrowding. According to the Ministry of Health, as of 11 September 2025, at least 2,465 Palestinians have been killed and 17,948 injured while seeking food aid.

During the opening of the  60th Human Rights Council, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, stated: "Israel’s mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza; its infliction of indescribable suffering and wholesale destruction; its hindering of sufficient lifesaving aid and the ensuing starvation of civilians; its killing of journalists, UN staff, and NGO workers; and its commission of war crime upon war crime are shocking the conscience of the world. I am horrified by the open use of genocidal rhetoric and the disgraceful dehumanization of Palestinians by senior Israeli officials. [...] Israel has a case to answer before the International Court of Justice, and the evidence continues to mount."

Al Mezan strongly condemns Israel’s mass forced displacement, widespread destruction, systematic killings, and deliberate use of starvation—tools deployed to perpetuate genocide against Palestinians. These crimes are making life unlivable for more than two million Palestinians in Gaza and serve to advance Israel’s settler-colonial project to permanently depopulate Palestine of its indigenous people. By perpetuating such genocidal practices, Israel not only flagrantly violates international law, but openly defies the binding provisional measures orders issued by the International Court of Justice under the Genocide Convention. All of this is unfolding amid the international community’s failure to take concrete action to stop Israel, compel its compliance with international law, and hold it and its representatives accountable.

We once again reiterate our call on the international community to urgently intervene and take concrete and immediate action—including imposing arms embargos and targeted sanctions against the State of Israel and individuals bearing responsibility for international crimes—to compel Israel to implement an immediate ceasefire, end all genocidal practices, rescind displacement orders, cease the use of starvation, lift the siege and blockade, and ensure sustained, unrestricted humanitarian aid at scale.