CAIRO/RAFAH, Gaza – Israel struck one of the largest residential towers in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on March 9, residents said. It is stepping up pressure on the last area of the enclave it has not yet invaded and where over a million displaced Palestinians are sheltering.

The 12-storey building was damaged in the strike and residents said dozens of families were made homeless, though no casualties were reported.

Israel’s military said the block was being used by Hamas to plan attacks on Israelis.

One of the tower’s 300 residents of the tower, which is located some 500m from the border with Egypt, told Reuters that Israel gave them a 30-minute warning to flee the building at night.

“People were startled, running down the stairs, some fell, it was chaos. People left their belongings and money,” said Mr Mohammad Al-Nabrees, adding that among those who tripped down the stairs during the panicked evacuation was a friend’s pregnant wife.

The strike raised alarm among residents of a wider Israeli assault on Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are sheltering.

Israel has said it plans to carry out operations in the area, which it has called Hamas’s last bastion.

But its pledge to do so only after civilians have evacuated has done little to quell international concern.

Five months into Israel's unrelenting air and ground assault on Gaza, the health authorities said nearly 31,000 Palestinians had been killed and thousands more bodies are feared buried under rubble.

The war was triggered by an Oct 7 attack by Hamas on southern Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed and 253 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.

Hamas on March 9 named four Israeli hostages as having died in Israeli strikes in the enclave, though it offered no evidence.

The Israeli military, which did not immediately respond to the claim, has previously said such videos by Hamas were psychological warfare.

The offensive has plunged the Palestinian territory, already reeling from a 17-year Israeli-Egyptian security blockade, into a humanitarian catastrophe.

In a speech marking Martyrs’ and Veterans’ Day in Egypt on March 9, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said the cost of rebuilding Gaza could exceed US$90 billion (S$120 billion).

Much of the coastal enclave has been reduced to rubble and most of the 2.3 million population have been displaced, with the United Nations warning of disease and starvation.

A ship laden with relief supplies for Gaza was preparing to depart Cyprus on March 9.

The European Commission has said a maritime aid corridor between Cyprus and Gaza could start operating as early as this weekend in a pilot project run by an international charity and financed by the United Arab Emirates.

Three Palestinian children died of dehydration and malnutrition at the northern Al Shifa Hospital overnight, said Gaza health ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qidra.

Mr Qidra said this raised to 23 the number of Palestinians who had died of similar causes in nearly 10 days.

“This brutal war has ruptured any sense of a shared humanity,” said Ms Mirjana Spoljaric, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

She called for an end of hostilities to allow for meaningful aid distribution in Gaza, for Hamas to release all hostages without conditions and for Israel to treat Palestinians in its custody humanely and to permit them to contact their families.

However, negotiations on a ceasefire and the release of 134 hostages still held incommunicado in Gaza seemed to stall ahead of the hoped-for deadline, the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins on or around March 10.

A Hamas source told Reuters that the group’s delegation was “unlikely” to make another visit to Cairo over the weekend for talks.

Hamas blamed the lack of progress on Israel, which has so far refused to give guarantees or commitments to end the war or pull out forces from the Gaza Strip.

Israel says the war will end only with the defeat of Hamas, whose ceasefire terms Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called “delusional”.

Israel military said that over the past day it conducted arrests, located weapons and killed more than 30 militants in southern Khan Younis, central Gaza and in its north.

Gaza's health ministry said at least 82 people were killed in Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip in the last day.

Medics said 23 people were killed in Khan Younis, and that in northern Gaza, Israeli fire killed a Palestinian fisherman along the beach.

Fears are mounting that during Ramadan violence could also spiral in the occupied West Bank, where Israel has stepped up raids amid Palestinian street attacks.

The Palestinian Prisoner’s Association said on March 9 more than 7,500 Palestinians have been detained there by Israel since Oct 7.

The Israeli military has said 3,500 Palestinian suspects have been arrested, around half of them belonging to Hamas. REUTERS