Israel bombs residential building in Gaza as fire exchange continues

Israeli fighter jets on Saturday destroyed a five-storey building in the Gaza Strip, the third residential building targeted by the Israeli airstrikes on the second day of the fire exchange between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), reported Xinhua.

The Israeli bombardment did not result in any casualties in the evacuated building, except for significant damage to the surrounding houses, said medics at Shifa Hospital in Gaza city.

The Israeli drones fired a warning missile at the building before the attack, Palestinian security sources and residents told Xinhua.

The residential building is located near Al-Shifa Medical Complex, the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip home to more than 2 million Palestinians.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli army on the raids targeting the residential buildings.

The residents of the Gaza Strip expressed fear of Israel's resumption of targeting residential buildings, as happened in the last wave of conflicts in May last year.

Ahmed Shamalakh, who was forced to leave home after the bomb warning, was sad and shocked when he came back and found debris all over the building.

He told Xinhua that his apartment had just been restored two months ago.

"The apartment is new, the luggage is new, and I just moved in about two months ago," said Shamalakh, who had recently got married.

At least 15 Palestinians, including Tayseer al-Jabari, commander of the PIJ's armed wing, and a 5-year-old girl have been killed and more than 125 others wounded in the Israeli airstrikes, according to the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza.

The heightened tension came after Israeli forces arrested a senior official of the PIJ in the West Bank city of Jenin on Monday. The PIJ vowed to take revenge, prompting the Israeli military to raise its alert along the border with Gaza.

Israel and Hamas, which has controlled Gaza since 2007, have fought several wars in the Palestinian enclave in recent years, the last of which was in May 2021.