BREAKING!! Serious War Ongoing As Israeli Air Strikes Killed 139 People, Destroy Al Jazeera Tower
According to AFP journalists, an Israeli air assault on the Gaza Strip on Saturday destroyed the 13-story building holding Qatar’s Al Jazeera television and the American news organization The Associated Press.
In a tweet, Al Jazeera stated Israel had “destroyed Jala Tower in the Gaza Strip, which houses Al Jazeera and other international press offices,” with an Associated Press writer stating the IDF had alerted the tower’s owner ahead of the hit.
After the Israeli air hit, Al Jazeera transmitted footage of the building crashing to the ground, sending up a massive mushroom cloud of dust and debris.
The owner of the Jala Tower, Jawad Mehdi, claimed an Israeli intelligence officer told him he only had one hour to assure the building’s evacuation.
AFP overheard the police pleading for an extra 10 minutes to allow journalists to gather their equipment before departing on the phone.
He pleaded, “Give us five more minutes,” but the cop on the other end of the telephone refused.
“It’s bad, extremely awful, to attack Al Jazeera and other press bureaux,” Wael al-Dahdouh, Al Jazeera’s bureau head in Gaza, told AFP.
Israel claimed that its “fighter aircraft bombed a high-rise facility that housed military assets connected to the Hamas terror organization’s military intelligence.”
The structure also housed offices of civilian media outlets, which Hamas hides behind and uses as human shields, according to the report.
Since Monday, Israeli air and artillery raids on Gaza have killed 139 people, including 39 children, and injured 1,000 others, according to health officials in the coastal enclave.
(AFP)
