Shortly before 7:22am on Thursday, October 19th 2023, at least three residential towers in the Al-Zahraa complex in Madinat al-Zahra, south of Gaza City, were destroyed in alleged Israeli airstrikes, causing injuries amongst civilians. Sources reported significant damage to civilian infrastructure.

At 6:55 AM local time on October 19th the Palestinian Press Agency (Safa) reported “warning missiles for Al-Zahra Towers.” A few minutes later, at 7:12, Safa reported that “[Israeli forces] destroyed Tower 1 and Tower 2 in the Al-Zahraa Towers complex, causing injuries at the place.”

The same day, Palestine.TV posted a video on Facebook showing a missile striking the residential complex. Some sources indicated that a third tower was hit in these strikes. Ramallah News, Quds TV and Safa Agency also shared photographs of the destroyed towers, reporting that “Israeli military aircraft destroyed 3 residential towers in the city of Zahraa in the Gaza Strip.” The images showed the completely destroyed buildings with only rubble left on their place.

Sharing visual documentation of the strike’s aftermath, Facebook user Aya Jaber wrote “Videos this morning, filmed live by my account, three residential towers inhabited by civilians in Madinat Al-Zahraa were completely destroyed a short while ago. The residents were completely evacuated from these towers with difficulty. There was a state of panic and fear among the citizens to target these towers. The [Israeli forces] targeted these towers with five military missiles, destroying them completely.”

Though a casualty count was not clear from local sources, references to ‘injuries’ has meant Airwars has included this incident with an estimated 2-2 casualty range in line with our methodology.

Where sources identified the belligerent, all sources attributed the strike to Israeli forces.