The IDF blew up a multi-story building used by Hamas in Gaza City as military infrastructure, the army said Friday, as it ramped up its ground offensive in the enclave.

According to the military, the building was being used by Hamas as operational infrastructure, including underground facilities that were utilized to plan attacks, stage ambushes against IDF forces and provide escape routes for terror operatives.

The announcement confirmed an earlier statement from Defense Minister Israel Katz, who said Israel had issued its first formal evacuation notice to residents of a multi-story building in the city ahead of an impending strike.

“The bolt is now being removed from the gates of Hell in Gaza,” Katz posted on X. “Once the door is opened, it will not be closed, and IDF operations will intensify — until Hamas’s murderers and rapists accept Israel’s conditions for ending the war, first and foremost the release of all hostages and disarmament — or be destroyed.”

Katz posted his statement as the IDF expanded its ground offensive into Gaza City, with politicians framing the campaign as a decisive maneuver aimed at breaking Hamas’s remaining strongholds.

Alongside the announcement, media outlets in Gaza reported that the IDF struck the Al-Mushtaha tower in Gaza City three times. Footage showed a heavy cloud of smoke at the site after residents were called to evacuate. It was unclear whether there were any casualties in the incident.

Arej Ahmed, a 50-year-old displaced Palestinian who lives in a tent in the southwest of Gaza City, told AFP that her husband “saw residents of the Mushtaha Tower throwing their belongings from the upper floors to take them and flee before the strike.”

“Less than half an hour after the evacuation orders, the tower was bombed,” she said by telephone.

Israel, she added, “orders the residents of towers to evacuate, claiming it wants to avoid civilian casualties. But what about us — hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians in the tents surrounding these buildings?”

The military stressed that it issues warnings to residents and employs precision strikes to reduce the risk to civilians, while again accusing Hamas of using Gaza’s civilian population as human shields.

According to the military’s announcement, intelligence revealed that Hamas had embedded sniper and anti-tank positions, surveillance systems, command-and-control centers and observation posts inside residential buildings, while also planting explosives nearby to ambush Israeli forces.

Additionally, the terror group’s tunnels are said to run beneath and around these buildings. The IDF said the sites pose a direct threat to its troops as operations in Gaza City expand, and therefore will be struck soon.

Earlier Friday, Hamas-run authorities in Gaza said 19 people were killed in a series of Israeli strikes in and around Gaza City. When contacted by AFP, the IDF requested timeframes and coordinates to comment on specific incidents.

IDF spokesperson Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said Thursday that Israeli forces now control roughly 40 percent of the city and intend to push further in the coming days as part of the broader plan to seize full control.

IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir has repeatedly warned in private forums that the Gaza City operation will endanger the hostages, and has reportedly urged the government to accept the phased deal that Hamas said it had agreed to, shortly after Israel declared it would only accept a deal for all the hostages to be released at once.

Meanwhile, the IDF also announced Friday that troops working with the Shin Bet security agency earlier this week killed Nur al-Din Dabbaghsh, a Hamas operative who managed finances for the group’s military arm.

Dabbaghsh was accused of collecting and transferring tens of millions of dollars to the terror group during the war, money that Israel says funded weapons and operations, and helped sustain the organization’s fighting capabilities.

The military also said its forces continued to strike Hamas infrastructure and operatives across the Gaza Strip, targeting sites both above and below ground while intensifying pressure on Hamas’ military wing.

In northern Gaza, forces from the 99th Division reported destroying anti-tank missile launch sites, a weapons storage facility, and additional infrastructure, while soldiers from the Nahal Brigade killed several Hamas operatives in clashes nearby.

Elsewhere, Givati Brigade troops and the 401st Armored Brigade, operating under 162nd Division, continued advancing in the Jabalia area and elsewhere on the outskirts of Gaza City, where they have eliminated terrorists, dismantled explosives and destroyed further Hamas positions.

As Israel’s offensive in Gaza City widens, Egypt has said it will not tolerate mass displacement of Palestinians and repeated its charge on Friday that Israel is committing genocide, as thousands of residents of Gaza City defied Israeli orders to leave.

“Displacement is not an option and it is a red line for Egypt and we will not allow it to happen,” Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty told Reuters in Nicosia on Friday.

“Displacement means liquidation and the end of the Palestinian cause and there is no legal or moral or ethical ground to evict people from their homeland,” he said.

He continued, “What is happening on the ground is far beyond the imagination. There is a genocide in motion there, mass killing of civilians, artificial starvation created by the Israelis.”

Israel adamantly rejects the accusations that it is causing starvation in Gaza and committing a genocide there, saying it makes efforts to facilitate humanitarian assistance and to avoid civilian casualties. It blames Hamas for fighting among civilian populations and accuses it of stealing aid.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 64,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed over 22,000 combatants in battle as of August and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 onslaught.

Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.