Hamas has said that the Israeli prime minister’s boasting about the continued destruction of residential high-rise buildings in Gaza City, most recently the as-Salam Tower, as we reported earlier, represents “one of the most heinous images of sadism and criminality”, Al Jazeera reports.

“When the terrorist Netanyahu addresses the people of Gaza City, saying, ‘We warned you, so leave from there’, he is openly engaging in a fully-fledged crime of forced displacement carried out under the pressure of bombing, massacres, starvation, and threats of murder,” the statement read.

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has issued a direct threat to the people of Gaza City, telling them to “leave now” ahead of the arrival of Israeli ground troops.

The forcible transfer or deportation of a population is considered a war crime under the Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, unless strictly justified by necessity, Al Jazeera highlighted.