Israel says high-rises are linked to Hamas’s formidable network of tunnels, allowing fighters to file out underground and ambush advancing Israeli soldiers.

The IDF has not provided evidence to substantiate their claims. Hamas, who are known to hide and fight in and under civilian areas, deny using the buildings for military purposes.

Israeli commanders claim that Hamas snipers and lookouts occupy the towers’ top floors to target troops on the ground.

Residents are given as little as 15 minutes warning before missiles strike the lower floors and level the buildings.

Gazans accuse Israel of taking out the towers in order to eradicate their identity and force them off their land. The UN on Monday cited the alleged targeting of “civilian infrastructure such as high-rise buildings” in accusing Israel of genocide. These are some of the buildings bombed in the past days.

The building known as the Unknown Soldier Tower sat in the heart of Gaza City’s financial and retail neighbourhood, Al Rimal.

Following the IDF’s evacuation warning, residents rushed out of the tower clutching only what they could carry. Just outside the tower, the park running along Omar Mukhtar Street is packed with tents.

The tower was destroyed alongside the building housing the Palestinian Legislative Affairs Council, a body created under the Oslo peace accords.

The destruction of the Al Noor Tower on Sept 16 also took out the next door mosque, satellite images of the aftermath show.

Large swathes of this residential area also appear to have been flattened, along with the State of Palestine Tax Offices.

For the destruction of Gaza’s tallest tower there was an interval of one and a half hours between the IDF’s evacuation warning and the strike.

But the order to leave triggered panic. Some residents were seen throwing suitcases out of the windows to hasten their escape, witnesses told The Telegraph.

Osama Lulu, who worked as a corn vendor at a stall under the tower, was 200 meters away when the bombs finally fell, but shrapnel from the blast spread nearly a kilometre.

Giora Eiland, a retired major general and the former head of Israel’s National Security Council, said that “the higher the building, the more probable that there will be tunnels below it”.

The journey from Gaza City to the relative safety of the Al-Mawasi camp, an Israeli-declared “safe zone”, is some 20 miles.

Hundreds of thousands, many already weakened by severe hunger, have already travelled by car, lorry, donkey, bicycle and on foot – often with children.

This week, Israel opened a second north-south thoroughfare, the Salah al-Din road, in an effort to encourage more southern migration, but then closed it again, citing Hamas activity.

Mr Lulu said it was the destruction of the Al-Ghafri tower that convinced him to join the exodus south.

“I am looking for a tent so I can move,” he said on Thursday.

As of June 425,000 people had already crammed into the Al-Mawasi humanitarian zone, the UN estimated. That was before the Gaza City evacuation order.

Gazans say the 10-mile strip is overcrowded and aid agencies warn of disease and starvation.

Despite being designated a safe zone, the camp has also been struck by IDF bombs in the past. Early on Friday, two children, four-year-old Mohammed Zuhair Al-Hams and his five-year-old sister Khadija Zuhair were killed in an Israeli strike.

The IDF say bombings are targeting suspected Hamas members who are hiding among civilians.

The IDF is not understood to be conducting screening checks for those heading south, meaning Hamas fighters can feasibly escape the siege of Gaza City and lie low in Al-Mawasi.

The IDF leadership strongly resisted plans to "conquer" Gaza City in its entirety, arguing it would endanger the hostages and might not succeed in eradicating Hamas.

But the army has been ordered to carry out the operation, which is predicted to take as long as four months.

Assaf Orion, a retired brigadier general and the IDF's former head of strategic planning, said: “Special focus is expected on destroying buildings, to judge by recent days and [Israel] Katz’s tweets.

“Population evacuation is a challenge, and if it works one can expect a full siege on the depopulated areas  – no water or aid.”