Israel launched its long-threatened ground offensive on Gaza City on Tuesday. Massive air strikes on the city could be heard deep inside Israel as troops moved slowly into outlying neighbourhoods and Palestinians described the most intense bombardment of the war.
The Hamas-run health ministry reported dozens of people killed and wounded.
The Israeli army also used explosive-laden remote-controlled armoured personnel carriers against what it said were Hamas infrastructure targets.
The offensive came as a United Nations Commission of Inquiry concluded that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. Israel called the assessment “scandalous” and “fake”.
The report cites examples of the scale of the killings, aid blockages, forced displacement and the destruction of a fertility clinic to back up its genocide finding, adding its voice to a scholars’ association and rights groups that have reached the same conclusion.
Israel believes there are between 2,000-2,500 Hamas militants in Gaza City, mostly below ground, waiting for orders to engage the advancing troops.
The army said the operation will continue until Hamas is defeated and 48 hostages, including 20 believed to be alive, are released. It said the assault can end at any stage if Hamas surrenders.
Israeli defence minister Israel Katz told troops in Gaza that the attack on Gaza City was the best way to end the war. “From Hamas we need only two things and they won’t give them voluntarily: to release all hostages and to disarm,” he said.
[ UN's genocide charge changes political environment in advance of crucial assembly meetingOpens in new window ]
Israel renewed its order for civilians to leave the city. It believes that 370,000 residents have fled. The coastal road heading south, the only route out, was crowded, with residents reporting that it can take 24 hours to reach the Muwasi tent encampment in the south.
An official of the United Nations’ children’s agency said it was “inhumane” to expect hundreds of thousands of children to leave Gaza City as the camps further south were unsafe, overcrowded and ill-equipped to receive them.
Israeli human rights organisations issued a statement calling on Israeli officials to cancel the mass evacuation order, saying it constitutes forced displacement and ethnic cleansing and contravenes international law.
The organisations said that the orders are being implemented in an area where a state of mass famine has been declared, and are intended to “displace an exhausted and starving population that has nowhere to flee.”
The Palestinian foreign ministry said Israel’s attack was turning the territory’s largest city into “a mass graveyard”.
After a missile had destroyed two multistorey residential buildings during the night, people clambered over an immense mound of dislocated concrete to pry out victims, footage obtained by Reuters showed. A woman cried as a small child’s body was pulled from the wreckage, hastily wrapped in a green blanket and carried away.
In Israel, families of the hostages have been holding demonstrations in front of prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s house in Jerusalem every evening.
“The army chief of staff said the living hostages are in immediate danger of dying, and the dead are in danger of disappearing forever. The writing is on the wall! There will be no other time to save our brothers and sisters who have been languishing in the tunnels for 711 days,” the relatives said in a statement.
Anat Angrest, whose son Matan is held in captivity in Gaza, accused Mr Netanyahu of deciding to sacrifice the hostages by initiating the invasion of Gaza City.
“With the prime minister’s decision to occupy Gaza, even at the cost of our loved ones, including my son, 48 hostages are at risk of disappearing,” she said.
The European Commission is expected to impose additional sanctions against Israel on Wednesday by suspending certain trade provisions. Israeli foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar accused it of acting in bad faith and empowering Hamas.
Israel’s nearly two-year-long campaign against Hamas has killed more than 64,000 people in Gaza, according to local authorities. It was prompted by the militant group’s attack on Israel in October 2023, in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 others taken hostage, according to Israeli figures.
