Israel has launched a ground offensive in Gaza City, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced on Tuesday.
Speaking at the opening session of his corruption trial, Netanyahu asked to be excused from testimony due to the “important things happening,” declaring that the IDF “has begun an intensive operation in Gaza City.”
The military later confirmed that two IDF divisions, numbering tens of thousands of troops, had begun expanded ground operations overnight as the army entered a “new stage” of its campaign against Hamas. The IDF said the 162nd and 98th divisions were leading the push and that the 36th division would join in the coming days.
The escalation follows the Israeli Security Cabinet’s approval last month of plans to seize Gaza City – one of the few areas not under IDF control – in a move that could pave the way for a full takeover of the Palestinian enclave.
While a ground assault had been anticipated in October, the early phases of the offensive, dubbed ‘Gideon’s Chariots B’, began weeks ago with intensified strikes on alleged Hamas positions, including high-rise towers, as well as ground raids on the outskirts of Gaza City and several neighborhoods to the west.
Palestinian media reported heavy strikes on Gaza City and its outskirts on Monday night, with some outlets claiming that IDF tanks had entered.
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According to Al Jazeera, Israel has destroyed the al-Aybaki Mosque in Tuffah, an eastern suburb of Gaza City.
Yemen’s Houthis have said their forces fired two hypersonic missiles at Israel in retaliation for the “brutal, criminal aggression” in Gaza. The Shiite militant group pledged to continue attacks against Israel until it lifts its blockade of the Palestinian enclave.
Earlier on Tuesday, the IDF reported that its air defenses had intercepted a rocket launched from Yemen.
Around the same time, the Houthi-run broadcaster Al Masirah TV aired pictures of funeral services for 31 Yemeni journalists who were reportedly killed in an Israeli air strike on the city of Sanaa last week.
Israeli claims that Hamas has been using high-rise residential buildings in Gaza for military purposes “are nothing but blatant lies,” the Palestinian armed group has stated.
“The enemy tries to justify its crimes to cover up its systematic destruction of Gaza City,” a Hamas statement has claimed.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz made the allegations on Sunday.
The situation as Israel pounds Gaza City is “horrendous,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said.
”We are seeing massive killing of civilians in a way that I do not remember in any conflict since I am Secretary-General,” he told a press conference in New York.
Israel is also preventing the distribution of humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians in a “morally, politically and legally intolerable” manner, he said.
Madrid has warned that any attack on the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF) – a fleet of some 44 boats crewed by activists from 40 countries carrying aid to Gaza – “will lead to accountability.”
The GSF, which was attacked by drones twice while docked in Tunis, has backing from 15 countries, including Brazil, South Africa, Ireland, and Türkiye.
Spain urged “everyone to refrain from any unlawful or violent act” and respect international law.
IDF spokesperson Effie Defrin has characterized Gaza City as the “central hub of Hamas’ military and governing power,” accusing the militants of turning the area into the “largest human shield in history.”
“Beneath the streets runs a vast network of tunnels, connecting command centers, rocket launchers, and weapon storage facilities – all deliberately hidden under civilians, in civilian infrastructure,” he said.
Defrin urged Palestinian civilians to stay away from the combat zone, and claimed that the IDF has “expanded humanitarian efforts in Gaza” in recent weeks.
The relatives of Israeli hostages still held by Hamas have staged a protest outside of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem, denouncing his government’s decision to launch a new offensive in Gaza City. The activists have vowed that their encampment will remain in place “until Netanyahu listens and implements the people’s will.” They expressed concerns that intensifying military activity would put the lives of 20 hostages, believed to still be alive, at grave risk.
UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper has denounced the “new IDF assault on Gaza [as] utterly reckless and appalling.”
In a post on X on Tuesday, the British official predicted that the Israeli military onslaught “will only bring more bloodshed, kill more innocent civilians & endanger the remaining hostages.”
Cooper called for an immediate ceasefire, the release of all hostages held in Hamas captivity, and unrestricted humanitarian aid to the densely-populated Palestinian enclave.
US President Donald Trump has said he doesn’t “know too much” about Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza City, but repeated his earlier warning that if Hamas uses hostages as human shields, the group “will have hell to pay.”
Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari said the country’s role as mediator in Gaza ceasefire talks has become a lower priority after Israel’s strike targeting Hamas leaders in Doha last week.
“We are now focused on protecting our sovereignty and responding to the [Israeli] attack, and on taking all necessary measures to ensure this does not happen again. All other political considerations are currently of secondary importance,” he told reporters at a weekly briefing.
Israel has confirmed bombing Yemen’s Hodeidah port. Army spokesman Avichay Adraee said on X that the Israeli Air Force struck the port in response to recent Houthi drone and missile attacks.
He claimed that the group uses the port to transfer military equipment from Iran and said the IDF will “continue to act forcefully” against them.
Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard has condemned Israel’s ground operation in Gaza City, saying on X that it “exacerbates an already catastrophic humanitarian situation and leads to widespread forced displacements of the civilian population, which violates international law.”
She said the offensive makes it even more urgent to pressure Israel to end the conflict and called on Brussels to impose sanctions on West Jerusalem and “extremist Israeli ministers.”
At least 59 peole have been killed and 386 others injured by Israeli strikes on Gaza City over the past 24 hours, the Gaza Health Ministry said in a statement on social media.
The death toll since October 7, 2023, has reached at least 64,96 with many more still buried under rubble, according to the ministry. Three more people, including a child, have died from famine and malnutrition, it added.
The Israeli air force has bombed the Yemeni port of Hodeidah, where at least five powerful explosions have been heard, RIA Novosti has reported, citing a local government source.
Unverified footage circulating on social media shows smoke billowing over the port, with the caption claiming airstrikes have targeted three piers.
Yemeni air defenses are confronting Israeli jets carrying out “aggression” against the country, Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree has said on X. His statement came after an Israeli army spokesperson announced that the IDF would strike Yemen’s Red Sea port of Hodeidah “in the coming hours.”
Navi Pillay, chair of the UN commission that authored the report accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza, rejected a statement from the Israeli Foreign Ministry that dismissed the findings as “fake.”
“We are very, very careful to ensure that we personally investigate and verify every fact. I wish [Israel] would tell us where we went wrong on these facts, or just cooperate with us if they had done any investigations,” she told reporters.
“The ongoing genocide in Gaza is a moral outrage and a legal emergency. UN member states must act now. There is no need to wait for the International Court of Justice to declare it a genocide. All states are obligated to use whatever means within its power to prevent the commission of genocide.”
Washington and Doha have “reaffirmed the enduring US-Qatar security partnership and our shared commitment to a safer, more stable region,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said after talks with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim.
Rubio traveled to Doha to try to revive Israel-Hamas negotiations, which stalled after an Israeli strike in the city killed five Hamas members and a local security official last week. He did not say whether there was any progress on ceasefire talks.
Israel’s permanent representative to the UN, Daniel Meron, has condemned the new UN commission report accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza, calling it “scandalous,” “fake,” and a “libelous rant.”
Israeli human rights groups have urged West Jerusalem to cancel its mass evacuation order for Gaza City, saying it constituted forced displacement and ethnic cleansing.
Haaretz reported that the organizations – including the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), Physicians for Human Rights, Gisha, and Adalah – said the orders aim to “displace an exhausted and starving population that has nowhere to flee.”
The groups argued the evacuations “do not stem from military necessity,” are “contrary to international law,” and must not be accepted.
Brussels, much criticized for its duplicity on Palestine, has called on Israel to halt its ground offensive in Gaza City.
“The EU has consistently urged Israel not to intensify its operation in Gaza City,” said Foreign Affairs and Security Policy spokesperson Anouar El Anouni. “A military intervention will lead to more destruction, more death and more displacement, and we have been clear that this will also aggravate the already catastrophic humanitarian situation and endanger the lives of hostages.”
UN human rights chief Volker Turk has condemned Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza City as “totally and utterly unacceptable,” saying it is “absolutely clear that this carnage must stop.”
“We see the piling up of war crime after war crime after war crime, of crime against humanity, and potentially even more,” Turk told reporters, adding that evidence of Israeli genocide in Gaza is “mounting.”
Footage verified by Al Jazeera shows massive smoke and dust clouds rising after Israeli bombings in Tal al-Hawa, a neighborhood in southern Gaza City.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry has called for “urgent” international intervention to protect civilians in Gaza City after Israel launched its offensive. It warned that plans to occupy the city involve “deliberate targeting of civilians” and risk turning Gaza’s largest urban center into “a mass graveyard.”
“The ministry views with utmost gravity the boasting of the occupation government’s officials about initiating the invasion of Gaza City, endangering the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians,” it said in a post on X.
The ministry urged action to halt what it described as a “major crime,” calling for an immediate ceasefire, protection of civilians from displacement, the release of hostages and prisoners, and uninterrupted delivery of aid.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has warned that if Hamas does not release the hostages and disarm, Gaza will be destroyed.
“From Hamas, we need only two things, and it will not give them voluntarily: to release all the hostages and to disarm. The great force of the attack here… is directly defeating Hamas, and it also creates a larger lever for the release of the hostages,” Katz said during a visit to the headquarters of the 162nd Division, whose forces are operating in Gaza City. “We want to take control of Gaza City because today it is Hamas’ main governing symbol. Today, if Gaza falls… they will fall… They will pay the price and Gaza will be destroyed.”
Iran’s Foreign Ministry has rejected the two-state solution for Palestine referenced in the final communique of Monday’s Arab-Islamic summit, held after an Israeli strike in Doha killed five Hamas members and a local security official last week.
The ministry argued that the two-state solution cannot resolve the Palestinian issue, reiterating that the only lasting answer is a single democratic state formed through a referendum of all Palestinians, both inside and outside the occupied territories. Tehran reaffirmed its “firm and unwavering” support for Palestinian self-determination and condemned what it called Israel’s “brutal crimes” against Palestinians.
Israel has threatened to strike Yemen’s Red Sea port of Hodeidah “in the coming hours.”
“Anyone who remains in the area puts their life in danger,” an Israeli Army spokesperson warned on X.
Spain has threatened to withdraw from this year’s Eurovision if Israel takes part.
State broadcaster RTVE’s board voted on Tuesday to pull out, making Spain the fifth country to do so after the Netherlands, Slovenia, Iceland, and Ireland. It is also the first of the ‘Big Five’ – which includes Britain, Germany, Italy, and France – that automatically qualify for the final round.
Spain has summoned Israel’s acting ambassador in Madrid for the second time in a week over remarks by Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar directed at Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.
On Monday, Sanchez called for Israel to be banned from international sporting events over its actions in Gaza. Saar responded on X, calling the Spanish leader an “antisemite and a liar.”
The UK government has called Israel’s Gaza City offensive “utterly reckless and appalling.” Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper warned on X that the assault “will only bring more bloodshed, kill more innocent civilians & endanger the remaining hostages.”
Hannah Bond, CEO of UK-based humanitarian charity ActionAid, has urged the British government to halt all arms exports to Israel or risk complicity after a UN commission report accused West Jerusalem of genocide. Bond said London has “dithered for long enough” and warned it must not let “today’s findings fall on deaf ears.”
“The UK must take decisive action now to bring about an immediate and permanent ceasefire, and it must ensure that there is full accountability for all war crimes, crimes against humanity and atrocities that have taken place throughout this long and devastating war,” she added, as cited by The Guardian.
The European Commission will impose new sanctions on Israel over the Gaza conflict on Wednesday, spokesperson Paula Pinho has told reporters.
“Tomorrow, commissioners will be adopting a package of measures on Israel, specifically a proposal to suspend certain trade provisions in EU-Israel agreements,” she said.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has compared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler over his actions in Gaza.
“We must clearly understand that Israel does not serve a religion, but a perverted ideology,” he told reporters upon returning from Qatar. “Netanyahu and his gang are telling the world the fictitious tales of Zionism… Scenarios created on the basis of the concept of the ‘promised land’ are legally invalid and devoid of legitimacy. Those who rule Israel are nothing more than a gang of murderers who have turned their radical views into a fascist ideology. In this regard, Netanyahu is ideologically practically akin to Hitler.”
The Turkish leader warned that if Netanyahu does not stop the IDF offensive in Gaza, he “will suffer the same fate as Hitler.”
US President Donald Trump warned early Tuesday that “all bets are off” if reports that Hamas has positioned hostages as human shields in Gaza City are confirmed.
Israeli media reported late Monday that the mother of hostage Guy Gilboa-Dalal was told her son is being held above ground in the city and is being used as a human shield ahead of the IDF ground offensive.
“I hope the Leaders of Hamas know what they’re getting into if they do such a thing,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “This is a human atrocity, the likes of which few people have ever seen before. Don’t let this happen or, ALL ‘BETS’ ARE OFF. RELEASE ALL HOSTAGES NOW!”
Families of hostages held by Hamas have declared a “state of emergency” over the IDF’s Gaza City offensive and have set up a tent camp outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence.
“Following reports of tank incursions and massive bombardments in Gaza City, hostage families, terrified for their loved ones’ fate, spontaneously gathered in the late-night hours outside the Prime Minister’s Residence on Azza Street in Jerusalem, crying out for the rescue of their loved ones and all hostages,” the group said in a statement.
48 hostages are believed to remain in Gaza.
Palestinian media reports that Israeli forces have detonated explosive-laden remote-controlled armored personnel carriers in Gaza’s Tel al-Hawa and Rimal neighborhoods. The IDF has repurposed decommissioned M113 APCs by packing them with explosives and fitting remote controls to target alleged Hamas infrastructure.
More than 40% of Gaza City’s estimated one million residents have “left the city for their safety and the safety of their loved ones,” according to IDF Arabic-language spokesman Col. Avichay Adraee.
He confirmed that the Israeli military “has begun destroying Hamas infrastructure in Gaza City,” marking the start of a major offensive in the area.
“Gaza City is considered a dangerous combat zone, staying in the area puts you at risk,” Adraee warned in a post on X. Civilians have been instructed to evacuate immediately and move toward an Israeli-designated humanitarian zone in the Strip’s south.
IDF estimates from last night indicated that more than 350,000 Palestinians had already evacuated Gaza City.
Luxembourg’s Prime Minister, Luc Frieden, has announced that the country will join several other European nations in recognising a Palestinian state during the upcoming UN General Assembly.
Speaking to reporters, Frieden stated that “the situation on the ground has deteriorated considerably in recent months.” He explained that “a movement is now emerging in Europe and around the world to demonstrate that the two-state solution is still relevant,” adding, “that is why the Luxembourg government intends to join those who recognise the State of Palestine at next week’s conference on the two-state solution.”
Alongside Luxembourg, countries such as Britain, Australia, Canada, and Belgium have also said they plan to recognise a Palestinian state at the meeting.
Spain is summoning Israel’s ambassador in Madrid after Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar branded Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez an “antisemite and a liar.”
Saar made the remarks on X on Monday in response to Sanchez urging sports bodies to reflect on whether it is ethical for Israel to continue participating in international competitions given the war in Gaza.
“Why was Russia expelled after the invasion of Ukraine, but not Israel after the invasion of Gaza?” Sanchez asked.
In his post, Saar declared: “Sanchez and his Communist government are antisemites and enemies of the truth.”
Palestine’s Foreign Ministry has urged “exceptional and urgent international intervention” to safeguard civilians and stop Israel’s advance into Gaza City.
In a post on X, the ministry stated that diplomatic efforts to end the conflict had been a “failure” and appealed to the international community to take action.
As Israel launches its ground offensive in Gaza City, UNICEF, the United Nations’ children’s agency, cautioned that “any further intensification” of military operations would “multiply children’s suffering exponentially, ripping away the last vestiges of protection.”
According to the agency, 450,000 children in the city are “traumatized and exhausted, facing famine,” with no aid and “collapsed medical care.”
UNICEF stressed that children have already endured “nearly two years of unrelenting war” and warned they will “face more loss if another escalation hits.”
The Israeli Foreign Ministry has accused the UN commission report’s authors of being “Hamas proxies” and called for the “immediate abolition” of the commission.
“The report relies entirely on Hamas falsehoods, laundered and repeated by others,” the ministry claimed.
Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory said in a report published on Tuesday.
The Commission concluded that Israeli authorities and security forces carried out four of the five genocidal acts defined by the 1948 Genocide Convention: killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life aimed at destroying Palestinians in whole or in part, and imposing measures to prevent births.
“The Commission finds that Israel is responsible for the commission of genocide in Gaza,” said Navi Pillay, chair of the Commission. “It is clear that there is an intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza through acts that meet the criteria set forth in the Genocide Convention.”
The Commission urged Israel and other UN members to meet their legal obligations under international law to end the genocide and hold the perpetrators accountable.
Videos on social media show families spending the night in the streets of Gaza City after intensive Israeli bombardment. Reports from Gaza claim that dozens were killed and injured in the overnight strikes.
The IDF says it has “begun destroying Hamas infrastructure in Gaza City,” confirming the launch of a major offensive and urging residents to evacuate to a designated humanitarian zone in southern Gaza.
“Gaza City is considered a dangerous combat zone, staying in the area puts you at risk,” IDF Arabic-language spokesman Colonel Avichay Adraee said in a post on X. He claimed that more than 40% of the city’s estimated 1 million residents have already left, with IDF figures from last night putting the number at over 350,000 evacuees.