Israel Launches Assault to Seize Gaza City As UN Calls Actions in Gaza Genocide 

Israel launched the early stages of its long-threatened ground assault to seize Gaza City on Tuesday, as Palestinians in the enclave described the bombardment as the most intense they have faced in two years, Reuters reported. 

An Israel Defense Forces (IDF) official said ground troops were moving toward the center of the city, with the number of soldiers to rise in the coming days to confront up to 3,000 Hamas fighters that the IDF believes are still there. The official emphasized that the process will be gradual, the Washington Post added. 

“Gaza is burning,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz wrote early on Tuesday on X. Gaza officials reported at least 40 deaths during the assault in the early hours of Tuesday, mostly in Gaza City. 

Residents in Gaza City have been recently reporting increasingly heavy bombardments, including a campaign to tear down several high-rise residential buildings.  

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli military said that Hamas uses high-rise buildings for their operations, although they did not provide evidence for this claim. 

The plan to occupy Gaza City, approved by the Israeli cabinet in early August, pushed civilians to flee the area and triggered mass protests in Israel and around the world. 

With the attack, Israel challenged the European leaders’ threat of sanctions and the warnings from some within the Israeli military that tank incursions and aerial bombardments could compromise the lives of hostages held in Gaza City. The US, however, has given its tacit approval, said analysts, noting that the offensive was announced just hours after Secretary of State Marco Rubio left Israel. 

For the past month, Israel has been calling on the one million residents of Gaza City to leave and head south toward the coastal plain of Mawasi, considered a humanitarian zone by Israel. However, aid agencies say that living conditions in Masawi are dire, with poor sanitation, overcrowding, and famine, even as the IDF continues to attack the area. 

Meanwhile, a United Nations independent commission said in a report published Tuesday that Israel has committed genocide in the Gaza Strip, concluding that Israeli authorities and security forces committed four of the five genocidal acts described in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Politico noted. 

The commission based the report on previous investigations, statements of Israeli authorities, and the conduct of forces on the ground, which, according to the findings, indicated an intention to destroy the Palestinian enclave in whole or in part. 

Israel’s Foreign Ministry rejected the report as “fake and distorted,” writing on X that it “relies entirely on Hamas falsehoods…”