Israel launched a long-threatened ground assault on Gaza City on Tuesday, declaring "Gaza is burning" as residents reported the most intense bombardment in two years of conflict.
An Israel Defense Forces (IDF) official said ground troops were moving deeper into the enclave's main city, and that the number of soldiers would rise in the coming days to confront an alleged 3,000 Hamas members the IDF claims are still in the city.
"Gaza is burning," Defense Minister Israel Katz posted on X. "The IDF strikes with an iron fist at the ... infrastructure and IDF soldiers are fighting bravely to create the conditions for the release of the hostages and the defeat of Hamas."
In launching the assault, Israel's government defied European leaders, threatening sanctions and warnings from even some of Israel's own military commanders that it could be a costly mistake. But Washington offered its apparent blessing, conveyed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
In the latest expression of international alarm, a U.N. Commission of Inquiry concluded that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza, incited by top officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel called the assessment "scandalous" and "fake."
Gaza health officials reported at least 40 people killed, most in Gaza City, in the assault's early hours Tuesday, as airstrikes swept across the city and tanks advanced.
Where a missile had destroyed two multi-storey residential buildings in the middle of 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.
Abu Mohammed Hamed said several of his relatives had been injured or killed, including a cousin whose body was trapped by a concrete block: "We don't know how to take her out. We have been working on it since 3 a.m."
Israel renewed its calls on civilians to leave and long columns of Palestinians streamed toward the south and west in donkey carts, rickshaws, heavily laden vehicles or on foot.
"They are destroying residential towers, the pillars of the city, mosques, schools and roads," Abu Tamer, a 70-year-old man making the grueling journey south with his family, told Reuters in a text message.
"They are wiping out our memories."
Hours before the escalation, Rubio offered U.S. backing at a press conference alongside Netanyahu. While the United States wished for a diplomatic end to the war, "we have to be prepared for the possibility that's not going to happen," he said.
But other longstanding allies have recoiled at what they see as disproportionate harm to civilians. In Brussels, a spokesperson for the EU executive said it would agree Wednesday to impose new sanctions on Israel, including suspending certain trade provisions.
British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper called the assault "reckless and appalling" and called for an immediate cease-fire. Britain and France are expected this month to become the first major Western powers to recognize Palestinian independence.
The area of Tel al-Hawa, in the southwest of Gaza City, was being pounded by strikes from air, ground and sea, according to witnesses reached by Reuters via text message.
They said the IDF was using robots loaded with explosives and that powerful blasts were sending debris and shrapnel hundreds of meters from impact sites.
Some residents were staying put, too poor to secure a tent and transport or because there was nowhere safe to go.
"It is like escaping from death toward death, so we are not leaving," said Um Mohammad, a woman living in the suburb of Sabra, under aerial and ground fire for days.
Both Hamas and the IDF estimate around 350,000 people have fled Gaza City so far, with close to twice as many still left behind.
Much of Gaza City was laid to waste in the early weeks of the war in 2023, but around 1 million Palestinians had returned there to homes among the ruins. Forcing them out means nearly the entire population of Gaza will now be confined to encampments along the coast, further south.
The U.N., aid groups and numerous foreign countries have denounced Israel's tactics as a mass forced displacement, without adequate food, medical care, space and basic hygiene.
Three more Palestinians died of malnutrition and starvation in the past 24 hours, Gaza's Health Ministry said Tuesday, raising total hunger deaths to at least 428, most in the last two months, in what a global monitor calls a man-made famine. Israel says the extent of hunger has been exaggerated.
Some Israeli military commanders have expressed concern that the Gaza City assault could endanger remaining hostages held by Hamas or be a "death trap" for troops.
Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir, at a meeting Netanyahu convened late Sunday with security chiefs, urged the prime minister to pursue a cease-fire deal, according to three Israeli officials, two of whom were in the meeting and one of whom was briefed on its details.
Families of hostages, who have led calls for a cease-fire, gathered outside Netanyahu's home in Jerusalem late Monday as news of the offensive streamed in.
"Our loved ones in Gaza are being bombarded by the IDF under the orders of the prime minister," said Anat Angrest, whose son Matan is among the 20 hostages believed to still be alive.
The Hamas incursion into Israel in October 2023 caused about 1,200 deaths and took 251 hostages, Israeli tallies show. Israel's genocidal war, in comparison, has killed nearly 65,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, Gaza's Health Ministry says.
