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The United Nations rapporteur on human rights in the occupied territories, Francesca Albanese, has said the aim of the Gaza City offensive is to make it uninhabitable.
“This is the last piece of Gaza that needs to be rendered unliveable,” she said on Monday.
But the Israeli mission to the UN rejected her remarks, blaming Hamas for the destruction, Julian Borger has reported, while Benjamin Netanyahu defended Israel’s tactics. “We’re not bringing down those towers [in Gaza City] to intimidate people,” the Israeli prime minister said. “Those towers are serving as Hamas strongholds.”
The Israeli military’s chief of staff, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir, is widely reported to have deep misgivings about the Gaza City offensive, arguing it would not destroy Hamas and would be costly in the lives of Israeli soldiers and hostages.
You can read Borger’s report here:
Before today’s Israeli military actions, the Israel Defense Forces have been destroying blocks of flats across Gaza City and ordering its inhabitants to evacuate, drawing international condemnation, as Julian Borger has reported.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have fled Gaza City for the south, but most of the estimated million people sheltering in the urban sprawl have opted to stay, either because they are unable to move or because they have nowhere to go.
Humanitarian agencies have said there is nowhere left in Gaza that is safe or suitable for displaced people, the report continues.
The UN relief agency, Unrwa, said 10 of its buildings had been hit by Israeli strikes in the past four days, including seven schools and two clinics.
Palestinian residents have reported heavy strikes across Gaza City.
One overnight strike hit a house in the western side of Gaza City, killing at least five Palestinians including two children, according to the Shifa hospital, which the received the bodies.
Another strike hit at least three houses in the south-western side of the city, the Associated Press reports residents as saying.
Medics were searching the rubble for survivors.
“It was a heavy night,” said Radwan Hayder, a Gaza City resident sheltering near the Shifa hospital.
The Israeli military has not responded to questions for hours over whether the offensive has begun.
As just reported, Marco Rubio warned Hamas today that it only has days to accept a ceasefire deal amid Israel’s bombardment of Gaza City.
“Our number one choice is that this ends through a negotiated settlement where Hamas says, ‘We’re going to demilitarise, we’re no longer going to pose a threat,’” the US secretary of state told reporters as he flew out of Israel to go to Qatar.
“Sometimes when you’re dealing with a group of savages like Hamas, that’s not possible, but we hope it can happen,” Rubio said.
Agence France-Presse also reports that Rubio met with Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Monday and gave his support to the Israeli prime minister’s new offensive in Gaza City and its stated goal of eradicating Hamas.
Witnesses later told AFP the city was under heavy bombardment.
Opening summary
Julian Borger
After a night of reports of intense bombardment of Gaza City, Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, appears to have declared a new phase in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) offensive against the already devastated urban sprawl where hundreds of thousands of people are sheltering.
“Gaza is burning,” Katz said on Tuesday morning. He added “the IDF is striking terror infrastructure with an iron fist”.
“IDF soldiers are fighting heroically to create the conditions for the release of the hostages and the defeat of Hamas,” Katz said. “We will not relent or turn back until the mission is complete.”
The escalation in the Israeli bombardment of Gaza City came immediately in the wake of a visit by the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who declared the Trump administration’s “unwavering support” for Israel.
As he left the country, heading for Qatar on Tuesday morning, Rubio told journalists: “The Israelis have begun to take operations there. So we think we have a very short window of time in which a deal can happen. We don’t have months anymore, and we probably have days and maybe a few weeks to go.”
A Hamas statement issued in the early hours of Tuesday said the Trump administration “bears direct responsibility” for the conflict’s escalation through its “blatant bias” and it warned the offensive would “threaten the lives of the captured Israeli soldiers”.
There are still 48 hostages in Gaza, abducted by Hamas and allied militants in their attack on 7 October 2023, who have not been returned. Only 20 are thought to be still alive.
Hostage families have called for a protest later on Tuesday morning outside the Jerusalem residence of the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to demonstrate against the offensive, and police have closed off the street.
