Israel is launching an offensive on major ground on Gaza City, forcing thousands of others to flee

Israel has launched its large long -standing ground offensive from Gaza City, making heavy air strikes overnight while the troops were growing in the edges of the city.

Thousands of Palestinians were forced to flee on a single coastal road to the center of the band, joining hundreds of thousands of people who have already fled.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that a “powerful operation” had been launched against the “last major bastion” in Hamas in the midst of strong criticism from the United Kingdom and other countries.

The offensive comes as a United Nations commission of inquiry found that Israel was committing a genocide in Gaza.

Huge columns of Palestinians have been seen by streaming south in donkey carts, rickshaws, vehicles attached to personal and on foot.

Large parts of the city of Gaza have already been destroyed in the first stages of the war in 2023, although about a million Palestinians have returned home since then – often among the rubble and bombed buildings.

Israeli defense forces (FDI) believe that 350,000 people have now fled, although more than half a million things remain in the city. All are invited to flee south towards a “humanitarian zone” in a coastal part of the strip.

Many Palestinians say they cannot afford to go south, while others say that the south and center of Gaza are not safe because Israel has also made air strikes. Some say they tried to go south but found no space to present their tents, which has returned.

Lina Al-Maghrebi, 32, mother of three children from the city Sheikh Radwan district, told the BBC: “I was forced to sell my jewelry to cover the cost of travel and a tent.”

“It took us ten hours to reach Khan Younis, and we paid 3,500 shekels [£735] for the journey. The line of cars and trucks seemed endless. “”

Amjad al-Nawati, 33, told the BBC that the sound of the bomb “who moved” had frightened his disabled brother, Ahmed.

“He continued to put his hand on his ears … and to tremble with fear. I had to calm him down and tell him that we leave soon. It was one of the worst nights of his life.”

The Ministry of Health managed by Gaza said 59 people had been killed and at least 386 injured in the last 24 hours. Three people, he adds, died due to famine and malnutrition, including a child.

“Gaza burns,” wrote Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz, on X, as the offensive started. “The FDI strikes with an iron fist at the terrorist infrastructure and the TSAhal soldiers are courageously fighting to create the conditions for the release of the hostages and the defeat of Hamas.”

An FDI official said he believed that up to 3,000 Hamas fighters had stayed in the city.

The operation aroused a general condemnation, the UN Human Rights Head Volker Türk describing it as “totally and completely unacceptable”.

In another reaction:

• The British Foreign Minister Yvette Cooper described the offensive “totally reckless and appalling”, saying that “would no longer bring blood out, would kill more innocent civilians and endanger the remaining hostages”

• The Turkish Foreign Ministry said that assault was a new phase of Israel’s “genocide plans” and warned that it would trigger mass movement

• German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said it was “the wrong way” and called for diplomacy.

But US Secretary of State Marco Rubio seemed to offer tacit support for Israel’s operation at a joint press conference with Netanyahu on Monday, saying that the United States preferred an end negotiated war, but that “sometimes when you are dealing with a group of savages like Hamas, it is not possible”.

The United Nations commission of inquiry said that its last report was “the strongest and most authoritarian conclusion of the United Nations to date” on the war. However, he does not officially speak for the UN.

Among its conclusions, there is that Israeli security forces have perpetrated “sexual and sexual violence”, directly targeted children with the intention of killing them and led a “systemic and generalized attack” against religious, cultural and educational sites in Gaza.

Navi Pillay, the president of the panel who produced the report, said: “The genocide convention was born from the darkest chapters of humanity.”

“Today, we are witnessing in real time how the promise of never again is broken and tested in the eyes of the world,” she added.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel said that it had categorically rejected the report, denouncing it as “distorted and false”.

Israel launched his war in Gaza in response to the attack led by Hamas against southern Israel on October 7, 2023, during which around 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 64,964 people were killed by Israel during its campaign since then – almost half of women and children, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.

Famine having already been declared in the region by a body supported by the UN, the UN has warmed an intensification of the offensive which pushes civilians to “an even deeper disaster”.

Additional reports by Rushdi Abualouf and Ethar Shalaby