Israel has launched its ground incursion into Gaza City, two Israeli officials told CNN early Tuesday.
The long-anticipated incursion began on the outskirts of Gaza City, where the Israeli military has escalated its airstrikes and accelerated its destruction of high-rise towers over the last week. One of the officials said the ground incursion is going to be “phased and gradual” at the beginning.
The ground incursion was supposed to proceed only after the Israeli military forced the evacuation of the densely populated urban area, but only a fraction of the population has left so far. The United Nations warned last month that Israel’s plans to invade Gaza City would put about 1 million Palestinians who live there at risk of being forcibly displaced. On Monday, an Israeli military official said an estimated 320,000 Palestinians had fled the area so far.
The incursion began with a renewed wave of Israeli strikes, which saw casualties, including children, stream into the enclave’s depleted hospitals. Dozens of injured Palestinians were brought overnight to hospitals near Gaza City, including Al-Shifa Hospital and the Baptist Hospital, according to local officials.
Videos obtained by CNN showed the bodies of multiple bloodied children arriving at hospitals in northern Gaza. Two adults can be seen in one video screaming out in pain as they grieve over the bodies of their children, covered in white shrouds.
Israel in August approved a plan to take over and occupy the heavily bombarded city, which it says is one of the last remaining Hamas strongholds.
The former chief of the Israeli military said more than 1 in 10 Palestinians in the enclave have been killed or injured since the war began nearly two years ago.
“There are 2.2 million people in Gaza. There are in Gaza today more than 10% who were killed or injured, more than 200,000. This is not a gentle war,” former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said last week.
The figure is notable because it is very close to the number of casualties from the Palestinian Ministry of Health, which says Israeli forces have killed nearly 65,000 Palestinians and injured more than 164,000.
During the war, Israeli officials repeatedly challenged the health ministry figures, seeking to cast doubt on the reported death and injury tolls in the besieged enclave. They also accused the ministry of relying on data supplied by Hamas.
US President Donald Trump warned Hamas yesterday that “ALL ‘BETS’ ARE OFF” if it was using hostages as “human shields,” after citing a report that the group had moved hostages ahead of Israel’s ground incursion.
Shortly after the post, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “Thank you President Trump for your unflinching support for Israel’s battle against Hamas and the release of all our hostages.”
Hamas also responded, saying Netanyahu’s government determines the fate of the hostages, and that Trump’s statement about an Israeli offensive in Gaza City and the “current circumstances” of the hostages is “blatantly biased toward Zionist propaganda.”
Hamas warned a ground offensive would endanger the hostages’ lives.
Israel has the full support of the US, but the Gaza City offensive should move quickly, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday, according to three Israeli sources.
The sources described the talks — which were before the ground incursion got underway — as “very good” and “excellent,” adding that Israel has full support for the assault on Gaza City.
The sources said Netanyahu was told to expedite the operation.
At a news conference earlier yesterday, Rubio said the effort to defeat Hamas “may require ultimately a concise military operation to eliminate them.”
Rubio told Netanyahu that the Trump administration still believes that Qatar can be a constructive mediator in ceasefire negotiations, according to one of the sources, despite Israel carrying out a strike in Doha targeting Hamas. Rubio did not condemn the strike during the news conference.