By Tom Bennett

Copyright bbc

Some Palestinians who followed the military’s orders to evacuate to the zone say they found no space to pitch their tents and so returned north.

The IDF said on Tuesday that around 350,000 people had fled Gaza City, while the UN put the figure at 190,000 since August. Estimates suggest at least 650,000 remain.

As part of its operations, the IDF is reportedly utilising old military vehicles loaded with explosives that have been modified to be controlled remotely.

They are being driven to Hamas positions and detonated, according to Israeli media.

Meanwhile, families of the 48 remaining hostages held by Hamas – 20 of whom are believed to be alive – protested near Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem on Tuesday and Wednesday, arguing that the offensive would endanger their loved ones.

“All day long, you boast about killing and destruction,” said Macabit Mayer, aunt of hostages Gali and Ziv Berman. “Bringing down buildings in Gaza – who are you bringing these buildings down on?”

“Could it be that you are bringing these buildings down right now on Gali and Ziv and all the souls left there – the living and the deceased?”

The offensive has been widely criticised, with UN human rights chief Volker Türk describing it as “totally and utterly unacceptable”.

On Wednesday, Saudi Arabia said it condemned the assault “in the strongest terms”.

Pope Leo XIV meanwhile said conditions for Palestinians in Gaza were “unacceptable” and repeated his call for a ceasefire.

“I am deeply close to the Palestinian people of Gaza, who continue to live in fear and under unacceptable conditions, forced yet again to leave their land,” he told his weekly audience at the Vatican.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared to offer tacit support for Israel’s offensive during a joint press conference with Netanyahu on Monday.

He said the US preferred a negotiated end to the war, but that “sometimes when you’re dealing with a group of savages like Hamas, that’s not possible”.

It came as a United Nations Commission of Inquiry concluded that Israel had committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

Among its findings were that Israeli security forces perpetrated sexual and gender-based violence, directly targeted children with the intention to kill them, and carried out a “systemic and widespread attack” on religious, cultural and education sites in Gaza.

Israel’s foreign ministry said it categorically rejected the report, denouncing it as “distorted and false”.

Israel launched its war in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 64,964 people have been killed by Israel during its campaign since then, almost half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

With famine having already been declared in Gaza City by a UN-backed food security body, the UN has warned that an intensification of the offensive will push civilians into “even deeper catastrophe”.

Additional reporting by Rushdi Abualouf