Israel’s military began expanded ground operations in Gaza City overnight on Tuesday, marking the latest phase of its battle against Hamas terrorists embedded in the area.
The U.S.-backed expansion of the Israel Defense Forces appears to be Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s biggest ground offensive in Gaza since the war was first triggered by Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack. The IDF’s Operation Gideon’s Chariots II, the latest maneuver to occupy Gaza City, included two divisions, with a third expected to join.
“The IDF strikes with an iron fist at the terrorist infrastructure and IDF soldiers are fighting bravely to create the conditions for the release of the hostages and the defeat of Hamas,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said. “We will not relent and we will not go back — until the completion of the mission.”
Israel said Gaza City is “the main stronghold of Hamas,” estimating that between 2,000 and 3,000 Hamas terrorists remain in the area. Israel’s air force struck more than 850 “terror targets” and “hundreds of terrorists” in Gaza City in the week leading up to the launch of the ground offensive, the IDF said.
The Israeli military has established control over 40% of Gaza City.
More than 350,000 people out of Gaza City’s roughly 1 million residents had already left the area ahead of Israel’s campaign Tuesday, according to the IDF, because the military issued extensive evacuation warnings to civilians ahead of the assault. The IDF expects at least 200,000 Palestinians to disregard evacuation orders.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday weighed in on the breakdown of negotiations between Israel and the Hamas terrorist organization.
“We’re going to see what happens because I hear Hamas is trying to use the old human shield deal, and if they do that, they’re going to be in big trouble,” he said. “They put it out two days ago that they’re going to use the hostages as human shields.”
Hamas has been accused of using hostages as human shields because the remaining kidnapped Israelis are being used as leverage to prevent Israel from wiping Hamas out entirely. They have also been accused of using Gaza citizens as human shields because they allegedly conduct military operations and store military equipment in civilian locations, and prevent civilians from leaving the war-torn region even when warned of an imminent attack.
The announcement Tuesday morning came as a United Nations commission released a report alleging Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip amounted to a genocide of Palestinians.
“On the basis of circumstantial evidence, the Commission finds that genocidal intent was the only reasonable inference that could be drawn based on the pattern of conduct of the Israeli authorities,” the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory’s report read.
Israel rejected the report as “fake,” arguing that the authors amounted to “Hamas proxies” and relied “entirely on Hamas falsehoods, laundered and repeated by others.”
Leading Israeli security officials, including IDF chief of staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir and the heads of Mossad, Shin Bet, and military intelligence, advised Netanyahu against launching the operation, according to Axios. They warned it could endanger the lives of Israeli hostages held in Gaza, lead to heavy IDF casualties, fail to dismantle Hamas, and force Israel into direct military rule over Palestinians in Gaza.
U.N. human rights chief Volker Türk called on Israel to “stop the carnage,” and foreign ministers from several countries, including the United Kingdom and Germany, have denounced Israel’s military campaign in Gaza City.
The United States backs the operation, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio meeting with Netanyahu and senior members of his Cabinet hours before the latest offensive launched this week. However, the Trump administration has made it clear it wants to see the conflict halted as quickly as possible in a deal that sees all Hamas-held hostages returned to Israel. About 20 hostages held by Hamas are believed to be alive in Gaza. Trump issued a warning Monday evening to the terrorist group that it is not to harm the captives or use them as “human shields” ahead of the latest Israeli operation.
“We have to remember who we’re dealing with here — and that is a group of people that have dedicated their lives to violence and barbarism,” Rubio said at a briefing with Netanyahu.
“And when you’re confronting that hard reality, as much as we may wish that there be a sort of a peaceful, diplomatic way to end it, and we’ll continue to explore and be dedicated to it, we also have to be prepared for the possibility that that’s not going to happen,” the secretary of state continued, adding he believes there is a “very short window of time” for securing a ceasefire deal after Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza City started.
Rubio said Tuesday morning that he met with Qatar’s leader to discuss a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel. Qatar is acting as a third-party mediator as it holds ties to both Hamas and the U.S.
QATAR DEMANDS RETALIATION AGAINST ISRAEL AFTER DOHA STRIKE
The secretary of state thanked Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al Thani for “ongoing mediation efforts to broker a peace deal between Israel and Hamas and to bring the hostages home.” The U.S. has been working to keep lines of communication open for a deal after Qatar became enraged by an Israeli strike on its capital city targeting Hamas leaders.
Speaking of his hopes for a ceasefire, Rubio said Monday, “We don’t have months anymore, and we probably have days and maybe a few weeks. So it’s a key moment, an important moment.”
