The Gaza Strip came under heavy bombing overnight on Monday, as Israel launched a barrage of strikes towards Gaza City, the enclave’s biggest city.
Defence Minister Israel Katz wrote on X on Tuesday that “Gaza is burning,” reaffirming Israel’s stance that it will not back down until the completion of the mission.
The Shifa Hospital received the bodies of 12 people killed, and at least 90 others were injured, after a strike hit multiple houses in the west of the city, the hospital’s managing director Dr Rami Mhanna said.
It comes amid reports that Israel launched its ground offensive on Gaza’s once most populous city, forcibly displacing thousands of Palestinians to the overcrowded south.
US top diplomat Marco Rubio warned there is now only a “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 so it’s a key moment, an important moment,” the US secretary of state said, speaking to journalists before his departure to Qatar.
Last week, Israel struck a residential area in the Qatari capital Doha, in what it said was a targeted strike at Hamas’ top officials. The move has been condemned internationally, including by the United Nations Security Council.
Rubio acknowledged the dangers Israel’s intensified military campaign posed to Gaza, and said the US would like to see a negotiated settlement soon.
“The only thing worse than a war is a protracted one that goes on forever and ever,” Rubio said. “At some point, this has to end. At some point, Hamas has to be defanged, and we hope it can happen through a negotiation. But I think time, unfortunately, is running out.”
Both Rubio and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the elimination of Hamas and the release of the 48 hostages, 20 of whom are believed to still be alive, is the only way to end Israel’s offensive in Gaza.
Hamas said it would only free the hostages in return for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, a lasting ceasefire and a withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Strip.
Israel is committing genocide, UN probe finds
A team of independent experts commissioned by the United Nations’ Human Rights Council issued a report on Tuesday, which concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, calling on the international community to end the atrocities and take steps to punish those responsible for it.
“It is clear that there is an intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza through acts that meet the criteria set forth in the Genocide Convention,” Commission Chair Navi Pillay said in a statement.
According to the 72-page report, Israeli forces committed “committed four of the five genocidal acts defined by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide”.
The report said the Israeli authorities are responsible for “killing,” “causing serious bodily or mental harm,” “deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the Palestinians, and “imposing measures intended to prevent births.”
The commission also accused Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Netanyahu, and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant of inciting genocide.
Israel has immediately slammed the UN report, categorically rejecting “the distorted and false report” and calling for “the immediate abolition of the Commission of Inquiry,” the country’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement Tuesday.
According to the statement, the inquiry resulted in a “report that relies entirely on Hamas falsehoods,” while the authors were proxies of the militant group “whose horrific statements about Jews have been condemned worldwide.”
Throughout the course of the nearly two-year-long war, the Israeli government has maintained that it has conducted its military operations in Gaza in accordance with international law.
