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Israeli tanks in Gaza City – reports
The Israeli public broadcaster, Kan, is citing Palestinian reports as saying there are Israeli tanks on the streets of Gaza City.
CNN is reporting that Israel has begun a ground incursion into the city, citing two Israeli officials.
It quoted one of the officials as saying the incursion would be “phased and gradual” at the beginning.
Updated at 02.07 EDT
Here are some of the latest images coming in from Gaza City as the Israeli military intensifies its bombardment and there are reports thousands of Palestinians are fleeing.
Smoke from a building after an Israeli strike in Gaza City. Photograph: Yousef Al Zanoun/APPalestinians move through Al-Rashid Street in Gaza City towards central Gaza using vehicles, horse carts and travelling on foot with their belongings. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty ImagesPalestinians around the rubble of destroyed building. Photograph: Yousef Al Zanoun/APPalestinians in Gaza City fleeing southward amid the attacks. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty ImagesSmoke rises after an Israeli airstrike on the outskirts of Gaza City, as seen from Israel’s side of the border. Photograph: Atef Safadi/EPAPalestinians amid the rubble of a Gaza City building destroyed in an Israeli strike. Photograph: Yousef Al Zanoun/APShare
US secretary of state Marco Rubio said as he headed to Qatar on Tuesday that he would ask it to stay on as a mediator in the Gaza war, a week after Israeli airstrikes against Hamas leaders in Doha.
Rubio expressed pessimism about a ceasefire deal as he flew out from Tel Aviv amid the IDF’s intensified bombardment of Gaza but told reporters that Qatar uniquely could help, Agence France-Presse reports.
“We’re going to ask Qatar to continue to do what they’ve done, and we appreciate very much, and that is, play a constructive role in trying to bring this to an end,” Rubio told reporters at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport.
“Obviously they have to decide if they want to do that after last week or not, but we want them to know that if there’s any country in the world that could help end this through a negotiation, it’s Qatar.”
Rubio said the US would work with Qatar to finalise a defence agreement soon despite the Israeli military action last week.
President Donald Trump told reporters in Washington that prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu “won’t be hitting” Qatar again.
Rubio made no such comments in Israel. Speaking next to Netanyahu, Rubio was reticent on praising Qatar, saying only that it was important to look forward after the strike.
The United Nations rapporteur on human rights in the occupied territories, Francesca Albanese, has said the aim of the Gaza City offensive is to make it uninhabitable.
“This is the last piece of Gaza that needs to be rendered unliveable,” she said on Monday.
But the Israeli mission to the UN rejected her remarks, blaming Hamas for the destruction, Julian Borger has reported, while Benjamin Netanyahu defended Israel’s tactics. “We’re not bringing down those towers [in Gaza City] to intimidate people,” the Israeli prime minister said. “Those towers are serving as Hamas strongholds.”
The Israeli military’s chief of staff, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir, is widely reported to have deep misgivings about the Gaza City offensive, arguing it would not destroy Hamas and would be costly in the lives of Israeli soldiers and hostages.
You can read Borger’s report here:
Before today’s Israeli military actions, the Israel Defense Forces have been destroying blocks of flats across Gaza City and ordering its inhabitants to evacuate, drawing international condemnation, as Julian Borger has reported.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have fled Gaza City for the south, but most of the estimated million people sheltering in the urban sprawl have opted to stay, either because they are unable to move or because they have nowhere to go.
Humanitarian agencies have said there is nowhere left in Gaza that is safe or suitable for displaced people, the report continues.
The UN relief agency, Unrwa, said 10 of its buildings had been hit by Israeli strikes in the past four days, including seven schools and two clinics.
Ther aftermath of an Israeli attack that destroyed al-Ghafri Tower in Gaza City. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty ImagesShare
Updated at 02.23 EDT
Palestinian residents have reported heavy strikes across Gaza City.
One overnight strike hit a house in the western side of Gaza City, killing at least five Palestinians including two children, according to the Shifa hospital, which the received the bodies.
Another strike hit at least three houses in the south-western side of the city, the Associated Press reports residents as saying. Medics were searching the rubble for survivors.
“It was a heavy night,” said Radwan Hayder, a Gaza City resident sheltering near the Shifa hospital.
The Israeli military has not responded to questions for hours over whether the expanded offensive has begun.
Updated at 02.22 EDT
As just reported, Marco Rubio warned Hamas today that it only has days to accept a ceasefire deal amid Israel’s bombardment of Gaza City.
“Our number one choice is that this ends through a negotiated settlement where Hamas says, ‘We’re going to demilitarise, we’re no longer going to pose a threat,’” the US secretary of state told reporters as he flew out of Israel to go to Qatar.
“Sometimes when you’re dealing with a group of savages like Hamas, that’s not possible, but we hope it can happen,” Rubio said.
Marco Rubio speaking to media at Ben Gurion international airport as he departs Tel Aviv on Tuesday. Photograph: Nathan Howard/AP
Agence France-Presse also reports that Rubio met with Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Monday and gave his support to the Israeli prime minister’s new offensive in Gaza City and its stated goal of eradicating Hamas.
Witnesses later told AFP the city was under heavy bombardment.
Updated at 00.58 EDT
Opening summary
Julian Borger
After a night of reports of intense bombardment of Gaza City, Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, appears to have declared a new phase in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) offensive against the already devastated urban sprawl where hundreds of thousands of people are sheltering.
“Gaza is burning,” Katz said on Tuesday morning. He added “the IDF is striking terror infrastructure with an iron fist”.
“IDF soldiers are fighting heroically to create the conditions for the release of the hostages and the defeat of Hamas,” Katz said. “We will not relent or turn back until the mission is complete.”
The escalation in the Israeli bombardment of Gaza City came immediately in the wake of a visit by the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who declared the Trump administration’s “unwavering support” for Israel.
As he left the country, heading for Qatar on Tuesday morning, Rubio told journalists: “The Israelis have begun to take operations there. So we think we have a very 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 to go.”
A Hamas statement issued in the early hours of Tuesday said the Trump administration “bears direct responsibility” for the conflict’s escalation through its “blatant bias” and it warned the expanded assault would “threaten the lives of the captured Israeli soldiers”.
There are still 48 hostages in Gaza, abducted by Hamas and allied militants in their attack on 7 October 2023, who have not been returned. Only 20 are thought to be still alive.
Hostage families have called for a protest later on Tuesday morning outside the Jerusalem residence of the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to demonstrate against the expanded offensive, and police have closed off the street.
Updated at 02.21 EDT