Israel launched a long-standingly planned ground attack on Gaza, whose troops were heavily fired over weeks and were pushed deep into a dense city that caused forced displacement of tens of thousands of Palestinians.
The release on Tuesday came the same day that Israel was found to be genocide in Gaza. Gaza is home to 2.3 million Palestinians.
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Israel’s decision to seize the city — home to over a million people — has attracted global condemnation. Turkiye called The Ground Assault a new phase in the “genocide plan.” Ankara warned that it would cause further mass displacement.
“Wanton Destroy”
Israeli Army officials estimated that while 40% of Gaza city residents, about 350,000, fled south, many buildings would be destroyed and families would regain their trapped relatives by digging into tiled rubs with naked hands.
Video tested by Al Jazeera showed a huge explosion and a pillar of black smoke as Israeli fighters struck the neighborhood of Tar Al Hawa. The blast lights up the streets where the decommissioned ins from previous attacks are already lined up.
Medical officials told Al Jazeera that at least 106 Palestinians have been killed since dawn, of which 91 have been killed in Gaza City alone. Emergency Services reported 20 people were killed in the bombing of the Daraj district, where the entire residential block was flattened.
The UN Human Rights Office, located in the occupied Palestinian territory, has accused the “unjust destruction” of Israeli forces in Gaza city of “equivalent to ethnic cleansing.”
Residents evacuated
In a report from Gaza city, Hani Mahmoud of Al Jazeera said Israel’s tactics were to “snap people who remain in the city.” He said the eastern part of Gaza had already been liquidated as “not only a building and physical structure, but also a densely populated area.” The residents who fled west have now found themselves evacuated again.
As the fighter planes floated low in the sky, family and rescuers closed piles of concrete and twisted steel. “There was heavy artillery fire here, making it difficult to contact people,” rescuer Bashir Hajaj told Al Jazeera.
“We took out a lot of martyrs and injured people. The situation was very difficult due to artillery fire, helicopters, missiles, drones and F-16 aircraft.”
Resident Al-Abd Zaqqut explained how the concrete block crushed his cousin on one of the strikes. “We don’t know if we should try to get her back or leave her,” he said. “We’re breaking concrete with our hands because we don’t have tools.”
Almawasi, a coastal land in southern Gaza, has been designated by Israel as a “safe zone,” but Israel has repeatedly bombed it, and Palestinian government officials have said it has not provided security.
Gaza’s Health Ministry warned that the area “has no fundamental need for life, such as water, food, etc. [and] He said medical services and the outbreak of illnesses spread across overcrowded camps.
Evacuated families face “when directly targeting and killing both inside the camp and when they try to leave them,” but hundreds of thousands of people risk returning north despite artillery fire.
Global condemnation
International criticism of Israel is growing, with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres calling the situation in Gaza “terrifying” on Tuesday, adding that war on Palestinian territory is unbearable morally, politically and legally.
Previously, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadehul called Israel’s escalation a “a step in the entire wrong direction.” The new UK foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, warned that the attack “will only bring about more bloodshed.”
Kaja Karas, head of foreign policy for the European Union, said the attacks “advanced the already desperate situation.”
“That would mean more death, more destruction, more evacuation,” Karasu wrote on social media platform X. She added that the bloc will present measures on Wednesday to pressure the Israeli government to change the course of the war in Gaza.
Western leaders, who have reaffirmed their support for Israel’s “right of self-defense,” following the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, have become increasingly critical of Israeli war in Gaza. Many rights groups and genocide scholars are now referred to as offensive genocides in the Israeli military. Last year, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over war crimes.
Within Israel, opposition leader Ia Rapid condemned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of ground invasion, describing it as “amateur and sloppy.”
Human rights doctors, Greece and Adara, Israeli rights groups, including the Israeli Civil Rights Association, said the “evacuation” order in Gaza city ordered forced evacuation.
“These threats are intended to replace the exhausted, hungry population with nowhere to escape,” the group told Haaretz. They emphasized that it was “violated by international law” and that it “does not stem from military necessity.”
