Israel's Ground Move on Gaza City Has Begun

The Israeli military began a ground offensive targeting Gaza City on Tuesday, slowly squeezing in on the Palestinian territory's largest city that has seen block after block already destroyed in the Israel-Hamas war. Residents still in the city were warned they must leave and head south, per the AP. An estimated 1 million Palestinians were living in the region around Gaza City before the evacuation warnings. The push marks yet another escalation in a conflict that has roiled the Middle East as any potential ceasefire feels even further out of reach despite months of diplomacy. While the military wouldn't offer a timeline for the offensive, Israeli media outlets suggested it could take months.

Earlier in the day, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz declared that "Gaza is burning" while independent experts commissioned by the United Nations' Human Rights Council announced that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, joining a rising international chorus of such accusations. Israel—which reportedly hopes to control all of the Gaza Strip except for a large swath along the coast—fiercely rejected the claim, calling the experts' report "distorted and false." Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio left Israel and arrived in the energy-rich nation of Qatar for talks with its ruling emir whose country is still incensed over Israel's strike last week that killed five Hamas members and a local security official.

Arab and Muslim nations denounced the strike at a summit Monday but stopped short of any major action targeting Israel, highlighting the challenge of diplomatically pressuring any change in Israel's conduct. Egypt, however, escalated its language against Israel, referring to it as the "enemy" for the first time in years. "We have a very short window of time in which a deal can happen," Rubio said. "It's a key moment—an important moment." Rubio said "a negotiated settlement" still remains the best option while acknowledging the dangers an intensified military campaign posed to Gaza. "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," he said. "But I think time, unfortunately, is running out."