Jerusalem/Geneva (EFE).- Israel began the first stages of a long-awaited ground assault on Gaza City on Tuesday, the same day a UN investigative commission formally declared that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in the enclave.
After weeks of heavy bombardments, Israeli tanks and troops rolled into Gaza City overnight, prompting thousands of civilians to flee south.
“Gaza is burning,” Defense Minister Israel Katz wrote on X early Tuesday, hours before the military confirmed the start of the operation.
Israel predicts months-long offensive
Military spokesperson Effie Dervin warned that seizing control of Gaza City will be a drawn-out campaign.
“We estimate that taking control of the city and its centers of gravity will take several months, and several more months until it is completely destroyed, or even longer,” Defrin said in a virtual press briefing.
Defrin added that the army was under orders to avoid harming the 48 hostages still held in the enclave.
“They are always before our eyes,” he said. “We are taking every measure, including intelligence means, sparing no effort to understand the situation.”
Relatives of the hostages staged new protests since Monday outside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence, accusing the government of sacrificing” their loved ones and Israeli soldiers.
Mass displacement amid fierce bombardment
The overnight assault combined airstrikes, artillery fire, drone, and helicopter attacks.
Refugee camps, including Shati, Tal al Hawa, Al Daraj, Al Maghribi, Al Sabra, Sheikh Radwan, and Al Karama, were struck.
According to Gaza’s Civil Defense, 75,000 people have been left homeless since Israel intensified strikes 10 days ago, while 150,000 have fled south.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported 48,000 displacements from Gaza City between Saturday and Monday, bringing the total since mid-August to more than 190,000.
UN Commission accuses Israel of genocide Coinciding with the assault, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry accused Israel’s leadership of inciting and committing genocide.
The report named Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, concluding that Israel had carried out four of the five acts defined as genocidal under international law.
It includes: killings, causing serious bodily or mental harm, inflicting living conditions intended to destroy a group, and imposing measures to prevent births.
Despite the commission’s findings, UN Secretary-General António Guterres avoided using the term genocide.
“The legal determination of genocide is not within the Secretary-General’s competence,” he told reporters, while calling events in Gaza “horrific.”
The European Union took a similar stance.
“Determining whether international crimes, including genocide, have been committed is the competence of national courts as well as international courts with jurisdiction,” said EU foreign affairs spokesperson Anouar El Anouni.
Two courts in The Hague are currently examining the conflict: the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which is hearing a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of genocide, and the International Criminal Court (ICC), investigating alleged war crimes by both Israel and Hamas.
Meanwhile, Hamas denounced Tuesday’s Israeli incursion as “ethnic cleansing.”
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