“The IDF strikes with an iron fist at the terrorist infrastructure and IDF soldiers are fighting bravely to create the conditions for the release of the hostages and the defeat of Hamas,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said. “We will not relent and we will not go back — until the completion of the mission.”

Israel said Gaza City is “the main stronghold of Hamas,” estimating that between 2,000 and 3,000 Hamas terrorists remain in the area. Israel’s air force struck more than 850 “terror targets” and “hundreds of terrorists” in Gaza City in the week leading up to the launch of the ground offensive, the IDF said. 

The Israeli military has established control over 40% of Gaza City.

More than 350,000 people out of Gaza City’s roughly 1 million residents had already left the area ahead of Israel’s campaign Tuesday, according to the IDF, because the military issued extensive evacuation warnings to civilians ahead of the assault. The IDF expects at least 200,000 Palestinians to disregard evacuation orders. 

The announcement Tuesday morning came as a United Nations commission released a report alleging Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip amounted to a genocide of Palestinians. 

NETANYAHU INVOKES 9/11 TO JUSTIFY QATAR STRIKE ON HAMAS

“On the basis of circumstantial evidence, the Commission finds that genocidal intent was the only reasonable inference that could be drawn based on the pattern of conduct of the Israeli authorities,” the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory’s report read. 

Israel rejected the report as “fake,” arguing that the authors amounted to “Hamas proxies” and relied “entirely on Hamas falsehoods, laundered and repeated by others.”