The Israeli military began a ground offensive in Gaza City, the Israel Defense Forces said on Tuesday, with two IDF divisions moving toward the city. A third was expected to join them.
In images taken from the Israel-Gaza border, plumes of smoke could be seen rising above the city, which is the largest in the Gaza Strip. Large explosions were reported across the city.
About 450,000 people had evacuated Gaza City as of Thursday, according to the IDF.
Gaza City push 'of decisive importance,' IDF chief says
The Chief of the General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, said Tuesday that expanding the ground operation in Gaza City "is a move of decisive importance for the continuation of the war."
A convoy of Israeli tanks is deployed at Israel's border with the Gaza Strip on Sept. 16, 2025.
Menahem Kahana/AFP via Getty Images
"Yesterday we expanded the ground operation into the center of Gaza City, which constitutes a vital area for Hamas," Zamir told ground troops, as quoted in an IDF readout.
"The mission rests on your shoulders: to decisively defeat the Gaza City brigade," Zamir said, referring to the local Hamas unit.
The maneuver in Gaza City is a significant step to carry out our highest moral and important duty -- to return all the hostages home and to dismantle the military and governing capabilities of the Hamas terrorist organization," he added.
"The threat has changed, but so have we; we come better prepared," Zamir said.
-ABC News' Morgan Winsor
Sep 16, 2025, 7:28 AM EDT
Palestinian foreign ministry urges 'urgent international intervention'
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry urged "exceptional and urgent international intervention to protect civilians in Gaza City" as the Israel Defense Forces launched a major offensive operation there overnight.
Displaced Palestinians flee northern Gaza along the coastal road toward the south on Sept. 16, 2025.
Abdel Kareem Hana/AP
"The failure of international diplomacy to stop the war is suspicious and unjustified," the ministry said in a post to X on Tuesday morning.
The ministry accused the Israeli government of a "deliberate targeting of civilians, turning Gaza City into a mass graveyard and an uninhabitable land, as is the case with the broader area of the sector, and pushing nearly a million Palestinians into displacement and movement within a tight circle of death."
The ministry, which is based in the West Bank, called on foreign powers to "ensure an immediate cessation of the war and aggression, the protection of civilians, the prevention of their displacement from the sector, the immediate release of hostages and prisoners and the sustainable delivery of aid."
Sep 16, 2025, 7:17 AM EDT
Israel committing genocide in Gaza, UN commission says, findings Israel says are 'fake'
Israel's action in the Gaza Strip amount to a genocide, a United Nations commission said in a report released on Tuesday, a finding that an Israeli ministry rejected as "fake."
The Independent International Commission of Inquiry, which operates under the U.N Human Rights Council, also wrote in a 72-page report that it found that some "statements made by Israeli authorities are direct evidence of genocidal intent."
"Additionally, 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 report said.
Chair of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry South African judge Navi Pillay, right, speaks during a press conference in Geneva on Sept. 16, 2025.
Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images
It added, "Thus, the Commission concludes that the Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces have the genocidal intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip."
The Israeli Foreign Ministry in a statement sought to reject the assertions, saying the authors of the report amounted to "Hamas proxies."
"The report relies entirely on Hamas falsehoods, laundered and repeated by others," the ministry said in part in a post on social media on Tuesday.
The report was researched and written by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which was formed by the Human Right Council in 2021, as an independent investigative body.
The commission's findings are independent of the proceedings at the International Court of Justice, which would be tasked with making "a final determination in the future on Israel's responsibility under the Genocide Convention," the report said.
-ABC News' Somayeh Malekian, Jordana Miller and Kevin Shalvey
Sep 16, 2025, 7:14 AM EDT
59 killed in Gaza as IDF offensive begins, health officials say
The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said in a post to Telegram on Tuesday that at least 59 people were killed and 386 people injured in the previous 24 hours, during which time Israel Defense Forces units began their offensive on Gaza City.
Three of the deaths recorded in the previous 24 hours were a result of malnutrition, the ministry said. A total of 428 people have died from malnutrition, the ministry said.
The ministry did not specify where in the strip the recent deaths occurred.
At least 64,964 people have been killed and 165,312 people injured since the conflict began on Oct. 7, 2023, the ministry said.
