Israel-Gaza live updates: France, UK, Canada recognize Palestinian statehood

The number of casualties in Gaza has already increased since Israel began its ground offensive on Gaza City, according to New York doctor and trauma specialist Dr. Michael Falk, who is providing care in Gaza for charity MedGlobal.

There have been "two mass casualty incidents" due to the IDF offensive in the last three days alone, Falk said. He has been based at Nasser Hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis for three weeks.

"If this ground offensive lasts months, it's going to be horrible," Falk said. "As soon as winter sets in you'll see more waterborne diseases, more respiratory illnesses, and people are already chronically malnourished. They can't heal. Post-operative wound infections are horrendous, and mortality is far higher than in the U.S."

Falk said there simply isn't enough room for the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled Gaza City to live.

"There's literally no place for 350,000 refugees to go," he said.

"Mid-Gaza is a tent city from the Mediterranean to the eastern border. You can buy a tent for $400, rent the land, and then somehow feed your family -- but that's all while the war is going on around you," he added.

On Wednesday, he said he treated someone who had been "blown up" in an area of Gaza considered as the "green zone," whereas he says the area he works in is considered to be a more dangerous "yellow zone."

"One of my residents went home last night and his wife's entire family, aside from his father, were killed in the so-called safe zone. We had an ambulance driver shot outside the hospital this week. He died," he said.

"There really is no safe space in Gaza," he said.

Nasser Hospital is supposed to hold 300 patients. The hospital currently has more than a thousand, he said.

Falk has worked on multiple occasions in three conflict zones: Iraq in 2017, Ukraine after Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022 and in Gaza.

"Gaza is the worst I've ever seen," he said. "This feels indiscriminate. There is no reprieve, no calm place to go. It's constant and everywhere."

-ABC News' Tom Soufi Burridge

More than 400,000 Palestinians have evacuated Gaza City as Israel continues to expand its ground operation, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). This leaves an estimated 600,000 people still in the city.

The IDF said 25 towers were destroyed in Gaza City on Tuesday after the expanded ground offensive began, Israel Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a post on X.

According to Katz, they were "terror towers" destroyed "in order to remove any threat of sniping from the maneuvering forces."

"If Hamas does not release the hostages and disarm, Gaza will be destroyed and become a monument to the atrocities and murderers of Hamas," Katz said.

-ABC News' Jordana Miller

The European Commission has proposed suspending "trade concessions" with Israel and sanctioning "extremist ministers" in Israel and "violent settlers," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a post on X Wednesday.

While the move proposes putting "bilateral support to Israel on hold," Von der Leyen said, this would not impact Europe's work with "Israeli civil society or Yad Vashem," referring to Israel's memorial institution to Holocaust victims.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz responded to the recommendation, calling the move "morally and politically distorted," in a post on X.

More than 65,000 Palestinians have been killed since Oct. 7, 2023, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.

Hospitals across the Gaza Strip recorded 98 deaths, including seven people who were seeking aid, in the last 24 hours due to Israeli military actions, the health ministry added.

Since the war began in October 2023, a total of 65,062 Palestinians have been killed. This includes 2,504 people who died while trying to access food at distribution points across the strip since May 28.

In addition to casualties from strikes and gunfire, Gaza hospitals also reported four new deaths caused by famine and malnutrition in the past 24 hours. At least 432 Palestinians -- including 146 children -- suffered hunger-related deaths since Oct. 7, 2023, the Gaza Health Ministry reported.

-ABC News' Samy Zyara