The Israeli military was reported to strike several Gaza buildings Monday morning, hours after Defense Minister Israel Katz said that “a powerful hurricane will hit the skies of Gaza City today, and the roofs of the towers of terror will shake.”
There was no immediate comment by the Israel Defense Forces.
In recent days the IDF has conducted several strikes on Gaza City high-rises it said were used by Hamas to conduct operations against troops, after warning residents to flee. On Monday, too, the army put out a warning for one such building.
The strikes come as Israel continued to set the stage for a major offensive to take over Gaza City in the northern Strip. Beyond their operational justification, the strikes have also been interpreted as part of an effort to motivate civilians to leave the city in advance of the takeover operation.
Some one million residents are believed to have been sheltering in Gaza City — described by Jerusalem as one of Hamas’s last strongholds — prior to the latest evacuations; Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that some 100,000 people had left so far.
“This is the last warning to the murderers and rapists of Hamas in Gaza, and in luxury hotels abroad: Release the hostages, and put down your weapons — or Gaza will be destroyed and you will be obliterated,” Katz wrote in a post on X.
“The IDF is continuing with its plans — and we are preparing to expand the maneuver to defeat Gaza.”
At least 48 people were killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza on Sunday, while another 10 were killed in strikes around Gaza City overnight, the Strip’s Hamas-run civil defense agency reported. Its numbers do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
The new military campaign, dubbed “Gideon’s Chariots B,” has drawn fierce opposition inside Israel, both from the families of many of those held hostage in the Strip and, according to widespread reports, from security officials and military brass who have warned it will endanger the remaining captives.
Forty-eight hostages remain in Gaza, of whom some 20 are believed to be alive.
US President Donald Trump on Sunday gave what he declared was his “last warning” to Hamas to agree to his terms for ending the war, which has raged since the terror group attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.
Trump added that Israel had accepted his proposed ceasefire and hostage-release agreement. The message, sent in a social media post, didn’t specify what those terms are. But Channel 12 reported Sunday that the current US proposal envisions the release of all hostages on the first day of a truce and, if subsequent talks bear fruit, the end of the war in Gaza.
Israel has not confirmed that it accepted Trump’s offer. But it is “very seriously considering” the proposal, according to a source close to Netanyahu.
In its response late Sunday to Trump’s comments, Hamas said it was ready to immediately return to the negotiating table.
The terror group asserted that it was “ready to immediately sit at the negotiating table to discuss the release of all prisoners in exchange for a clear declaration to end the war, a total withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and creation of a committee of independent Palestinians to run the Gaza Strip.”
Israel has said it will only end the war if all the hostages are released, Hamas disarms, Gaza is demilitarized, and a new government of the Strip is put in place that includes neither Hamas nor the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority.
Also on Monday, the United Nations human rights chief condemned Israel for its “mass killing” of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and “hindering of sufficient lifesaving aid,” saying the country had a case to answer before the International Court of Justice.
Volker Turk, who heads the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), stopped short of describing the Gaza war as an unfolding genocide, as hundreds of UN staff had urged him to do.
Israel strongly rejects such assertions, arguing it takes care to avoid harm to civilians despite terrorists operating from within their midst.
But in his opening address to the 60th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Turk expressed horror at what he called “the open use of genocidal rhetoric” and “disgraceful dehumanization” of Palestinians by senior Israeli officials.
“Israel’s mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza; its infliction of indescribable suffering and wholesale destruction; its hindering of sufficient lifesaving aid and the ensuing starvation of civilians; its killing of journalists; and its commission of war crime upon war crime, are shocking the conscience of the world,” said Turk.
“Israel has a case to answer before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the evidence continues to mount,” Turk said, referring to the ICJ’s ruling in January that Israel had a legal obligation to prevent acts of genocide (though it did not accuse it of committing such acts).
Israel cited its right to self-defense following the deadly October 7, 2023, Hamas attack that killed 1,200 people and resulted in the capture of 251 hostages. It has vowed to continue the campaign until Hamas is eliminated as a ruling power in Gaza that can continue to threaten it.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 64,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed over 22,000 combatants in battle as of August and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 onslaught.
Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.
Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 461.
Turk also addressed human rights and the international order worldwide, saying they were being undermined by “disturbing trends” including the glorification of violence and the retreat of some states from the multilateral system.
“Rules of war are being shredded – with virtually no accountability,” he said.
Turk condemned what he said were widespread violations following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine as well as in conflicts in Sudan, Myanmar and the Democratic Republic of Congo.