According to locals, tanks are stationed outside Gaza City in preparation for a possible assault on the city’s central area. Israel said on Tuesday that its forces were moving far into Gaza City. “The IDF is fighting in the center of Gaza City for the first time in decades. At the core of terrorism,” Major General Yaron Finkelman, the Israeli Defense Forces’ Southern Command’s commanding commander, said to reporters close to the Gaza border.

“Every day and every hour, the forces are killing militants, exposing tunnels, destroying weapons, and continuing onward to enemy centers.”

A month ago, Israel said that it had surrounded Gaza City, which is home to about one-third of the 2.3 million people living in the Gaza Strip, and that it was going to strike the city to destroy Hamas rebels who had attacked Israeli villages on the other side of the border.

Although there was no evidence on the ground that Israeli soldiers had advanced farther into the city, military spokesman Richard Hecht speculated that the surrounding troops might be conducting raids inside.

He said, “I’m not going to talk about how we are operationally acting from within our encirclement around Gaza City,” when asked if such raids had occurred. All I can say is that you are heading correctly.”

The Hamas military wing said that its fighters were severely wounding and damaging the approaching Israeli army.

Neither side’s assertions from the battlefield could be independently confirmed.

A MONTH-LONG RAGE

According to Israeli counts, the war started on October 7 when Hamas terrorists broke through the border encircling Gaza and murdered 1,400 Israelis, the majority of whom were civilians, and kidnapped almost 200 more. Over 10,000 Palestinians have died as a result of Israel’s relentless bombardment of Hamas-run Gaza since then, with approximately 40% of the deaths being children, according to estimates made by local health experts.

“It has been one full month of carnage, of incessant suffering, bloodshed, destruction, outrage, and despair,” U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Volcker Turk said in a statement at the start of a journey to the region, during which he would visit the Rafah border with Egypt, the sole conduit for supplies.

Israel allowed citizens of Gaza City a window of time to evacuate, from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. According to locals, Israeli soldiers have been chiefly using artillery and airstrikes to pave the way for their ground advance, with tanks operating primarily at night.

Referring to the marshes that split the slender coastal region in half, the military declared, “For your safety, take this next opportunity to move south beyond Wadi Gaza.”

According to Gaza’s interior ministry, 900,000 Palestinians continue to seek refuge in northern Gaza, which includes Gaza City.

“It was the riskiest excursion of my life. From point blank (range), we could see the tanks. We observed decaying bodily parts. Adam Fayez Zeyara, a local, uploaded a photo of himself driving out of Gaza City and said, “We saw death.”

Although the northern portion of Gaza is the target of Israel’s military action, there have also been attacks in the southern part. At least 23 Palestinians were killed in two distinct Israeli airstrikes that occurred early on Tuesday in the south of Gaza, in the cities of Khan Younis and Rafah, according to Palestinian health authorities.

“We are civilians,” Ahmed Ayesh said after emerging unscathed from the debris of a Khan Younis home where eleven people, according to health officials, had perished. “This is the bravery of so-called Israel; they show their might and power against civilians, babies inside, kids inside, and the elderly.”

While he was speaking, the girl who was buried up to her waist in the rubble was being freed by rescuers at the residence using their hands.

Israel wants an “indefinite period” of rule.

Regarding its long-term intentions for Gaza, should it succeed in its effort to overthrow Hamas, Israel has been elusive thus far. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Israel will aim to assume security responsibilities for Gaza “for an indefinite period” in some of his first candid remarks on the matter.

“We’ve seen what happens when we don’t have that security responsibility,” he told ABC News on American television.

After Israel withdrew its settlements and forces from the Gaza Strip in 2005, Hamas overthrew the Palestinian Authority, which had limited autonomy in the West Bank, another Israeli-occupied region, and established itself as the dominant force in the Gaza Strip.

“Our forces must not shed blood to give the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian Authority wrapped in a bow,” stated Simcha Rothman, a politician in Netanyahu’s religious-nationalist party, on social media. Security will only be restored by total Israeli control and demilitarization of the strip.”

President Joe Biden, according to White House spokesperson John Kirby, is against Israeli reoccupation because “it’s not good for Israel; it’s not good for the Israeli people,” Kirby told CNN.

Kirby stated that Secretary of State Antony Blinken had discussed possible post-conflict governance arrangements for Gaza with regional leaders, adding, “Whatever the situation, it can’t be what it was on October 6.” No way is it, Hamas.”

Merav Michaeli, the head of the opposition Labor Party in Israel, stated that to ensure Israel’s security once Hamas is militarily routed, Israel must collaborate with the U.S., Arab nations, and the P.A. on a strategy for a “political victory” in Gaza. Calls for an end to hostilities have been rejected by both Israel and Hamas. Israel claims that freeing the hostages should come first. As long as Gaza is being attacked, Hamas claims it will not give them up or cease fighting. Israel maintains that a ceasefire would benefit Hamas, a view Washington has supported.

“It’s not like my kids did anything wrong.”

Over the past month, unceasing horror stories of agony suffered by civilians on both sides have polarized opinion throughout the world.

Avihai Brodutch, of Shefayim, Israel, spoke of his 31-day misery following Hamas’ kidnapping of his wife and three children from Kfar Aza, a kibbutz located around three kilometers (two miles) from Gaza.

“My kids, they’re so young, and they’ve done nothing wrong to anybody,” he remarked, referring to his boys Uriah, age four, and Yuval, age eight. His daughter, Ofri, is ten years old.

Hundreds of Gazans with foreign passports have been allowed to leave through the Rafah border into Egypt since last week. However, the vast majority are imprisoned inside the strip, and those who have managed to get out spoke of their agony at having to say goodbye to loved ones.

According to Palestinian-American Suzan Beseiso, 31, who was able to escape Gaza and go to Egypt last week, “It’s just a horror movie that keeps going on repeat,” she told Reuters in Cairo. “No rest. Absent food. Absent water. You are always fleeing from one location to another.”