Israel expands Gaza assault, deploys reservists to seize Gaza City

Israel launched intensified air and ground operations across the Gaza Strip this week and began mobilizing tens of thousands of reservists as it presses ahead with plans to seize Gaza City, health officials and Israeli authorities said, killing dozens, displacing many more and deepening an acute humanitarian crisis. The moves came amid growing international condemnation and a formal declaration by leading genocide scholars that Israel’s conduct in Gaza meets the legal threshold for genocide, an allegation Israel has strenuously rejected.

Hospitals and Gaza civil defence agencies reported heavy strikes in and around Gaza City from Monday through Wednesday, with daily death tolls varying by source. Local health authorities, which do not distinguish between combatants and civilians, put the overall death toll since Oct. 7, 2023 at roughly 63,000 to 64,000, and said hundreds were killed in recent days alone. Israeli and independent counts differ and Israel has not published an alternative overall toll. Gaza medics also reported rising malnutrition deaths; the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification declared famine in northern Gaza in August.