The long-anticipated military assault is aimed, the Israelis said, at routing the militants of Hamas, but it deepened the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.
After intensified operations over the past week, the military said troops would gradually advance into the city, believing that at least 2,000 Hamas fighters remain there.
A damaged building in Doha, Qatar, last week after an Israeli strike. Arab foreign ministers gathered on Sunday to debate how to respond to Israel’s missile attack.
Israel and Iraq confirmed the release of Elizabeth Tsurkov, a Russian-Israeli graduate student at Princeton who was kidnapped in Iraq in 2023 by the militant group Kataib Hezbollah.
Tents housing displaced Palestinians in Gaza City earlier this week. Israel is preparing for a major attack on Gaza City, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are living.
Bezalel Smotrich said Israel should take over most of the territory, partly in response to growing international moves to recognize a Palestinian state.
Hamas did not immediately comment on the Israeli military’s claim that Abu Obeida, one of the armed group’s best-known officials in the Arab world, had been killed.
One attack was an effort to assassinate Abu Obeida, one of Hamas’s best-known spokesmen, Israeli officials said. It was not immediately clear if that succeeded.
Ahmed al-Rahawi was the prime minister of the Houthi-controlled government in Yemen. He was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Thursday in the capital, Sana.
Worn down by hundreds of days of military service, fewer Israeli reservists are turning up for duty. Others are refusing to fight in a war they no longer believe in.
Israeli military reservists and veterans, demanding an immediate end to the war in Gaza and the return of hostages, demonstrated in Tel Aviv earlier this month.
Palestinian families fleeing their homes north of Gaza City on Monday, after Israeli military officials announced plans for a full-scale assault on the city.
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