1 of 5 | Members of the Palestinian rescue services carry a wounded person from a residential building struck by Israeli shelling during a large-scale Israeli military operation in Gaza City on Tuesday. Photo by Omar Ishtiwi/UPI | License Photo
Israeli ground forces continue to penetrate deep into Gaza City, with tanks, drones and gunfire rocking the area.
Since dawn Tuesday, at least 34 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli attacks across Gaza, Al Jazeera reported.
CNN’s on-site journalists reported heavy shelling, explosions and the sound of gunfire in the city Tuesday. Images show tanks in the west of the territory’s largest city, in an area known as Beach Camp.
Tanks were also filmed south of the Islamic University on Monday. The ground assault began on Sunday.
The Israeli Defense Forces ordered the city’s residents and those displaced there to leave earlier this month. The Israeli military told CNN Tuesday that 640,000 people have left the city since.
In New York, the United Nations General Assembly is meeting, with Palestine as a popular topic.
At an international peace summit hosted by France and Saudi Arabia on Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron formally recognized Palestine. His announcement was joined by the countries of Andorra, Belgium, Luxembourg, Malta, San Marino, and Australia, Britain and Canada made their own declarations Sunday, joining a growing list of other countries doing so.
“The time has come for Israel to live in peace and security,” Macron said, sharing his support for a two-state solution. “The time has come to give justice to the Palestinian people and to recognize the state of Palestine.”
Trump said recognizing Palestine “would be a reward” for Hamas, which still holds hostages from its Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. About 20 are believed to be alive.
Israeli units are remotely detonating armored vehicles packed with explosives to bring down buildings, according to videos and images geolocated by CNN. The IDF told CNN that, “Hamas converts such buildings into combat zones used for ambushes, command and control centers, weapon depots, fighting tunnels, observation posts,” and other uses.
The IDF reported Tuesday that an officer, Maj. Shahar Netanel Bozaglo, 27, was killed during fighting in Gaza City on Monday.
Residents and reporters have witnessed lots of drones and Israeli attack helicopters.
“Lately, every explosion has felt like an earthquake, not a metaphor, but a literal shaking of the ground beneath us,” Asem Alnabih, a spokesperson for Gaza Municipality, wrote on X on Tuesday.
There are still hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza City, unable or unwilling to move south.
Abu Wissam, who has lost his home and his son, is sleeping in the streets.
“If I had the money to evacuate and rent a place to stay … I would leave. But now there are gangs in the south charging people to sleep in the streets,” he told CNN. “Whoever should die will die, here or in the south, our fate will come wherever we are,” he said despairingly.
Displaced Palestinians head south amid ground offensive on Gaza City
Palestinians flee south from Gaza City amid intensified Israeli shelling during a military operation in central Gaza, on September 18, 2025. Photo by Hassan Al-Jadi/UPI | License Photo
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