Image source, Reuters

Earlier today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel had launched a "powerful operation" in Gaza City, following reports of intense overnight bombardment.

Palestinians described last night as "hell" and one of the "most difficult" they have faced. It was later confirmed by the Israeli military that a new ground offensive had been launched there.

Thousands of Palestinians are now fleeing the city and attempting to move south. For many, this is not the first time they have been displaced by the war.

Huge columns of people have been seen streaming down a singular coastal road to the centre of the Strip in donkey carts, rickshaws, vehicles strapped-high with belongings, or on foot.

"Leaving everything behind was the hardest decision I've ever made," one Gazan told us.

Also today, a United Nations commission of inquiry said Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza - here's more detail.

The report is intended to be detailed and damning. This is a blunt indictment of Israel's actions in Gaza, writes the BBC's international editor Jeremy Bowen.

• We are ending our live coverage now. Follow further updates in our news story

Ethar Shalaby
BBC News Arabic

From inside a make-shift tent in al-Rimal neighbourhood in Gaza City, Amjad al-Nawati, a 33-year-old Palestinian, tells me over the phone that he and his family have their backpacks packed with essentials, and are ready to flee towards al-Nussairat – the closest point to which they can head to after Israel started its ground operation last night.

“I can see many of the people around me in neighbouring tents have fled already, but I am waiting until I see the tanks coming closer to us,” al-Nawati, who used to work as a therapist, says.

He says the “ear-splitting sounds of the heavy bombardment” all night have made his disabled brother, Ahmed, aged 25 suffer tantrums and a deprived sleep.

“He (Ahmed) kept putting his hand on his ears all night and trembling from fear. I had to calm him and tell him we are leaving soon. It was one of the worst nights in his life,” al-Nawati says.

I also spoke to others who have already fled Gaza City for safer areas.

Essam Shawa, a 40-year-old carpenter, left with his family of four from Gaza City to Deir al-Balah last night. They walked for around 12 hours, taking only short breaks.

“We left without even taking our things. No clothes, no belongings, nothing! It was miraculous how we managed to survive the shelling in al-Tuffah and get out. It was a long walk and we are all weary,” he says.

As they were fleeing, Shawa said he could hear the sounds of the Israeli tanks, “which meant they were present close to us, but we didn’t see it”. Other family members of Shawa are still unable to leave the al-Tuffah area due to the heavy shelling, he says.

I ask him about his wife and he says: “My wife and kids are now sitting beside me am currently sitting in a tent in Deir al-Balah and we are desperate not knowing what we will do.”

Shawa’s wife Ayat tells me her children “paid the heaviest price” during their journey .“It was hard for me to find a place for them to go to the toilet or feed them. They kept crying all the way and it was a long treacherous trip”.

Alice Cuddy
Senior international reporter

Nurse Hanaa Almadhoun has been messaging me over WhatsApp from Gaza City as she tries to evacuate her three children.

There is “continuous bombing, fires, constant threats, everything is bad,” she writes.

She says she had been living on the same street as a tower block destroyed in Israeli bombing yesterday.

“I’m trying to evacuate my family but we’re waiting for a truck to do it,” she writes.

Hanaa says the family expect to pay up to $1,000 (£733) for the truck, explaining that “transportation is very bad and very expensive”.

She hopes to stay in the city because of her work as a nurse and says she will evacuate her children with other relatives.

“It’s dangerous but work conditions require our presence,” she tells me.

Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry is warning of "severe overcrowding" in the emergency departments of the remaining functioning hospitals in Gaza City.

In a post on Telegram, it adds that staff are working with "depleted" stocks of essential medicine and "severe deficits" in blood stocks.

It comes alongside an update on the latest casualty figures in Gaza.

It says a further 59 people have been reported killed in the last 24 hours, with a number of victims under rubble or in places where emergency service crews cannot reach them.

It takes the ministry's total death toll since 7 October 2023 to 64,964.

Additionally, the ministry has recorded three further deaths resulting from famine and malnutrition - including a child.

According to its figures, 428 people in total have now died from famine and malnutrition, of which 146 are children.

Nabiha Ahmed
Live reporter

I've been speaking to 34-year-old Alaa, who is among those forced to flee from Gaza City as Israel launches a fresh assault there.

Describing the scene in the city before she left, she says: "I was at work and they targeted many buildings around my office. People were left on the streets. It was an insane situation."

At the sound of the bombs, she says her "heart fell".

She recalls that later, as leaflets were dropped from the sky, people were ordered to evacuate and move south.

"I have been displaced before, from Rafah to Khan Younis. It is a humiliating journey to experience it all over again. I feel so desperate," she says.

Alaa then spent around eight hours trying to reach the middle of Gaza - a journey that, she says, once took no more than 25 minutes.

"I saw people who couldn't afford transport taking the journey by foot. Women and children were walking alone down the road, crying," she tells me.

"It is heartbreaking to see Gaza falling apart...the city with my memories," she says.

UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper has called Israel's new assault on Gaza "utterly reckless and appalling".

Cooper says the offensive will "only bring more bloodshed, kill more innocent civilians and endanger the remaining hostages".

Germany's foreign minister brands the assault in Gaza City as "the completely wrong path" and urges parties to talk in pursuit of a ceasefire and hostage deal.

"We reject this and have made this clear to the Israeli government," Johann Wadephul adds.

UN human rights chief Volker Türk has been reacting to Israel's ground offensive in Gaza City. Türk says it is "absolutely clear that this carnage must stop" as he condemned the assault as "totally and utterly unacceptable".

"The whole world screams for peace. Palestinians, Israelis scream for peace. Everyone wants an end to this, and what we see is a further escalation which is totally and utterly unacceptable," he tells reporters.

Following the UN commission's report accusing Israel of carrying out a genocide, Türk is quoted by AFP news agency as saying that there is growing evidence that a genocide is unfolding in Gaza.

Adnan al-Bursh
BBC Arabic

Since the late hours of yesterday, Gaza City has witnessed what could be described as a significant and alarming Israeli military escalation.

This involved both aerial and artillery bombardment, drones, and even naval vessels.

The shelling has hit various areas across all four corners of the city, with the most intense seen on the south-eastern part, particularly in the neighbourhoods of al-Daraj, al-Zaytoun, and al-Sabra.

These were mostly subjected to a large wave of bombing and explosions, some of which struck entire residential blocks - in the Al-Daraj neighbourhood, four adjacent homes were destroyed, resulting in 14 deaths and 40 injuries.

Other areas in the south-western part of Gaza, including al-Rimal, Tel Al-Hawa, Sheikh Radwan, and the General Security area were also heavily struck by Israeli warplanes.

Residents – numbering in thousands- are left drifting between a mixed sense of confusion, terror, and fear. The intensity of the bombardment has put them in a state of uncertainty about where to head to.

Some have resorted to moving from one neighbourhood to another, or even from one street to the next, in search of safety. Many are unable to evacuate to the southern part of the Gaza Strip, as demanded by the Israeli military, due to the high cost of transportation.

Some now believe that the threat of death is the same throughout the entire Strip.

Image source, EPA

The IDF has released an update on its ground and air operations in Gaza.

It says army divisions - made up of both conscripts and reservists - are "expanding ground operations in Gaza City" as a part of what it calls 'Operation Gideon’s Chariots II'.

The IDF also says it has units operating "in the security zone along the border" with Israel and in the Rafah and Khan Younis areas of Gaza.

In the past week, the Israeli Air Force struck "more than 850 terror targets and hundreds of terrorists in Gaza City," the IDF adds in a statement.

As the war intensifies in Gaza, Downing Street says that the British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer joined a video call with the leaders of Qatar, Jordan, Egypt, France and Canada on Monday.

On the call they discussed Israel’s "unacceptable strike" on Hamas leaders in Doha last week, and agreed to "redouble their efforts" to end the cycle of violence in the region.

“The prime minister applauded Qatar’s vital mediation role", Downing Street says, adding that the UK is ready to support these efforts.

The leaders discussed the "appalling situation in Gaza" and said Israel should halt its ground offensive and let in a surge of humanitarian aid straight away. "This is the only way to make progress towards a ceasefire and secure the release of the hostages," they added.

The UN General Assembly is meeting later this month, when the UK, France and Canada have said they will recognise a Palestinian state.

Kristina Volk
BBC World Service

Eighteen-year-old Sanabel together with her parents and three younger siblings have remained in Gaza City, up until now.

Over half of her friends and extended family members were killed by strikes. Last week her family home was destroyed by an Israeli missile and they found refuge with friends in Gaza City.

“I don’t know where I should go," Sanabel tells me in a voice message, she sent overnight, while drones and explosions can be heard in the background.

The family left their home in a hurry with no place to go, fearing that they might have to move further south and live on the street.

Her message is desperate, she is crying and saying the dangerous situation frightens her. She is also exhausted by the war.

“I don’t want to live through more wars,” she says.

“All of us are suffering and struggling here in Gaza and the situation will never be OK anymore.”

Photos she sent me of her home show her destroyed childhood bedroom with pink furniture that is now covered in dust and debris from the missile strike.

“I am going to send you a photo of me," she says, “we are waiting [for] our turn to die so please don’t forget me.”

We've just seen a statement from the Palestinian foreign ministry, which is demanding "urgent international intervention" following Israel's heavy overnight strikes on Gaza.

In a statement on X, the ministry "demands exceptional and urgent international intervention to protect civilians in Gaza City", calling the "failure" of international diplomacy to end the war "suspicious and unjustified".

They also describe Israel's plans to occupy Gaza city as "a deliberate targeting of civilians, turning Gaza City into a mass graveyard".

As a reminder, the Palestinian foreign ministry is part of the Palestinian Authority, which is based in the West Bank.

We've just seen some photos from Gaza City, where smoke is rising across its sky following Israeli strikes.

This comes after Israel confirmed a major offensive in the city, which it describes as the last major stronghold of Hamas.

Image source, EPA

Image source, EPA

Image source, EPA

Israel has started its long-threatened major ground invasion of Gaza City, with residents telling the BBC last night was "hell", with heavy air strikes across the city, drone attacks and helicopter gunship activity.

Palestinians told BBC Gaza correspondent Rushdi Abulaouf that they've had to leave all their belongings behind as the territory experiences its largest mass displacement since Israel began its assault on Gaza City last month.

Mother of three Lina al-Maghrebi, 32, said she had to sell her jewellery to cover the costs of displacement and getting a tent.

Israel has designated the al-Rashid coastal road as the only permitted route for civilians wanting to flee.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a "powerful operation" had been launched as Gaza City, in the PM's words, is Hamas's last major stronghold.

The ground incursion comes just hours after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio held talks with Netanyahu.

Also on Tuesday, a UN investigation concluded that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. The Independent International Commission of Inquiry says four of the five genocidal acts defined under the Genocide Convention have been carried out.

Israel says it categorically rejects the report, describing it as based on Hamas lies.

Tom Bennett
Reporting from Jerusalem

A little earlier we heard from Navi Pillay, the chair of the panel that produced this new UN report which says Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

She describes Israel’s operations as the “most ruthless, prolonged and widespread attack against the Palestinian people since 1948” - referencing the year of the Arab-Israeli war, during which 750,000 Palestinians fled or were forced from their homes on land which became Israel.

The event is known in Arabic as the Nakba, or Catastrophe.

She says that the commission is concerned that the "specific intent" to "destroy the Palestinians as a whole” is guiding Israel in its operations in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as well as Gaza.

“The genocide convention was born out of humanity's darkest chapters," she says. "Today, we witness in real time how the promise of never again is broken and tested in the eyes of the world."

“The ongoing genocide in Gaza is a moral outrage and illegal emergency. Member states must act now.”

We can now bring you more reaction from Israel, which says the UN commission's report features "cherry picked data" and it "promotes a narrative serving Hamas and its supporters".

Israel's ambassador to the UN, Daniel Meron, describes the report as "biased analysis".

Earlier, a United Nations commission of inquiry said Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

Tom Bennett
Reporting from Jerusalem

Image source, AFP

As we reported earlier, a new UN report has found that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

In order to fulfil the legal definition of genocide, it must be established that the perpetrator had the specific intent to destroy - in whole or in part - a national, ethical, racial or religious group.

This report has drawn that conclusion, partly through finding that Israel has carried out a “systemic and widespread attack” on religious, cultural and education sites throughout Gaza, causing irreparable damage.

Their intention, it says, has been to destroy elements of the “Palestinian people’s identity” and “erase Palestinian culture from Gaza”.

Additionally, the report finds that Israeli security forces directly targeted children with the intention to kill them.

This, it says, “destroys the biological continuity" and "future existence" of the Palestinian group in Gaza.

It also says Israel has adopted a concerted policy to destroy the healthcare system, with the intent of preventing Palestinians' capacity to "heal, recover and live".

Chris Sidoti, human rights expert and member of the UN commission of inquiry, says statements made repeatedly by Israeli leaders, as well as the pattern of operations in Gaza, allowed the commission to establish whether there was genocidal intent.

Asked about naming the Israeli prime minister, the president and then-defence minister as having incited genocide, Sidoti tells the BBC that this was done deliberately because they had made certain statements on the record.

"There are far more people who incited the genocide than those that we've named, but we decided that we'd keep our focus very much on the top leadership of the Israeli government," he says, adding that "incitement is widespread amongst the leadership of Israel's politics and military".

Israel's foreign ministry said it categorically rejected the report, denouncing it as "distorted and false".

Sidoti explains that genocide is a legal concept and requires that "at least one of five categories of act are committed, and that they are committed with genocidal intent, and that is the intent to destroy a group in whole or in part".

The commission found that four of the five categories have been committed in Gaza, these include killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the group in whole or in part and imposing measures intended to prevent births.

Rushdi Abualouf
Gaza correspondent

Image source, Reuters

Gaza is experiencing its largest mass displacement since Israel began its assault on the city last month, as thousands of families attempt to move south under bombardment.

The Israeli army has designated the al-Rashid coastal road as the only permitted route for civilians wanting to flee. Residents describe severe congestion, endless queues of cars and trucks, and long delays, with many families stranded on the roadside while airstrikes continued overhead.

'I sold my jewellery to buy a tent'

Lina al-Maghrebi, 32, a mother of three from Gaza’s Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, tells the BBC she had resisted leaving her home despite the danger, until she received a phone call from an Israeli officer ordering her to evacuate immediately.

“I was forced to sell my jewellery to cover the cost of displacement and a tent,” she says. “It took us 10 hours to reach Khan Younis, and we paid 3,500 shekels (£735) for the ride. The line of cars and trucks seemed endless.”

'I left everything behind'

Nivin Imad al-Din, 38, a mother of five, says she fled south after Israeli warplanes dropped evacuation leaflets on her neighbourhood, though her husband refused to leave their home.

“I couldn’t take my furniture with me because I couldn’t afford the cost of a large truck,” she explains. “Leaving everything behind was the hardest decision I’ve ever made.”

Skyrocketing costs

The cost of displacement has surged far beyond the reach of most households. Residents say renting a small truck now costs around 3,000 shekels (£630), while a tent for five people sells for about 4,000 shekels (£840).

With most families deprived of income since the war began, some are forced to walk for miles or remain in their homes despite the risks.

Israel says it has launched a ground offensive into Gaza City as they step into the "next phase" of the conflict, in what it calls a "big step forward".

"Gaza City is the main stronghold of Hamas at the moment," an IDF spokesperson tells a media briefing, with an "estimated 2,000 - 3,000 Hamas fighters".

Air and ground forces will be included in this military operation, which the spokesperson says has been preparing for weeks now.

There will be "gradual" movement into Gaza City as the military penetrates deeper into centre, he says, and forces will increase day-by-day.

The spokesperson says about 350,000 Palestinians have left Gaza City and adds that the military is also focused on a humanitarian operation too - stressing that they will prioritise the safety of civilians and the hostages.