Updates: Israel's war on Gaza continues

Israel’s military announced the first steps of an operation to take over Gaza City on Wednesday and called up tens of thousands of reservists while the government considered a new ceasefire proposal to pause nearly two years of war.

"We have begun the preliminary operations and the first stages of the attack on Gaza City, and already now IDF forces are holding the outskirts of Gaza City," Brigadier General Effie Defrin, Israel's military spokesperson, told reporters.

Defrin said troops were already operating on the outskirts of Gaza City, and Hamas was now a "battered and bruised" guerrilla force. "We will deepen the attack on Hamas in Gaza City, a stronghold of governmental and military terror for the terrorist organization," the spokesman said.

A widely condemned Israeli settlement plan that would cut across land that the Palestinians seek for a state received final approval on Wednesday, according to a statement from Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

The approval of the E1 project, which would bisect the occupied West Bank and cut it off from East Jerusalem, was announced last week by Smotrich and received the final go-ahead from a Defence Ministry planning commission on Wednesday, he said.

"With E1, we are delivering finally on what has been promised for years," Smotrich, an ultra-nationalist in the ruling right-wing coalition, said in a statement. 

"The Palestinian state is being erased from the table, not with slogans but with actions."

The UN has expressed opposition to Israel’s plans to expand settlement units in the West Bank, calling the E1 scheme something that “will drive a stake through the heart of the two-state solution”, reported Al Jazeera. 

“We stand against all settlement activity in the occupied territories which we view as illegal under international law,” Stephane Dujarric, a spokesperson for UN chief Antonio Guterres, told reporters in New York.

Dujarric expressed concern over the Israeli military’s intensified operations in Gaza City, which he said would “create another mass displacement of people who’ve been displaced repeatedly” since the war began.

He also said the UN views the ICC as “a key pillar of international criminal justice” amid new US sanctions against the court. “We’re very concerned about the decisions taken to further hit ICC officials with sanctions under the order that came out from the United States,” Dujarric said.

“The decision imposes severe impediments on the functioning of the office of the prosecutor and respect for all the situations that are currently before the court.”

Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer met with senior Qatari officials in Paris to discuss a Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal, as he told them the condition for a Gaza ceasefire deal was the release of all hostages, Israel's channel 12 reporter Barak Ravid posted on X.

Dermer's comments come days after the Palestinian resistance group Hamas submitted to Egyptian and Qatari mediators its approval of their proposal for a 60-day truce.

Israeli forces killed at least 72 Palestinians, including 27 aid seekers, in attacks across Gaza since dawn on Wednesday, Al Jazeera reported citing medical sources.

In one of the latest reported attacks, medical sources say 12 people were killed when Israeli forces targeted cargo security personnel and aid seekers near the Zikim crossing in northern Gaza.

A 58% majority of Americans believe that every country in the United Nations should recognise Palestine as a nation, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll, as Israel and Hamas considered a possible truce in the nearly two-year-long Gaza war.

Some 33% of respondents did not agree that UN members should recognise a Palestinian state and 9% did not answer.

The six-day poll, which closed on Monday, found a pronounced partisan divide on the issue, with 78% of Democrats supporting the idea, far more than the 41% of President Donald Trump's Republicans who agreed.

A narrow 53% majority of Republicans did not agree that all UN member nations should recognise a Palestinian state.

Israel has long counted on the US, its most powerful ally, for billions of dollars a year in military aid and international diplomatic support. An erosion of US public support would be a worrisome sign for Israel as it faces not only Hamas fighters in Gaza but unresolved conflict with Iran, its regional arch-foe.

President Donald Trump's administration on Wednesday imposed sanctions on two judges and two prosecutors at the International Criminal Court, as Washington ramped up its pressure on the war tribunal over its targeting of Israeli leaders and a past decision to investigate US officials.

In a statement, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the court "a national security threat that has been an instrument for lawfare" against the United States and Israel.

Washington designated Nicolas Yann Guillou of France, Nazhat Shameem Khan of Fiji, Mame Mandiaye Niang of Senegal, and Kimberly Prost of Canada, according to the US Treasury and State Department. All officials have been involved in cases linked to Israel and the United States.

"United States has been clear and steadfast in our opposition to the ICC's politicisation, abuse of power, disregard for our national sovereignty, and illegitimate judicial overreach," Rubio said.

International aid groups say they have not yet been able to deliver shelter materials to Gaza despite Israeli authorities saying they have lifted restrictions on such supplies, and warn that further delays could cause more Palestinian deaths.

"The United Nations and our partners have...not been able to bring in shelter materials following the Israeli announcement," the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), spokesperson Jens Laerke said.

"There's a set of impediments that still needs to be addressed, including Israeli customs clearance."

CARE International, ShelterBox and the Norwegian Refugee Council also said they had not yet received any authorisation to deliver shelter materials. Another international NGO, which declined to be identified, said it had been unable to deliver such supplies but was trying to get clearance.

Over 1.3 million Gazans lack tents, the United Nations said this month, and more people are expected to be displaced by an Israeli operation to seize Gaza City.

Israel's defence minister has approved a plan for the conquest of Gaza City and authorised the call-up of around 60,000 reservists to carry it out, his ministry confirmed on Wednesday.

Defence Minister Israel Katz's move, confirmed to AFP by a spokesperson, piled pressure on Hamas as mediators pushing for a ceasefire in the nearly two-year war in Gaza awaited an official Israeli response on their latest proposal.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has yet to publicly comment on the plan, but said last week that his country would accept "an agreement in which all the hostages are released at once and according to our conditions for ending the war".

Senior Hamas official Mahmoud Mardawi said on social media that his group had "opened the door wide to the possibility of reaching an agreement, but the question remains whether Netanyahu will once again close it, as he has done in the past".

At least 28 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since dawn, Al Jazeera reported.

According to medical staff at al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza’s Jabalia, seven of the victims were civilians seeking aid near the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. They were shot dead by Israeli forces, the hospital sources told Al Jazeera.