The United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio assured Israel of the Trump administration’s full support for its actions as the country pressed ahead with a ground offensive in Gaza City, where the Israeli defence minister declared that Gaza was burning, while Arab leaders at an emergency summit in Doha condemned the escalation as an effort to sabotage ceasefire negotiations.
The ground assault unfolded after weeks of bombardments that destroyed swathes of Gaza City and forced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to flee despite warnings from aid agencies that no part of the enclave was safe.
A famine already declared in the city deepened further as Israeli restrictions on humanitarian aid persisted, and international monitors warned that the offensive risked turning the territory permanently uninhabitable. Israel justified its military campaign by saying that Gaza City remained a key Hamas stronghold, but human rights officials described the strategy as collective punishment of civilians.
Rubio’s high-profile visit to Jerusalem came at a moment of heightened controversy over an Israeli strike in Doha last week that killed Hamas aides and a Qatari officer. Arab leaders gathered in Qatar accused Israel of deliberately targeting negotiators to disrupt peace efforts, while the Trump administration sought to contain diplomatic damage by sending Rubio onward to Doha and London.
Inside Gaza, the humanitarian toll mounted sharply as the UN relief agency reported multiple strikes on its schools and clinics, and aid officials said close to a million displaced people in Gaza City faced impossible conditions with no safe routes of escape. Israel defended its bombardment of apartment towers by asserting that they were being used as Hamas command centres, but critics highlighted the sheer scale of civilian casualties and destruction as evidence that the strategy aimed to render the city unlivable.
Legal scrutiny also intensified as the International Criminal Court pursued a war crimes warrant for Netanyahu and the International Court of Justice weighed allegations of genocide, with Israel rejecting both as biased and maintaining that it was acting in self-defence after the Hamas attack of October 2023 that killed more than a thousand Israelis. According to official estimates, over 64,000 Palestinians have now been killed in Gaza, with many thousands more buried under rubble, and even internal IDF assessments indicated that civilians made up the overwhelming majority of the dead.
The offensive, meanwhile, exposed sharp divisions within Israel’s leadership, as IDF chief of staff Lt Gen Eyal Zamir reportedly warned legislators that the Gaza City operation would not destroy Hamas, would carry immense risks for hostages, and lacked clear political direction. Families of the captives urged him to resist the campaign, fearing that pressure on militants would lead to further deaths, while protest groups prepared demonstrations outside Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem.
At the Doha summit, Arab leaders accused Israel of disregarding the lives of hostages and prioritising the devastation of Gaza to achieve permanent displacement, while Hamas issued a statement blaming the US for the escalation due to its unwavering alignment with Israel.
As Rubio departed Jerusalem for Qatar, he warned that only a short window remained for any hostage deal, yet his framing that peace could not begin until Hamas was destroyed reinforced Washington’s stance alongside Israel. The Gaza City offensive thus entered a new phase with international diplomacy faltering, Arab opposition hardening, and the humanitarian crisis worsening by the day.