Netanyahu warns Gaza City residents to 'leave now'

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told residents of Gaza City to evacuate as the military stepped up its assault on the Palestinian territory's main urban centre.

"In two days we brought down 50 terror towers, and this is only the opening stage of the intensified ground manoeuver in Gaza City. I say to the residents: you have been warned, leave now!" Mr Netanyahu said in a video statement.

It comes as Israel said it would step up airstrikes on Gaza in a "mighty hurricane", to serve as a last warning to Hamas that it will destroy the enclave unless fighters accept a demand to free all hostages and surrender.

Residents said Israeli forces had bombed Gaza City from the air and blown up old armoured vehicles in its streets. Hamas said it was studying the latest US ceasefire proposal, delivered yesterday with a warning from US President Donald Trump that it was the militant group's "last chance".

"A mighty hurricane will hit the skies of Gaza City today, and the roofs of the terror towers will shake," Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz wrote on X.

"This is a final warning to the murderers and rapists of Hamas in Gaza and in the luxury hotels abroad: Release the hostages and lay down your weapons - or Gaza will be destroyed, and you will be annihilated."

Mr Katz's post appeared before reports of shooting at a bus stop in Jerusalem that killed six people including one Spanish citizen. Hamas praised the attackers.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) bombed a 12-floor block in the middle of Gaza City where dozens of displaced families had been housed, three hours after urging those inside and in hundreds of tents in the surrounding area to leave.

In a statement, the IDF said Hamas militants who had "planted intelligence gathering means" and explosive devices had been operating near the building and "have used it throughout the war to plan and advance terror attacks against IDF forces".

According to a senior Israeli official, the latest US proposal calls for Hamas to return all 48 remaining living and dead hostages on the first day of a ceasefire, during which negotiations would be held to end the war.

Hamas has long said it intends to hold onto at least some hostages until negotiations are complete. It said in a statement it was committed to releasing them all with a "clear announcement of an end to the war" and the withdrawal of Israeli forces.

Israel launched a major assault last month on Gaza City, where hundreds of thousands of residents are living in the ruins having returned after the city experienced the most intense fighting of the war's early weeks nearly two years ago.

Residents said Israeli forces pounded several districts from the air and ground, and detonated decommissioned armoured vehicles laden with explosives, destroying clusters of homes in the Sheikh Radwan, Zeitoun and Tuffah neighbourhoods.

Among at least 25 Palestinians reported killed in Gaza today was Osama Balousha, a journalist for Palestinian media, medics said. Fifteen other people were killed in separate Israeli strikes and gunfire across the enclave, medics said, taking today's death toll to at least 40.

Nearly 250 journalists have been killed in Gaza during the war, according to Palestinian authorities, making it by far the world's deadliest war for news media in living memory. Israel bars all foreign reporters from Gaza, so all journalists killed there have been Palestinians. Palestinian officials say Israel has deliberately targeted some journalists, which Israel denies.

Yesterday, Mr Trump suggested a deal could come soon to secure the release of all the hostages held by Hamas. An Israeli official said Israel was "seriously considering" Mr Trump's proposal but did not elaborate.

UN condemns Israel's mass killing of civilians in Gaza

Meanwhile, the United Nations human rights chief condemned Israel for its "mass killing" of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and "hindering of sufficient lifesaving aid", saying the country had a case to answer before the International Court of Justice.

Volker Turk, who heads the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), stopped short of describing the Gaza war as an unfolding genocide, as hundreds of UN staff had urged him to do.

But in his opening address to the 60th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Mr Turk expressed horror at what he called "the open use of genocidal rhetoric" and "disgraceful dehumanisation" of Palestinians by senior Israeli officials.

"Israel's mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza; its infliction of indescribable suffering and wholesale destruction; its hindering of sufficient lifesaving aid and the ensuing starvation of civilians; its killing of journalists; and its commission of war crime upon war crime, are shocking the conscience of the world," said Mr Turk.

"Israel has a case to answer before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the evidence continues to mount," Mr Turk said, referring to the ICJ's ruling in January that Israel had a legal obligation to prevent acts of genocide.

Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories, including its expansion of offensives in Gaza, is illegal under international law.

Last week, the world's biggest academic association of genocide scholars passed a resolution saying the legal criteria have been met to establish Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

Israeli attacks have killed at least 64,300 Palestinians, mostly civilians, since October 2023, according to figures from the health ministry in Gaza that the United Nations considers reliable.

The current stage of the war in Gaza was sparked by Hamas's October 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.