Nearly two years into its retaliatory military offensive in the Gaza Strip, Israel said it has launched a long-studied ground assault on Gaza City.

"IDF troops have begun expanding ground operations in Gaza City as part of Operation Gideon's Chariots II," the Israeli Defense Forces said Tuesday on social media .

"Gaza is burning," Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz had said earlier in the day, in a separate Google-translated update . "We will not relent or turn back — until the mission is complete," he added.

The ground invasion marks a deepening of Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip, which once housed 2.2 million people and has devolved into a starvation-stricken battlefield. Gaza City, previously the enclave's most populous urban settlement, is still home to hundreds of thou

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