The Israeli military said on Tuesday that it had launched a ground incursion into Gaza City overnight, embarking on a risky operation to take control of a key urban area even as hundreds of thousands of Palestinian residents remain there.

The ground operation and intensifying Israeli bombardment threatens to deepen the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, in a nearly two-year-long war that has already killed tens of thousands of people. Palestinians in Gaza City described scenes of panic as Israel pounded the area with heavy airstrikes.

“We are all terrified,” said Montaser Bahja, a former schoolteacher sheltering in an apartment in western Gaza City near the coast. “Death would be more merciful than what we’re living through.”

The operation has been building for weeks, with Israel sa

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