Siege of Gaza City

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has spoken over the phone with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on the ongoing prosecution of Israel at the International Court of Justice over its massacres against Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

Israel pummelled southern Gaza on Tuesday, killing dozens, even as authorities announced the winding down of the intense phase of the war that has inflamed tensions across the Middle East.

The government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has come under mounting international pressure to end its offensive in Gaza launched in response to Hamas's unprecedented Oct. 7 attacks.

A high-ranking Israeli delegation has arrived in Cairo to negotiate the release of hostages held by Hamas, an Egyptian source confirmed to Al-Araby Al-Jadid newspaper. Indirect talks are back on track after the assassination of Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri last week.

The war in Gaza will last at least a year. This was stated by Major General Amos Yadlin, former head of the Israeli Air Force who is close to senior active commanders.

He compared the operation in the Palestinian enclave to the international military campaign against Islamic State in 2017, which lasted nine months. But the situation in Gaza is much more challenging, Yadlin stressed.

The Israeli army has announced that it has destroyed the command structure of the radical movement Hamas in the northern part of the Gaza Strip. Army spokesman Daniel Hagari said Palestinian militants now operate in the area only sporadically and "without commanders."

Shelling and missile strikes rocked the length of the Gaza Strip overnight into Tuesday, after Israel's army warned its war against the territory's Hamas rulers will last through 2024.

Nearly three months of conflict have claimed almost 22,000 lives in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, and devastated much of the besieged territory.

Israel attacked the headquarters of Hamas in the city of Khan Yunis in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, said the spokesman of the Israeli Defense Forces, Daniel Hagari.

"During a ground operation in Khan Younis, the Israel Defense Forces attacked Hamas headquarters in the center of the city, including the Palestinian movement's intelligence command center," Hagari said.

About 150,000 Palestinians have been forced to leave areas in the central part of the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli forces' offensive against the refugee camps in this area continues. The number of victims of the conflict is growing, reports from the Palestinian side.

Israeli forces pressed on with intensified attacks in the Gaza Strip's biggest southern city and a central refugee camp, after the territory's Hamas-run health ministry reported more than 21,000 people had been killed in 11 weeks of war.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was no different from Adolf Hitler and likened Israel's attacks on Gaza to the treatment of Jewish people by the Nazis.