Gaza City, Gaza - Israel launched its long-anticipated ground assault on Gaza City before dawn on Tuesday, shortly after visiting US Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave the green light for the continued destruction of the strip.

As UN investigators released a reporting concluding Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people, a new wave of violence was unleashed on the residents of Gaza City, who were forced to flee in the face of the massive bombardment.

The assault drew widespread condemnation, with the UN rights chief demanding an end to the "carnage."

Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz boasted about the city being "on fire" as strikes pounded an area already largely destroyed by almost two years of attacks.

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Only huge piles of rubble remained of a residential block in the north of the city hit by overnight bombing.

"Why kill children sleeping safely like that, turning them into body parts?" witness Abu Abd Zaquout told AFP. "We pulled the children out in pieces."

As of Tuesday morning ET, at least 78 people had been killed, according to medical sources cited by Al Jazeera.

Following Rubio's promise of "unwavering support" for Israel's mass killing on Monday, President Donald Trump responded to questions about the freshly launched assault by threatening Hamas.

"We'll wait to hear what happens, because I hear Hamas is trying to use the old human shield deal, and if they do that they're going to be in big trouble," he told reporters.

The official death toll since October 7 in Gaza stands at close to 65,000 – the vast majority of them civilians – but that number is certain to be a vast undercount, with tens of thousands of bodies trapped under the rubble of ruined buildings, and Israeli-imposed starvation running rampant.