In Gaza, Israeli attacks killed at least 41 Palestinians over the past 24 hours as Israel’s military announced a major new ground offensive. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said his forces will seize large areas of Gaza for so-called security zones. The announcement came as Palestinians face widespread food insecurity with Israel’s total blockade of the Gaza Strip continuing for a 31st day. On Tuesday, Gaza’s residents were unable to find bread after all of the territory’s bakeries, including 25 run by the World Food Programme, shut down operations.

Halima Al-Kafarna: “I came here before dawn and went to all the bakeries in the area, but they were all closed. So I came back here in front of this bakery, hoping that God will bless us with bread. What can we do? Let them bring us flour and fuel! Why are they preventing us from getting them?”

Hamas said in a statement that Gaza has reached a “famine phase,” calling it “one of the worst humanitarian crises in modern history.” An Israeli military agency that coordinates aid deliveries to Gaza wrote on social media Tuesday, “There is enough food for a long period of time, if Hamas lets the civilians have it.” A U.N. spokesperson was asked about that claim.

Edith Lederer: “Israel says there’s still enough food that was delivered to Gaza during the ceasefire. What is the U.N.’s response to that?”

Stéphane Dujarric: “I’m sorry, but as far as the U.N. is concerned, that’s ridiculous. I mean, we are at the tail end of our supplies, of the supplies that came in through the humanitarian — through the humanitarian route. You know, WFP doesn’t close its bakeries for fun. If there’s no flour, if there’s no cooking oil, the bakeries cannot open.”

Elsewhere in Gaza, The Guardian reports some of the bodies of 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers killed by Israeli forces and buried in a mass grave last month in Gaza were found with their hands or legs tied and had gunshot wounds to the head and chest.