The military, police and volunteer fighters virtually surround the city, about 65 km (40 miles) west of Baghdad.
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Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced the beginning of military operations in a televised speech late on Sunday night.
Iraq’s military is also still struggling to rebuild after it largely collapsed when IS fighters overran Mosul in the summer of 2014.
Al-Abadi vowed that the Iraqi flag will soon be raised in Fallujah, a key city of the western province of Anbar.
The announcement settles the issue of which ISIS-held city Iraq should seek to retake next – a subject of debate among Iraqi officials and worldwide forces helping the country fight the jihadists.
Backed by USA -led coalition airstrikes and paramilitary troops, Iraqi government forces launched the long-awaited military offensive on Fallujah late Sunday night. Many people have died of starvation in the city since Iraqi forces imposed a blockade previous year, residents have said, although the precise toll is impossible to measure.
Iraqi government forces on Monday pushed ISIL militants out of some agricultural areas outside of Fallujah as they launched a military offensive to recapture the city from the extremists.
The military’s Joint Operations Command said that civilian families would be allowed to leave the city through designated safe passages, though it didn’t specify how departures from the city would be arranged.
Iraq’s military has already warned civilians to leave the town. Residents of Falluja began leaving the town after the announcement fearing they could be caught in the crossfire.
Fallujah is actually the longesst-held ISIS city in Iraq, falling in January of 2014, when public protests against the Maliki government provided an opening for the ISIS forces to take over parts of the city.
Few expect an easy fight. Two offensives by US forces against al Qaeda insurgents in Falluja in 2004 each lasted about a month and wrecked significant portions of the city.
Last month, Iraqi forces cleared territory along the Euphrates river valley after Anbar’s provincial capital Ramadi was declared fully liberated earlier this year. U.S. Marines fought Sunni insurgents during two battles for the city in 2004, the second of which marked the heaviest urban combat for U.S. troops since the Vietnam War, killing almost 100 service members.
But they lack the training and enormous firepower that American forces brought to the Fallujah battles.
Last week, Iraqi soldiers fighting with tribal forces and aided by air support from the USA -led coalition reclaimed the town of Rutbah, which sits on the highway linkingSyria with Jordan.
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This development came hours after Iraq’s military asked the residents of ISIS-held Falluja to flee their homes ahead of the operation to gain back control of the metropolis from the terror group.
