Israel threatens Gaza City’s destruction unless Hamas releases all hostages – National

Israel’s defense minister warned Friday that Gaza’s largest city could be destroyed unless Hamas yields to his country’s terms, as the world’s leading authority on food crises declared that the city is gripped by famine from fighting and an Israeli blockade.

A day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would authorize the military to mount a major operation to seize Gaza City, Defense Minister Israel Katz warned that it could “turn into Rafah and Beit Hanoun,” areas largely reduced to rubble earlier in the war.

“The gates of hell will soon open on the heads of Hamas’ murderers and rapists in Gaza — until they agree to Israel’s conditions for ending the war,” Katz wrote in a post on X.

He restated Israel’s ceasefire demands: the release of all hostages and Hamas’ complete disarmament.

Hamas issued a statement that called Katz’s comments “a confession of committing a crime that amounts to ethnic cleansing.”

The militant group has said it would release captives in exchange for ending the war, but it rejects disarmament without the creation of a Palestinian state.

U.S. President Donald Trump, meanwhile, expressed frustration with Hamas’ stance in long-running ceasefire talks, suggesting the militant group was less interested in making deals to release hostages with so few left alive in captivity.

“The situation has to end. It’s extortion, and it has to end,” Trump told reporters Friday. “And we’ll see what happens. I actually think (the hostages are) safer in many ways if you went in and you really went in fast and you did it.”

Netanyahu on Thursday said he had instructed officials “to begin immediate negotiations” to release hostages and end the war on Israel’s terms. It was not immediately clear if that meant Israel would return to long-running talks mediated by Egypt and Qatar after Hamas said earlier this week that it accepted a new proposal from the mediators.

With ground troops already active in strategic areas, the wide-scale operation in Gaza City could start within days.

Israel says Gaza City is still a Hamas stronghold, with a network of militant tunnels, after several previous large-scale raids. The city is also home to hundreds of thousands of civilians, some of whom have fled from other areas, and it contains some of the territory’s critical infrastructure and health facilities.

Israel could also accept the latest ceasefire proposal, which would forestall the offensive. The proposal calls for a phased deal involving hostage and prisoner exchanges and a pullback of Israeli troops, while talks continue on a longer-term cease-fire. Israeli leaders have resisted such terms since abandoning a similar agreement earlier this year under pressure from Netanyahu’s far-right coalition allies.

Many Israelis fear an assault could doom the roughly 20 hostages who have survived captivity since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack.

Aid groups and international leaders warn that renewed fighting would worsen Gaza’s humanitarian crisis.

The logistics of evacuating civilians are expected to be daunting. Many residents say repeated displacement is pointless since nowhere in Gaza is safe, while medical groups warn that Israel’s call to move patients south is unworkable, with no facilities to receive them.

Netanyahu has argued that the offensive is the surest way to free captives and crush Hamas.

“These two things — defeating Hamas and releasing all our hostages — go hand in hand,” Netanyahu said Thursday while touring a command center in southern Israel.

Since 251 people were taken hostage more than 22 months ago, ceasefire agreements and other deals have accounted for the vast majority of the 148 who were released, including the bodies of eight dead hostages.

Israel has managed to rescue only eight hostages alive and to retrieve the bodies of 49 others. Fifty hostages remain in Gaza, about 20 of whom Israel believes to be alive.

The world’s leading authority on food crises declared Friday that Gaza City is gripped by famine that is likely to spread if fighting and restrictions on humanitarian aid continue.

A report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification says nearly half a million people in Gaza, about one-fourth of the population, face catastrophic hunger that leaves many at risk of dying. It’s the first famine confirmed by the IPC in the Middle East.

Netanyahu’s office denounced the IPC report as “an outright lie.”

Israel says it has allowed enough aid to enter during the war, and it eased its blockade in recent weeks after images of emaciated children sparked international outrage. But U.N. agencies say it’s not nearly enough, especially after Israel imposed a complete ban on food imports from early March to mid-May.

Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital said at least 17 Palestinians were killed Friday as Israel escalated its activity in the area in the lead-up to its broader planned offensive.

An Israeli airstrike hit a school in Sheikh Radwan, a Gaza City neighborhood where tens of Palestinians shelter in makeshift tents in the schoolyard. The attack killed at least seven people, according to an eyewitness and hospital records.

The Israeli military said it wasn’t aware of a strike in the area but in a statement said troops were operating on the outskirts of Gaza City and in the Zeitoun neighborhood.

The strike is part of Israel’s ongoing push in Gaza City, where witnesses have reported intense bombardment in the days since Israel approved its plans to take the city.

Amal Aboul Aas, who is now sheltering in Gaza City after being displaced four times, said the explosions were so intense she couldn’t sleep, yet she couldn’t leave either.

“We do not have the money, the resources or the energy to evacuate again. I just wish for a quick death right where I am here because I am not going anywhere. Eventually one of these missiles will hit me,” she told The Associated Press.

The Gaza Health Ministry said Friday that at least 62,263 Palestinians have been killed in the war. Two more people have died from malnutrition-related causes, bringing the total number of such deaths to 273, including 112 children, the ministry said.

The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals. It does not say whether those killed by Israeli fire are civilians or combatants, but it says around half were women and children. The U.N. and many independent experts consider its figures to be the most reliable estimate of wartime casualties. Israel disputes its toll but has not provided its own.

Hamas-led militants started the war when they attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking hostages.

Metz reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writers Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Michelle Price in Washington contributed.