KEY POINTS
- Hamas released “farewell” photos of hostages, warning Israel’s Gaza City assault endangers their lives.
- 47 hostages remain in Gaza, including 25 Israel says are dead.
- Public anger grows in Israel, with mass protests in Tel Aviv demanding a ceasefire and Netanyahu’s resignation.
- Humanitarian crisis worsens, with famine declared in Gaza amid widespread starvation.
- Israeli offensive killed over 65,191 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023.
GAZA CITY, Palestine: Hamas’ armed wing published Saturday “farewell” photographs of most of the remaining hostages in Gaza, warning that Israel’s assault on Gaza City could endanger them.
In a message written in Hebrew and addressed to the Israeli military and leadership, Hamas’s military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had effectively issued a death sentence for the hostages.
“Your prisoners are distributed within the neighborhoods of Gaza City, and we will not be concerned for their lives as long as Netanyahu has decided to kill them. The commencement of this criminal operation and its expansion means that you will not receive any prisoner, neither alive nor dead, and their fate will be the same as that of (Ron Arad),” it said.
With the images, it evoked the case of an Israeli pilot missing since 1986 after being shot down over Lebanon.
Of the 251 people taken hostage by Hamas during their attack on Israel in October 2023, 47 remain in Gaza, including 25 the Israeli military says are dead.
“Due to (Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu’s obstinacy and (military chief Eyal) Zamir’s submission…. a farewell photograph taken at the start of the operation in Gaza” City, the Brigades wrote alongside the photos.
Israel launched a ground assault on Gaza City on Tuesday, following weeks of heavy air strikes that continue on the Palestinian territory’s largest urban centre.
Hundreds of thousands of residents have fled, while families of hostages have urged the government to halt the offensive, warning it risks the lives of their loved ones still in captivity in Gaza.
The Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades released 46 photographs of hostages on its Telegram channel, each one labelled with the name of Ron Arad, an Israeli air force navigator whose plane went down over southern Lebanon in 1986 during the Lebanese civil war.
Arad was believed to have been initially held by armed groups in Lebanon and is now presumed dead, with his remains never returned.
Public Anger Against Netanyahu
In a subsequent statement, Hamas said that they were preparing to fight and that, “Gaza will be a graveyard for your soldiers.”
Hamas’ statement comes as public anger against Netanyahu and his government continues to mount inside Israel, with the weekly demonstrations in Tel Aviv demanding an end to the war and a ceasefire reaching a fever pitch.
Meanwhile, international condemnation of Israel’s actions continues to mount, with the European Union – Israel’s biggest trading partner – proposing sanctions and a United Nations Commission report that concluded that Israel is committing genocide. Israel has denied the accusation.
Ahead of the ground incursion, Israel’s military accelerated its airstrikes and its bombardment of high-rise towers in Gaza City – the enclave’s most populous.
Catastrophic Humanitarian Crisis
Approximately one million people – nearly half of the territory’s population – live in and around Gaza City. Israel has tried to force the local population to evacuate, but there are increasingly few safe places in Gaza to go.
Palestinians continue to flee the north by foot, car and bike – carrying what they can to the increasingly crowded south.
The new assault comes as the United Nations and others have warned that it will only deepen an already catastrophic humanitarian crisis, with parts of Gaza officially declared under famine.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health on Thursday said that four people, including a child, had died from malnutrition over the last 24 hours, bringing the number of famine-related deaths to 435 since the beginning of the war.
Since October 2023, Israel’s military offensive has killed over 65,191 Palestinians, mostly women and children, in Gaza.
