Israel sends warning to Hamas as terror group threatens to kill hostages

Hamas today threatened the lives of the 137 hostages still being held in Gaza as Israel’s premier Benjamin Netanyahu warned the terror group that it was facing the “beginning of the end”.

In a televised statement, a Hamas spokesman said Israel would not see “their prisoners alive” unless it agreed to meet “the demands of the resistance”, including the release of more Palestinian prisoners.

The threat came as fierce fighting continued in the southern Gazan city of Khan Younis, where Israel believes Hamas leaders were hiding, with Israeli tanks reaching the main north-south road. There were also air strikes in the west of the city amid continuing warnings of a humanitarian catastrophe with hospital staff said to be exhausted and overwhelmed and fatalities mounting.

Elsewhere in Gaza there was further military action, including in the north of the tiny coastal territory, as Israel announced the death of four more soldiers, taking the number of troops lost since its ground offensive began to more than 100.

The immediate focus today, however, was on the new threat to the lives of the remaining hostages taken in an attack by Hamas on October 7 and its threat made in the televised statement.

The US think tank, the Institute of the Study of War, reported that a Hamas spokesman had signalled further terror attacks outside Gaza by saying that “what is coming is worse and greater” in reference to the recent shootings carried out by its gunmen in Jerusalem, which claimed three lives.

The threats came after Israel’s prime minister, who ordered the resumption of his country’s offensive in Gaza after the recent pause to allow the exchange of hostages and Palestinian prisoners, warned that Hamas was facing obliteration.

“The war is still ongoing but it is the beginning of the end of Hamas. I say to the Hamas terrorists: It’s over. Don’t die for [Hamas military chief Yayha] Sinwar. Surrender now,” Mr Netanyahu said in a televised address.

He added that the “war is in full swing” and that full defeat would take more time, but that “the beginning of the end for Hamas” had already arrived.

Meanwhile, Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, used an article in the Los Angeles Times to accuse Israel of trying to clear Gaza of its Palestinian population with the death toll reported to be nearly18,000 since the offensive began.