Israel bombs south Gaza amid hostage threat
Hamas on Sunday warned that Israel would not receive ‘their prisoners alive without an exchange and negotiation and meeting the demands of the resistance’
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Hamas on Sunday warned that Israel would not receive ‘their prisoners alive without an exchange and negotiation and meeting the demands of the resistance’
Israel bombed southern Gaza's main city on Monday after terror group Hamas warned no Israeli hostages would leave the territory alive unless its demands for prisoner releases were met.
Hamas triggered the conflict when it carried out the deadliest-ever attack on Israel on 7 October killing 1,200 people, according to Israeli figures, and taking about 240 hostages back to Gaza.
Israel has responded with a military offensive that has reduced much of Gaza to rubble and killed at least 17,997 people, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
The ministry said on Monday that dozens of people had been killed in Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip, while Israel's army reported rocket fire from Gaza into Israel.
Israeli strikes hit the main southern city of Khan Yunis, while Palestinian militants Islamic Jihad said they had blown up a house where Israeli soldiers were searching for a tunnel shaft.
Hamas on Sunday warned that Israel would not receive "their prisoners alive without an exchange and negotiation and meeting the demands of the resistance."
Israel says there are still 137 hostages in Gaza, while activists say around 7,000 Palestinians are in Israeli jails.
Months of intense bombardment and clashes have left Gaza's health system on the brink of collapse, with most hospitals no longer functioning and nearly two million people displaced.
AFP visited the bombed-out ruins of the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City and found at least 30,000 people taking refuge amid the rubble after Israeli forces raided the medical facility last month.
"Our life has become a living hell, there's no electricity, no water, no flour, no bread, no medicine for the children who are all sick," said Mohammed Daloul, 38, who fled there with his wife and three children.
The UN estimates 1.9 million of Gaza's 2.4 million people have been displaced from their homes — roughly half of them children.
Israel had urged people to seek refuge in the south, but after expanding the war to include southern targets, there are few safe places for civilians to go.
Humanitarian organizations continued to press Israel for greater protection of civilians in the conflict.
Mapping software deployed by Israel's army to try to reduce non-combatant deaths was condemned as inadequate Sunday by Lynn Hastings, UN humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories.
"A unilateral declaration by an occupying power that patches of land where there is no infrastructure, food, water, health care, or hygiene are 'safe zones' does not mean they are safe," she said.
Only 14 of Gaza's 36 hospitals are functioning at any capacity, according to the United Nations' humanitarian agency OCHA.
"Gaza's health system is on its knees and collapsing," said World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, as the agency called for immediate, unimpeded aid deliveries.
Israel's army chief Herzi Halevi said Sunday his troops were using "significant force" in Gaza, hailing "significant achievements" in the war.
The army told AFP on Monday that 101 soldiers have died in the Gaza ground offensive, and previously put the number of wounded at around 600.
It said Sunday it had struck more than 250 targets in 24 hours, including "a Hamas military communications site," "underground tunnel shafts" in southern Gaza, and a Hamas military command centre in Shejaiya in Gaza City.
WITH AFP
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