Israel defense minister threatens to annex Gaza Strip parts

JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz threatened Friday to annex parts of the Gaza Strip unless Hamas militants release the remaining Israeli hostages held in the war-battered Palestinian territory.

The warning came as Israel pressed the renewed assault it launched on Tuesday, shattering the relative calm since a 19 January ceasefire.

A Palestinian source close to the ceasefire talks told Agence France-Presse late Friday that Hamas had received a proposal from mediators Egypt and Qatar for reestablishing a truce and exchanging hostages for Palestinian prisoners “according to a timeline to be agreed upon.”

The source said the proposal “includes the entry of humanitarian aid” into Gaza, which has been blocked by Israel since 2 March.

Israel resumed intensive bombing of Gaza on Tuesday, citing deadlock in indirect negotiations on next steps in the truce after its first stage expired this month.

The territory’s civil defense agency said Israeli strikes killed 11 people on Friday — three in pre-dawn strikes and eight more during the daytime.

On Thursday, it had reported a death toll of 504 since the bombardment resumed, one of the highest since the war began more than 17 months ago with Hamas’s attack on Israel.

In a statement Friday, Katz said: “I ordered (the army) to seize more territory in Gaza... The more Hamas refuses to free the hostages, the more territory it will lose, which will be annexed by Israel.”

Should Hamas not comply, Katz also threatened “to expand buffer zones around Gaza to protect Israeli civilian population areas and soldiers by implementing a permanent Israeli occupation of the area.”

The military urged residents of the Al-Salatin, Al-Karama and Al-Awda areas of southern Gaza to evacuate their homes Friday ahead of a threatened strike.

Meanwhile, Israel’s military said it intercepted a missile launched from Yemen late Friday, after air raid sirens sounded in Jerusalem and areas of central Israel.

“Following the sirens that sounded a short while ago in a number of areas in Israel, a missile launched from Yemen was intercepted by the IAF (air force) prior to crossing into Israeli territory,” the military said in a statement.

In a separate statement early Saturday, the Houthis said they “targeted Ben Gurion airport” with a ballistic missile, calling it the third launch in two days.

It was unclear if the missile was the same one Israel said it had intercepted.

Israeli airspace would remain unsafe “until the aggression against Gaza stops,” the group warned in the statement.