(LONDON) — Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz warned Friday that Gaza city could “turn into Rafah and Beit Hanoun,” areas that were destroyed earlier in the war, unless Hamas agrees to Israel’s terms.
This comes after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would approve the military’s plans to seize Gaza City.
“Soon, the gates of hell will open on the heads of Hamas’ murderers and rapists in Gaza – until they agree to Israel’s conditions for ending the war, primarily the release of all hostages and their disarmament. If they do not agree – Gaza, the capital of Hamas, will become Rafah and Beit Hanoun. Exactly as I promised – so it will be,” Katz said in a post on X.
The Israel Defense Forces said Friday that ground troops are “operating on the outskirts of Gaza City locating and dismantling terrorist infrastructure above and underground.”
The IDF has said it plans to escalate the war soon by seizing Gaza City and other Hamas strongholds in the Gaza Strip, which humanitarian organizations warned will exacerbate the hunger crisis.
A United Nations-backed food security monitor announced on Friday that a famine determination has been made in Gaza City. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) raised its classification for the Gaza City region in the north-central Gaza Strip to Phase 5, the highest and worst level of its acute food insecurity scale. The IPC itself does not declare a famine, but its famine determination can inform decision-makers in governments and bodies such as the U.N.
In a report published Friday, the IPC said “this Famine is entirely man-made,” adding that it can be “halted and reversed.
The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, the Israeli defense body in charge of coordinating aid to Gaza, said Friday it “firmly rejects the claim of famine in the Gaza Strip, and particularly in Gaza City,” alleging that the IPC report “is based on partial and unreliable sources, many of them affiliated with Hamas.”
In a statement Friday, the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office called the IPC’s famine determination in parts of the Gaza Strip “an outright lie” and “a modern blood libel.”
The IDF said its troops are operating in the Jabalia area, Khan Younis and on the outskirts of Gaza City to “eliminate terrorists and dismantle terrorist infrastructure.”
At least 71 Palestinians were killed and 251 injured throughout the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours, Gaza’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health said Friday.
Among those killed were 24 people trying to get humanitarian aid, while another 133 aid seekers were wounded, according to the health ministry.
Two others died of starvation over the past day, bringing the total number of deaths due to starvation to 273, including 112 children, the health ministry said.
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