 "'You'll not receive any prisoner': Hamas says Netanyahu's Gaza City op ends hope for hostages")
Hamas has issued a warning to Israel, saying that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ground offensive in Gaza means that hostages held in the City can no longer leave the region.
In a message written in Hebrew and directed at the Israeli military and leadership, Hamas’s military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, claimed that Prime Minister Netanyahu had effectively signed 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),” the statement said.
Arad is an Israeli Air Force officer who went missing in action who went missing in 1986 in Lebanon and is believed to have been held hostage by the military group Amal. He was later handed over to Hezbollah.
Israel bombards Gaza City
Israeli tanks and jets pounded Gaza City, the target of a major ground offensive, on Thursday, prompting Palestinians to flee south, where the Israeli military announced the deaths of four soldiers.
AFP journalists and witnesses saw a steady stream of Gazans heading south on foot, in vehicles and on donkey carts – their meagre belongings piled high.
“There is artillery fire, air strikes, quadcopter and drone gunfire. The bombing never stops,” said Aya Ahmed, 32, sheltering with 13 relatives in Gaza City.
“The world doesn’t understand what is happening. They (Israel) want us to evacuate south – but where will we live? There are no tents, no transport, no money.”
250,000 left Gaza in a month: UN
Latest figures released by the United Nations suggest that over a quarter of a million people have been displaced from the largest city in the coastal enclave in the last month. The international body noted that tens of thousands more people were forced to flee makeshift homes and shelters daily in the face of the new Israeli offensive.
The figures were released on Thursday, the same day strikes by Israeli artillery, tanks and warplanes hit Gaza City. In light of this, a UN official said “new waves of mass displacement” were underway, after about 60,000 fled the new assault in 72 hours earlier this week.
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