The Israeli protection minister tried on Friday to show up the strain on Hamas to launch extra hostages, saying Israel was getting ready to grab extra territory in Gaza and intensify assaults by air, sea and land if the armed Palestinian group doesn’t cooperate.
The assertion by the protection minister, Israel Katz, got here days after a cease-fire that had been in place for greater than two months was shattered with a renewed Israeli bombardment and restricted floor operations inside Gaza. Greater than 500 Palestinians have been killed since Israel restarted assaults on Tuesday, in response to the Gaza well being ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants.
“The extra Hamas persists in its refusal, the extra territory it is going to lose,” Mr. Katz mentioned in demanding the discharge of extra hostages.
There have been no experiences of recent Israelis assaults with heavy casualties in Gaza on Friday morning. Mediators had been nonetheless making an attempt to stop the brand new escalation of violence from snowballing again right into a full-scale conflict. Hamas mentioned Friday that negotiations to return to the truce — which started in mid-January — had been nonetheless ongoing.
However Hamas reiterated that any settlement to free extra hostages must result in a everlasting finish to the conflict, which Israel has been loath to decide to whereas the Palestinian militant group nonetheless is answerable for Gaza.
Over the previous three days, Israeli forces have bombarded targets throughout Gaza, saying they had been attacking Hamas websites and operatives. Israeli floor troops have seized a significant hall in central Gaza from which it withdrew throughout the cease-fire with Hamas, and so they have expanded floor raids in northern and southern Gaza.
Hamas’s navy response to date has been restricted, though the group continues to be believed to command tens of hundreds of armed fighters. Hamas fired three rockets at Israel for the primary time in months, however all had been both intercepted or fell with out inflicting casualties, a far cry from the barrages it might muster within the early months of the conflict.
Israel hopes to compel Hamas to free extra of the remaining hostages seized within the Oct. 7, 2023, assault that ignited the conflict in Gaza. As many as 24 dwelling captives — and the stays of greater than 30 others — are nonetheless in Gaza, in response to the Israeli authorities.
Even earlier than the cease-fire collapsed this week, Israel had blocked humanitarian help to Gaza, stopping shipments of meals and drugs from reaching Palestinians nonetheless recovering from greater than a yr of starvation and wartime deprivation.
Mr. Katz threatened additional actions, together with intensified airstrikes and increasing the continuing Israeli floor offensive. Within the newest assaults, Israeli troops have but to brush via Palestinian cities in Gaza, divide the enclave in two or forcibly evacuate northern Gaza en masse, as they did throughout the 15-month marketing campaign towards Hamas.
Israel has vowed to not finish the conflict in Gaza with out Hamas’s destruction. Hamas has mentioned it’s prepared handy over civilian tasks within the enclave, nevertheless it has refused to disband its battalions of armed fighters or ship its leaders there into exile.
Diplomats, together with from america, are hoping to dealer not less than a partial deal to convey either side again to the cease-fire, free extra hostages and permit humanitarian help to start flowing into Gaza once more.
Earlier than the Israeli offensive, Steve Witkoff, the Trump administration’s Mideast envoy, had proposed an extension of the preliminary cease-fire, which elapsed in early March, in alternate for the discharge of hostages.
Within the meantime, america and different mediators would work to discover a “sturdy answer to this intractable battle,” Mr. Witkoff’s workplace mentioned in an announcement final week.
Israel mentioned it had accepted Mr. Witkoff’s plan, which accorded with Israeli calls for for the discharge of extra hostages with out a direct dedication to ending the conflict in Gaza completely. Hamas didn’t instantly conform to the deal, however mentioned earlier this week that it had been contemplating the proposal.
In an interview on Thursday in Doha, Qatar, Husam Badran, a senior Hamas official, steered the group was prepared to point out some flexibility over such an settlement — together with by doubtlessly releasing extra hostages — to jump-start talks aimed toward ending the conflict.
“The issue isn’t the numbers,” Mr. Badran told The New York Times. “We’re appearing positively with any proposal that results in the beginning of negotiations” over a everlasting truce, he added.
Adam Rasgon and Patrick Kingsley contributed reporting.
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