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Israel war 2023
Published December 10, 2023, 3:40 PM ET
After suffering repeated losses in its fight with Israel, Hamas threatened on Sunday to kill all remaining hostages if demands such as more aid to Gaza and a prisoner exchange were not met.
The Palestinian terror group is still holding the bodies of 20 hostages who died in captivity, Israel said over the weekend.
Abu Obeida, a spokesman for Hamas' armed wing, claimed on Sunday that no other kidnapping victim would leave the Gaza Strip alive unless Israel met all of its demands in negotiations that failed in early December. At least some of these demands included more aid to Gazans and the release of Palestinian prisoners.
“Neither the fascist enemy and its arrogant leadership … nor its supporters … can capture their prisoners alive without exchanges and negotiations and without meeting the demands of the resistance,” Obeida said in a television broadcast.
The ultimatum came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said that of the 137 hostages believed to still be in Hamas custody, 20 were dead. More than 100 people were released last month under an aid and prisoner pact.
Family members of the estimated 137 hostages still in Gaza demanded their release at a demonstration in Tel Aviv on Saturday. ABIR SULTAN/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Hamas had previously accused Israel of killing hostages during its relentless airstrikes in the northern Gaza Strip. The allegations were repeated in a Hamas video by hostage taker Yarden Bibas, who blamed Netanyahu for the deaths of his wife and two young boys.
Israel called the claims propaganda and accused the terror group of condescending to the point of even refusing to hand over the bodies of its dead.
Hamas is reportedly trying to use the bodies in stalled hostage exchange negotiations, hoping to free more Palestinians from Israeli prisons and see more aid trucks arrive in Gaza.
Israel believes at least 20 hostages captured by Hamas have died in captivity. via Portal
The terrorists freed more than 100 hostages during a seven-day ceasefire last month, but after the two sides failed to agree on an eighth wave of exchanges, the war resumed on December 1.
Since the end of the ceasefire, 3,500 Hamas targets have been destroyed in the Gaza Strip, the Israel Defense Forces said on Sunday. More than 22,000 targets have been destroyed since the war began with Hamas' deadly surprise attack on Israel on October 7th.
A senior IDF official claimed that there are now “signs of a break in Hamas” given Israel's recent advances in northern and southern Gaza, the Times of Israel reports.
Israel has directed its artillery towards the southern Gaza Strip. AFP via Getty Images
“The level of destruction and damage creates command and control problems [for Hamas]. “There are areas in the Gaza Strip that Hamas no longer controls militarily,” the official said.
But despite Israel's recent victories in Gaza, the official said the fighting would only get worse as Hamas held out as long as possible.
After nearly two months of war in northern Gaza, in which several headquarters were raided and destroyed, the IDF is now focusing its bombing on Khan Younis, the largest city in the south.
Palestinians enter a destroyed building to collect their belongings after an Israeli airstrike on the Bureij camp on Sunday. APAImages/Shutterstock
Heavy fighting reportedly broke out in the center of the city, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have fled after being evacuated from the north.
During the fighting, the IDF surrounded the home of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in the northern Gaza Strip, the man believed to have orchestrated the Oct. 7 massacre in which more than 1,200 Israelis were killed.
But Sinwar had reportedly already fled south by hiding in an evacuating humanitarian vehicle and is now believed to be in one of the tunnels in Khan Younis, part of Hamas' extensive underground network, the Times of Israel reported.
Civilian casualties reportedly remain high, even as the war continues into its second month. Getty Images
In addition to eliminating half of Hamas's estimated 24 battalion leaders, the Israeli military estimates that about 7,000 Hamas terrorists were killed during the war.
The Hamas-affiliated health ministry in Gaza estimates that the war has claimed more than 17,700 victims in total, most of them women and children. An IDF spokesman previously described the ratio of terrorist deaths to civilian casualties as “positive.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has called on the Jewish state to do more to prevent the deaths of civilians in the Palestinian enclave, admitting that America's staunch ally has not done enough.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has advised Israel to limit the number of civilian casualties. Portal
“The intent is there, but the results don’t always show up,” Blinken said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.
Blinken said Israel needs to take longer pauses in the war to allow civilians to flee and provide more aid to the nearly two million Palestinians who have been displaced since the conflict began.
Despite concerns about Israel's handling of the war, Blinken noted that the Jewish state has the final say on how it conducts the fighting and when it will end.
Stay up to date on news from the Israel-Hamas war and the global rise in anti-Semitism with The Post's Israel War Update, delivered straight to your inbox every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
“We are having these discussions with Israel, including about the duration and the way in which it pursues this campaign against Hamas,” he said. “These are decisions that Israel has to make.
“But Hamas also has to make decisions. It could emerge from its hiding place behind civilians tomorrow. It could lay down its arms tomorrow. “It could capitulate tomorrow and it would be over,” said the top US diplomat.
Blinken also defended America's decision to bypass a vote in Congress and sell nearly 14,000 rounds of tank ammunition to Israel.
The secretary of state said the sale was only a small part of what Israel needed and called on Congress to pass a $100 billion aid bill for Israel, Ukraine and other national security needs.
With post wires
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