Hamas says ‘almost 50’ Israeli hostages killed since Israel strikes began

KHAN YOUNIS: Hamas said on Thursday that Israeli strikes on Gaza have killed almost 50 of the hostages its militants seized in bloody cross-border attacks as the United Nations warned “nowhere is safe” in the territory.

The group’s armed wing made the claim, which AFP could not immediately verify after Israel sent tanks, troops and armoured bulldozers into the enclave in a “targeted raid” overnight that the military said destroyed multiple sites before withdrawing.

“(Ezzedine) Al-Qassam Brigades estimates that the number of Zionist prisoners who were killed in the Gaza Strip as a result of Zionist strikes and massacres has reached almost 50,” the group said in a statement on its Telegram channel.

Hamas’s shock October 7 attacks, the worst in Israeli history, saw throngs of Hamas gunmen pour from Gaza into Israel, killing more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 224 more, according to official tallies.

Israel has retaliated with relentless strikes that Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said have killed more than 7,000 people, also mainly civilians — a toll expected to rise substantially if Israeli troops massed near the border thrust across.

On the 20th day of Israel’s bloodiest Gaza war yet, the UN humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, Lynne Hastings, said that despite the Israeli military issuing warnings to people in Gaza City to leave, “advance warnings make no difference.”

She said in a statement that when evacuation routes are bombed, “people are left with nothing but impossible choices. Nowhere is safe in Gaza.”

The army said overnight its forces hit “numerous terrorist cells, infrastructure and anti-tank missile launch posts.”

Black smoke billowed into the sky after a blast in the grainy night-vision footage the Israeli military released hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared preparations for a ground war were underway.

The operation in northern Gaza came in “preparation for the next stages of combat”, the military said.

The black-and-white video showed armoured vehicles moving near Gaza’s border fence. Other footage appeared to show an air strike and buildings being targeted.

The raid came after Netanyahu delivered a nationally televised address to Israelis still grieving and furious after the October 7 attacks, telling them “we are in the midst of a campaign for our existence.”

International alarm has increased amid growing shock about the scale of human suffering inside the besieged Palestinian territory where Israel has cut off most water, food, fuel and other basic supplies.

In southern Gaza, a grieving Umm Omar al-Khaldi told AFP how she saw her neighbours being killed in an Israeli strike that reduced the house to rubble, with many feared buried beneath.

“We saw them getting bombarded — the children got bombarded while their mother was hugging them,” the woman said, desperately pleading for help from the outside world.

“Where are the Arabs, where is humanity?” she asked.

Amnesty International in a statement called for an immediate ceasefire to ensure “access to life-saving aid for people in Gaza amidst an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe”.

The human rights group’s chief Agnes Callamard said: “Serious violations of international humanitarian law, including war crimes, by all parties to the conflict continue unabated.”

Surging death toll

The war’s surging death toll is by far the highest since Israel unilaterally withdrew from the small coastal territory in 2005 — a period that has seen four previous Gaza wars.