Hamas has claimed that approximately 50 of the hostages being held in Gaza have been killed as a result of Israeli bombing.
Abu Obeida, the group’s military spokesman, made the announcement but gave no further details as negotiations continued for a deal to release some of the hostages taken by Hamas during its attack on Israel on October 7th, in which 1,400 people were killed.
Israel’s military on Thursday updated to 224 the number of hostages it said were being held in Gaza. Hamas has freed four hostages since Friday.
“We are in decisive moments. It’s either us or them,” said Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant in a televised address on Thursday night. “Nothing like [this] has happened in Israel’s 75 years of existence. What will happen in the next 75 years depends largely on the achievements in this battle.”
Israeli forces undertook a limited ground incursion overnight on Wednesday, with tanks and troops entering 1km into the northern Gaza Strip, targeting Hamas positions to prepare the area for a wider invasion.
The Israeli Defence Forces said Shadi Barud, the deputy head of the Hamas intelligence service, was killed in an air strike on Thursday. The Israeli military said he was a key figure in planning the Hamas attack.
The Hamas-run health ministry has reported that 7,028 Palestinians have been killed in the retaliatory air strikes since the start of the war – including more than 500 people in the last day.
The Israeli military has said Hamas figures cannot be trusted.
Gaza health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra rejected statements questioning the figures. The ministry yesterday published a document which it said contains the names of all the victims who have been identified and their ID numbers.
During the first 20 days of the war the Israeli air force has dropped more bombs by tonne than in all previous rounds of fighting in Gaza combined.
The Gaza humanitarian crisis has reached “catastrophic proportions”, according to the World Health Organisation.
“It is our moral duty, an imperative that transcends political boundaries, to demand unobstructed access for delivering life-saving aid. Any further delay or hindrance is simply unacceptable,” said WHO regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean, Dr Ahmed Al-Mandhari.
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Public health officials have warned of the danger of diseases such as dysentery, cholera, acute respiratory infections, diarrhea and scabies, due to poor sanitation conditions and consumption of water from agricultural wells.
Seventy-four lorries carrying humanitarian aid have so far crossed from Egypt into Gaza but Israel continues to block delivery of fuel, claiming Hamas will use it for electricity and air ventilation in its vast network of tunnels, where most of the militants are believed to be hiding, waiting for an Israeli ground incursion.
Humanitarian supplies are critically low but world powers failed at the United Nations to agree on how to call for a lull to the fighting to deliver significant amounts of aid.
Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, speaking at the UN, said that if Israel’s offensive against Hamas did not stop, the United States will “not be spared from this fire”.
The Israeli military estimates there are at least 25,000 Hamas fighters, and 8,000 from the Islamic Jihad, in Gaza, although an unknown number has already been killed or wounded in the Israeli strikes.
– Additional reporting: Reuters
