The military wing of the Palestinian movement Hamas warned Israel today that its military offensive in the Gaza Strip is creating an "extremely dangerous" situation for hostages, stating that half of the still alive hostages are in areas where the Israeli army is seeking the evacuation of the population.
"Half of the enemy's living prisoners are in areas that the occupying (Israeli) army has asked to be evacuated in recent days," said a statement from the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian Islamist movement in the war against Israel.
"We have decided not to move these prisoners from this area and to keep them under increased security measures, but (this situation) is extremely dangerous for their lives," the text adds.
On March 18, Israel broke the fragile ceasefire that had been in place since January 19 in the Gaza Strip.
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An 11th staff member of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) was killed on Tuesday, along with his wife and daughter, in an Israeli airstrike on the Gaza Strip, the humanitarian organization said today.
"Our colleague Hussam Al Lulu has been killed along with hundreds of other people in the Gaza Strip since the resumption of attacks by Israeli forces on March 18," MSF said.
Lulu, 58, was a guard at an MSF emergency unit in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip. His wife and 28-year-old daughter were killed in a second attack, southwest of Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, the organization said.
MSF strongly condemned the killing, the second of its staff in just two weeks.
"We once again call for an urgent restoration of the ceasefire and the protection of civilians. This bloodshed must end," MSF said.
More than 330 aid workers, most of them from UNRWA, the UN agency that helps Palestinian refugees, have been killed in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, when the war began, according to UN figures from November.
According to the Gaza Strip's Ministry of Health, 1.249 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory since Israeli forces resumed bombing on March 18.
The total death toll in the Gaza Strip since October 2023 is 50.609, according to the ministry, which is controlled by the Palestinian Hamas movement, with which Israel is at war.
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The Israeli army launched a new ground offensive on Gaza City this morning, in which, according to the Civil Defense, at least 30 people were killed.
The operations followed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's announcement that he would increase military pressure on the Islamist Palestinian movement Hamas to secure the release of the remaining hostages in Gaza.
In recent hours, Israeli forces have begun ground operations in a neighborhood in Gaza City to expand the security zone, the Israeli army said today, referring to the buffer zone it has established inside the Gaza Strip, on the border with Israel and Egypt.
"As part of that operation, soldiers eliminated numerous terrorists and destroyed the infrastructure of Hamas terrorists," the army added.
Soldiers are authorizing the evacuation of civilians from the combat zone via routes organized for their safety, the military added.
According to the Gaza Civil Defense, at least 30 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli operations since this morning.
After two months of a ceasefire in Gaza and several weeks of failed negotiations on how to continue the ceasefire, Israel resumed airstrikes on March 18, followed by ground operations in the Gaza Strip, a devastated Palestinian territory under siege.
Netanyahu's government claims that military pressure is the only way to force Hamas to hand over the approximately sixty remaining hostages, dead or alive, that it still holds.
The ceasefire came into effect on February 19 after 15 months of fighting triggered by Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
The Israeli military announced on Thursday that it had targeted 600 terrorist targets in Gaza since the ceasefire broke down on March 18. Israel accuses Hamas of using centers where refugees and displaced people have taken shelter for military purposes, which Hamas denies.
At the same time, the Israeli military has intensified attacks on Syria and Lebanon. This morning, in an airstrike on a building in Saida, southern Lebanon, it killed, it said, the commander of Hamas' armed wing, Hassan Farhad. His adult son, who is also a member of Hamas' armed wing, and his daughter were also killed in the attack.
A member of the Islamist Palestinian movement Hamas and his son and daughter were killed in an Israeli strike on Saida, a large city in southern Lebanon, a Palestinian source told Agence France-Presse.
The dawn strike targeted the apartment where the man and his two adult children were, said a Palestinian who did not want to be named.
The Israeli military announced today that it had killed a commander of the Palestinian Hamas movement in a strike in Saida, which also killed his two children.
According to the army, its forces carried out a "targeted attack on the Saida region" overnight, when "terrorist Hassan Farhat, commander of the Hamas section in western Lebanon, was eliminated."
According to a statement from the Israeli army, Hassan Farhat (63) has organized numerous terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers since the beginning of the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023.
The national Lebanese news agency ANI reported that three people were killed in an attack by an "enemy drone" on a residential area of the city, despite a ceasefire between Lebanon's Hezbollah and Israel that came into effect on November 27.
Lebanese Prime Minister Nafaw Salman condemned the "flagrant aggression against Lebanese sovereignty" and the apparent violation of the ceasefire agreement.
He called for maximum pressure to be exerted on Israel to force it to cease its constant attacks, targeting various areas in Lebanon and especially residential neighborhoods.
A Hamas military unit official was killed on February 17 in an Israeli strike on a vehicle in Saida, home to the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon.
The Israeli military has intensified its strikes on Lebanese territory since rockets were fired from Lebanon into Israel in March. The pro-Iranian Hezbollah group has not claimed responsibility for the rockets and has denied any involvement.
An Israeli strike on the southern suburbs of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold, killed an official from the Lebanese movement on April 1. The second strike on the sector was on March 28, the first since the ceasefire came into effect.
The two sides continue to accuse each other of violating the ceasefire, and Israel regularly carries out strikes on Lebanon, keeping troops in southern Lebanon, which borders northern Israel.
A fragile ceasefire has been in place in Lebanon since November, ending months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. Under the terms of the ceasefire, Israeli forces were to withdraw from Lebanese territory by the end of January, while Hezbollah was to end its armed presence south of the Litani River along the border with Israel.
(BETA)
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