Hamas militants threatened to execute hostages on live broadcasts if Israel attacked Gaza without warning as the Israel-Palestine conflict rages on.
In a statement on a video that was posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, a spokesman for the Hamas militants said that any targeting of innocent civilians without warning would be met with the execution of hostages that are in their custody. He noted that they would be forced to broadcast the killings.
Hamas Threatens To Execute Hostages
A report cited an unidentified source who said that unlike in past attacks on Gaza, Israel would not be dropping dummy bombs on buildings it would target, which had served as a warning for the people inside.
Currently, the Hamas group is believed to be in custody of roughly 150 Israeli hostages and Israel has estimated that at least 900 people were killed amid the conflict. This figure has continued to rise since the beginning of the attacks on Saturday, as per The Western Journal.
A spokesman for the Israeli Defense Force, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said in a report published on Monday that 60 Israeli fighter jets were attacking Hamas as he was briefing. Additionally, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Monday that the war that Israel is fighting is "the harshest event since the War of Independence."
He added that the situation was not the same as the Yom Kippur War, saying that the recent conflict is 100 times worse. He said this is because the latest development includes murder, the systematic slaughter of babies, girls, boys, and things that are hard to bear. Bennett also said that they have set up a Jewish state in the region to defend themselves, saying that the time to do so has now come.
The former prime minister said that he never conceived that the militants would ever come and slaughter or cut the throats of children. He called them animals and not simply state enemies, adding that they must deal with them as though they were Nazis.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Amid the conflict, United States President Joe Biden said that his government was working with Israel on "hostage recovery efforts." His remarks came after meeting with his national security team at the White House, adding that he believes that Hamas militants may be holding American hostages among the people that they brought from Israel into Gaza, according to DW News.
The Democratic leader said he directed his team to work with their Israeli counterparts on every aspect of the hostage crisis. This includes sharing intelligence and deploying experts from across the United States government to consult with and advise Israeli counterparts on the efforts.
Hamas' execution warning came shortly before at least 100 bodies were recovered from Be'eri, a community in southern Israel that the group's militant forces seized. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that his country's response to the attacks has "only started," said Sky News.
