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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
Hamas warns Gaza City offensive ends hope for hostage return, as
pressure from families on Netanyahu grows
By Abeer Salman, Eugenia Yosef and Kara Fox
Updated:
6:06 PM EDT, Thu September 18, 2025
Source: CNN
Hamas issued its strongest messaging about the Israeli hostages in Gaza
Thursday night, saying that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu’s ground incursion means that Israel has lost any chance of
getting its hostages out of the territory – dead or alive.
In a message written in Hebrew and addressed to the Israeli military
and leadership, Hamas’ military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, said
that Netanyahu had effectively issued a death sentence for the
hostages.
“Your prisoners are distributed within the neighborhoods of Gaza
City, and we will not be concerned for their lives as long as Netanyahu
has decided to kill them. The commencement of this criminal operation
and its expansion means that you will not receive any prisoner, neither
alive nor dead, and their fate will be the same as that of (Ron
Arad),” it said.
Arad is an Israeli Air Force weapon systems officer who went missing in
action in 1986 in Lebanon and who is believed to have been captured by
the military group Amal and later handed over to Hezbollah.
In a subsequent statement, Hamas said that they were preparing to fight
and that, “Gaza will be a graveyard for your soldiers.”
CNN has reached out to the Prime Minister’s Office for comment.
Hamas’ statement comes as against Netanyahu and his government
continues to mount inside Israel, with the weekly demonstrations in Tel
Aviv demanding an end to the war and a ceasefire reaching a fever pitch
– with some hostage families leading the fury.
On Thursday, Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Effie Defrin sought to
reassure the hostage families after being pressed by a reporter on
whether the IDF knew where the hostages are.
“The hostages are always in our thoughts,” Defrin said, adding:
“We will do everything to avoid harming them.”
However, many hostage families have also said Israel’s plans to take
the city will be a death sentence for their loved ones. There are 48
hostages remaining in Gaza, 20 of whom are believed alive.
In video shared by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum this week,
Einav Zangauker, the mother of Israeli hostage Matan Zangauker,
Netanyahu’s house with other hostage families, yelling in anguish.
“Come out and tell me how you lied to my face and told me that you
were going to bring an agreement and bring everyone back. Come out and
tell me how you lied to me,” Zangauker screams in the video.
Meanwhile, international condemnation of Israel’s actions continues
to mount, with the European Union – Israel’s biggest trading
partner – proposing sanctions and a United Nations Commission that
concluded that Israel is committing genocide.
Israel has denied the accusation.
Ahead of the long-anticipated ground incursion, Israel’s military its
airstrikes and its bombardment of high-rise towers in Gaza City – the
enclave’s most populous.
Approximately one million people – nearly half of the territory’s
population – live in and around Gaza City. Israel has tried to force
the local population to evacuate, but there are increasingly few safe
places in Gaza to go. Palestinians continue to flee the north by foot,
car and bike – carrying what they can to the increasingly crowded
south.
On Thursday, the IDF estimated less than half of the city’s residents
– 450,000 people – were left, numbers which CNN cannot
independently confirm.
The new assault comes as the United Nations and others have warned that
it will only deepen an already catastrophic humanitarian crisis, with
parts of the Gaza officially .
The Palestinian Ministry of Health on Thursday said that four people,
including a child, had died from malnutrition over the last 24 hours,
bringing the number of famine-related deaths to 435 since the beginning
of the war.
Over 65,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed since October 7,
2023.
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