Hamas Announces It Will Begin Executing Hostages on Live Broadcasts
Hamas has threatened that it will execute hostages taken from Israel on Saturday on live TV if Israel attacks Gaza without warning.
“From this moment on, we announce that any targeting innocent civilians without warning will be met, regretfully to say, by executing one of the hostages in our custody. And we will be forced to broadcast this execution. We regret this decision,” a Hamas spokesman said in a video from Aljezeera, posted on X, formerly Twitter, by Greg Price.
BREAKING: A spokesperson for Hamas just said that they are going to start executing civilian hostages they took from Israel on live TV for every IDF airstrike that hits a civilian in Gaza, which happens as a result of Hamas using them as human shields.
These are the animals… pic.twitter.com/BbGb2mEOAr
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) October 9, 2023
According to the Times of Israel, which cited Gaza’s Shehab news outlet as its source, a representative of Hamas’s Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, who goes by Abu Obeida, said, “From this hour, any targeting of our people in the safety of their homes, without warning, will be met with the execution of civilian hostages, which will be broadcast with video and audio.”
Citing a source it did not name, the Times of Israel reported that unlike in past attacks on Gaza, Israel will not be dropping dummy bombs on buildings it would attack, which had served as a warning for those inside.
Hamas is believed to be holding about 150 Israelis hostage, according to The New York Times.
Israel has estimated that at least 900 people were killed in the attacks, a figure that has continued to climb since Saturday’s attacks began, according to CNN.
IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said in a report — published by the Times of Israel at midafternoon Monday Eastern Time — that as he was giving his briefing, 60 Israeli fighter jets were attacking Hamas.
An Israeli military spokesman says the rate of airstrikes on the Gaza Strip is five times higher than on Hezbollah during the second Lebanon war.
At this moment, the bombing continues in Gaza and several drones are heard. pic.twitter.com/87hzPZSDMo
— Sprinter (@Sprinter99800) October 9, 2023
On Monday, former prime minister Naftali Bennett said the war Israel is fighting is “the harshest event since the War of Independence.”
“This is not the Yom Kippur War — it is Yom Kippur multiplied by 100, because here we are talking about murder, the systematic slaughter of babies, girls, boys, things that are hard to bear. We set up a Jewish state in this land in order to defend ourselves, and now the time has come to fight back,” he said, according to the Times of Israel.
“When we are facing the Iranian enemy — Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Iran — we are facing a Nazi conception,” Bennett said
“I’ve not said this in the past. I never conceived that they would come and slaughter, cut the throats of children. These are animals. Not a state enemy. We have to deal with this as though they are Nazis. What we would do to Nazis, to do to them,” he said.
The Times of Israel’s war update noted that one settlement was able to repel its attackers.
Nir Am, a kibbutz 500 yards from Gaza’s border, defended itself.
“The terrorists appear to have tried to penetrate a large chicken farm next to Nir Am, possibly mistaking its fence for the kibbutz’s fence,” said Ami Rabin, a former security coordinator of Nir Am.
“We were alert, prepared and effective, but we were also very fortunate that the thrust of the attempt to penetrate the kibbutz was poorly executed,” he said.
Translation:
“‘Ein Habsor’ one of the only towns that managed to defend against the attackers and push them back.
The army recently took the citizen’s emergency squad’s assault rifles and left them only with a small amount and hand guns.
The men of the town managed to defend > pic.twitter.com/ICWDYgR0W3— ג’ינג’אס חאן🇲🇳 (@AmitReuveni) October 9, 2023
In Ein Habsor, a few local residents fought off their attackers, resident Noam Gotliv said.
“What happened to us was part alertness, part miracle,” he said.
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