Katz threatens Hamas
by Ibrahim Ebeid. February 9, 2025
The new war in Gaza will be intense and will allow the implementation of the Trump plan in the Gaza Strip
Occupied Jerusalem/
Israel’s defense minister vowed Wednesday to return to war unless Hamas releases hostages held in the Gaza Strip by Saturday, warning that doing so would allow US President Donald Trump’s vision of taking control of Gaza to be implemented.
Israel Katz said after a meeting with the army that “the new war in Gaza will be of a different intensity than the one that preceded the ceasefire (…) It will also allow the implementation of US President (Donald) Trump’s plan in Gaza.”
He stressed that it “will also allow the implementation of President Trump’s vision on Gaza,” referring to the White House master’s proposal on US control of the Strip and the transfer of its population to Egypt and Jordan.
A fragile truce between Hamas and Israel has been in place since Jan. 19, but it appears to face a crisis Wednesday as the Palestinian militant group said it would not bow to threats from Israel and the United States.
On Wednesday, a Palestinian source told AFP that Qatari and Egyptian mediators were “working intensively” to resolve the Gaza ceasefire agreement crisis. At the same time, Hamas announced that a delegation led by its head negotiator Khalil al-Haya arrived Wednesday afternoon in Cairo to meet with Egyptian security officials to discuss ending the crisis related to the truce between the group and Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Hamas Tuesday that “if it does not release our hostages by Saturday afternoon, the ceasefire will end and (the IDF) will resume heavy fighting until it is finally defeated.”
Netanyahu’s comments came after Trump threatened Hamas with “hell” if it “does not release all the hostages” before “12:00” on Saturday after the Palestinian Islamist movement threatened to delay Saturday’s scheduled releases as part of the ceasefire agreement.
In a video statement Wednesday, Katz said he was holding security consultations with the army’s operations command center “to ensure that the IDF is properly prepared for renewed war in Gaza.”
“If Hamas suspends the release of the hostages, then the agreement will not exist and there will be war.”
The war in Gaza erupted following a Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, that killed 1,211 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Hamas took 251 hostages, 73 of whom remain in Gaza, 35 of whom the Israeli military says were killed.
Gaza’s Health Ministry reports that the war has killed 48,222 people in the Strip, figures the UN considers credible.
THE WAR CONTINUES IN THE WEST BANK.
The Zionist occupation forces continued their aggression against the city of Tulkarm and its camp for the 18th consecutive day and its fifth day on Nour Shams camp, with the continuation of the siege, house raids, and forced displacement of citizens, accompanied by a campaign of widespread arrests.
This ongoing aggression has led to the widespread destruction of infrastructure and property and forced thousands of citizens to flee their homes in Tulkarm and Nur Shams camps at gunpoint.
At dawn today, the Israeli occupation forces arrested several young men from the suburb of Thanaba, east of the city, after raiding their homes, including Ahmed Samir Abu Jarad, Hussam Al-Hajj Ahmed, Mustafa Al-Hajj Ahmed, and Jamil Al-Hajj Ahmed, and arrested the young man Iyad Abu Zahra from his home in the western neighborhood of the city.
Last night, the occupation forces pushed more military reinforcements to the city and its camps, and deployed foot soldiers in the streets and neighborhoods, amid extensive combing and search work, concentrated in the eastern and northern districts of the city, in addition to the lanes of the two camps.
The occupying forces continue their siege of the eastern neighborhood of the city, specifically Al-Muqata’a Street and Abu Safiya Junction, seizing residential buildings and turning them into military barracks, knocking on the doors of houses, preventing citizens from leaving and moving, restricting them inside their homes and even preventing them from opening windows.
At the same time, the Israeli occupation forces fired live ammunition heavily and indiscriminately in the Tulkarm refugee camp, specifically in the airport lane, amid raids on homes, causing destruction and vandalism, while continuing to seize a number of them and turn them into military barracks and sniper areas.
The suffering of citizens who did not leave their homes on the outskirts of the camp is exacerbated as a result of the tight siege and continuous attacks on the camp. Their appeals to deliver supplies, drinking water, medicines, and baby milk continue, in light of the exacerbation of human suffering as a result of the interruption of all basic services such as water, electricity, and communications after the occupation destroyed the infrastructure of the camp.
In Nour Shams refugee camp, Israeli bulldozers continue to demolish homes and destroy infrastructure inside their neighborhoods, specifically Manshiyya, coinciding with the sound of live bullets and the sound of huge explosions.
The demolition and vandalism coincided with the imposition of a tight siege by the occupation on the camp and its outskirts, turning it into a military barracks, raiding and vandalizing homes, and forcing their residents to leave them with threats and intimidation, at a time when the camp is witnessing a wave of large-scale displacement of the population, including women, children and the elderly, incurring the hardships of moving on foot amid the great destruction of the streets, rain and severe cold on the one hand, and intimidating the occupation, which fires heavily on the other hand and exposing them to danger.
Yesterday, the Israeli occupation forces used the headphones of the camp mosque in the clinic neighborhood to demand that citizens evacuate their homes and leave them immediately.
In addition, the Israeli occupation forces continue to close the gate of Jbara Bridge at the southern entrance to Tulkarm, separating it from the villages of Al-Kafriyat for the sixth consecutive day.
