Updated 00.52 | Published 00.14
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Hamas responds to the “total siege” with an icy threat.
One hostage dies for every bombing of Gaza.
– We will have to film the executions.
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Supplies of food, water and electricity have been cut off to Gaza in a “total siege”.
687 Palestinians, including 140 children, have been killed in Gaza since the Hamas shock attack, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
– There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is turned off. We fight beasts and act accordingly, says Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
“Only the Beginning”
Israelis have been evacuated from border areas and the entire border is guarded by tanks and air support.
Late in the evening, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that this is only the beginning of the war – which will continue until “the threat from Hamas is eliminated”.
– We knew all along who Hamas was. Now the rest of the world knows. Hamas is IS and we will defeat them in the same way that modern civilization defeated IS. This enemy wanted war and that is what they are getting, Netanyahu said.
He stated in the speech that a number of Hamas gunmen are still entrenched on Israeli soil and that fighting is ongoing.
900 dead in Israel
The government has still not confirmed that it is planning a ground offensive into Gaza.
At least 900 people were killed in Hamas attacks inside Israel on Saturday, Israeli army radio said.
US President Joe Biden stated on Monday evening that eleven US citizens are among the dead in Israel.
In addition, more than 100 people have been brought across the border into Gaza. Among the hostages are the elderly, families with children and people of different nationalities.
Citizens from countries such as the United States, France, Mexico and Argentina are missing and believed to have been abducted.
After almost three days in the violence of the terrorists, their situation was even more desperate last night.
Threatens to kill the hostages
Hamas states in an audio message that it will kill one hostage for every new Israeli bomb attack on Gaza.
– Every attack on innocent civilians without warning, we will unfortunately be forced to respond by executing one of the captured. We will be forced to film the executions, said Abu Obeida, a spokesman for Hamas, in the message.
– We regret this decision, but we hold the Zionist enemy and its leadership responsible for this.
The spokesperson says that they “do not negotiate for the prisoners as long as the shelling continues”, that “threats will not help” and that Israel must be “prepared to pay the price” if it wants its captured citizens back.
Obeida also claims that Israeli airstrikes have already killed “four of the enemy prisoners and those who captured them”.
Israel: Continuing
Israeli army radio says airstrikes against targets inside Gaza will continue even if it puts hostages at risk.
“Attacks in Gaza will be carried out powerfully and widely even if it comes at the cost of harming Israelis held captive in Gaza,” says the channel owned by the Israeli military.
It states that it will refrain from bombing in areas where, according to intelligence, it suspects that its own citizens are being held captive.
Marwan Bishara, political analyst on the television channel Al Jazeera, believes that Hamas’s threat to kill the hostages is a sign that the situation on the ground in Gaza is “desperate”.
– Hamas is being pressured more and more to act after the ongoing bombings and attacks against the civilian population in Gaza, he says to his own TV channel.
The father disappeared
Since the attacks on Saturday, newspapers and television channels both in Israel and in other countries have been filled with emotional testimonies and pleas for help from relatives whose loved ones were abducted to Gaza.
Gilad Peretz last heard from his father on Saturday morning at 08:48.
The father had driven desperately down to southern Israel to try to save his daughter, Gilad’s sister, after hearing about the attack on the music festival.
Gilad had his father on the phone when he heard gunfire and the call ended.
The sister survived the attack by hiding in a bush.
– She is traumatized now. But we try to keep her strong and think about our father, says Gilad Peretz to NBC News.
“Don’t Take Me”
The family believes that Hamas took the father as a hostage.
An Israeli teenage mother tells MCNBC that she spoke to her sons, ages 12 and 16, when they were taken by Hamas from the house they were hiding in.
– I could hear people speaking Arabic outside the door, they broke in and the last thing I heard was my youngest who is 12 saying “I’m too young, don’t take me…”, she tells the TV channel.
– I used to tell my children to feel sympathy for the children in Gaza because they suffer more than you do. I’m not sure I feel that way anymore.