ShareGAZA/JERUSALEM: Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened Wednesday to seize parts of Gaza if Hamas does not release captives, while the group warned they would return “in coffins” if the Zionist entity does not stop bombing the Palestinian territory. According to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, 830 people have been killed in the territory since Zionist entity resumed its strikes on March 18. No deaths have been reported on the Zionist’s side.
Netanyahu told parliament that “the more Hamas persists in its refusal to release our hostages, the stronger the pressure we will exert”. “This includes the seizure of territories, along with other measures I will not elaborate here,” he added, days after his Defense Minister Israel Katz had warned: “The more Hamas refuses to free the hostages, the more territory it will lose, which will be annexed by (the Zionist entity)”.
Of the 251 captives seized during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on the Zionist entity, 58 are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Zionist military says are dead. “Every time the occupation attempts to retrieve its captives by force, it ends up bringing them back in coffins,” Hamas said in a statement. The group said it was “doing everything possible to keep the occupation’s captives alive, but the random Zionist bombardment is endangering their lives”.
The Zionist military offensive has killed at least 50,183 people in Gaza, mostly civilians. In northern Gaza on Tuesday, Palestinians gathered for the biggest anti-Hamas rally since the start of the war. Majdi, a protester who did not wish to give his full name, said the “people are tired”. “If Hamas leaving power in Gaza is the solution, why doesn’t Hamas give up power to protect the people?” Hamas, while expressing readiness to step back from an active part in government, says it must be involved in selecting whatever administration comes next.
Fatah, the Palestinian movement of president Mahmoud Abbas, has called on Hamas to “step aside from governing” Gaza to safeguard the “existence” of Palestinians in the war-battered territory. Senior Hamas official Basem Naim said people had the right to protest at the suffering inflicted by the war but he denounced what he said were “suspicious political agendas” exploiting the situation. “Where are they from, what is happening in the West Bank?” he said. “Why don’t they protest against the aggression there or allow people to take to the streets to denounce this aggression?”
Netanyahu said the protests showed the Zionist decision to renew its offensive in Gaza was working. “In recent days, we have seen something unprecedented – open protests in Gaza against Hamas rule. This shows that our policy is working. We are determined to achieve all of our war objectives,” Netanyahu said during a speech in parliament.
Meanwhile, Zionist police released Oscar-winning Palestinian filmmaker Hamdan Ballal on Tuesday, after detaining him a day earlier for “hurling rocks” following an attack by settlers in the occupied West Bank. Basel Adra, who worked with Ballal on the Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land”, posted a photo of Ballal on X after his release with blood stains on his shirt. “After I won the Oscar, I did not expect to be exposed to such attacks,” Ballal said in a video by AFPTV. “It was a very strong attack and the goal was to kill.”
According to the Zionist military, three Palestinians were apprehended on Monday for “hurling rocks” during a confrontation between Zionists and Palestinians in the southern West Bank village of Susya. The village is located near Masafer Yatta, a grouping of hamlets south of Hebron city where “No Other Land” is set. The best documentary at this year’s Academy Awards tells the story of forced displacement of Palestinians by Zionist troops and settlers in Masafer Yatta — an area the Zionist entity had declared a restricted military zone in the 1980s.
Ballal said he had been attacked by a settler. “He was hitting me all over my body and there was also a soldier with him hitting me.” Yuval Abraham, who co-directed “No Other Land”, said Ballal has injuries to the “head and stomach, bleeding”. Activists from the anti-occupation group Center for Jewish Nonviolence said they witnessed the violence in Susya while there in an effort to deter settler violence.
“This type of violence is happening on a regular basis,” said Jenna, an American activist who declined to share her full name out of security concerns. She said that before Zionist forces arrived, a group of 15 to 20 settlers attacked the activists as well as Ballal’s house in the village. Foreign activists regularly stay in Masafer Yatta’s communities to accompany Palestinians as they tend to their crops or shepherd their sheep, and document instances of settler violence. – Agencies
