Hamas threatens to kill hostages over Israeli strikes

By Jay Deshmukh with Adel Zaanoun in Gaza City

Jerusalem — Palestinian militant group Hamas, which dragged off about 150 hostages in its surprise weekend assault on southern Israel, threatened on Monday to kill them if Israeli air strikes continue “targeting” Gaza residents without warning.

The threat came after Israel imposed a total siege on the Gaza Strip, cutting off the water supply which sparked UN fears of an increasingly dire humanitarian situation.

Israel continued bombing targets in response to the surprise Hamas assault it has likened to the 9/11 attacks.

Reeling from the Palestinian Islamist group’s unprecedented ground, air and sea attacks, Israel has counted 800 dead and launched a withering barrage of strikes on Gaza that have raised the death toll there to 560.

Fireballs repeatedly lit up the darkness of Gaza City Monday night as explosions sounded and sirens wailed.

Hamas — whose militants surged into Israeli towns on Saturday, spraying gunfire at civilians and dragging off captives — claimed on Monday that Israeli air strikes had killed four of the hostages.

It later said it could start killing them itself.

“Every targeting of our people without warning will be met with the execution of one of the civilian hostages,” the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, said in a statement.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier threatened that “what Hamas will experience will be difficult and terrible … We are going to change the Middle East.

“This is only the beginning,” he vowed. “We will defeat them with force, enormous force.”

Hamas launched more rockets as far as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, where missile defence systems fired and air raid sirens blared.

Israel said it had called up 300,000 army reservists for its “Swords of Iron” campaign, and truck convoys were moving tanks to the south, where its forces were working to dislodge holdout Hamas fighters from embattled towns.

Libby Weiss, an Israeli military spokeswoman, said some Hamas militants “are still there right now”, after about 1,000 militants had penetrated the region on the Jewish Sabbath.

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel would impose a “complete siege” on