Hamas: Israel will not receive another hostage after IDF invasion of Gaza City

Additionally, senior Hamas official Bassem Naim warned that any further IDF operations in Gaza would result in harm to the hostages.

Hamas said that the IDF’s invasion of Gaza City means that Israel will not receive any hostages, dead or alive, in a Thursday statement.

“Your prisoners are distributed within the neighborhoods of Gaza City, and we will not be concerned for their lives as long as Netanyahu has decided to kill them,” a statement from the al-Qassam Brigades said, as reported by CNN.

“The commencement of this criminal operation and its expansion means that you will not receive any prisoner, neither alive nor dead, and their fate will be the same as that of (Ron Arad).”

“Gaza will be a graveyard for your soldiers,” a subsequent Hamas statement added.

The al-Qassam Brigades statement referred to Israeli Air Force officer Ron Arad, who was kidnapped in Lebanon in 1986.

Despite attempts to secure his release, Arad remained in Lebanese captivity, and apart from little documented evidence, Israel declared in 2016 that he died in captivity in 1988.

Earlier on Thursday, Bassem Naim, a senior official in Hamas’s political bureau who was targeted in the Israeli strike in Doha, appeared on Qatari television for the first time since the attack.

Naim warned that any continued Israeli ground offensive inGaza City would be met with intense resistance in an interview with Al Araby.

“The operation in Gaza City will be met with fierce resistance,” he said. “The death and destruction the enemy is trying to bring to Gaza’s streets will also come upon its soldiers.

“Whoever harms our people during the operation in Gaza City will also harm its captives, both the living and the dead.”

Naim also accused Israel of using negotiations as a cover for its military actions.

“Israel deceived everyone, pretending to engage in negotiations to mask its crimes,” he added.

Israel tells families it lacks precise Gaza hostage locations

Israeli security officials have privately informed the families of hostages that they do not have specific information on the hostages’ current locations, according to a report published by N12 on Wednesday evening.

This admission contrasts with recent public assurances from both political and military leaders, who have emphasized that the military campaign in Gaza is being conducted carefully in areas thought to contain hostages. Families who took part in the private meeting said they were told a different and far more uncertain picture.

According to N12, a senior defense official stated during the meeting that the army cannot confirm where the hostages are.