Israel threatens Gaza City’s destruction unless Hamas releases all hostages
Global News
The world’s leading authority on food crises declared Friday that Gaza City is gripped by famine that is likely to spread if fighting and restrictions on humanitarian aid continue.
Israel’s defense minister warned Friday that Gaza’s largest city could be destroyed unless Hamas yields to his country’s terms, as the world’s leading authority on food crises declared that the city is gripped by famine from fighting and an Israeli blockade.
A day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would authorize the military to mount a major operation to seize Gaza City, Defense Minister Israel Katz warned that it could “turn into Rafah and Beit Hanoun,” areas largely reduced to rubble earlier in the war.
“The gates of hell will soon open on the heads of Hamas’ murderers and rapists in Gaza — until they agree to Israel’s conditions for ending the war,” Katz wrote in a post on X.
He restated Israel’s ceasefire demands: the release of all hostages and Hamas’ complete disarmament.
Hamas issued a statement that called Katz’s comments “a confession of committing a crime that amounts to ethnic cleansing.”
The militant group has said it would release captives in exchange for ending the war, but it rejects disarmament without the creation of a Palestinian state.
U.S. President Donald Trump, meanwhile, expressed frustration with Hamas’ stance in long-running ceasefire talks, suggesting the militant group was less interested in making deals to release hostages with so few left alive in captivity.
“The situation has to end. It’s extortion, and it has to end,” Trump told reporters Friday. “And we’ll see what happens. I actually think (the hostages are) safer in many ways if you went in and you really went in fast and you did it.”
Juan Orlando Hernández was sentenced to 45 years in prison for taking bribes from drug traffickers so they could safely move some 400 tons of cocaine through Honduras to the U.S.
Costco has sued the U.S. government to ensure it will receive refunds if the Supreme Court rejects President Donald Trump's bid for sweeping authority to impose tariffs.
Footage of the incident, shared on social media, shows the man shimmying down a tree into the lion enclosure.
Initial tests showed it was up to code, but investigators later found seven failed safety standards, which officials said suggested contractors skimped to make greater profits.
The 2025 news cycle was 'dominated by social unrest, debates about the regulation of online content, and concerns over digital wellbeing,' OUP said while announcing the decision.
Lawmakers from both parties said Sunday they support congressional reviews of recent U.S. military strikes against vessels suspected of smuggling drugs.
Hundreds more are missing following flooding and landslides in the past week, which killed at least 604 people in Indonesia, 366 in Sri Lanka and 176 in Thailand, authorities said.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other U.S. officials held talks with a Ukrainian delegation to further hash out the details of a proposed peace framework.