Palestinian women and children wait to receive food in Khan Younis, in the south of the Gaza Strip, on Aug.21, 2025. (Credit: AFP.)
Israel threatened Friday to destroy Gaza City if Hamas did not accept peace on its terms, a day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave the green light to negotiations aimed at freeing all remaining hostages in Gaza.
"Soon, the gates of hell will open on the murderers and rapists of Hamas in Gaza, until they accept the conditions set by Israel to end the war, mainly the release of all hostages and the disarmament" of the Palestinian Islamist movement, wrote Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz on X.
"If they do not accept, Gaza, the capital of Hamas, will become Rafah or Beit Hanoun," he added, referring to two cities in the Gaza Strip largely razed by Israel in its war against Hamas for almost two years.
Thursday evening, Netanyahu announced he had ordered "immediate negotiations" with a view to "the release of all [the] hostages [still held in Gaza] and to end the war on terms acceptable to Israel."
Without naming it explicitly, he was thus responding to the latest proposal from mediators — Egypt, Qatar, and the United States — aimed at a cease-fire in the Palestinian territory, which faces a catastrophic humanitarian situation.
While the U.N. and many humanitarian aid NGOs warn of an imminent risk of famine in the Gaza Strip, the publication of a new international report on hunger in the besieged Palestinian territory is expected Friday.
In its latest version published at the end of July, this IPC report (for Integrated Food Security Phase Classification) noted that the "worst-case scenario of famine (was) underway in the Gaza Strip" due to the intensification of fighting, massive population displacement, and restrictions on humanitarian aid.
Empty pots
"Do you know who is starving? The hostages kidnapped and tortured by the barbarians of Hamas," wrote on X the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, a staunch supporter of Israel even before the publication of this report.
"Maybe the overfed terrorists could share with the hungry people, especially the hostages, some of their warehouses full of what they have stolen," he added.
Every day, AFP journalists in the Gaza Strip witness food distributions where crowds of Palestinians of all ages rush, shouting, crying, begging to have their empty pans or pots filled, stretched out with the energy of despair toward field kitchens.
While saying they want to negotiate a ceasefire and hostage release agreement in Gaza, Israel, which now controls about 75 percent of the Palestinian territory, is stepping up its military pressure. The government thus approved this week a plan to assault Gaza City, the largest in the territory, and announced the recall of 60,000 additional reservists.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has warned that the Israeli plan to extend military operations in Gaza would have terrible consequences for the 2.4 million Palestinians of Gaza who are already at their breaking point.
Hamas, whose unprecedented attack in Israel on Oct.7, 2023, triggered the war, agreed Monday to a draft deal providing, according to Palestinian sources, for a 60-day truce during which the hostages still held in Gaza (numbering 49, including 27 declared dead by the Israeli army) would be released in two phases in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
The Oct.7 attack resulted in the death of 1,219 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official data. The Israeli military campaign of reprisals in the Gaza Strip has caused at least 62,192 deaths, mostly civilians, according to the Health Ministry of the Hamas government for Gaza. The ministry, whose figures are considered reliable by the U.N., does not specify the number of fighters killed.
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