• In this image made from a video released by the Israeli Government Press Office, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gives a statement Tuesday, March 18, 2025, in Tel Aviv. (AP)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reiterated threats to seize territory in Gaza if Hamas refuses to release the remaining Israeli captives.  

Netanyahu's warning came a week after "Israel" resumed the war on the Palestinian enclave, breaking the relative calm established by a January ceasefire with Hamas.  

“The more Hamas continues in its refusal to release our hostages, the more powerful the repression we exert will be,” Netanyahu told a parliamentary hearing, which was intermittently disrupted by opposition members.

"I say this to my colleagues in the Knesset, and I say it to Hamas as well: this includes the seizure of territories, along with other measures I will not elaborate here," he indicated.  

On Wednesday, Hamas warned that captives could be killed if "Israel" attempts a military rescue. “Every time the occupation attempts to retrieve its captives by force, it ends up bringing them back in coffins,” the group said in a statement.

The Palestinian group pointed out that it was "doing everything possible to keep the (Israeli) occupation's captives alive, but the random Zionist bombardment is endangering their lives."

Of the 251 captives taken during the Palestinian Resistance's operation against "Israel" on October 7, 2023, 58 remain in Gaza, including 34 whom the Israeli military believes are dead.

'With full force'

On Wednesday, Israeli Security Minister Israel Katz said the occupation military would "soon operate with full force in additional areas of Gaza" and would send out more evacuation orders.

Last week, Katz threatened to annex parts of the Gaza Strip unless Hamas releases the remaining Israeli captives.

In a statement on Friday, Katz said, "I ordered (the army) to seize more territory in Gaza... The more Hamas refuses to free the hostages, the more territory it will lose, which will be annexed by Israel."

Meanwhile, at least nine Palestinians were killed in two separate Israeli airstrikes in central Gaza on Wednesday, according to medics.

One strike hit a group of Palestinians gathered outside a charity distributing hot meals in the Nuseirat refugee camp. At least five people, including a woman and her adult daughter, were killed, according to casualties received at al-Awda hospital.

The United Nations reported on Wednesday that "Israel’s" renewed military operations in Gaza had displaced 142,000 people in just seven days, warning of dwindling humanitarian aid supplies.

“In just one week, 142,000 people have been displaced,” the spokesperson for the UN secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, noted, highlighting that about 90% of Gaza’s population had been displaced at least once since the war began on October 7, 2023.

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, more than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed and another 113,408 wounded since the war began, and 830 people have been killed since "Israel" resumed its aggression on March 18.

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