to be, and the current date is 2025-08-23.
Israel‘s defense minister has warned that Gaza City could be destroyed unless Hamas accepts Israel’s terms, as the contry prepares for an expanded offensive in the area. A day after Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would authorise the military to seize Gaza City,defence minister Israel Katz warned that the enclave’s largest city could “turn into Rafah and Beit Hanoun” – areas reduced to rubble earlier in the war. Mr Katz wrote on X: “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.” He restated Israel’s ceasefire demands: the release of all hostages and Hamas’ complete disarmament. Hamas issued a statement that called Mr 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. US President Donald trump,simultaneously occurring,expressed frustration with Hamas’s 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,” mr Trump told reporters on Friday. Mr Netanyahu on Thursday said he had instructed officials “to begin immediate negotiations” to release hostages and end the war on acceptable terms,Israel’s first public response to the latest ceasefire proposal. The wide-scale operation in Gaza City could start within days. Gaza City is hamas’s military and governing stronghold, and is on top of what Israel believes is an extensive tunnel network. It is also sheltering hundreds of thousands of civilians and still houses some of the strip’s critical infrastructure and health facilities.Hamas said earlier this week that it had agreed to a ceasefire proposal from Arab mediators, which – if accepted by Israel - could forestall the offensive.The proposal outlines a phased deal involving hostage and prisoner exchanges and a pullback of Israeli troops, while talks continue on a longer-term ceasefire. Israeli leaders have resisted such terms since abandoning a similar agreement earlier this year amid divisions within Mr Netanyahu’s coalition.
