Hamas threatens to execute civilian hostages if Israel bombs Gaza without warning
Hamas has said it will execute an Israeli hostage in response to any new Gaza Strip bombings that come without a pre-warning – moments after a senior figure from the group told Sky News civilian captives would be treated “humanely”.
Doctor Basem Naim, Hamas’s head of political and international relations, also claimed to Sky’s Mark Austin that the group has not “killed any civilians” since its militants crossed the border from the Gaza Strip and launched a surprise attack on Israel on Saturday.
Asked how many hostages the militant group had taken and brought into the Strip, Dr Naim said he couldn’t confirm an exact number, but said they would be treated in a “humane way, a proper way”.
He said he can “100% guarantee” they will be safe and orders have been given to fighters to not kill or harm elderly people, women or children.
However, moments later another Hamas official said it would begin executing Israeli civilian captives in return for any Israeli bombing of civilian houses in the Gaza Strip without warning.
Sky News understands Qatar is mediating between sides for an exchange of civilian hostages, including women and children.
The attack on Saturday morning took Israel by surprise.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the attack would “change the Middle East”.
“I know you have been through terrible and difficult things,” he told authorities from the south of the country. “What Hamas will go through will be difficult and terrible.
“We have only just begun.”
More than 1,000 Palestinian targets hit – follow live updates
His comments came before at least 100 bodies were recovered from Be’eri, a community in southern Israel that was seized by Hamas, rescue workers have told TV channels in the country.
Earlier on Monday, rescuers said they had recovered at least 260 bodies from the site of a music festival in Israel that was attacked by Hamas during its incursion.
However, Dr Naim had earlier told Sky News: “We have not killed any civilians.”
He added that he did not consider anyone “carrying guns” as a civilian.
Dr Naim said: “We have responded to 75 years of occupation, we have responded to 17 years of a suffocating siege, the silent killing of 2.3 million Palestinians.”
He says people in the Gaza Strip, controlled by Hamas, are “always under attack” and “never safe”.
“We are living in the biggest open-air prison. You have to choose either to die by F-35 or F-16 or to die silently of malnutrition,” he added.
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How Hamas attack unfolded – and the response
The two days of violence between Israel and Hamas has reportedly left at least 900 Israelis and 500 Palestinians dead so far.
Meanwhile, Israel has also ordered a “complete siege” of the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian territory governed by Hamas, leaving it with no food, electricity or fuel.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres later said he was “deeply distressed” by Israel’s decision to impose the siege.
It comes as Israeli forces continue to fight Hamas militants in two locations inside Israel after formally declaring war on the Palestinian militant group.
Around 300,000 reservists have been called up by the Israeli military as defence minister Yoav Gallant said his country was “battling beastly people” after Hamas launched its surprise attack from Gaza on Saturday.
Israeli authorities said a “huge rocket barrage” was fired at the country on Monday, with media in the country reporting that it came from Hamas-controlled areas.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military said it had hit more than 1,000 targets inside the Gaza Strip on Monday.
Read more:
How Hamas misled Israel for months to pull off attack
Grandmother taken by Hamas ‘suffering every minute’
Doron Spielman, a spokesperson for the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), said there is still active fighting with Hamas militants “constantly trying to cross over” the border.
“We expect this to continue because there’s a massive number of jihadis that have been trained to do this,” he told NBC.
This is despite Israeli troops having regained control in some areas of southern Israel.
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Israeli military strikes targets across Gaza
The IDF has also said it is conducting strikes inside Lebanese territory. It said details would follow but provided no more information.
The strikes come after a number of reports of firefights on the border with Lebanon, with the IDF claiming it had killed “a number” of “infiltrators”.
The Lebanon-based Hezbollah group, which is backed by Iran, said it had not attempted any incursion.
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Moments after rocket hits Israeli city
More than 10 Britons are feared dead or missing in Israel, Sky News understands.
At least nine Americans have been confirmed dead with a further three missing.
World
Thai prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra sacked for ethics violation after leaked phone call
Thailand’s prime minister has been sacked after a leaked phone call with a senior Cambodian politician caused outrage.
Paetongtarn Shinawatra, who was Thailand’s youngest PM, has been dismissed from office by the country’s Constitutional Court after only a year in power.
The court found Ms Shinawatra, 39, violated ethics in a leaked June telephone call, during which she appeared to kowtow to Cambodia’s former leader Hun Sen as the bordering countries were on the verge of an armed conflict.
She also criticised a Thai army commander – a taboo move in a country where the military is extremely influential.
Fighting erupted weeks later and lasted five days. At least 35 people were killed and more than 260,000 were displaced.
Ms Shinawatra, who was new to politics when she took office in August last year, apologised over the call and said she was trying to avert a war. She was suspended in July.
Ms Shinawatra arriving at Government House in Bangkok ahead of the verdict on Friday. Pic: Reuters
She is now the fifth Thai PM from, or backed by, the billionaire Shinawatra family to be removed by the military or the judiciary in 17 years, amid a battle for power between the country’s warring elites.
The ruling thrusts Thailand into more political uncertainty at a time of public unease over stalled reforms and a stuttering economy.
Speaking after the court’s decision, the exiting PM said “all sides” in Thai politics now “have to work together to build political stability and to ensure that there won’t be another turning point again”.
The focus will now shift to who will replace Ms Shinawatra.
Her influential, billionaire father, Thaksin Shinawatra, who also once served as Thailand’s PM, is expected to be at the heart of a flurry of bargaining to keep the ruling Pheu Thai party in power.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Read more:
What happened between Thailand and Cambodia
Drug epidemic sweeps Southeast Asia
The leader of the main opposition People’s Party has called for the next prime minister to dissolve parliament once they are installed.
The deputy PM, Phumtham Wechayachai, and the current cabinet will act as government caretakers until a new leader is elected by parliament. There is no time limit on when that must take place.
After all those raised hopes of peace, Ukraine has been hit by the second-worst night of Russian air attacks since the war began.
So much for diplomacy, despite the Alaska summit, then the Washington DC meeting.
The Kremlin says it was aiming at military targets, but yet again, the pictures tell a very different story.
Follow latest: UK summons Putin’s ambassador
Firefighters work at the site of a burning building after a Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine. Pic: AP
One civilian building after another was hit, more than a dozen people were killed, and British Council and EU buildings were also damaged.
So what’s going on? Why is Vladimir Putin doing it?
Because he can.
The Russian president thinks he’s winning this war, and it’s hard to escape the conclusion that he’s using diplomacy to play for time while he carries on beating down the Ukrainians’ will to win.
And at the moment, no one is stopping him
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At least 14 killed in Kyiv attack
Ukraine is hitting back, particularly at Russia‘s oil installations, more of them going up in thick black smoke, after being hit by long-range Ukrainian drones.
It is taking a heavy toll on Putin’s ‘Achilles heel’, but on its own, analysts don’t expect it will be enough to persuade him to end this war.
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British Council building hit in Kyiv
The West can wring its hands in condemnation.
But it’s divided between Europe that wants a ceasefire and much more severe sanctions, and Donald Trump, who, it seems, does not – strangely always willing to sympathise with the Russians more than Ukraine.
He’s back to blaming Ukraine for starting the war, saying earlier in the week that Kyiv should not have got into a war it had no chance of winning.
It is a grotesque perversion of history. Ukraine, of course, had no choice but to fight to defend itself when it was invaded in an act of unprovoked aggression.
Every time the US president has condemned Russia for these kinds of attacks, he has never followed through and done nothing to punish them.
Rescue workers carry an injured woman after a Russian strike on Kyiv, Ukraine. Pic: AP
More worryingly for the Ukrainians, the Russians are getting the upper hand in the drones war, taking Iranian technology and souping it up into faster-moving drones that the Ukrainians are having increasing difficulty bringing down.
They expect as many as a thousand drones a night coming their way by the winter, and many, many more innocents to die.
Next week, Putin will join Chinese and North Korean leaders in a summit in Beijing, both supporting his war in Ukraine.
(L-R) Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un. Pics: Reuters
Read more from Dominic Waghorn:
Ukrainians warn they’re in danger of losing drone arms race
We are further away from peace now than we were two weeks ago
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
A war that began as one man’s mad idea has, in three and a half years, metastasised into a titanic struggle between east and west, fought increasingly with machines in a dystopian evolution of war.
If Mr Trump is not prepared to use his power to bring this war to an end, what will another three and a half years of his presidency bring?
It is a chilling question.
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