Israeli Defense Minister to Hamas: Hand Over All the Hostages or Lose Land Permanently The terror group faces a stark choice. P. David Hornik
Today, Friday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz stated:
If the Hamas terror organization continues to refuse to release the hostages, I instructed the IDF to capture additional areas, evacuate the population, and expand the security zone around Gaza for the protection of Israeli communities and IDF soldiers, through a permanent hold of the area by Israel.
As long as Hamas continues its refusal, it will lose more and more land that will be added to Israel.
Katz added that Israel would use “all military and civilian pressure, including evacuation of the Gaza population south[ward] and implementing US President Trump’s voluntary migration plan for Gaza residents.”
Katz also
affirmed Israel’s commitment to the US hostage deal proposal put forward by President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff. The plan calls for the release of all hostages—both living and deceased—in two phases, separated by a temporary ceasefire. “We are fully committed to this proposal, which does not compromise Israel’s security interests,” Katz said.
This is a dramatic declaration that is now making headlines on Israeli sites.
I would feel more comfortable if it were Katz’s boss, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, rather than Katz, making such a statement—clearly and publicly. The defense minister may be the second most powerful person in Israel, but a statement of this weight should come from the person at the helm. When it doesn’t, it creates a misgiving that Katz may be freelancing.
As it became clear that Hamas was merely stalling in the negotiations and using the time to rebuild and reorganize its forces, possibly build new tunnels, set up rocket launchers, and even plan new cross-border attacks, early Tuesday morning Israel launched heavy airstrikes against the Hamas leadership and terror infrastructure. Since then Israel has continued the military pressure, and by Thursday four separate IDF forces were operating in different parts of Gaza.
Also on Thursday, Hamas managed to fire three rockets from southern Gaza toward Tel Aviv; one was intercepted and two landed in open areas. It was Hamas’s first rocket fire in almost six months.
The choice of Tel Aviv as a target was probably not haphazard. Since Israel resumed attacking Hamas on Tuesday, a portion of the Israeli population—particularly well represented in Tel Aviv—has responded angrily, believing the Israeli government has intentionally abandoned hostage negotiations that were on a path to success. Hamas, in other words, was probably seeking to intensify domestic pressure on Jerusalem to stop the warfare in Gaza.
Reports, though, say it was Israel’s military and defense establishment that was pushing to resume the attacks as the best, most proven way to goad Hamas back to deal-making.
Behind Katz’s declaration, behind the more aggressive strategy toward Hamas, is the sense that Israel is giving teeth to President Trump’s “hell breaking loose” proclamations and has his administration’s backing.
It would have been different under the Biden administration, for which—as for Europe and most of global officialdom—there could be no worse horror than Israel seizing “Arab land,” or even threatening to.
To us in Israel, allowing people to be starved and tortured in tunnels for a year, five months, and fifteen days is definitely worse.
Katz deserves credit for articulating that stance and presumably has his boss’s backing.
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