Hamas vows to kill an Israeli for every strike on Gaza

Hamas leaders have threatened to execute civilian hostages if Israel continues its retaliatory airstrikes against Gaza.

The military wing of the Islamist group said it would kill a captive any time homes were hit “without prior warning”.

Israel has been pounding Gaza from the air after Hamas gunmen killed more than 900 people and seized about 130 more in a shock terror attack.

Benjamin Netanyahu has called up 300,000 army reservists and signalled a ground assault against the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by Hamas.

The Israeli prime minister has reportedly told US President Joe Biden: “We have to go in, we can’t negotiate now. We need to restore deterrence.”

He has vowed to use “enormous force” to punish Hamas and said Israel’s actions would “change the Middle East”.

Authorities in Gaza said Israel’s airstrikes had hit a refugee camp, a hospital and mosques, and had killed 687 people and injured a further 2900.

The death toll prompted the chilling threat to execute hostages seized during Saturday’s deadly attacks, the bloodiest on Israeli soil for 50 years.

The Al Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, threatened to execute the hostages one by one, and to film their murders. Spokesman Abu Obeida said: “We have decided to put an end to this as of now and we declare that any targeting of our people in their homes without prior warning will be regrettably faced with the execution of one of the hostage civilians we are holding.”

Israel warned that any harm to the hostages would constitute a war crime and “will not be forgiven”.

The threats of escalating violence came as:

• Israel warned its citizens to prepare and stow food for three days inside safe rooms and bomb shelters;
• Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel after four of its members were killed by Israeli shelling;
• Harrowing stories continued to emerge of families killed in Saturday’s assaults;

The Al Qassam threat to execute hostages has heightened tensions still further in the region.

Hamas has continued to send rockets from Gaza into Israel, which has promised a “complete siege” of the territory to cut off supplies of food, water, electricity and fuel.

Gaza has been hit with up to 1000 airstrikes since Israel launched Operation Swords.

Its officials likened Saturday’s attacks to the 9/11 terror atrocity in the US or the Pearl Harbor bombing. In a televised address to the nation last night, Mr Netanyahu warned that the three days of airstrikes carried out so far were only the beginning.

“We have only started striking Hamas,” he said.

“What we will do to our enemies in the coming days will reverberate with them for generations.”

He vowed to “do everything” to free those held captive in Gaza, adding: “I promise you this, citizens, at the end of the war our enemies will know it was a terrible mistake to attack Israel.”

He likened Hamas’ actions to the atrocities carried out by the Islamic State terror group, with captives bound and killed.

Israel’s president Isaac Herzog said: “To my mind, not since the Holocaust have so many Jews been killed in one day.

“And not since the Holocaust have we witnessed scenes of Jewish women and children, grandparents – even Holocaust survivors – being herded into trucks and taken into captivity.”

A spokesman for the Israeli embassy in London said Israelis had been warned to “prepare for a three-day stay in bomb shelters/secure rooms”.