Until the Hostages are Released and Hamas is Defeated

"It is time for the countries of the world to take seriously our unwavering commitment to bring back all our hostages home and defeat the enemy."

"Nothing will stop us from fighting to free our hostages, who have been held in brutal Hamas captivity for 527 days."

"We will show no mercy against our enemies while our hostages languish in Hamas terror tunnels." 

Danny Danon, Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations

 

"If the Hamas terror organization continues to refuse to release the captives, I instructed the IDF [Israel Defence Forces] to capture additional areas, evacuate the population and expand the security zone around Gaza for the protection of Israeli communities through a permanent hold of the area."

"As long as Hamas continues its refusal, it will lose more and more land to Israel."

"[The IDF will] intensify [its military campaign in Gaza] through the expansion of the ground manoeuvres until the hostages are released and Hamas is defeated."

"[Israel will use] all military and civilian pressure [to achieve its goals, including the] implementation of U.S. President Donald Trump's voluntary migration plan for Gaza residents."

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz 

IDF troops operate in the Gaza Strip. March 23, 2025.

(photo credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)

 

Even while Palestinian civilians in Gaza yearn for the conflict to come to a stop, they are bitterly aware that Hamas has no intention of standing down, no intention of delivering the remaining hostages -- both dead and alive -- to Israel for return to their families; burial for some, return to life for the living. Hamas leaders are adamant the release of the remaining hostages can only be achieved if their demands are followed. A permanent ceasefire and full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

 

That the existing ceasefire that was in effect before October 7, 2023 was deliberately broken by Hamas itself -- which had planned a coordinated attack well in advance of the actual invasion of southern Israel on that fateful day, preparing its operatives in the thousands to surreptitiously enter an unaware and sleeping southern Israel to wreak the horrors of mass rape, mutilation, an unstoppable carnage of slaughter of young and old, women and foreign farm workers, the weak and the ill, soldiers and police on watch in a harvest of human victims to satisfy their blood lust -- is obviously irrelevant to Hamas in its current imperious demands.

 

Hamas terrorists seen in Khan Yunis, February 20, 2025

(photo credit: ABED RAHIM KHATIB/FLASH90)

The current stalemate that led to Israel's decision to once again re-enter Gaza in search of Hamas and Islamic Jihad operatives and its leading figures arrived once the Hamas leadership rebuffed proposals by U.S. Middle East envoy Steven Witkoff for an extension of the first phase of the Gaza truce through Ramadan and Passover. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu observed that future ceasefire negotiations with the group "will only take place under fire". Return of the 59 hostages is imperative.

 

On Thursday, the Israel Defence Forces began conducting ground operations to  continue the dismantling of Hamas infrastructure in southern Gaza's Rafah. Ground activity also continued in the northern and central Gaza Strip, with the Israeli Air Force striking the terrorist assets across the enclave. Extensive strikes were launched by the IDF against Hamas targets early on Tuesday morning, prior to the entry of the ground forces.

 

On Sunday night, a hospital in southern Gaza was hit by the Israeli military, with the Nasser Medical Complex partly in flames. A statement ensued by the Israeli military that the strike was carried out on a "key terrorist in the Hamas organization who was operating inside" the hospital. It was Al-Aqsa TV, affiliated with Hamas that reported Ismail Barhoum, member of the Hamas political bureau and his nephew Ibrahim were the targets that were killed in the Khan Younis Nasser Medical Complex.  Infamously, Hamas favours using hospitals, schools and other civilian structures as command posts.

 

People gather as smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike at Nasser hospital, according to the Palestinian civil defence, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip March 23, 2025.

Hussam Al-Masri/Reuters

 

Also on Sunday, IDF troops concluded encirclement of Tel al-Sultan, to the west of Rafah, to once again dislodge Hamas from the district to "reinforce control and expand the security zone in southern Gaza". During the night, the troops encircled the area, eliminated several terrorists, and conducted a targeted raid on a terror infrastructure site that was used over the past few months "as a command and control center of Hamas terrorists."
 

Palestinian civilians were given warning by the Israeli military to evacuate the Tel al-Sultan area immediately while troops launch an offensive.The ordering of Gazan civilians out of harm's way at both critical Rafah areas, means that a very large number of Gazans are required to move toward the al-Mawasi humanitarian area, where many only two months earlier were moved at a time when the military had invaded all of Rafah.

"If all the Israeli hostages are not released and Hamas is not removed from Gaza, Israel will act with forces you have never encountered before."

"Take the advice of the U.S. President. Return the hostages, remove Hamas and other options will be open to you -- including leaving to other places in the world for those who wish."

"The alternative is total destruction and devastation."

Defence Minister Israel Katz

Also on Sunday in an overnight strike in southern Gaza, the IDF announced it had eliminated Salah Bardawil, a senior terrorist in Hamas's political bureau, who headed the Hamas planning and development office. In the framework of his role Bardawil led the Hamas strategic and military Gaza Strip planning.

 

IDF operations in Beit Hanoun, Gaza Strip, March 22/ 2025. (IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)