Israel says war easing in south as Hamas announces death of two Israeli hostages

Israel says the ‘intensive’ phase of the war could end ‘soon’, as Hamas announces the death of two hostages in a video.

Israeli hostage Noa Argamani appears to confirm the deaths of two brothers in the latest video released by Hamas.

Israel says the “intensive” phase of its war on Hamas in devastated southern Gaza could end “soon”, as Hamas announced the death of two of its Israeli hostages in a video Israel condemned as a ­“brutal use of innocent hostages”.

The video shows a woman hostage named Noa Argamani, 26, speaking under duress, revealing that two men she was held captive with had been killed. It was not clear when the video was taken.

Hamas had released another video on Sunday showing Ms ­Argamani along with two hos­tages who were seen alive.

The pair – widely named in the media as Yossi Sharabi, 53, and Itay Svirsky, 38 – were the same men announced as having been killed in Monday’s video.

Ms Argamani became one of the most high-profile Hamas hostages after video of her looking distressed as she was separated from her boyfriend began to circulate after the October 7 massacre.

Hamas’s armed wing on Monday (Tuesday AEDT) said the two men were killed in “the Zionist army’s bombing”.

Military spokesman Daniel Hagari rejected Hamas’s claim the hostages, including Mr Svirsky, were killed by Israeli forces.

“This is a lie by Hamas,” he said.

“The building in which they were kept was not a target and it was not attacked by our forces.

“We know that we hit targets near the location where they were held,” he added, saying an investigation was under way.

The video appears to confirm Yossi Sharabi (L) and his brother Eli (R) have been killed.

Last month the military said ­Israeli soldiers had killed three hostages by mistake, believing they posed a threat.

On Sunday, Hamas said many of the hostages were likely to have been killed recently.

In the unprecedented October 7 attack that triggered the Israel-Hamas war, militants seized about 250 hostages, 132 of whom Israeli officials say remain in Gaza, including at least 25 believed to have been killed.

Fighting has ravaged the Gaza Strip since October 7, when the militants’ attack on Israel resulted in about 1140 deaths, mostly civilians, according to a tally based on official Israeli figures.

Soon after the video’s release on Monday, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Hamas was applying “psychological pressure” to the families of the hostages.

The army was helping the families, he said, and keeping them up to date with any developments.

“Hamas has been hit hard by the IDF (military),” he said.

“What’s left for it is to touch a sensitive nerve in Israeli society through acts of psychological abuse against family members.”

Noa Argamani being kidnapped by Hamas militants on October 7.

Ruling out any ceasefire in Gaza, Mr Gallant reiterated that the only way to get the hostages back home was by continuing to apply “military pressure”.

He said the end stage in the push against Hamas was ­already being reached in northern Gaza, with Israel’s army confirming one of its four divisions in the territory had completed its withdrawal.

The army had stepped up operations and bombardments in the southern cities of Khan Younis and Rafah in recent weeks after saying Hamas’s military structures in the north had been dismantled.

Mr Gallant also said Palestinians would be left to govern the Gaza Strip after the war ended.

“Palestinians live in Gaza and therefore Palestinians will govern it in the future,” he said.

“The future Gaza government must grow out of the Gaza Strip.

“At the end of the war there won’t be a military threat from Gaza. Hamas won’t be able to rule and function as a military force in the Gaza Strip.”

He said the future government would be a “civilian alternative” but insisted that Israeli forces would have the “freedom of operation” in a way aimed at protecting Israeli citizens.

Vowing to destroy Hamas, ­Israel began a relentless military campaign that has killed at least 24,100 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run Palestinian territory’s health ministry.

The UN says more than three months of fighting has displaced roughly 85 per cent of Gaza’s population, crowded into shelters and struggling to get food, water, fuel and medical care.

Israel is facing heavy international pressure over Gaza’s ­humanitarian crisis and the growing number of civilian casualties, with the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry reporting 60 deaths in overnight bombardment Sunday-Monday.

Deadly violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, exchanges of fire over Israel’s border with Lebanon, and strikes by US forces and Iran-backed Yemeni rebels in the Red Sea have raised fears of an escalation beyond the Gaza Strip.

Attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who say they act in solidarity with Gaza, have disrupted shipping in the vital Red Sea maritime trade route.

The Houthis claimed a missile attack on a US-owned cargo ship off Yemen on Monday, a day after firing a cruise missile at an American destroyer before it was shot down.

Meanwhile, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards launched missile attacks on multiple “terrorist” targets in Syria and in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region overnight on Monday.

The attacks destroyed “a spy headquarters” and a “gathering of anti-Iranian terrorist groups” in Arbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, the official IRNA news agency said.

Four people were killed and six others wounded in the attack, ­according to Iraq’s Kurdistan security council.

The IRGC also hit targets in Syria with ballistic missiles, including the “gathering places of commanders and main elements related to recent terrorist operations, particularly the Islamic State group”, their Sepah News service said. It said the strike on Syria was in response to recent attacks that killed Iranians in the southern ­cities of Kerman and Rask.

Explosions were heard in Aleppo and its countryside, where “at least four missiles that came from the direction of the Mediterranean Sea” fell, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said.

AFP