Hamas warned Israeli civilians in the nearby city of Ashkelon to leave their homes on Tuesday.
Residents of Israeli communities near the border with Gaza have often faced rocket fire from Hamas, the terror group based in Gaza, but this week's terror attacks, which have resulted in the deaths of more than 1,000 Israelis, demonstrated a new and unrealized threat — the possibility that Hamas fighters could get through the border fence and hunt them down in their homes.
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Israel's military has begun a massive military campaign to defeat and destroy the terror group, but Hamas currently holds up to 150 hostages in the tiny enclave of Gaza, according to Ambassador Gilad Erdan. Hamas threatened to execute the hostages and broadcast it due to Israel's retaliatory campaign.
“In response to the enemy’s crime of displacing our people and forcing them to flee their homes in several areas of the Gaza Strip, we give the residents of the occupied city of Ashkelon a deadline to leave before 5 p.m.,” Abu Obeida, spokesman for Al Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, said on his Telegram channel on Tuesday.
A day earlier, he said, "Over the past few hours, we suffered as a result of the harm inflicted on our brothers and sisters at the hands of fascist barbarian Zionist attacks targeting residential buildings. Therefore, we have decided to put an end to this. From this moment on, we announce that any targeting of innocent civilians without warning will be met regretfully, to say, by executing one of the hostages in our custody, and we will be forced to broadcast this execution.”
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Hamas did not provide any additional information about what would happen after that self-imposed deadline.
The Israel Defense Forces said on Tuesday that it had "full control of the area surrounding Gaza" and had "completed the evacuation of all towns and communities adjacent to the Gaza security fence."