Gaza City, Gaza Strip — Israel’s defense minister warned Friday that Gaza’s largest city would be destroyed unless Hamas yields to Israel’s terms, as the world’s leading authority on food crises said the city was gripped by famine from fighting and blockade.

A day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would authorize the military to mount a major operation to seize Gaza City, Defense Minister Israel Katz warned that it could “turn into Rafah and Beit Hanoun,” areas largely reduced to rubble earlier in the war.

“The gates of hell will soon open on the heads of Hamas’ murderers and rapists in Gaza — until they agree to Israel’s conditions for ending the war,” Katz wrote in a post on X.

He restated Israel’s cease-fire demands: the release of all hostages and Hamas’ complete disa

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