Israel bombs Gaza high-rise, Hamas releases hostage video

Hamas released a video on Friday showing two Israeli hostages seized from a music festival in Israel in October 2023. In the footage, one of them said he was being held in Gaza City, where the Israeli military has launched a major offensive against the militant group.

The hostages, Guy Gilboa-Dalal and Alon Ohel, are among 48 people still being held by Hamas in Gaza, with 20 believed to be alive.

The video, which was edited, featured an exhausted-looking Gilboa-Dalal speaking for about three and a half minutes. Part of the footage, dated August 28, showed him inside a car.

Gilboa-Dalal said he was being held in Gaza City along with several other hostages and expressed fear of being killed by Israel's offensive.

The Israeli military bombed a high-rise building in western Gaza City on Friday, saying it was being used by Hamas and that civilians had been warned beforehand. The military did not provide evidence to support the claim.

The building's management said it was being used to shelter Palestinians displaced by the war and denied it was used for anything other than civilian purposes.

Gaza civil defense agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal accused Israel of pursuing "a policy of forced displacement against civilians" by targeting high-rise buildings.

The agency said Israeli strikes in and around Gaza City killed at least 19 people, among at least 42 Palestinians killed across the territory on Friday.

Egypt on Friday condemned remarks by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggesting that Palestinians could be displaced from their land, including through the Rafah crossing on the Gaza border.

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry accused Netanyahu of trying to prolong the conflict to avoid accountability for Israel's actions in Gaza and reiterated Cairo's rejection of any plan to expel Palestinians.

Egypt said it would not be complicit in "liquidating the Palestinian cause or becoming a gateway for displacement," calling such a move a "red line." It called for a ceasefire in Gaza, a full Israeli withdrawal, and international support for the Palestinian Authority to return to the territory, including control of border crossings.

The ministry stressed that only the establishment of a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, could resolve the conflict.

(With input from agencies)