Hamas Launches Military Operation Against Israel

Hamas has threatened to execute an Israeli hostage on camera each time the country targets civilian homes in Gaza without prior warning.

The message Monday from Abu Obaida, the spokesman for Hamas' military wing Al-Qassam Brigades, came soon after Israel launched intense airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, raising the death toll there to more than 680.

"In the past few hours, we have experienced pain over what happened to many families throughout the Gaza Strip from the barbaric fascist Zionist crimes of bombing homes on the heads of their residents, and therefore we have decided to put an end to this," Obaida said in a broadcast. "From this moment on, we announce that every targeting of our people who are safe in their homes without prior warning will be met regrettably with the execution of our enemy's civilian hostages, and we will broadcast this with sound and video."

Israel’s latest strikes on Gaza have drawn warnings from aid workers and residents of a humanitarian catastrophe. “We are facing a huge disaster,” said one U.N. official.