Israel Palestine conflict LIVE: Hamas launch rockets towards Ashkelon as 5pm deadline to leave city or face death passes

Israeli troops are gathering in the port city of Ashkelon after Hamas warned civilians living there to get out now or face death 'in response to the airstrikes' that are relentlessly pounding the Gaza strip.

The terrorists also refused to hand over Israeli hostages until the fighting ends - a day after they threatened to execute Israeli civilian captives if the airstrikes continued.

It comes after Israel warned Hamas they had 'nowhere to hide' and that its air force was launching 'extensive attacks' on the Palestinian terrorist group in revenge for its deadly surprise incursion that saw hundreds of Israelis slaughtered.

Israeli forces have already used its strike force of 600 plans and 300 rocket launchers to relentlessly pound the Gaza strip, with airstrikes and artillery destroying thousands of Hamas targets and killing 770 Palestinians.

But Israel today issued a fresh warning to Hamas, with the military saying the terrorists have 'nowhere to hide' in Gaza and that its air force was carrying out 'extensive' airstrikes in waves of every four hours.

'We will reach them everywhere,' military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said, hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to obliterate Hamas.

Netanyahu, who first came to power in Israel in 1996 and has served three separate terms, compared Hamas to the Islamic State group and said Israel planned to deploy 'unprecedented force' that would 'reverberate for generations'.

But in response to the airstrikes, Hamas's armed wing warned the residents of Ashkelon to leave before 5pm Israeli time (3pm UK time) or face death. A spokesman for the militant group’s armed unit Al Qassam announced that it would attack the southern city of Askelon with rockets.

The Israeli embassy in the US has claimed that more than 1,000 Israelis have been killed since Hamas launched their attack on Saturday.

Hamas today warned Israeli civilians to get out of the port city of Ashkelon now 'in response to the airstrikes' that are relentlessly pounding the Gaza strip, suggesting that more bloodshed is imminent.

The terrorists also warned it will not hand over hostages until the fighting ends - a day after they warned they would execute Israeli civilian captives if the airstrikes continued.

It comes after Israel warned Hamas they had 'nowhere to hide' and that its air force was launching 'extensive attacks' on the Palestinian terrorist group in revenge for its deadly surprise incursion that saw hundreds of Israeli's slaughtered.

Israeli forces have already used its strike force of 600 plans and 300 rocket launchers to relentlessly pound the Gaza strip, with airstrikes and artillery destroying thousands of Hamas targets and killing 770 Palestinians.

But Israel today issued a fresh warning to Hamas, with the military saying the terrorists have 'nowhere to hide' in Gaza and that its air force was carrying out 'extensive' airstrikes in waves of every four hours.

'We will reach them everywhere,' military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said, hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to obliterate Hamas.

Netanyahu, who first came to power in Israel in 1996 and has served three separate terms, compared Hamas to the Islamic State group and said Israel planned to deploy 'unprecedented force' that would 'reverberate for generations'.

But in response to the airstrikes, Hamas's armed wing warned the residents of Ashkelon to leave before 5pm Israeli time (3pm UK time).

Hamas armed wing spokesman Abu Ubaida told residents of Israel's port of Ashkelon to leave the area by 5 p.m. (3pm UK time) on Tuesday, without giving any further details.

Netflix star Lior Raz said in a video posted to X that he has joined his 'brothers in arms' on Israel's frontline in order to rescue stricken families in the isolated town of Sderot.

Raz, 51, the star of the Israeli hit Fauda, can be seen in the video alongside the show's creator, Avi Issacharoff, ducking behind a wall as Hamas' rockets are fired overhead.

'Acompanied by Yohanan Plesner and Avi Issacharoff, I headed down south to join hundreds of brave 'brothers in arms' volunteers who worked tirelessly to assist the population in the south of Israel. We were sent to the bombarded town of Sderot to extract 2 families,' Faz wrote in the caption.

Faz's role in the rescue operation has not been confirmed by Israeli officials. It's thought at as many as 100 people have been taken hostage by Hamas in the wake of Saturday's shocking attacks.

Fauda is based upon Issacharoff's real experiences in the Israeli Defense Forces. It began in 2015 and is set for a fifth season. The name translates from Hebrew into English as 'Chaos.'

Israel today warned Hamas they had 'nowhere to hide' and that its air force was launching 'extensive attacks' on the Palestinian terrorist group in revenge for its deadly surprise incursion that saw hundreds of Israeli's slaughtered.

Israeli forces have already used its strike force of 600 plans and 300 rocket launchers to relentlessly pound the Gaza strip, with airstrikes and artillery destroying thousands of Hamas targets and killing 770 Palestinians.

But Israel today issued a fresh warning to Hamas, with the military saying the terrorists have 'nowhere to hide' in Gaza and that its air force was carrying out 'extensive' airstrikes in waves of every four hours.

'We will reach them everywhere,' military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said, hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to obliterate Hamas.

Netanyahu, who first came to power in Israel in 1996 and has served three separate terms, compared Hamas to the Islamic State group and said Israel planned to deploy 'unprecedented force' that would 'reverberate for generations'.

In response to the aerial bombardment of Gaza, Hamas warned today it will not hand over hostages until the fighting ends - a day after they warned they would execute Israeli civilian captives if the airstrikes continued.

Israel's airports authority said on Tuesday El Al and Israir Airlines have added more flights to bring reservists back to the country.

The flights come after Israel said on Monday it had called up an unprecedented 300,000 reservists and warned residents of the Gaza Strip to evacuate in a sign it could be planning a ground assault in response.

The airports authority added it had limited flights to Ben Gurion Airport's Terminal 3 due to security concerns.

Iran's Supreme leader today said 'we kiss the hands on those who planned the attack' on Israel amid fears the Islamic nation provided Hamas terrorists with weapons and training for their surprise incursion.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei hailed what he called Israel's 'irreparable' military and intelligence defeat after the gunmen rampaged through the towns and slaughtered families and young festivalgoers.

'We kiss the hands of those who planned the attack on the Zionist regime,' Khamenei said during his first televised speech since the incursion.

Khamenei, wearing a Palestinian scarf and speaking from a military academy, added: 'This destructive earthquake (Hamas's attack) has destroyed some critical structures (in Israel) which will not be repaired easily. The Zionist regime's own actions are to blame for this disaster.'

But Khamenei insisted Iran, a key long-term ally of Hamas, was not involved in the attack on Israel, which has left 900 Israelis dead and hundreds more injured.

Sickening footage has emerged of the moment murderous Hamas gunmen shot dead an Israeli family's dog before storming their home, raiding their fridge and setting their home alight amid a campaign of civilian slaughter.

The deplorable attack was just one of dozens which unfolded in the kibbutz of Be'eri, a tiny farming community where Israeli security forces and rescue workers later found 108 bodies - around 10 per cent of its population - after a long hostage standoff with gunmen.

The clip, obtained from the GoPro camera attached to the helmet of one Hamas fighter, showed how the dog came bounding out of the house towards the attackers and was immediately mowed down with several bullets.

Hamas terrorists promptly invaded one house and began rifling through the family's belongings, drinking orange juice from their fridge and gorging themselves on its contents.

Then one militant withdrew a lighter from his pocket and took it to the wall, sparking house plants and hanging ornaments that quickly set ablaze before they made their exit.

Another harrowing scene from the same kibbutz showed how a second group of Hamas militants gained access to the gated compound by slaughtering civilians at near point blank range as they sat in a car.

At least 770 Palestinians have been killed and 4,000 wounded in Israeli air strikes on the blockaded enclave since Saturday, Gaza's Health Ministry said on Tuesday.

At least another 18 people were killed and 100 injured in the West Bank since Saturday, the ministry added.

The World Health Organization called on Tuesday for a humanitarian corridor to be established into and out of the Gaza Strip, which has been placed under total siege by Israel.

'WHO is calling for an end to the violence... A humanitarian corridor is needed to reach people with critical medical supplies,' WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic told a press briefing in Geneva.

Israel's total siege of the Gaza Strip, depriving civilians of goods essential for survival, is banned under international law, the United Nations human rights chief said on Tuesday.

Volker Turk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said people's dignity and lives had to be respected as he called for all sides to defuse the "explosive powder-keg situation".

Palestinian militant group Hamas, which abducted about 150 people in its surprise weekend assault on Israel, threatened to execute the hostages if Israeli air strikes continue "targeting" Gaza residents without warning.

The threat came after Israel on Monday imposed a total siege on the Gaza Strip, cutting off food, water and electricity supplies, and sparking fears of an increasingly desperate humanitarian situation.

"International humanitarian law is clear: the obligation to take constant care to spare the civilian population and civilian objects remains applicable throughout the attacks," Turk said in a statement.

The siege risk seriously compounding the already dire human rights and humanitarian situation in Gaza, including the capacity of medical facilities to operate, especially in light of increasing numbers of injured, the statement said.

"The imposition of sieges that endanger the lives of civilians by depriving them of goods essential for their survival is prohibited under international humanitarian law," Turk said.

Any restrictions on the movement of people and goods to implement a siege must be justified by military necessity or may otherwise amount to collective punishment, the statement added.

The footage was captured on a dashboard camera with a timestamp of 7.39am on Saturday morning, less than two hours after the surprise attack was launched.

By Tuesday, Israeli TV channels said the death toll from the Hamas attack had climbed to 900 Israelis, with at least 2,600 injured, and dozens taken captive.

Among the Israeli dead were 270 mostly young people gunned down at a desert music festival, where some of the hostages were abducted.

It is understood the driver was one of the festival-goers attempting to flee, but was shot as they approached a Hamas roadblock.

The video opens with the car speeding down an otherwise abandoned road in southern Israel. One car is seen pulled over, while another is seen tipped on its side.

As the vehicle rounds a bend in the road, dark-clad figures are seen in the distance, prompting the driver to slow the car down. As the car decelerates, one of these figures walks out into the middle of the road and another appears from the bushes down the left-hand-side of the tarmac.

It quickly becomes clear that the two men are armed, and as the car steers to go around the first man, he raises a rifle and opens fire on the vehicle.

Somehow, the driver manages initially to avoid the first two Hamas militants, but as the car steers around them, more fighters appear further down the road.

Suddenly, the windscreen shatters as bullets slam into the car. It continues to roll down the road towards what is now in the footage clearly a Hamas roadblock.

At least four more militants can be seen firing on the car, which veers slowly to the left and eventually comes to a halt when it crashes into the back of another vehicle that is pulled over to the side of the road - suggesting the driver has been shot dead.

Israel would on Tuesday begin distributing thousands of assault rifles to volunteer first-response teams in border communities and mixed Jewish-Arab towns, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said in a social media post.

He said 4,000 Israeli-made rifles would be given out in the first round, with at least another 6,000 to follow. Volunteers would also eventually be equipped with helmets and flak jackets, he added.

Ben-Gvir's announcement came as Israel reeled from armed cross-border infiltrations by Palestinians from Gaza and eyed possible internal friction between Israel's majority Jews and 20% Arab minority, many of whom identify with the Palestinians.

Hamas today called for a 'mobilization' of the Arab and Islamic world on Friday 'in support of Gaza', describing it as a day of 'heroism and sacrifice'.

Thousands of Hamas targets have been obliterated by an Israeli aerial bombardment that has relentlessly pounded the Gaza Strip after the terrorists launched a surprise assault that has so far killed at least 900 Israelis.

But now, the terrorist leaders have called for those in the Arab and Islamic world to 'mobilise' and show their support for Hamas and the Palestinian people on Friday.

They also called on the 'revolutionary youth' throughout the West Bank and those in Jerusalem to clash with 'cowardly' Israeli soldiers.

It comes after thousands of Palestinian supporters descended on the Israeli embassy in London, waving flags, singing and setting off flares. Hundreds more clashed with Israeli supporters at a London Underground station as police desperately tried to keep the peace.

Military experts have revealed that Israel's army faces an uphill battle in finding and safely evacuating the dozens of hostages taken by Hamas in the region's bloodiest conflict in decades.

The terror group has kidnapped at least 100 civilians since war broke out on Saturday, after its terrorists first attacked a music festival just a mile from Israel's border with Gaza.

Harrowing footage showed women being marched into vehicles, bloodied and bruised, often with their hands bound behind their backs. One video showed Noa Argamani, a 25-year-old student who was filmed screaming 'don't kill me' as she was dragged away on a motorcyle by Hamas thugs.

The IDF is under immense pressure to get the hostages as quickly as possible, as Hamas said on Monday that it would begin executing an Israeli captive every time Israel bombs a civilian home without warning.

'We have decided to put an end to this and as of now, we declare that any targeting of our people in their homes without prior warning will be regrettably faced with the execution of one the hostages of civilians we are holding,' Abu Obaida, spokesperson for the Al-Qassam Brigades, said in a recording released to Al Jazeera.

A British family whose son went missing after Hamas gunmen stormed a music festival in Israel has revealed his fiancée was tragically found murdered.

Miryam Shafir, 55, yesterday held back tears as she urged the UK and Irish governments to apply pressure on the Palestinian terror group that rules the Gaza Strip.

Her son, Dor Shafir, and his fiancée, Savion Hen Kiper, both 30, were attending the music festival near Nirim, a kibbutz in the south of Israel close to the Gaza border when Hamas militants soared over the fence using paragliders.

They landed and began shooting indiscriminately into the crowd, forcing the hundreds of attendees to scatter in terror.

At around 7am on Saturday - roughly half an hour after the attack began - Dor sent a text to say he and Savion had managed to escape the initial slaughter and found shelter.

But the Shafir family this morning told Good Morning Britain that Savion was later found dead, murdered by the ruthless militants who later captured hostages and fled back to Gaza.

Harrowing photos taken this morning shows the abandoned site of the weekend attack of the Supernova desert music Festival by Hamas militants.

Gunmen killed around 270 revellers who were attending an outdoor rave music festival in an Israeli community near Gaza at the weekend.

The images show belongings strewn across the desert floor and abandoned after thousands were force to run for their lives and hundreds were killed.

James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, has said the government is 'standing ready' to support any British citizens who need to flee Israel.

Figures for the number of of Brits stuck in the conflict has not been confirme by the government.

'If needed, we are standing ready to support. We are working with the air industry and Israeli air traffic control to ensure that there are still commercial flights leaving Israel for those Brits who want to leave, and of course there are land borders from Israel into both Egypt and Jordan,' Mr Cleverly told ITV’s Good Morning Britain.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared intentions to obliterate Hamas as he metes out revenge for the deadly surprise attacks by the Palestinian militant group this weekend that saw hundreds of Israelis killed.

Netanyahu, who first came to power in Israel in 1996 and has served three separate terms, compared Hamas to the Islamic State group and said Israel planned to deploy 'unprecedented force' that would 'reverberate for generations'.

'We have only started striking Hamas,' Netanyahu, 73, said in a nationally televised address late last night.

'What we will do to our enemies in the coming days will reverberate with them for generations.

'Hamas terrorists bound, burned and executed children. They are savages. Hamas is ISIS,' Netanyahu concluded.

Thousands of Hamas targets have been wiped out in brutal aerial bombing campaigns, Israeli defence officials claimed, but harrowing clips circulating social media showed how the rockets and bombs also obliterated Palestinian residential blocks, killing hundreds of civilians.

Air raid sirens can again be heard in several cities and towns in the south of Israel, the Israeli military has said.

Thousands of rockets have been fired at Israel from Gaza since the attacks began on Saturday.

A mother who was slaughtered by terrorists in Israel alongside her husband and three children sent a final WhatsApp message to her Australian friends to say her family was safe.

Tamar Kedem-Siman Tov texted her Sydney friends, Yishai and Mor Lacob, from the concrete bunker of her home in Nir Oz kibbutz, in southern Israel, at about 2.45pm on Saturday.

The message read: 'Hi guys, we got into the shelter in our house, we're all going okay.'

The Lacobs started to panic and tried contacting everyone they knew in the village to find out what was going on, before they received the heartbreaking news that the Tov's safe room had been raided by militants.

Tamar, her husband Johnny, their six-year-old daughters Shachar and Arbel, and their two-year-old son Omer had been murdered by Hamas-linked terrorists.

More than 187,000 people have been displaced across the Gaza Strip - with the number expected to increase, an update from the United Nations agency has shown.

There are now 137,500 people sheltering in 83 UN schools, according to BBC news.

The UNRWA field office in Gaza has 'suffered collateral damage due to airstrikes'.

Meanwhile nearly half a million people in Gaza have been unable to get UN food rations this week as distribution centres have been shut down.

About 1,500 bodies of Hamas militants have been found in Israeli territory,

military officials have said.

Israeli warplanes pounded downtown Gaza City, home to Hamas' centers of government, with relentless bombardments into early Tuesday, after Israel's prime minister vowed retaliation against the Islamic militant group that would "reverberate for generations."

The four-day-old war has already claimed 1,600 lives, as Israel saw gun battles in the streets of its own towns for the first time in decades and neighborhoods in Gaza were reduced to rubble. Hamas also escalated the conflict, pledging to kill captured Israelis if strikes targeted civilians without warning.

Israel said that Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza are holding more than 150 soldiers and civilians snatched from inside Israel after the attack caught its vaunted military and intelligence apparatus completely off guard.