TEL AVIV: A member of Israel’s war cabinet has issued Hamas with an ultimatum to release all remaining hostages held in Gaza by the start of Ramadan on March 10, or the Israeli army will launch an assault on the city of Rafah.

While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to attack Rafah in his bid to destroy Hamas, the warning from war cabinet member Benny Gantz is the first time Israel has said when its troops might enter the overcrowded southern city.

“The world must know, and Hamas leaders must know, if by Ramadan our hostages are not home, the fighting will continue everywhere, to include the Rafah area,” Mr Gantz, a former defence minister, said.

He said Israel would act in “a co-ordinated manner, facilitating the evacuation of civilians in dialogue with our American and Egyptian partners to minimise civilian casualties”.

Of the 250 hostages taken by Hamas on October 7, 130 are believed to still be in Gaza.

Mr Netanyahu has rejected calls from allies to spare the city of Rafah, where 1.4 million Palestinians live in crowded shelters and tent camps.

Israel’s army campaign spread further south on Sunday, edging closer to Rafah with strikes in central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah overnight, said the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.

The Israeli military said it had killed about 35 militants and struck a “weapons storage facility”, while an air strike in central Gaza killed “over 10” militants.

The fighting came as left-wing Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva accused Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza and compared its actions to Adolf Hitler’s campaign to exterminate Jews – comments that sparked a strong Israeli protest.

Mr Netanyahu accused Lula, as the President is known, of having “disgraced the memory of the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis and demonised the Jewish state like the most virulent anti-Semite”.

He said the Brazilian leader “should be ashamed of himself” and that his government had called in its Brasilia ambassador in protest.