Netanyahu vows to ‘demolish’ Hamas as emergency war council convenes, death toll rises

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened his emergency war cabinet Sunday and vowed to “demolish Hamas’’ as the Jewish nation’s ground invasion to root out the militant group in Gaza loomed.

The Israeli military — supported by a growing show of force from US warships and aircraft in the region — was finishing positioning itself along Gaza’s border as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians sought to heed Israel’s order to evacuate ahead of the planned ground offensive.

“Hamas thought we would be demolished. It is we who will demolish Hamas,” Netanyahu said as he convened Israel’s expanded emergency cabinet, including opposition leaders, for the first time.

Meanwhile, inside a besieged Gaza, conditions were only deteriorating further, with Palestinian health workers being forced to store bodies in ice-cream trucks as the local death toll rises.

The weeklong war has already claimed a total of more than 3,700 lives on both sides.

More than 1,400 Israelis have died, according to the Israeli Defense Forces, while authorities in Gaza said more than 2,450 people had been killed in Israel’s retaliatory strikes. Many of the dead on both sides are children and women, officials have said.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said Sunday that 300 people had been killed and 800 more injured in Gaza within the past 24 hours alone.

The Israeli military has been urging residents of the northern half of the Gaza Strip — which includes Gaza City’s more than one million residents — for days to move south.

On Sunday, the IDF vowed not to target a specific route south for three hours in a bid to convince Palestinians to leave the north en masse — despite Hamas telling locals to ignore Israel’s message.

“Residents of Gaza City and northern Gaza, in the past days, we’ve urged you to relocate to the southern area for your safety. We want to inform you that the IDF will not carry out any operations along this route from 10 AM to 1 PM,” the military tweeted.

“During this window, please take the opportunity to move southward from northern Gaza. Your safety and that of your families matters. Please follow our instructions and head southward. Be assured, Hamas leaders have already ensured their safety and that of their families.”

But some civilians who had already traveled south said they were planning to head back north because they weren’t safe anywhere.

Hussam Abu Safiya, an intensive-care doctor at the Kamal Edwan hospital’s children ward in northern Gaza, said the order to evacuate was nearly impossible for the facility.

“In this ward, as you can see, there are children who are attached to ventilators, and now we have been asked to evacuate the hospital. Where should we evacuate these children?” he said.

Hamas continued to answer Israel’s continued bombings elsewhere with its own rockets Sunday.

At one point, US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and his delegation were forced to seek cover in Tel Aviv to wait out the Hamas-fired rockets.

“While in Tel Aviv today, our delegation was rushed to a shelter to wait out rockets sent by Hamas. It shows you what Israelis have to go through,” Schumer tweeted. “We must provide Israel with the support required to defend itself.”

The developments came as extra US attack aircraft arrived in the Middle East on Sunday, the US Air Combat Command revealed — days after Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin promised extra support.

“This arrival bolsters the U.S. defense posture, enhances air operations throughout the Middle East, and reassures our allies and regional partners we remain postured to protect and defend their freedom,” a statement on social media read.

Renewed clashes on Israel’s border with Lebanon on Sunday also stoked fears of the conflict spilling over.

Hamas’ armed wing, the Al Qassam Brigades, said it fired 20 rockets from Lebanon on two Israeli settlements while Lebanon’s Iran-backed group Hezbollah said it targeted barracks in Israel’s Hanita with missiles, killing one civilian.

Israel said it had returned fire at Lebanon in retaliation.

President Biden has ripped Hamas for carrying out the “worst massacres of the Jewish people since the Holocaust” while putting the lives of its own Palestinian people on the line.

“More than 1,300 innocent lives lost in Israel, including at least 27 Americans. Children and grandparents alike kidnapped, held hostage by Hamas,” Biden said during a speech Saturday at the Human Rights Campaign’s annual dinner.

“The humanitarian crisis in Gaza: innocent Palestinian families — and the vast majority have nothing to do with Hamas — they’re being used as human shields.”

With Post wires