Tel Aviv, Israel - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday threatened again to illegally seize territory in Gaza if Hamas refuses to release hostages still held after Israel torpedoed a ceasefire agreement.

Having unilaterally broken the truce, Israel returned to indiscriminate bombing and killing of civilians across Gaza last week, followed by a ground invasion.

The brutality of its renewed assault has matched the worst of a year and a half-long devastation of the Palestinian territory that has been declared genocidal by numerous legal experts, human rights organizations, and scholars.

At least 830 people – the vast majority of them civilians, including many children – were killed since March 18, including 38 in the past 24 hours.

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"The more Hamas persists in its refusal to release our hostages, the stronger the pressure we will exert," Netanyahu told the Israeli parliament Wednesday. "I say this to my colleagues in the Knesset, and I say it to Hamas as well: this includes the seizure of territories, along with other measures I will not elaborate here."

His remarks came days after Defense Minister Israel Katz also threatened to annex parts of Gaza – a violation of international law – and unless Hamas surrenders and frees the remaining Israeli hostages.

In a statement directed at the population of Gaza on Friday, Katz said: "I ordered (the army) to seize more territory in Gaza... The more Hamas refuses to free the hostages, the more territory it will lose, which will be annexed by Israel".

Israel's all-out war on the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank has been supported militarily, financial, and diplomatically by the US, under both former President Joe Biden and his successor, Donald Trump.