As the latest Israel-Hamas war reaches its sixth day, the Israeli military pulverised the Gaza Strip with airstrikes, prepared for a possible ground invasion and said Thursday its complete siege would remain in place until the Hamas militants that rule the territory freed some 150 hostages taken during a grisly weekend incursion.

A visit by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, along with shipments of US weapons, were a powerful greenlight to Israel to drive ahead with its retaliation in Gaza. But international aid groups warned of a worsening humanitarian crisis.

Will Lebanon’s heavily armed Hezbollah militia join the Israel-Hamas war? The answer could well determine the direction of a battle that is bound to reshape the Middle East.

Hezbollah, which like Hamas is supported by Iran, has so far been on the fence about joining the fighting between Israel and the Gaza Strip’s Islamic militant rulers. For the past six days, Israel has besieged Gaza and hammered the enclave of 2.3 million Palestinians with hundreds of airstrikes in response to a deadly Hamas attack on southern Israel.

Israel, which has vowed to crush Hamas, is now preparing for a possible ground offensive. While the country’s political and military leaders weigh the next move, they are nervously watching Hezbollah on Israel’s northern border and have sent troop reinforcements to the area. Hezbollah, with an arsenal of tens of thousands of rockets and missiles capable of hitting virtually anywhere in Israel, is viewed as a far more formidable foe than Hamas.

France’s interior minister on Thursday ordered local authorities to ban all pro-Palestinian demonstrations amid a rise in antisemitic acts since Hamas attacked Israel over the weekend. President Emmanuel Macron urged French people not to allow the war in the Mideast erupt into tensions at home.

Soon before Macron spoke in a televised address to the nation about the Mideast conflict, Paris police used tear gas and water cannon to disperse pro-Palestinian protesters who had defied a ban and demonstrated on Thursday against the Israeli government.

With several French-Israeli citizens believed held hostage by Hamas, Macron pledged that France would protect its Jewish citizens and be “ruthless toward all those who bear hate″ and noted concerns about hostility toward France’s Muslims too.

A prominent civilian member of Hamas defended the group’s rampage through Israeli communities in a video released by the group on Thursday and decried the civilian deaths in Gaza from the six days of Israeli airstrikes that have followed.

The solemn video lacked the bravado of a recording aired by Hamas’ military wing on Saturday hailing “the greatest battle” as the massacres still played out.

Basem Naim, a physician and former Hamas government minister, said in the “swift collapse” of the Israeli military on Saturday, “chaos prevailed and civilians found themselves in the middle of the confrontation” between Israeli and Hamas combatants.

The claim is contradicted by countless videos and survivor accounts of Hamas militants deliberately targeting and killing hundreds of civilians.

Naim said the 150 hostages taken back into Gaza would be treated according to religious values and international laws. “At the same time we are really worried … they might be the victims of the Israeli army bombardment, like our people,” he said.

He added that Hamas would not consider freeing the captives until Israel stopped its bombardment.

Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Hossein Amirabdollahian said on Thursday that if Israel’s bombardment of Gaza continues, the war may open on “other fronts,” an apparent reference to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

Amirabdollahian arrived in Beirut late on Thursday evening, where he was greeted by representatives of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad along with Lebanese officials.

“In light of the continued aggression, war crimes and siege on Gaza, opening other fronts is a real possibility,” Amirabdollahian said, speaking to journalists on his arrival.

Early on Thursday, Amirabdollahian had visited Iraq, where he made similar statements after a meeting with Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani. Questions have swirled around the extent of Iran’s role in the unprecedented surprise attack launched by the Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel on Saturday.

Hamas officials have denied that Iran was directly involved in planning the attack or greenlighted it, and to date no government worldwide has offered direct evidence that Iran orchestrated the attack. However, many have pointed to Iran’s long sponsorship of Hamas that has included training, funding and providing it with weapons.

The militant Hezbollah group sent a drone over Israel on Thursday, according to an official with a Lebanese group familiar with the situation along the Lebanon-Israel border.

The drone was shot down over Israel, the official said, without elaborating further. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to comment to the news media.

An Israeli military spokesman wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, Thursday afternoon that an air-defence missile was fired in northern Israel but it turned out there was no target in the air.

The death toll from Israeli strikes on Gaza has risen to 1,537, with 6,612 people wounded, the Gaza-based Health Ministry reported on Thursday. Of those killed, 276 were women and 500 were under the age of 18, the ministry said.

The jump in the death toll comes as Palestinians report heavy Israeli airstrikes across the besieged Gaza Strip, with bombardment on residential buildings in densely populated city districts and refugee camps killing many family members at a time in their homes.

• An Ap report