Hamas has said it would not lay down arms unless an independent Palestinian state is established.
In a statement, the Palestinian militant faction said its "armed resistance ... cannot be relinquished except through the full restoration of our national rights, foremost among them the establishment of an independent, fully sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital".
Indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israel aimed at securing a 60-day ceasefire in the Gaza war and deal for the release of hostages ended last week in deadlock.
Hamas releases video of 'skeletally thin' hostage
Hamas has released its second video in two days of Israeli hostage Evyatar David.
In it, Mr David, skeletally thin, is shown digging a hole, which, he says in the video, is for his own grave.
A senior Israeli official said an understanding between Israel and Washington was emerging that there was a need to move from a plan to release some of the hostages to a plan to release all the hostages, disarm Hamas and demilitarize Gaza, echoing Israel's key demands for ending the war.
Meanwhile, the amount of aid entering Gaza remains "very insufficient" despite a limited improvement, the German government has said, after ministers discussed ways to heighten pressure on Israel.
The criticism came after Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul visited the region on Thursday and yesterday the German military staged its first food air drops into Gaza, where aid agencies say that more than two million Palestinians are facing starvation.
German government spokesman Stefan Kornelius noted "limited initial progress in the delivery of humanitarian aid to the population of the Gaza" which he said "remains very insufficient to alleviate the emergency situation".
He added: "Israel remains obligated to ensure the full delivery of aid."
Watch: Children cry as they beg for food at Gaza soup kitchen
A German government source told AFP it had noted that Israel has "considerably" increased the number of aid trucks allowed into Gaza to about 220 a day.
Berlin has taken a tougher line against Israel's actions in Gaza and the occupied West Bank in recent weeks.
The source said that a German security cabinet meeting discussed "the different options" for putting pressure on Israel, but no decision was taken.
A partial suspension of arms deliveries to Israel is one option that has been raised.
US meet families of Israeli hostages
President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy told families of hostages being held by Hamas that he was working with the Israeli government on a plan that would effectively end the war in Gaza.
US envoy Steve Witkoff met the families of Israeli hostages still held in Gaza, as fears for the captives' survival mounts almost 22 months into the war sparked by Hamas's October 2023 attack.
Mr Witkoff was greeted with some applause and pleas for assistance from hundreds of protesters gathered in Tel Aviv, before going into a closed meeting with the families.
During the meeting, Mr Witkoff said: "We have a very, very good plan that we're working on collectively with the Israeli government, with Prime Minister Netanyahu ... for the reconstruction of Gaza.
"That effectively means the end of the war."
The visit came one day after the US official visited a US-and-Israeli backed aid station in Gaza, to inspect efforts to get food into the devastated Palestinian territory.
Yotam Cohen, brother of 21-year-old hostage Nimrod Cohen, told AFP in the square: "The war needs to end.
"The Israeli government will not end it willingly. It has refused to do so."
Mr Cohen said the Israeli government "must be stopped".
"For our sakes, for our soldiers' sakes, for our hostages' sakes, for our sons and for the future generations of everybody in the Middle East," he added.
After the meeting, the forum released a statement saying Mr Witkoff had given them a personal commitment that he and US President Donald Trump would work to return the remaining hostages.
The United States, along with Egypt and Qatar, had been mediating ceasefire talks between Hamas and Israel that would allow the hostages to be released and humanitarian aid to flow more freely.
But talks broke down last month and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government is under increasing domestic pressure to come up with another way to secure the missing hostages, alive and dead.
He is also facing international calls to open Gaza's borders to allow more food aid after UN and humanitarian agencies warned that more than two million Palestinian civilians are facing starvation.
But Israel's top general warned there would be no respite in fighting in Gaza if the hostages were not released.
"I estimate that in the coming days we will know whether we can reach an agreement for the release of our hostages," army chief of staff Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir said, according to a military statement.
"If not, the combat will continue without rest," he said, during remarks to officers in Gaza yesterday.
Of the 251 people who were abducted from Israel during Hamas's attack in October 2023, 49 remain in Gaza, 27 of them dead, according to the Israeli military.
Palestinian armed groups this week released two videos of hostages looking emaciated and weak.
Mr Zamir denied that there was widespread starvation in Gaza.
"The current campaign of false accusations of intentional starvation is a deliberate, timed and deceitful attempt to accuse the IDF (Israeli military), a moral army, of war crimes," he said.
"The ones responsible for the killing and suffering of the residents in the Gaza Strip is Hamas," he added.
The family of an Israeli hostage held in Gaza for almost 22 months has accused Hamas of tormenting him with hunger as part of a propaganda campaign.
The David family was reacting after Hamas's armed wing released a video of 24-year-old Evyatar David, looking emaciated and weak in a narrow concrete tunnel, for the second night in a row.
"Hamas is using our son as a live experiment in a vile hunger campaign. The deliberate starvation of our son as part of a propaganda campaign is one of the most horrifying acts the world has seen," the family said in a statement.
In late February, Hamas released a video showing him being held inside a vehicle and forced to watch a hostage release ceremony a short distance away.
Hamas's 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to a tally based on official figures.
A total of 898 Israeli soldiers have also been killed, according to the military.
Israel's campaign in Gaza has killed at least 60,332 people, mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry, deemed reliable by the UN.
Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli strikes killed 21 people in the territory today.
Civil defence spokesperson Mahmud Bassal said two people were killed and another 26 injured after an Israeli strike on a central Gaza area where Palestinians had gathered before a food distribution point run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
He added that the bombings mostly targeted the areas near the southern city of Khan Younis and Gaza City in the north.
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Mr Witkoff visited another GHF site for five hours yesterday, promising that Mr Trump would come up with a plan to better feed civilians.
Adnan Abu Hasna, of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, told AFP that the agency had "approximately 6,000 trucks ready for the Gaza Strip, but the crossings are closed by political decision".
"There are five land crossings into the strip through which 1,000 trucks can enter daily," he added.
The UN human rights office in the Palestinian territories said yesterday at least 1,373 Palestinians seeking aid in Gaza had been killed since 27 May, most of them by the Israeli military.
Israel's military insist that soldiers never deliberately target civilians and accuses Hamas fighters of looting UN and humanitarian aid trucks.
