π️Lonny's War Update- October 329, 2023 - August 30, 2024 π️
π️Day 329 that 107 of our hostages in Hamas captivity
**There is nothing more important than getting them home! NOTHING!**
“I’ve never met them,But I miss them. I’ve never met them,but I think of them every second. I’ve never met them,but they are my family. BRING THEM HOME NOW!!!”
We’re waiting for you, all of you.
A deal is the only way to bring
all the hostages home- the murdered for burial and the living for rehabilitation.
#BringThemHomeNow #TurnTheHorrorIntoHope
A deal is the only way to bring
all the hostages home- the murdered for burial and the living for rehabilitation.
#BringThemHomeNow #TurnTheHorrorIntoHope
There is no victory until all of the hostages are home!ΧΧΧ Χ Χ¦ΧΧΧ Χ’Χ Χ©ΧΧ ΧΧΧΧΧ€ΧΧ ΧΧΧΧͺ
Red Alerts - Missile, Rocket, Drone (UAV - unmanned aerial vehicles), and Terror Attacks and Death Announcements
*1:50am- north - rockets = Kisra Samia*
*
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Hostage Updates
- "The Hamas guard put a pen in our mouth and tied it": Almog and Andrei recount their captivity
As part of the national testimony project by the Government Press Office, Almog Meir Jan, who was rescued, said: "The only thing you have there is memory, imagination, and thoughts. You need to know where to draw hope from." Andrei Kozlov described acts of abuse: "A crazy terrorist guarded us, we weren't allowed to make mistakes. He threatened to take me down to the tunnels." Nili Margalit, who was released in the November deal, told CNN: "We were always inside a tunnel with little oxygen, they took away our freedom."
Left- Almog Meir Jan, Right - Andrei Kozlov
"We were living with a mouse that would only come out at night, when it was pitch dark and quiet, and you hear only the squeaking of the mouse and you can't sleep from fear... Good dreams were something that kept us going there very much." This testimony by Almog Meir Jan, who was released from Hamas captivity in the daring "Operation Arnon," is part of the national project "Voices from Captivity" to document the testimonies of the abductees, initiated by the National Public Diplomacy Directorate through the Government Press Office.
Almog, who was held in an apartment in Nuseirat along with Andrei Kozlov and Shlomi Ziv, said in his testimony: "You wake up at night and you don't have a picture you can look at when you miss someone. The only thing you have is memory, imagination, and thoughts, and if we dreamed at night that we saw our family, I would say to him, 'Wow, I remember what my mom looks like'. I saw my mom. My dad, my grandparents. It brings you closer." He also described the harsh treatment by the terrorist who guarded them: "This Mohammed had very creative punishments. He would just do whatever he felt like at that moment. Let's say he didn't like us walking around the house, so he would say, 'Okay, you stood up, no problem, I want you to sit for a week now. Don't move from the bed for a week. If you go to the bathroom, I want you to either go like this or crawl. I don't want you to stand up.'"
"We're dying to punch him, but we swallow it and disconnect from the emotion, from the humiliation. He put some pen in our mouth, tied our mouth. For a few days afterward, we had cuts in our mouth. Many things, whether it's suddenly chains, and after some time when you're washing your hands and showering, rust comes off you. We had real wounds on our hands, and when we walked, the lock would go into the bone."
Almog expressed hope that the hostages still in Hamas captivity would not lose hope. "It's easy to lose hope, but you also need to know where to draw it from. If I could tell them something, come to them in a dream and tell them something, I would say to them it will happen soon, don't lose hope," he said.
Andrei said that the last month of captivity "was terrible," and described that after Almog's birthday, the terrorist guarding them "went crazy": "He put us in a state where we couldn't make a mistake, and he would give us conflicting instructions. He told us to be quiet, so we spoke in a very, very low voice, but even then he punished us with ropes and with the pen/pencil in our mouth." Andrei described that in one case, the terrorist instructed him to knock on the bathroom door after finishing his shower, saying he would then let him out. "When I finished, he told me to wash the floor inside the bathroom and outside too. I did that and went back inside just to knock on the door so he would let me out, and he said, 'Why did you open the door? Are you stupid? Rabi? Rabi?' Rabi means 'stupid' in Arabic. I told him he said to wash outside too, but he answered, 'No, you're stupid. You'll stay here for another half hour.'"
In an incident in March, the terrorist got angry because Andrei turned off the radio in the apartment without permission, and "he threatened to take me to the tunnels." Another time, the terrorist was furious that Andrei washed his hands with water he was given to drink, and ordered Almog and Shlomi to cover him with three thick blankets while lying on a mattress. "This was in mid-May, and lasted an hour and a half. He always tried to catch us in mistakes so he could punish us, saying 'let's treat him like an animal.'"
Meanwhile, hostage Nili Margalit, who was kidnapped to Gaza after terrorists murdered her father and was released in the November deal, said in an interview with CNN that she can't return to her life as long as hostages are still held by Hamas. Margalit, a nurse by profession, helped care for hostages who were with her. "I can't live, I can't rebuild my life as long as there are still hostages there," she said.
Margalit described the kidnapping and captivity: "They took us to Khan Yunis and put us inside a tunnel. I met many hostages in a large space inside, many from Kibbutz Nir Oz. Also elderly people over 75. We were there for a few hours and then they divided us into small groups. They took me with 10 other people from Nir Oz and Nirim deep into the tunnel and that's where we were for the entire captivity. There was very little oxygen, it was hard to breathe. The smell was terrible. People were injured when they were kidnapped from their homes, and wounds take longer to heal in an environment without oxygen."
She emphasized that she felt "it was my duty to help the hostages with me, I knew them all. There were friends of my parents, the father of my best friend. I know a little Arabic from Soroka Hospital, where there are many Arab workers and patients. I used my senses as a nurse to make the terrorists understand that the medications were important and necessary, and that we were their responsibility now, otherwise the elderly wouldn't have survived."
When asked about the treatment by the terrorists, Margalit said that "they were interested in keeping us alive, they didn't abuse us, but you have to understand: they took away our freedom, they controlled the water and food, when we would go to the bathroom. The feeling is really hard, the despair was hard." link
The security cabinet voted Thursday to back Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s position in favor of maintaining Israeli military presence along the Gaza-Egypt border as part of any potential ceasefire and hostage release deal, a senior official in the premier’s office said.
The top panel of ministers was asked to approve a series of maps that the Israel Defense Forces has drawn up, showing how Israel plans to keep its troops deployed in the nine-mile narrow stretch known as the Philadelphi Corridor. The maps have already been adopted by the US, the official said, apparently referencing the “bridging proposal” that the White House submitted earlier this month.
The eight-to-one vote, with one abstention, was all but symbolic since the maps had already been submitted to Hamas and to mediators Egypt and the US.
Bucking Israel’s security establishment, Netanyahu presented the continued IDF deployment in the Philadelphi Corridor as a new demand in the hostage negotiations last month, slowing the talks, which had picked up momentum after Hamas agreed to cave on its main demand for Israel to agree up-front to a permanent ceasefire.
In the Thursday night security cabinet meeting, eight ministers voted in favor of Netanyahu’s position, while only Defense Minister Yoav Gallant voted against it, representing the security apparatus’s position.
Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir cast the vote’s lone abstention. A source close to Ben Gvir was cited by Hebrew media as explaining this was because the proposal included a gradual drop in the number of soldiers in case of a deal, while he supports maintaining full military presence at the corridor and in all of Gaza.
The vote drew an outraged reaction from the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which represents relatives of many of the remaining 107 hostages held by terrorists in Gaza.
“After close to a year of neglect, Netanyahu doesn’t miss a single opportunity to ensure that there won’t be a deal,” the Forum said. “Not a day goes by in which Netanyahu doesn’t take concrete action to jeopardize the return home of all the hostages.”
But the Tikva Forum, which represents some hawkish hostage relatives, praised the decision and said IDF presence at Philadelphi “creates highly significant pressure on Hamas that could help return all the hostages home.”
Netanyahu has insisted that remaining in the Philadelphi Corridor is essential for preventing continued weapons smuggling, which would allow for the revival of Hamas after the war. This is despite the demand not featuring in a previous Israeli proposal issued on May 27.
The premier believes control of the border zone is key to pressuring Hamas into signing a deal, Republican US Senator Joni Ernst, who met Netanyahu this week as she led a US congressional delegation to the Middle East, told Axios. She added she found it unlikely that Israel would soon agree to withdraw its troops from there.
The US has urged Israel to compromise on the issue, while also offering a bridging proposal that allows for a limited number of soldiers to remain in the corridor, which both Hamas and mediator Egypt have to date opposed, two Arab officials told The Times of Israel earlier this week.
According to the officials, the bridging proposal over-catered to Israel’s demands and it has since been adapted.
The security establishment has pushed the government for more flexibility on the Philadelphi issue, fearing Netanyahu’s stance will further drag out the talks, risking the lives of the hostages, and arguing that Israel would be able to return to the corridor if need be.
Channel 12 news reported Thursday that at the meeting in which the vote was eventually held, Gallant presented a document presenting the security establishment’s opinion that without a hostages-for-ceasefire deal, Israel faced “imminent deterioration into a multifront war.”
According to the senior Prime Minister’s Office official who reported the vote’s results, Netanyahu told ministers during the meeting that Hamas had been able to carry out its October 7 onslaught because Israel didn’t have control over the Philadelphi Corridor.
Netanyahu stressed that by maintaining control over the corridor, Israel will prevent another attack of that nature from unfolding since Hamas won’t be able to re-arm itself.
He also argued that this stance will make a hostage deal more likely because Hamas will see that it has no other choice but to compromise on this issue, just as it did when it agreed to forgo its demand for a permanent end to the war.
In the proposal Hamas submitted earlier this month, the terror group agreed to only have a six-week ceasefire, during which the sides would negotiate the terms of subsequent phases. While the offer envisions the mediators keeping Israel and Hamas at the table, it does appear to provide Israel with the ability to resume fighting if Hamas is deemed to be violating the terms of the deal and not negotiating in good faith.
Netanyahu at the Thursday night meeting assailed the defense establishment, claiming it had wrongly supported Israel’s so-called Disengagement from Gaza in 2005 — which Netanyahu himself helped pass — as well as the withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 and the Oslo Accords of the 1990s.
“Security officials claimed that they would know how to deal with the first rocket [from Gaza], but this did not happen after Hamas began raining fire on Israel,” Netanyahu told the ministers, according to the statement from an official in his office. Hamas had also been launching rockets at Israel before the Disengagement.
“Security officials also believed that they would know how to deal with the withdrawal from Lebanon and, before that, with the import of terrorist elements into Judea and Samaria as part of the Oslo Accords,” Netanyahu said, using the West Bank’s Biblical name. “These estimates were also wrong.”
Separately, during Thursday night’s meeting, the security cabinet was presented with the preliminary results of an IDF review that found that most of the dozens of hostages who are no longer alive were killed during the first six months of the war, closer to the October 7 onslaught, and not in recent months, the Israeli official says.
That comes amid an uproar from hostage families, who frequently claim that more of their loved ones could have been brought back alive had the negotiations not dragged on for as long as they have. Earlier this month, six hostages — who had been alive until earlier this year — were returned to Israel in body bags.
The latest spat in a series of bitter disagreements between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over Israel’s strategy in Gaza erupted during a security cabinet meeting last night, several Hebrew media outlets report.
The argument is reported to have broken out when Netanyahu announced that, unbeknownst to Gallant, he had decided to bring the issue of IDF deployment along the Philadelphi Corridor on the Gaza-Egypt border to a vote.
The top panel of ministers was asked to approve a series of maps drawn up by the IDF which show how Israel plans to keep its troops deployed in the nine-mile narrow stretch known as the Philadelphi Corridor.
The cabinet voted eight to one, with one abstention, to back Netanyahu’s position in favor of maintaining Israeli military presence along the Gaza-Egypt border as part of any potential ceasefire and hostage release deal. Gallant was the sole opponent. (Itamar Ben Gvir abstained in protest at a potential dilution of the IDF presence at the border.) The vote was all but symbolic since the maps had already been submitted to Hamas and to mediators Egypt and the US.
Citing senior cabinet members who were present in the meeting, Ynet reports that Gallant lost his temper, and accused Netanyahu of “forcing the maps onto the IDF” despite the defense establishment urging him to be more flexible.
“The prime minister can make all the decisions, and he can also decide to kill all of the hostages,” Gallant is reported to have fumed, according to Ynet, Yisrael Hayom and Channel 12 news.
Kan news, similarly, quoted Gallant saying, “The prime minister can bring any decision he wants to the cabinet [for approval], including a vote to kill the hostages.”
The unnamed cabinet ministers tell Ynet that unlike in previous instances, nobody jumped to Gallant’s defense, believing he had gone too far in his criticism.
Kan news reported that one of the ministers asked, “How can you speak like this to the prime minister?”
“This was the harshest clash I can recall between Netanyahu and Gallant,” one of the ministers tells Ynet. “Netanyahu isolated Gallant completely. In situations such as these, a defense minister may as well lay down his keys.״ link Netanyahu is doing exactly as Galant and the Hostage Families say, he is deciding to kill the hostages and never make a deal. As Einav Tsengauker, mother of the hostage Matan Tzsengauker said "This is not about Philadelphi Route, it is about Philadelphi Spin." This is truly a spin for Netanyahu to kill all negotiations for a hostage deal/cease fire and, as he has been doing since November, he is putting in demands that he knows for certain that Hamas will never agree to. And to make matters worse, the security heads have said that the demand is totally unnecessary and it is far more important to bring the hostages home. In an announcement by Netanyahu, he said that the cabinet decision will show Hamas that we are not backing down from this demand and that they will have to compromise. What he fails to acknowledge, although he knows this very well, is that Hamas doesn't compromise, even under these conditions.
The Hostages Families Forum slams Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following an overnight vote in the security cabinet to back his demand that IDF troops remain deployed along the Philadelphi Corridor on the Gaza-Egypt border even in the event of a hostage release-ceasefire deal.
“After close to a year of neglect, Netanyahu doesn’t miss a single opportunity to ensure that there won’t be a deal,” the forum states. “Not a day goes by that Netanyahu doesn’t take concrete action to jeopardize the return home of all the hostages.”
Negotiations between Israel and Hamas are “heading toward collapse,” an unnamed senior source in the terror group tells the pro-Hezbollah Al-Mayadeen satellite news station.
The unnamed official says recent meetings in Qatar failed to lead to a breakthrough since Israel is insisting on maintaining a presence on the Philadelphi Corridor along the Egypt-Gaza border (which it says it needs to prevent smuggling), while it is unwilling to give up a veto on the identities of 65 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences to be released as part of a deal.
“The negotiations are heading towards collapse because of Israel’s rejection to respond to mediators’ proposals to take care of current issues,” the source says, who adds that Egypt, Qatar and the US are “frustrated” with Jerusalem’s demands.
Hostage Updates
- "The Hamas guard put a pen in our mouth and tied it": Almog and Andrei recount their captivityAs part of the national testimony project by the Government Press Office, Almog Meir Jan, who was rescued, said: "The only thing you have there is memory, imagination, and thoughts. You need to know where to draw hope from." Andrei Kozlov described acts of abuse: "A crazy terrorist guarded us, we weren't allowed to make mistakes. He threatened to take me down to the tunnels." Nili Margalit, who was released in the November deal, told CNN: "We were always inside a tunnel with little oxygen, they took away our freedom."Left- Almog Meir Jan, Right - Andrei Kozlov"We were living with a mouse that would only come out at night, when it was pitch dark and quiet, and you hear only the squeaking of the mouse and you can't sleep from fear... Good dreams were something that kept us going there very much." This testimony by Almog Meir Jan, who was released from Hamas captivity in the daring "Operation Arnon," is part of the national project "Voices from Captivity" to document the testimonies of the abductees, initiated by the National Public Diplomacy Directorate through the Government Press Office.Almog, who was held in an apartment in Nuseirat along with Andrei Kozlov and Shlomi Ziv, said in his testimony: "You wake up at night and you don't have a picture you can look at when you miss someone. The only thing you have is memory, imagination, and thoughts, and if we dreamed at night that we saw our family, I would say to him, 'Wow, I remember what my mom looks like'. I saw my mom. My dad, my grandparents. It brings you closer." He also described the harsh treatment by the terrorist who guarded them: "This Mohammed had very creative punishments. He would just do whatever he felt like at that moment. Let's say he didn't like us walking around the house, so he would say, 'Okay, you stood up, no problem, I want you to sit for a week now. Don't move from the bed for a week. If you go to the bathroom, I want you to either go like this or crawl. I don't want you to stand up.'""We're dying to punch him, but we swallow it and disconnect from the emotion, from the humiliation. He put some pen in our mouth, tied our mouth. For a few days afterward, we had cuts in our mouth. Many things, whether it's suddenly chains, and after some time when you're washing your hands and showering, rust comes off you. We had real wounds on our hands, and when we walked, the lock would go into the bone."Almog expressed hope that the hostages still in Hamas captivity would not lose hope. "It's easy to lose hope, but you also need to know where to draw it from. If I could tell them something, come to them in a dream and tell them something, I would say to them it will happen soon, don't lose hope," he said.Andrei said that the last month of captivity "was terrible," and described that after Almog's birthday, the terrorist guarding them "went crazy": "He put us in a state where we couldn't make a mistake, and he would give us conflicting instructions. He told us to be quiet, so we spoke in a very, very low voice, but even then he punished us with ropes and with the pen/pencil in our mouth." Andrei described that in one case, the terrorist instructed him to knock on the bathroom door after finishing his shower, saying he would then let him out. "When I finished, he told me to wash the floor inside the bathroom and outside too. I did that and went back inside just to knock on the door so he would let me out, and he said, 'Why did you open the door? Are you stupid? Rabi? Rabi?' Rabi means 'stupid' in Arabic. I told him he said to wash outside too, but he answered, 'No, you're stupid. You'll stay here for another half hour.'"In an incident in March, the terrorist got angry because Andrei turned off the radio in the apartment without permission, and "he threatened to take me to the tunnels." Another time, the terrorist was furious that Andrei washed his hands with water he was given to drink, and ordered Almog and Shlomi to cover him with three thick blankets while lying on a mattress. "This was in mid-May, and lasted an hour and a half. He always tried to catch us in mistakes so he could punish us, saying 'let's treat him like an animal.'"Meanwhile, hostage Nili Margalit, who was kidnapped to Gaza after terrorists murdered her father and was released in the November deal, said in an interview with CNN that she can't return to her life as long as hostages are still held by Hamas. Margalit, a nurse by profession, helped care for hostages who were with her. "I can't live, I can't rebuild my life as long as there are still hostages there," she said.Margalit described the kidnapping and captivity: "They took us to Khan Yunis and put us inside a tunnel. I met many hostages in a large space inside, many from Kibbutz Nir Oz. Also elderly people over 75. We were there for a few hours and then they divided us into small groups. They took me with 10 other people from Nir Oz and Nirim deep into the tunnel and that's where we were for the entire captivity. There was very little oxygen, it was hard to breathe. The smell was terrible. People were injured when they were kidnapped from their homes, and wounds take longer to heal in an environment without oxygen."She emphasized that she felt "it was my duty to help the hostages with me, I knew them all. There were friends of my parents, the father of my best friend. I know a little Arabic from Soroka Hospital, where there are many Arab workers and patients. I used my senses as a nurse to make the terrorists understand that the medications were important and necessary, and that we were their responsibility now, otherwise the elderly wouldn't have survived."When asked about the treatment by the terrorists, Margalit said that "they were interested in keeping us alive, they didn't abuse us, but you have to understand: they took away our freedom, they controlled the water and food, when we would go to the bathroom. The feeling is really hard, the despair was hard." link
The security cabinet voted Thursday to back Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s position in favor of maintaining Israeli military presence along the Gaza-Egypt border as part of any potential ceasefire and hostage release deal, a senior official in the premier’s office said.
The top panel of ministers was asked to approve a series of maps that the Israel Defense Forces has drawn up, showing how Israel plans to keep its troops deployed in the nine-mile narrow stretch known as the Philadelphi Corridor. The maps have already been adopted by the US, the official said, apparently referencing the “bridging proposal” that the White House submitted earlier this month.
The eight-to-one vote, with one abstention, was all but symbolic since the maps had already been submitted to Hamas and to mediators Egypt and the US.
Bucking Israel’s security establishment, Netanyahu presented the continued IDF deployment in the Philadelphi Corridor as a new demand in the hostage negotiations last month, slowing the talks, which had picked up momentum after Hamas agreed to cave on its main demand for Israel to agree up-front to a permanent ceasefire.
In the Thursday night security cabinet meeting, eight ministers voted in favor of Netanyahu’s position, while only Defense Minister Yoav Gallant voted against it, representing the security apparatus’s position.
Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir cast the vote’s lone abstention. A source close to Ben Gvir was cited by Hebrew media as explaining this was because the proposal included a gradual drop in the number of soldiers in case of a deal, while he supports maintaining full military presence at the corridor and in all of Gaza.
The vote drew an outraged reaction from the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which represents relatives of many of the remaining 107 hostages held by terrorists in Gaza.
“After close to a year of neglect, Netanyahu doesn’t miss a single opportunity to ensure that there won’t be a deal,” the Forum said. “Not a day goes by in which Netanyahu doesn’t take concrete action to jeopardize the return home of all the hostages.”
But the Tikva Forum, which represents some hawkish hostage relatives, praised the decision and said IDF presence at Philadelphi “creates highly significant pressure on Hamas that could help return all the hostages home.”
Netanyahu has insisted that remaining in the Philadelphi Corridor is essential for preventing continued weapons smuggling, which would allow for the revival of Hamas after the war. This is despite the demand not featuring in a previous Israeli proposal issued on May 27.
The premier believes control of the border zone is key to pressuring Hamas into signing a deal, Republican US Senator Joni Ernst, who met Netanyahu this week as she led a US congressional delegation to the Middle East, told Axios. She added she found it unlikely that Israel would soon agree to withdraw its troops from there.
The US has urged Israel to compromise on the issue, while also offering a bridging proposal that allows for a limited number of soldiers to remain in the corridor, which both Hamas and mediator Egypt have to date opposed, two Arab officials told The Times of Israel earlier this week.
According to the officials, the bridging proposal over-catered to Israel’s demands and it has since been adapted.
The security establishment has pushed the government for more flexibility on the Philadelphi issue, fearing Netanyahu’s stance will further drag out the talks, risking the lives of the hostages, and arguing that Israel would be able to return to the corridor if need be.
Channel 12 news reported Thursday that at the meeting in which the vote was eventually held, Gallant presented a document presenting the security establishment’s opinion that without a hostages-for-ceasefire deal, Israel faced “imminent deterioration into a multifront war.”
According to the senior Prime Minister’s Office official who reported the vote’s results, Netanyahu told ministers during the meeting that Hamas had been able to carry out its October 7 onslaught because Israel didn’t have control over the Philadelphi Corridor.
Netanyahu stressed that by maintaining control over the corridor, Israel will prevent another attack of that nature from unfolding since Hamas won’t be able to re-arm itself.
He also argued that this stance will make a hostage deal more likely because Hamas will see that it has no other choice but to compromise on this issue, just as it did when it agreed to forgo its demand for a permanent end to the war.
In the proposal Hamas submitted earlier this month, the terror group agreed to only have a six-week ceasefire, during which the sides would negotiate the terms of subsequent phases. While the offer envisions the mediators keeping Israel and Hamas at the table, it does appear to provide Israel with the ability to resume fighting if Hamas is deemed to be violating the terms of the deal and not negotiating in good faith.
Netanyahu at the Thursday night meeting assailed the defense establishment, claiming it had wrongly supported Israel’s so-called Disengagement from Gaza in 2005 — which Netanyahu himself helped pass — as well as the withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 and the Oslo Accords of the 1990s.
“Security officials claimed that they would know how to deal with the first rocket [from Gaza], but this did not happen after Hamas began raining fire on Israel,” Netanyahu told the ministers, according to the statement from an official in his office. Hamas had also been launching rockets at Israel before the Disengagement.
“Security officials also believed that they would know how to deal with the withdrawal from Lebanon and, before that, with the import of terrorist elements into Judea and Samaria as part of the Oslo Accords,” Netanyahu said, using the West Bank’s Biblical name. “These estimates were also wrong.”
Separately, during Thursday night’s meeting, the security cabinet was presented with the preliminary results of an IDF review that found that most of the dozens of hostages who are no longer alive were killed during the first six months of the war, closer to the October 7 onslaught, and not in recent months, the Israeli official says.
That comes amid an uproar from hostage families, who frequently claim that more of their loved ones could have been brought back alive had the negotiations not dragged on for as long as they have. Earlier this month, six hostages — who had been alive until earlier this year — were returned to Israel in body bags.
The latest spat in a series of bitter disagreements between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over Israel’s strategy in Gaza erupted during a security cabinet meeting last night, several Hebrew media outlets report.
The argument is reported to have broken out when Netanyahu announced that, unbeknownst to Gallant, he had decided to bring the issue of IDF deployment along the Philadelphi Corridor on the Gaza-Egypt border to a vote.
The top panel of ministers was asked to approve a series of maps drawn up by the IDF which show how Israel plans to keep its troops deployed in the nine-mile narrow stretch known as the Philadelphi Corridor.
The cabinet voted eight to one, with one abstention, to back Netanyahu’s position in favor of maintaining Israeli military presence along the Gaza-Egypt border as part of any potential ceasefire and hostage release deal. Gallant was the sole opponent. (Itamar Ben Gvir abstained in protest at a potential dilution of the IDF presence at the border.) The vote was all but symbolic since the maps had already been submitted to Hamas and to mediators Egypt and the US.
Citing senior cabinet members who were present in the meeting, Ynet reports that Gallant lost his temper, and accused Netanyahu of “forcing the maps onto the IDF” despite the defense establishment urging him to be more flexible.
“The prime minister can make all the decisions, and he can also decide to kill all of the hostages,” Gallant is reported to have fumed, according to Ynet, Yisrael Hayom and Channel 12 news.
Kan news, similarly, quoted Gallant saying, “The prime minister can bring any decision he wants to the cabinet [for approval], including a vote to kill the hostages.”
The unnamed cabinet ministers tell Ynet that unlike in previous instances, nobody jumped to Gallant’s defense, believing he had gone too far in his criticism.
Kan news reported that one of the ministers asked, “How can you speak like this to the prime minister?”
“This was the harshest clash I can recall between Netanyahu and Gallant,” one of the ministers tells Ynet. “Netanyahu isolated Gallant completely. In situations such as these, a defense minister may as well lay down his keys.״ link Netanyahu is doing exactly as Galant and the Hostage Families say, he is deciding to kill the hostages and never make a deal. As Einav Tsengauker, mother of the hostage Matan Tzsengauker said "This is not about Philadelphi Route, it is about Philadelphi Spin." This is truly a spin for Netanyahu to kill all negotiations for a hostage deal/cease fire and, as he has been doing since November, he is putting in demands that he knows for certain that Hamas will never agree to. And to make matters worse, the security heads have said that the demand is totally unnecessary and it is far more important to bring the hostages home. In an announcement by Netanyahu, he said that the cabinet decision will show Hamas that we are not backing down from this demand and that they will have to compromise. What he fails to acknowledge, although he knows this very well, is that Hamas doesn't compromise, even under these conditions.
The Hostages Families Forum slams Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following an overnight vote in the security cabinet to back his demand that IDF troops remain deployed along the Philadelphi Corridor on the Gaza-Egypt border even in the event of a hostage release-ceasefire deal.
“After close to a year of neglect, Netanyahu doesn’t miss a single opportunity to ensure that there won’t be a deal,” the forum states. “Not a day goes by that Netanyahu doesn’t take concrete action to jeopardize the return home of all the hostages.”
Negotiations between Israel and Hamas are “heading toward collapse,” an unnamed senior source in the terror group tells the pro-Hezbollah Al-Mayadeen satellite news station.
The unnamed official says recent meetings in Qatar failed to lead to a breakthrough since Israel is insisting on maintaining a presence on the Philadelphi Corridor along the Egypt-Gaza border (which it says it needs to prevent smuggling), while it is unwilling to give up a veto on the identities of 65 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences to be released as part of a deal.
“The negotiations are heading towards collapse because of Israel’s rejection to respond to mediators’ proposals to take care of current issues,” the source says, who adds that Egypt, Qatar and the US are “frustrated” with Jerusalem’s demands.
Gaza
- The IDF says it carried out a strike against a group of gunmen who hijacked an aid convoy in the southern Gaza Strip earlier today.
According to the military, a convoy of aid trucks from the American Near East Refugee Aid (Anera) organization entered the southern Rafah area with IDF coordination.
During the drive, “armed men took over a vehicle at the front of the convoy (a jeep) and began to lead it,” the military says.
Shortly after the hijacking, the IDF says it was able to determine that it could strike only the car with the gunmen, without harming the rest of the convoy. It then carried out the strike.
“There was no damage to the other vehicles in the convoy and it reached its destination according to the plan. The attack on the armed men removed the threat of them taking over the humanitarian convoy,” the IDF says.
The military says representatives from the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) unit spoke with members of Anera, who “confirmed that all the members of the organization who were part of the convoy, and the humanitarian aid, were safe and sound and reached their destination safely.”
“The presence of armed men in a humanitarian convoy without coordination is against the procedures and makes it difficult to secure the convoys and their workers and thus also harms the humanitarian effort in Gaza,” the IDF adds.
The head of Israel’s association of public health physicians is calling on the United Nations to make sure that Israeli hostages held in Gaza are included in an upcoming polio vaccination campaign.
In a letter to the directors of the World Health Organization and UNICEF, Dr. Hagai Levine notes that two young brothers, Kfir Bibas, 1, and Ariel Bibas, 5, are among the hostages. He also says many of the adult hostages are overdue for booster shots.
“Given their vulnerable position and the lack of essential vaccinations, the hostages are at severe risk,” Levine, who also serves as head of the health division for the Hostage Families Forum umbrella group, writes in a letter.
IDF says documents found in Gaza show Hamas was falsifying prominent polling results
The IDF has recovered Hamas documents from the Gaza Strip that it says prove the terror group has been secretly falsifying the results of polls conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR).
Still, the IDF says that the documents do not prove that PCPSR was cooperating with Hamas, but rather that the terror group was conducting clandestine actions to fraudulently influence the results of the polls.
PCPSR is run by prominent Palestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki.
According to the IDF, the documents it recovered in Gaza “prove an extensive effort by the terror organization to falsify the results of [the PCPSR] polls, to create a false representation of the Gazan public’s support for the terror organization, especially after the massacre on October 7.”
A handout IDF infographic it says is based on documents it located in the Gaza Strip showing falsified polling information, released August 29, 2024. (IDF)“These documents are part of a systematic process, the purpose of which is to disguise the collapse of the organization, and the collapse of public support for it,” the IDF accuses.
The military says the documents “emphasize the importance that the Hamas terror organization sees in the results of the polls, to falsify Palestinian support and to influence the Palestinian public and Arab and international public opinion.”
An alleged Hamas document released by the IDF shows the results of a PCPSR poll from March 2024, with both the original data and the falsified numbers. The published poll showed 71% of Palestinians supporting the October 7 Hamas attack, while the IDF says the actual data showed support from just 30.7% of respondents.
“The documents show that the falsified results are in favor of the organization and its leaders, with an emphasis on Yahya Sinwar,” the military says. link In the last anonymous digital poll conducted by a legitimate polling organization, the actual support for Hamas was less than 15%. In Gaza, the civilians have long wanted to be free from Hamas tyranny, but it was impossible. They ruled with an iron fist and, as we know, had weapons galore. They would regularly arrest, torture and kill Gazans who spoke publicly against Hamas or in favor of peace with Israel, and like in the former Soviet Union, they relied on fear tactics and forced other Gazans to snitch on anyone who spoke against Hamas.
The IDF has wrapped up a three-week-long operation in the southern Gaza Strip, during which the military says it demolished six kilometers worth of tunnels, killed over 250 gunmen, and recovered the bodies of six hostages.
The raid, in Khan Younis and on the outskirts of Deir al-Balah, was launched by the 98th Division in early August. The division has now been withdrawn from Gaza as it prepares for future operations.
According to the IDF, amid the operation combat engineers demolished six separate tunnels, totalling some six kilometers of underground passages.
Inside some of the tunnels, troops killed gunmen, as well as located areas where terror operatives had resided, and found weapons, the military says.
Dozens more Hamas infrastructures above ground were also demolished amid the operation, the IDF says.
The military says troops also located weapons, rocket launchers, and intelligence materials at a “central” Hamas outpost in the Deir al-Balah area.
In the Hamad Town residential complex of Khan Younis, the IDF recovered the bodies of six hostages from a Hamas tunnel last week.
The hostages were Alex Dancyg, 75, Yagev Buchshtav, 35, Chaim Peri, 79, Yoram Metzger, 80, Nadav Popplewell, 51, and Avraham Munder, 78.
The IDF says Palestinian civilians can return to areas in the al-Qarara suburb of Khan Younis as the military has finished operations there.
The area had been evacuated amid an IDF operation in Khan Younis and was temporarily removed from the Israeli-designated humanitarian zone.
Col. Avichay Adraee, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman, says that the previously evacuated areas will now again be considered as part of the humanitarian zone. He publishes a map showing the changes to the zone.
More than 30 sites in the Gaza Strip were struck by the Israeli Air Force in the past day, the military says in a morning update.
The targets included rocket launchers, buildings used by terror groups, weapon depots, and other infrastructure, according to the IDF.
Meanwhile, the military says that troops with the 162nd Division killed dozens of gunmen in southern Gaza’s Rafah in the previous 24 hours.
The US is urging Israel to make changes to the way it evacuates civilians in the Gaza Strip, NPR reports, citing a leaked US embassy memo.
According to the report, the Biden administration is pushing for the IDF to wait 48 hours between issuing evacuation orders and launching military operations in the impacted area. The memo also recommends canceling the orders once operations in the safe zone are over, allowing the civilian population to return.
The memo was issued out of concern that the increased evacuation orders issued by the IDF to civilians in the Gaza Strip in recent weeks has considerably shrunk the size of the Israel-designated humanitarian zone and driven the repeated displacement of Palestinians, NPR states.
In response, the IDF tells NPR that once it withdraws from evacuated areas within the humanitarian zone, civilians are able to return.
Some 1.9 million Palestinians of the 2.3 million Gazan population are residing in the Israeli-designated “humanitarian zone,” according to IDF assessments in July.
The zone is located in the al-Mawasi area on the southern Strip’s coast, western neighborhoods of Khan Younis, and central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah.
The size of the zone has changed multiple times, amid evolving IDF operations against the Hamas terror group.
As of mid-August, the zone is just over 42 square kilometers, or 11% of the total size of the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian residents of the West Bank express shock and despair at the outcome of an Israeli raid on their refugee camp: bullet-riddled walls, destroyed homes and piles of concrete blocks.
“We are another Gaza, especially in the refugee camps,” says Nayef Alaajmeh, a resident of the Nur Shams camp in the city of Tulkarem, as he surveys the damage following a devastating Israeli raid on the camp that ended late on Thursday.
On Wednesday, Israeli forces launched a widespread “counterterrorism” operation in several West Bank cities and refugee camps, including Nur Shams.
At least 19 Palestinians have been killed so far in the raids, according to the Israeli military and the Palestinian health ministry in Ramallah. The majority of those killed were terrorists.
The Israeli military initially sent bulldozers to tear up tarmac streets, sending clouds of dust over the targeted areas.
AFP footage shows camp residents walking cautiously through streets littered with burnt tires and other debris.
Municipality workers and residents are already working to salvage what they can.
Many residents compare the devastation to that in Gaza, where nearly 11 months of war have left much of the Palestinian territory destroyed.
People walk along a street after Israeli bulldozers dug up the asphalt in the the Nur Shams refugee camp near Tulkarem in the West Bank following a large-scale military operation on August 30, 2024. (Jaafar ASHTIYEH / AFP)“Today, we are just like Gaza, war or no war… (but) we are steadfast and the people of Gaza are also steadfast,” says Nabil Abu Shala, another resident of Nur Shams camp.
The Israeli military is officially forbidden from entering West Bank cities and refugee camps, which are autonomous zones under the control of the Palestinian Authority.
According to the military, a convoy of aid trucks from the American Near East Refugee Aid (Anera) organization entered the southern Rafah area with IDF coordination.
During the drive, “armed men took over a vehicle at the front of the convoy (a jeep) and began to lead it,” the military says.
Shortly after the hijacking, the IDF says it was able to determine that it could strike only the car with the gunmen, without harming the rest of the convoy. It then carried out the strike.
“There was no damage to the other vehicles in the convoy and it reached its destination according to the plan. The attack on the armed men removed the threat of them taking over the humanitarian convoy,” the IDF says.
The military says representatives from the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) unit spoke with members of Anera, who “confirmed that all the members of the organization who were part of the convoy, and the humanitarian aid, were safe and sound and reached their destination safely.”
“The presence of armed men in a humanitarian convoy without coordination is against the procedures and makes it difficult to secure the convoys and their workers and thus also harms the humanitarian effort in Gaza,” the IDF adds.
The head of Israel’s association of public health physicians is calling on the United Nations to make sure that Israeli hostages held in Gaza are included in an upcoming polio vaccination campaign.
In a letter to the directors of the World Health Organization and UNICEF, Dr. Hagai Levine notes that two young brothers, Kfir Bibas, 1, and Ariel Bibas, 5, are among the hostages. He also says many of the adult hostages are overdue for booster shots.
“Given their vulnerable position and the lack of essential vaccinations, the hostages are at severe risk,” Levine, who also serves as head of the health division for the Hostage Families Forum umbrella group, writes in a letter.
IDF says documents found in Gaza show Hamas was falsifying prominent polling results
The IDF has recovered Hamas documents from the Gaza Strip that it says prove the terror group has been secretly falsifying the results of polls conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR).
Still, the IDF says that the documents do not prove that PCPSR was cooperating with Hamas, but rather that the terror group was conducting clandestine actions to fraudulently influence the results of the polls.
PCPSR is run by prominent Palestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki.
According to the IDF, the documents it recovered in Gaza “prove an extensive effort by the terror organization to falsify the results of [the PCPSR] polls, to create a false representation of the Gazan public’s support for the terror organization, especially after the massacre on October 7.”
A handout IDF infographic it says is based on documents it located in the Gaza Strip showing falsified polling information, released August 29, 2024. (IDF)
“These documents are part of a systematic process, the purpose of which is to disguise the collapse of the organization, and the collapse of public support for it,” the IDF accuses.
The military says the documents “emphasize the importance that the Hamas terror organization sees in the results of the polls, to falsify Palestinian support and to influence the Palestinian public and Arab and international public opinion.”
An alleged Hamas document released by the IDF shows the results of a PCPSR poll from March 2024, with both the original data and the falsified numbers. The published poll showed 71% of Palestinians supporting the October 7 Hamas attack, while the IDF says the actual data showed support from just 30.7% of respondents.
“The documents show that the falsified results are in favor of the organization and its leaders, with an emphasis on Yahya Sinwar,” the military says. link In the last anonymous digital poll conducted by a legitimate polling organization, the actual support for Hamas was less than 15%. In Gaza, the civilians have long wanted to be free from Hamas tyranny, but it was impossible. They ruled with an iron fist and, as we know, had weapons galore. They would regularly arrest, torture and kill Gazans who spoke publicly against Hamas or in favor of peace with Israel, and like in the former Soviet Union, they relied on fear tactics and forced other Gazans to snitch on anyone who spoke against Hamas.
The IDF has wrapped up a three-week-long operation in the southern Gaza Strip, during which the military says it demolished six kilometers worth of tunnels, killed over 250 gunmen, and recovered the bodies of six hostages.
The raid, in Khan Younis and on the outskirts of Deir al-Balah, was launched by the 98th Division in early August. The division has now been withdrawn from Gaza as it prepares for future operations.
According to the IDF, amid the operation combat engineers demolished six separate tunnels, totalling some six kilometers of underground passages.
Inside some of the tunnels, troops killed gunmen, as well as located areas where terror operatives had resided, and found weapons, the military says.
Dozens more Hamas infrastructures above ground were also demolished amid the operation, the IDF says.
The military says troops also located weapons, rocket launchers, and intelligence materials at a “central” Hamas outpost in the Deir al-Balah area.
In the Hamad Town residential complex of Khan Younis, the IDF recovered the bodies of six hostages from a Hamas tunnel last week.
The hostages were Alex Dancyg, 75, Yagev Buchshtav, 35, Chaim Peri, 79, Yoram Metzger, 80, Nadav Popplewell, 51, and Avraham Munder, 78.
The IDF says Palestinian civilians can return to areas in the al-Qarara suburb of Khan Younis as the military has finished operations there.
The area had been evacuated amid an IDF operation in Khan Younis and was temporarily removed from the Israeli-designated humanitarian zone.
Col. Avichay Adraee, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman, says that the previously evacuated areas will now again be considered as part of the humanitarian zone. He publishes a map showing the changes to the zone.
More than 30 sites in the Gaza Strip were struck by the Israeli Air Force in the past day, the military says in a morning update.
The targets included rocket launchers, buildings used by terror groups, weapon depots, and other infrastructure, according to the IDF.
Meanwhile, the military says that troops with the 162nd Division killed dozens of gunmen in southern Gaza’s Rafah in the previous 24 hours.
The US is urging Israel to make changes to the way it evacuates civilians in the Gaza Strip, NPR reports, citing a leaked US embassy memo.
According to the report, the Biden administration is pushing for the IDF to wait 48 hours between issuing evacuation orders and launching military operations in the impacted area. The memo also recommends canceling the orders once operations in the safe zone are over, allowing the civilian population to return.
The memo was issued out of concern that the increased evacuation orders issued by the IDF to civilians in the Gaza Strip in recent weeks has considerably shrunk the size of the Israel-designated humanitarian zone and driven the repeated displacement of Palestinians, NPR states.
In response, the IDF tells NPR that once it withdraws from evacuated areas within the humanitarian zone, civilians are able to return.
Some 1.9 million Palestinians of the 2.3 million Gazan population are residing in the Israeli-designated “humanitarian zone,” according to IDF assessments in July.
The zone is located in the al-Mawasi area on the southern Strip’s coast, western neighborhoods of Khan Younis, and central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah.
The size of the zone has changed multiple times, amid evolving IDF operations against the Hamas terror group.
As of mid-August, the zone is just over 42 square kilometers, or 11% of the total size of the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian residents of the West Bank express shock and despair at the outcome of an Israeli raid on their refugee camp: bullet-riddled walls, destroyed homes and piles of concrete blocks.
“We are another Gaza, especially in the refugee camps,” says Nayef Alaajmeh, a resident of the Nur Shams camp in the city of Tulkarem, as he surveys the damage following a devastating Israeli raid on the camp that ended late on Thursday.
On Wednesday, Israeli forces launched a widespread “counterterrorism” operation in several West Bank cities and refugee camps, including Nur Shams.
At least 19 Palestinians have been killed so far in the raids, according to the Israeli military and the Palestinian health ministry in Ramallah. The majority of those killed were terrorists.
The Israeli military initially sent bulldozers to tear up tarmac streets, sending clouds of dust over the targeted areas.
AFP footage shows camp residents walking cautiously through streets littered with burnt tires and other debris.
Municipality workers and residents are already working to salvage what they can.
Many residents compare the devastation to that in Gaza, where nearly 11 months of war have left much of the Palestinian territory destroyed.
“Today, we are just like Gaza, war or no war… (but) we are steadfast and the people of Gaza are also steadfast,” says Nabil Abu Shala, another resident of Nur Shams camp.
The Israeli military is officially forbidden from entering West Bank cities and refugee camps, which are autonomous zones under the control of the Palestinian Authority.
Northern Israel - Lebanon/Hizbollah/Syria
Overnight, Israeli fighter jets struck several Hezbollah rocket launchers in southern Lebanon, the military says.
As a result of one of the strikes, several rockets flew out of a targeted launcher toward Israel. The IDF says that one rocket crossed the border and impacted an open area near the Migdal Tefen industrial zone, close to the town of Kisra-Sumei.
Sirens had sounded in the area amid the incident.
Overnight, Israeli fighter jets struck several Hezbollah rocket launchers in southern Lebanon, the military says.
As a result of one of the strikes, several rockets flew out of a targeted launcher toward Israel. The IDF says that one rocket crossed the border and impacted an open area near the Migdal Tefen industrial zone, close to the town of Kisra-Sumei.
Sirens had sounded in the area amid the incident.
West Bank and Jerusalem and Terror attacks within Israel
- Jordan is concerned that Palestinians fleeing intensified IDF operations and extremist settler violence in the West Bank will seek to enter the Hashemite Kingdom, the Qatari-owned Al-Araby Al-Jadeed news outlet reports.
According to the report, Jordanian officials fear that as a result of Palestinians crossing into Jordan, sky-high regional tensions will escalate further, leading to increased security risks in the country and across the region as a whole.
Earlier this month, King Abdullah II warned that Jordan would “not allow any escalation in the region to be at the expense of Jordanians or Jordan’s security and safety.”
Echoing the king’s comments, a Jordanian security expert tells Al-Araby that “any displacement of the residents of the West Bank will pose an existential threat to Jordan, and is absolutely rejected by Jordan and the Palestinian people.”
There are also concerns among senior Jordanians that by leaving the West Bank, Palestinians could become permanently displaced, leaving their land empty and at risk of being taken over by settlers, the report states.
This possibility, combined with recent statements by Israeli government ministers that threaten the status quo on the Temple Mount, would destroy “any possibility of a political solution based on the two-state solution, which harms Jordan’s predominant interest in establishing an independent Palestinian state,” posits a Jordanian analyst.
The British government says it is “deeply concerned” by Israel’s ongoing military operation in the West Bank, warning that the risk of instability is serious and that there is an urgent need for de-escalation.
“We continue to call on Israeli authorities to exercise restraint, adhere to international law, and clamp down on the actions of those who seek to inflame tensions,” a spokesperson for Britain’s Foreign Office says in a statement.
“We recognize Israel’s need to defend itself against security threats, but we are deeply worried by the methods Israel has employed and by reports of civilian casualties and the destruction of civilian infrastructure,” the Foreign Office spokesperson says.
The spokesperson adds the UK “strongly condemns settler violence,” and that it is in no one’s interest for further conflict and instability to spread in the West Bank.
Since October 7, troops have arrested some 4,850 wanted Palestinians across the West Bank, including more than 1,960 affiliated with Hamas.
According to the Palestinian Authority Health Ministry, more than 670 West Bank Palestinians have been killed in that time. The IDF says the vast majority of them were gunmen killed in exchanges of fire, rioters who clashed with troops or terrorists carrying out attacks.
During the same period, 27 people, including Israeli security personnel, have been killed in terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank. Another five members of the security forces were killed in clashes with terror operatives in the West Bank.
Hamas has accused the Palestinian Authority of carrying out “an arrest campaign” against its terror operatives in the West Bank, the Qatari-owned New Arab outlet reports.
According to the report, published by the English-language edition of Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, Hamas claims that the PA has, in recent days, carried out targeted arrests of its “resistance fighters, activists and released prisoners” in Nablus, in the northern West Bank.
Hamas accuses the PA, which is responsible for the civil governance of Palestinian regions in the West Bank, of cooperating with and supporting IDF operations in Jenin and Tulkarem in recent days.
The terror group did not offer any evidence to back up its claim.
The commander of Hamas’s military wing in the West Bank city of Jenin was killed, along with two other operatives, in clashes and drone strikes this morning, the IDF, Shin Bet, and police say.
According to the military, amid an ongoing operation in the northern West Bank, troops spotted a cell of gunmen in a car in the Jenin area town of Zababdeh.
Inside the car was Wissam Hazem, the head of Hamas’s terror network in Jenin.
Weapons found by the IDF following clashes and a drone strike in the town of Zababdeh near the West Bank city of Jenin, August 30. 2024 (Israel Defense Forces)Undercover Border Police officers opened fire at the car, killing Hazem, while the other two gunmen fled, the joint statement says. A short while later, a drone struck and killed the pair.
According to Israel, Hazem was involved in numerous shooting and bombing attacks, and was advancing additional attacks.
The other two gunmen, killed by the drone, are named by the IDF as Maysara Masharqa and Arafat Amer.
The military says they were Hamas members working under Hazem, and were also involved in shooting attacks, including against Israeli communities near the West Bank security barrier.
Inside the car and on the bodies of the terror operatives, the IDF says it recovered assault rifles, a handgun, and other weapons.
No troops were hurt in the incident.
The IDF says troops have killed 20 gunmen and detained 17 wanted Palestinians during an ongoing major operation in the northern West Bank.
The operation has been taking place in Tulkarem, Jenin and the Far’a camp near Tubas.
Troops have also destroyed dozens of explosive devices and seized many weapons, the IDF adds.
According to the report, Jordanian officials fear that as a result of Palestinians crossing into Jordan, sky-high regional tensions will escalate further, leading to increased security risks in the country and across the region as a whole.
Earlier this month, King Abdullah II warned that Jordan would “not allow any escalation in the region to be at the expense of Jordanians or Jordan’s security and safety.”
Echoing the king’s comments, a Jordanian security expert tells Al-Araby that “any displacement of the residents of the West Bank will pose an existential threat to Jordan, and is absolutely rejected by Jordan and the Palestinian people.”
There are also concerns among senior Jordanians that by leaving the West Bank, Palestinians could become permanently displaced, leaving their land empty and at risk of being taken over by settlers, the report states.
This possibility, combined with recent statements by Israeli government ministers that threaten the status quo on the Temple Mount, would destroy “any possibility of a political solution based on the two-state solution, which harms Jordan’s predominant interest in establishing an independent Palestinian state,” posits a Jordanian analyst.
The British government says it is “deeply concerned” by Israel’s ongoing military operation in the West Bank, warning that the risk of instability is serious and that there is an urgent need for de-escalation.
“We continue to call on Israeli authorities to exercise restraint, adhere to international law, and clamp down on the actions of those who seek to inflame tensions,” a spokesperson for Britain’s Foreign Office says in a statement.
“We recognize Israel’s need to defend itself against security threats, but we are deeply worried by the methods Israel has employed and by reports of civilian casualties and the destruction of civilian infrastructure,” the Foreign Office spokesperson says.
The spokesperson adds the UK “strongly condemns settler violence,” and that it is in no one’s interest for further conflict and instability to spread in the West Bank.
Since October 7, troops have arrested some 4,850 wanted Palestinians across the West Bank, including more than 1,960 affiliated with Hamas.
According to the Palestinian Authority Health Ministry, more than 670 West Bank Palestinians have been killed in that time. The IDF says the vast majority of them were gunmen killed in exchanges of fire, rioters who clashed with troops or terrorists carrying out attacks.
During the same period, 27 people, including Israeli security personnel, have been killed in terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank. Another five members of the security forces were killed in clashes with terror operatives in the West Bank.
Hamas has accused the Palestinian Authority of carrying out “an arrest campaign” against its terror operatives in the West Bank, the Qatari-owned New Arab outlet reports.
According to the report, published by the English-language edition of Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, Hamas claims that the PA has, in recent days, carried out targeted arrests of its “resistance fighters, activists and released prisoners” in Nablus, in the northern West Bank.
Hamas accuses the PA, which is responsible for the civil governance of Palestinian regions in the West Bank, of cooperating with and supporting IDF operations in Jenin and Tulkarem in recent days.
The terror group did not offer any evidence to back up its claim.
The commander of Hamas’s military wing in the West Bank city of Jenin was killed, along with two other operatives, in clashes and drone strikes this morning, the IDF, Shin Bet, and police say.
According to the military, amid an ongoing operation in the northern West Bank, troops spotted a cell of gunmen in a car in the Jenin area town of Zababdeh.
Inside the car was Wissam Hazem, the head of Hamas’s terror network in Jenin.
Undercover Border Police officers opened fire at the car, killing Hazem, while the other two gunmen fled, the joint statement says. A short while later, a drone struck and killed the pair.
According to Israel, Hazem was involved in numerous shooting and bombing attacks, and was advancing additional attacks.
The other two gunmen, killed by the drone, are named by the IDF as Maysara Masharqa and Arafat Amer.
The military says they were Hamas members working under Hazem, and were also involved in shooting attacks, including against Israeli communities near the West Bank security barrier.
Inside the car and on the bodies of the terror operatives, the IDF says it recovered assault rifles, a handgun, and other weapons.
No troops were hurt in the incident.
The IDF says troops have killed 20 gunmen and detained 17 wanted Palestinians during an ongoing major operation in the northern West Bank.
The operation has been taking place in Tulkarem, Jenin and the Far’a camp near Tubas.
Troops have also destroyed dozens of explosive devices and seized many weapons, the IDF adds.
Politics and the War (general news)
- Gantz's Warning Document to the Cabinet
Defense Minister Gantz presented to the Cabinet members the
"Strategic Junction Document" which deals with the dramatic
consequences of not pursuing a deal for the release of hostages. According to
Gantz:
• A deal would return hostages and allow for arrangements in
the north, prevent a regional war, and soften Iran's intentions to seek revenge
against Israel.
• On the other hand, not pursuing a deal means a danger of
imminent deterioration into a multi-front war.
Defense Minister Yoav Gantz presented to the Cabinet members
a document he wrote in recent days, which until now had been seen by a limited
number of senior political officials, including Prime Minister Netanyahu.
Yesterday (Thursday) evening, we reported in the "Central Edition"
that Gantz would present to the ministers the "Strategic Junction"
document that Israel is at these days, which essentially emphasizes to the
ministers the significance of pursuing a hostage deal versus not pursuing one.
It's like a T-junction, where entering each of its paths has a much greater
strategic significance for the country.
According to a political source exposed to the document,
Gantz's thesis presented to the Cabinet is as follows: At the very least, a
hostage deal would not only return those in the humanitarian stage, but it
would also allow for arrangements in the north, prevent a regional war, and
soften Iran's intentions to seek revenge against Israel. On the other hand -
not pursuing a deal means a danger of imminent deterioration into a multi-front
war, as well as leaving the hostages in captivity.
As mentioned, the document Gantz will bring to the Cabinet
will be presented to the ministers, and one can only imagine that some of them
will have tough questions. The discussion that will follow will be of great
significance if and when there is a breakthrough in the talks, which are still
ongoing.
The Israeli delegation in Qatar is recording progress
(through mediators) with Hamas on a series of issues: the identity of the
terrorists to be released, the deployment of forces in Gaza, release keys, and
more. Against this background, we also published tonight that the Americans
intend to finalize the document by next week and demand compromises from both
sides on the issue of the Philadelphia Corridor and Netzarim.
If there is no compromise, the Americans are expected to
present a new document of their own with a compromise proposal, and whoever
rejects it will be considered by them as the refusing party blocking the deal.
Cautiously, it can be said that there are those in Israel who claim that the
flexibility in these issues will be re-examined, according to the degree of
progress in Qatar regarding the other issues. For example, if there is a maximization
of the number of living hostages to be released, this could create an incentive
for progress. link
In July 2023, Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that war was almost certainly in Israel’s future unless something changed in the way the country was being run, Ynet reports.
The report comes after Opposition Leader Yair Lapid told an independent civilian commission of inquiry on Thursday that there had been multiple instances prior to October 7 in which security officials had told Netanyahu that policies being pursued by his government had eroded Israeli deterrence.
According to the report, on July 23, 2023 — one day before the government voted in favor of the first major piece of judicial overhaul legislation — Bar requested a meeting with the prime minister in which he warned him that, due to the contentious legislation and the divisions it had created in Israeli society, Israel’s enemies saw weakness, and therefore an opportunity to launch an attack that would result in war.
“Today I give you a warning of war. We don’t know the day and time that it will break out,” Bar is quoted by Ynet as having said.
He is reported to have issued the same warning to Lapid later that day.
The report adds that although Bar was certain that Israel was heading for war, he was likely referring either to a war in the north with the Iran-backed Hezbollah, or an escalation in the West Bank into a third intifada that could later expand, rather than war with Hamas.
In response to Ynet, the Prime Minister’s Office says that Netanyahu “did not receive a warning about the war in Gaza — not on the purported date stated in the article and not a minute before 6:29 a.m. on October 7.”
Referring only to the war in Gaza, the PMO does not deny that a more general warning was issued.
Gaza Division Intelligence Officer Ends His Role
- The officer, with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, will end his role in the coming days
- His retirement joins that of others, including former Military Intelligence Chief Aharon Haliva and Gaza Division Commander Brigadier General Avi Rosenfeld
The wave of departures in the IDF continues in the shadow of the October 7 failure. Yesterday (Thursday) evening, we reported in the "Central Edition" that the intelligence officer of the Gaza Division, an officer with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, will end his role in the coming days. This is the fourth retirement since the beginning of the war, and as mentioned, this time it's the intelligence officer who has already spoken with the division commander, the command commander, and the new commander of the Intelligence Division.
Against the backdrop of the announcement of the end of his role, the army says that decisions have not yet been made. Meanwhile - the intelligence officer of the Southern Command who was involved in the failure and was later dismissed from his position, is still serving in the army, albeit in a different role, but at least for the coming year.
As mentioned, the retirement of the Gaza Division's intelligence officer joins the retirement of Military Intelligence Chief Aharon Haliva and Gaza Division Commander Brigadier General Avi Rosenfeld. At Haliva's retirement ceremony, he said: "We did not fulfill our mission, the responsibility rests on me," and also called for the establishment of a state commission of inquiry. link
Defense Minister Gantz presented to the Cabinet members the
"Strategic Junction Document" which deals with the dramatic
consequences of not pursuing a deal for the release of hostages. According to
Gantz:
• A deal would return hostages and allow for arrangements in
the north, prevent a regional war, and soften Iran's intentions to seek revenge
against Israel.
• On the other hand, not pursuing a deal means a danger of
imminent deterioration into a multi-front war.
Defense Minister Yoav Gantz presented to the Cabinet members
a document he wrote in recent days, which until now had been seen by a limited
number of senior political officials, including Prime Minister Netanyahu.
Yesterday (Thursday) evening, we reported in the "Central Edition"
that Gantz would present to the ministers the "Strategic Junction"
document that Israel is at these days, which essentially emphasizes to the
ministers the significance of pursuing a hostage deal versus not pursuing one.
It's like a T-junction, where entering each of its paths has a much greater
strategic significance for the country.
According to a political source exposed to the document,
Gantz's thesis presented to the Cabinet is as follows: At the very least, a
hostage deal would not only return those in the humanitarian stage, but it
would also allow for arrangements in the north, prevent a regional war, and
soften Iran's intentions to seek revenge against Israel. On the other hand -
not pursuing a deal means a danger of imminent deterioration into a multi-front
war, as well as leaving the hostages in captivity.
As mentioned, the document Gantz will bring to the Cabinet
will be presented to the ministers, and one can only imagine that some of them
will have tough questions. The discussion that will follow will be of great
significance if and when there is a breakthrough in the talks, which are still
ongoing.
The Israeli delegation in Qatar is recording progress
(through mediators) with Hamas on a series of issues: the identity of the
terrorists to be released, the deployment of forces in Gaza, release keys, and
more. Against this background, we also published tonight that the Americans
intend to finalize the document by next week and demand compromises from both
sides on the issue of the Philadelphia Corridor and Netzarim.
If there is no compromise, the Americans are expected to
present a new document of their own with a compromise proposal, and whoever
rejects it will be considered by them as the refusing party blocking the deal.
Cautiously, it can be said that there are those in Israel who claim that the
flexibility in these issues will be re-examined, according to the degree of
progress in Qatar regarding the other issues. For example, if there is a maximization
of the number of living hostages to be released, this could create an incentive
for progress. link
In July 2023, Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that war was almost certainly in Israel’s future unless something changed in the way the country was being run, Ynet reports.
The report comes after Opposition Leader Yair Lapid told an independent civilian commission of inquiry on Thursday that there had been multiple instances prior to October 7 in which security officials had told Netanyahu that policies being pursued by his government had eroded Israeli deterrence.
According to the report, on July 23, 2023 — one day before the government voted in favor of the first major piece of judicial overhaul legislation — Bar requested a meeting with the prime minister in which he warned him that, due to the contentious legislation and the divisions it had created in Israeli society, Israel’s enemies saw weakness, and therefore an opportunity to launch an attack that would result in war.
“Today I give you a warning of war. We don’t know the day and time that it will break out,” Bar is quoted by Ynet as having said.
He is reported to have issued the same warning to Lapid later that day.
The report adds that although Bar was certain that Israel was heading for war, he was likely referring either to a war in the north with the Iran-backed Hezbollah, or an escalation in the West Bank into a third intifada that could later expand, rather than war with Hamas.
In response to Ynet, the Prime Minister’s Office says that Netanyahu “did not receive a warning about the war in Gaza — not on the purported date stated in the article and not a minute before 6:29 a.m. on October 7.”
Referring only to the war in Gaza, the PMO does not deny that a more general warning was issued.
Gaza Division Intelligence Officer Ends His Role
- The officer, with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, will end his role in the coming days
- His retirement joins that of others, including former Military Intelligence Chief Aharon Haliva and Gaza Division Commander Brigadier General Avi Rosenfeld
The wave of departures in the IDF continues in the shadow of the October 7 failure. Yesterday (Thursday) evening, we reported in the "Central Edition" that the intelligence officer of the Gaza Division, an officer with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, will end his role in the coming days. This is the fourth retirement since the beginning of the war, and as mentioned, this time it's the intelligence officer who has already spoken with the division commander, the command commander, and the new commander of the Intelligence Division.
Against the backdrop of the announcement of the end of his role, the army says that decisions have not yet been made. Meanwhile - the intelligence officer of the Southern Command who was involved in the failure and was later dismissed from his position, is still serving in the army, albeit in a different role, but at least for the coming year.
As mentioned, the retirement of the Gaza Division's intelligence officer joins the retirement of Military Intelligence Chief Aharon Haliva and Gaza Division Commander Brigadier General Avi Rosenfeld. At Haliva's retirement ceremony, he said: "We did not fulfill our mission, the responsibility rests on me," and also called for the establishment of a state commission of inquiry. link
The Region and the World
- Turkey has arrested over 100 suspected members of the Islamic State group this week, authorities say Friday, the latest mass detention targeting the terror organization.
The country has been hit by several major attacks claimed by IS, including a 2017 nightclub shooting that killed dozens of people.
The fresh raids took place across the country, including in the capital Ankara and Turkey’s largest city Istanbul, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya posts on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The arrest of 119 people this week follows other mass detentions, including 99 announced in early August.
Since the 2019 collapse of the self-proclaimed “caliphate,” some suspected IS members have settled in Turkey.
Turkish authorities have said that since June 2023 more than 3,600 people with suspected ties to the jihadist group have been arrested.
Two of the assailants who massacred 145 people at the Crocus City Hall in Moscow last March, an attack for which IS claimed responsibility, had spent several weeks in Turkey before heading to Russia, according to local authorities.
Personal Stories
In Captivity: A Conversation with Margalit Mozes
Margalit Mozes has lived most of her life in Kibbutz Nir Oz • She loves community life and the green paths • On October 7, Margalit was kidnapped to Gaza and held in tunnels along with Avraham Munder and Amiram Cooper • This week, Munder's death was announced and his body was returned to Israel along with the bodies of other hostages • Despite everything, she will still return to the kibbutz • So this time, we're in conversation with Margalit Mozes • In Captivity, a special interview series with released hostages
Margalit Mozes, 79, a resident of Kibbutz Nir Oz, was kidnapped on October 7 from her home by Hamas terrorists. "I was sitting in the safe room, I heard them breaking the shutter and the glass window in my back door, so I knew they had come for me too. Then three of them came in, I put on jeans and a shirt, took a hat, took my CPAP machine, which is a device that helps me breathe at night, and went out," she recounts.
The terrorists kidnapped Margalit to the Gaza Strip and led her to the tunnels, where she stayed with Avraham Munder and Amiram Cooper. They took away her breathing machine without which she cannot sleep. "So I didn't sleep for forty-nine days. Occasionally during the day, I would go down to one of the mattresses and try to nap a little - ten minutes, five minutes. Generally, I didn't sleep, and I don't know how I had the strength to hold on. But apparently, there's nothing that stands in the way of will."
Margalit describes how she helped Munder, who was wounded, to bathe, and helped change his bandages. "He wasn't optimistic at all," she says. "I managed to lift his spirits a little, we passed the time singing and playing word games."
49 days after she was kidnapped, Margalit was released and returned to Israel, but Avraham Munder and Amiram Cooper were left behind. She was sure she would see them again - but this week Avraham Munder's death was announced and he was brought for burial in Israel, along with the bodies of other hostages - Yoram Metzger, Haim Peri and Alex Dancyg from Kibbutz Nir Oz and Nadav Popplewell and Yagev Buchshtab from Kibbutz Nirim. Amiram Cooper's death was also reported in June. "They brought Avraham in a coffin a week ago. So sad. Four people together. Receiving one name is hard. Receiving four is even harder."
Margalit with her family upon her release from Hamas Captivity
After being released from captivity, Margalit discovered that her ex-husband Gadi Mozes was also kidnapped. "I asked her once what about dad, because I saw that they weren't talking about him. He's there too, that's what she told me." Gadi is still there, and Margalit yearns for his return.
Last week, Margalit received an invitation to meet with the Prime Minister, along with other returned hostages whose loved ones are still in Gaza. She refused to attend, and instead sent a letter: "I will not take part in a meeting for photography and public relations purposes while my friends are rotting in Hamas tunnels in Gaza. With my own eyes I saw them alive, in captivity, and now due to the second abandonment since October 7, we are receiving them in burial coffins. In light of reports of another deal sabotage on your part to release the hostages, I see no reason to attend a meeting with someone who proves by his actions that the release of the hostages is not his top priority and is abandoning them to their deaths."
Today, Margalit lives in Kiryat Gat with the rest of the Nir Oz community. Although most of the kibbutz was destroyed on October 7, she is optimistic. "I very much want to return to Nir Oz. Nir Oz has been in my heart since the day it was established. I take into account that everything is temporary, but we will have a renewed and beautiful Nir Oz."
The country has been hit by several major attacks claimed by IS, including a 2017 nightclub shooting that killed dozens of people.
The fresh raids took place across the country, including in the capital Ankara and Turkey’s largest city Istanbul, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya posts on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The arrest of 119 people this week follows other mass detentions, including 99 announced in early August.
Since the 2019 collapse of the self-proclaimed “caliphate,” some suspected IS members have settled in Turkey.
Turkish authorities have said that since June 2023 more than 3,600 people with suspected ties to the jihadist group have been arrested.
Two of the assailants who massacred 145 people at the Crocus City Hall in Moscow last March, an attack for which IS claimed responsibility, had spent several weeks in Turkey before heading to Russia, according to local authorities.Acronyms and Glossary
ICC - International Criminal Court in the Hague
IJC - International Court of Justice in the Hague
MDA - Magen David Adom - Israel Ambulance Corp
PA - Palestinian Authority - President Mahmud Abbas, aka Abu Mazen
PMO- Prime Minister's Office
UAV - Unmanned Aerial vehicle, Drone. Could be used for surveillance and reconnaissance, or be weaponized with missiles or contain explosives for 'suicide' explosion mission
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