[IMPORTANT] Hamas launches foot assault against settlements.

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Israel on Thursday carried out its first airstrike on Lebanon since a truce with Hezbollah announced this week, saying it targeted the militant group's activity at a rocket storage facility in southern Lebanon that breached the ceasefire.

Lebanese authorities reported scattered incidents of Israeli mortar attacks, strikes and shots fired that wounded two people trying to return to southern Lebanon. Lebanon's state-run media said the wounded were civilians, while the Israeli military described them as suspects who violated the terms of the truce that ended more than a year of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.

The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that "several suspects were identified arriving with vehicles to a number of areas in southern Lebanon, breaching the conditions of the ceasefire. The IDF opened fire toward them."

"The IDF remains in southern Lebanon and will actively enforce violations of the ceasefire agreement," the military said.

Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said Israeli fire wounded two civilians in Markaba, a village close to the border that has been a scene of intense fighting over the past 14 months. It also reported Israeli tank fire hitting some villages and farms in the south, causing no casualties.

The bursts of violence — with no reports of serious casualties — reflected the uneasy nature of the ceasefire that otherwise appeared to hold Thursday as Lebanese troops began to deploy in parts of southern Lebanon, the eastern Bekaa Valley and the southern suburbs of Beirut, where Hezbollah has based its operations.

The Lebanese military said it was setting up temporary checkpoints and detonating unexploded ordnance in hopes of helping displaced civilians return to their homes.

Col. Avichay Adraee, an Arabic language spokesman for the Israeli military, announced that a nighttime curfew for Lebanese residents south of the Litani River remained in effect, banning movement from 5 p.m. Thursday until 7 a.m. Friday.

The Lebanese army also accused Israel of breaking the ceasefire several times on Thursday by conducting strikes on Lebanon with "various weapons" and continuing to patrol and surveil Lebanese skies with warplanes and drones. The army said it was "following up on these violations in coordination with the relevant authorities," without elaborating.

An Associated Press reporter in northern Israel near the border heard Israeli drones buzzing overhead and the sound of artillery strikes in Lebanon.

Hezbollah has not issued any public statements on the alleged Israeli ceasefire violations but Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah acknowledged the incidents. When asked by reporters how Hezbollah would respond, he was cautious.

"We don't want to rush things," he said, adding that Hezbollah "has the right to self-defense."

So why you have started this war and brought destruction to us to begin with, fools.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/he ... 85766&ei=8

So why you have started this war and brought destruction to us to begin with, fools.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/he ... 85766&ei=8

A former Israeli defense minister has accused his country of committing war crimes and ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip, in a rare criticism from Israel’s own security community about military operations in the Palestinian enclave.

Moshe Yaalon said the Israeli government was putting the lives of Israel Defense Forces soldiers in danger and exposing them to lawsuits at the International Criminal Court, in an interview with the Reshet Bet radio station Sunday.

“I speak on behalf of commanders who serve in northern Gaza,” he said. “War crimes are being committed here.”

In a separate interview with Democrat TV on Saturday, he said that the Israeli government was seeking “to conquer, to annex, to carry out ethnic cleansing.”

Hard-liners want to re-establish Jewish settlements in Gaza, he said, including in northern areas where civilians have been urged to leave indefinitely as the Israeli military prepares to move against Hamas fighters who have regrouped.

“What is going on there? There is no Beit Lahiya, no Beit Hanoun, they are operating now in Jabalia and basically cleaning the area of Arabs,” Yaalon said.

Yaalon was the IDF’s chief of staff during the second intifada, or “uprising” by Palestinians against Israeli occupation, which ended in 2005. He also served as defense minister from 2013 to 2016, including during a 2014 war in Gaza that lasted more than six weeks and had been the longest conflict between Israel and Hamas until the current one.

He quit in 2016, saying he no longer had faith in Netanyahu, and has been a fierce critic of the prime minister ever since.

Netanyahu’s allies were quick to condemn Yaalon’s remarks.

Yoav Gallant, who served as Israel’s defense minister until he was fired by Netanyahu last month, said Yaalon’s words were “a lie that helps our enemy and harms Israel.”

Netanyahu’s Likud party, of which Yaalon is a former member, said Yaalon was spreading “slanderous lies.”

An Israeli American soldier who was thought to have been captured alive by Hamas during the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack was actually killed that day and his body taken into the Gaza Strip, Israel’s military said Monday.

Omer Neutra, a 21-year-old New York native, who served as a tank platoon commander after emigrating to Israel, was killed in battle, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on X, as he paid tribute.

However, the military did not say how it came to the conclusion over Neutra’s death. It added that he had been posthumously promoted to the rank of captain.

Neutra was born and raised in the United States, before he emigrated to Israel as a lone soldier and enlisted in the Armored Corps, according to the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, an advocacy group for those held captive and their families.

In a statement released Monday, it said his body was still being held captive by Hamas.

News of Neutra's death came just two days after the mother of Israeli American hostage Edan Alexander told NBC News that she was both shaken and relieved to see her son in a Hamas-issued propaganda video.

The 20-year-old, who appears under duress in the Hamas video, calls on President-elect Donald Trump to use his power to negotiate for the freedom of those who remain in captivity in Gaza.

Hamas leaders held talks with Egyptian security officials Sunday to explore ways to reach a deal with Israel that could secure the release of hostages in return for Palestinian prisoners.

The Israeli military launched a wave of airstrikes in Lebanon on Monday evening after Hezbollah launched two mortars at the Mount Dov area for the first time since the ceasefire between Israel and the Iran-backed terror group took effect last week.

In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces said fighter jets struck Hezbollah operatives and dozens of rocket launchers and facilities belonging to the terror group across Lebanon.

Hezbollah claimed earlier on Monday that it launched the mortars in response to Israel’s “repeated violations” of the ceasefire deal that took effect last week, and said that it should serve as an “initial warning” over IDF strikes on Lebanon during the truce and the “continued violation of Lebanese airspace by hostile Israeli aircraft.”

The incident — the first fire from Lebanon since the start of the truce — came after the US and France both reportedly warned that Israel was violating parts of the deal, a charge Israel has denied.

The IDF said that the projectiles landed in open areas and did not cause any injuries.

In addition to the Hezbollah operatives, rocket launchers, and facilities targeted by fighter jets, the IDF said it struck the launcher used to fire the two mortars at Mount Dov. The site was hit a short while after the attack, according to the army.

Lebanon’s health ministry later said at least nine people were killed in Israeli strikes on two southern villages.

“The Israeli enemy strike on the village of Haris killed five people and injured two, in an initial toll,” the ministry said in a statement, adding that another such attack on Tallousa “killed four people and injured one person.”

Syria’s Sham FM radio, meanwhile, reported that a series of Israeli airstrikes on Monday night targeted border crossings between Lebanon and Syria in the al-Qusayr area.

The IDF had bombed the crossings before, saying that they were being used by Hezbollah to smuggle Iranian weapons into Lebanon.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby acknowledged that there have been “some sporadic strikes” over the last several days, but claims “this was expected” and is still a major decrease from the hundreds of Hezbollah rocket attacks and Israeli counter-strikes that were taking place before the ceasefire came into place.

Kirby noted that the ceasefire included the beefing up of an enforcement mechanism that has already begun responding to events on the ground. The mechanism now includes a US Army general who has been dispatched to the US embassy in Beirut and will work with US civilian representative Amos Hochstein to respond to reported violations in real-time, Kirby said.

The White House spokesperson said Israel and Lebanon remain committed to the ceasefire, but he conceded that it is only one week old, and there is more work to do to ensure that the enforcement mechanism is bolstered.

Pressed on the subject during a subsequent briefing, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller responded similarly, insisting that the ceasefire has not broken down.

He said the US-led enforcement mechanism is still adjudicating claims by both sides of ceasefire violations. “That’s what we’ll do over the coming days and coming months.”

The IDF has significantly bolstered its presence in the central Gaza Strip in recent months, and the territory controlled by Israel in and around the so-called Netzarim corridor has rapidly expanded, according to a report Monday, in an apparent indication the IDF is preparing to remain inside the Palestinian enclave for at least the foreseeable future.

By analyzing satellite images and video footage, the New York Times reported that Israeli forces have also constructed several dozen new bases in and around the corridor over the last three months.

The Netzarim Corridor, which started as a four-mile strip of land, is built around a road south of Gaza City, enabling the IDF to carry out raids in northern and central Gaza while controlling access to the north for Palestinians seeking to return after fleeing south. It also enables Israel to coordinate deliveries of humanitarian aid directly to northern Gaza.

In recent months, however, the corridor has significantly expanded, reaching as far as the outskirts of Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighborhood to the north, and the Wadi Gaza stream to the south, encompassing around 47 square kilometers (18 square miles) of land.

The IDF has attempted to create what appears to be a buffer zone around the outskirts of the military-controlled block of land, the report said, and in doing so, has demolished around 600 buildings, residential and otherwise, over the last three months.

The Times said that the estimation was reached by analyzing satellite images and video footage taken by the IDF’s Combat Engineering Battalion between September 3 and November 21.

Troops have also “rapidly expanded a network of outposts equipped with communications towers and defensive fortifications,” the report said.

The IDF’s expansion work “suggests that it may be preparing to exert long-term control over the area,” The Times said.

An IDF spokesman told the newspaper that the buildings were demolished in order to prevent Hamas operatives from using them as lookout points, or as a place to hide ahead of launching attacks on Israeli forces.

Inside the expanded Netzarim Corridor area, additional satellite images analyzed by the Times found that the IDF has been building at a rapid pace, having either constructed or expanded the existing infrastructure of 12 military bases since early September.

In total, the report said, the IDF has constructed at least 19 large military bases and dozens of smaller ones in the area surrounding the Netzarim Corridor since the start of the war against Hamas last October.

The satellite images revealed extensive fortifications surrounding the bases, many of which the news outlet said were walled off, with access roads and parking spaces for armored vehicles.

Some also have communications towers, it added, and the largest of the bases is attached to a checkpoint.

Despite the rapid expansion of Israeli infrastructure, an IDF spokesman seemed to reject the notion that the military was preparing for a permanent presence in the enclave, telling the Times that “anything that has been built [in the Netzarim Corridor] can be taken down within a day.”

Some Israeli government lawmakers have become increasingly vocal in recent weeks, however, about their desire to reestablish Jewish settlements inside the Gaza Strip for the first time in almost two decades.

Last week, Housing and Construction Minister Yitzchak Goldknopf inspected the Strip with Daniella Weiss, the head of the Nachala Settlement Movement, to locate sites for potential settlement construction.

Then, on Sunday, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who leads the ultranationalist Otzma Yehudit party, told Army Radio that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was showing “some openness” to the idea of “encouraging migration” of Palestinians from Gaza.

The idea has been touted for the better part of the last year by Ben Gvir and fellow far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who said last month that Israel should occupy Gaza and “encourage” half of the Strip’s 2.2 million Palestinians to emigrate within two years.

Netanyahu has repeatedly said such actions are not the goal of the war, nor are they on the agenda, but has faced criticism from opponents who have accused him of failing to exert control over the government and allowing himself to be swayed by some of its most extreme members.

Former Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said on Sunday that he will not apologize for his comments accusing Israel of carrying out “ethnic cleansing” in the northern Gaza Strip, and countered the oft-repeated statement that the Israel Defense Forces is “the most moral army in the world.”

In a sit-down interview with Channel 12 news on Sunday night, Ya’alon said: “I don’t say anymore [that the IDF is] the most moral army in the world,” precisely because of “the interference of politicians, who are corrupting the army.”

“It’s not the most moral army today,” he repeated. “And it’s difficult for me to say that.”

Again doubling down on his comments from the previous evening — after also doing so in an interview with the Kan public broadcaster earlier in the day — he said he believed his assessment to be “accurate,” and that there is “no other word for it” but ethnic cleansing, given that government ministers speak about how “the Strip will be cleansed of Arabs.”

Asked whether he wanted to take back his use of the phrase, given that it is “extremely harsh,” Ya’alon reiterated that he spoke the way he did “on purpose, to sound the alarm.”

When it was put to him that one of the definitions of ethnic cleansing is “mass murder as a means of diluting the population of a specific group in a specific area,” Ya’alon said, “I’m not talking about mass murder” but rather about “a different definition… evacuating a population from its homes, destroying their homes — that’s what’s happening in Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahiya.”

The interviewer charged that the use of the phrase ethnic cleansing would lead people to associate the IDF with “what happened in Germany in the 1930s,” to which Ya’alon replied that it is “not the IDF” he is charging with carrying out ethnic cleansing but “the politicians.”

He claimed that these were most notably coalition members from the far right, who he said are instructing the IDF to “carry out what are defined as war crimes” and ordering it to “evacuate the population for [ostensible] operational activities,” but are acting out of ulterior motives such as the desire to revive Jewish settlement in the Strip.

Himself a former IDF chief of staff, Ya’alon warned the current IDF chief, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, to “pay attention” to what is happening around him, when allegedly given orders to evacuate the population of large swathes of the Gaza Strip.

Asked if he thought the arrest warrant put out by the International Criminal Court for Netanyahu was justified, Ya’alon said simply that he would “let them judge.”

“I think that, morally, some bad things have happened here from our point of view,” he said.

He suggested that the ICC has a list of other officials, both from the defense establishment and the political echelon, who will be investigated at a later date for war crimes, and said that if it were up to him, far-right ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir would have been arrested “some time ago” already.

Smotrich, he charged in the earlier interview with Kan, “has no moral qualms about starving two million Gazans to death.”

Presented with a clip of a statement he issued in 2003 when serving as IDF chief of staff, in which he said that the IDF does not “harm innocent people,” Ya’alon told Channel 12 that he stands by what he said at the time, to which the interviewer asked if “something has changed” since that 21-year-old clip.

“Do you not live in this country?” Ya’alon retorted. “Do you not hear Ben Gvir encouraging [people] to kill?”

Challenged that Israel’s enemies were now using Ya’alon statements to back up their own accusations against Israel, the former defense minister said, “First of all, let’s take care of ourselves and make sure we don’t do these things” before worrying about what other people say. “That’s what’s more important.”

A senior officer in the military reserves and three others were hit with terror charges Monday stemming from allegations that they launched lit flares at the Caesarea home of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month to place political pressure on him.

Rear Adm. (res.) Ofer Doron, 63, his son Gal Doron, 27, and two other longtime anti-government activists, Itay Yaffe, 62, and Amir Sadeh, 62, were indicted in Haifa District Court on charges of carrying out an act of terror through the reckless and negligent use of fire, and attempted arson. The two Dorons were also charged with obstruction of justice for initially lying to investigators about who fired one of the flares.

According to prosecutors, the four were involved in firing two flares at Netanyahu’s house on the night of November 16 during weekly protest activities against Netanyahu and the government.

Nobody was harmed in the incident and no damage was caused, and the Netanyahus were not home at the time.

The charge sheet alleges that some two months before the incident, Ofer Doron and Amir Sadeh attended a meeting with agents from the Shin Bet security service in which they were briefed on the acceptable limits of the protests, and specifically warned against using pyrotechnics, which have become a regular features at weekly protests in Tel Aviv.

The indictment states that the four showed up earlier in the day of the incident to scope out the area, including security arrangements. They then snuck out of the area by avoiding roads to keep from being detected by police. Some turned their phones to airplane mode.

The elder Doron is thought to have acquired the naval flares, which were expired, from fellow anti-government activists, a senior official in the police’s Lahav 433 major crimes unit told Channel 12 news last month.

He was suspended from the Israel Defense Forces in August 2023 in response to his decision to stop performing volunteer reserve duty over the government’s contentious judicial overhaul plan. Sadeh and Yafeh are also well-known figures in the anti-government protest movement, which has held regular protests outside Netanyahu’s home, alongside larger rallies in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

The indictment alleges that after arriving back in the area in separate vehicles later, the four surreptitiously made their way to a spot some 270 meters (885 feet) away from Netanyahu’s residence. Under the direction of Ofer Doron, Sadeh and Guy Doron fired the flares.

One flare initially hit vegetation outside Netanyahu’s home, causing fire and smoke that alerted a guard in the compound. Minutes later, the second flare landed near the entrance to the home, some two meters away from another guard who had run over to put out the fires.

According to the indictment, the flares were designed to burn at 30,000 candlepower for 40 seconds, enough to cause a serious injury.

The defendants have claimed in the past that they were not aiming for Netanyahu’s house. According to Ynet, prosecutors may be challenged to disprove the claim given the difficulty in precisely aiming that type of naval flare.

The indictment also accused the elder Doron of covering up for his son by initially telling investigators he fired one of the flares.

Prosecutors requested that the four be held in custody until the end of proceedings against them; the court decided it would keep them behind bars for now, but hold another hearing on their possible release later this week, Hebrew media reported.

Gonen Ben Yitzhak, a protest leader acting as attorney for some of the defendants, decried the inclusion of terror charges on the rap sheets, noting that the state prosecution had acknowledged that the defendants were not trying to harm Netanyahu.

“This decision is sullied with politics, a warning to all protesters that any use of pyrotechnics could turn into a terror incident,” he said.

Prosecutor Shelley Zeevi Barzilai told the court that the flare-firing should not be viewed as part of the larger protest movement, which took shape to oppose Netanyahu’s plans to overhaul the judiciary and has become a leading voice pushing the government to reach a deal releasing hostages held in Gaza.

Victims of a crime are entitled by law to be asked by prosecutors for their position on any plea bargain that might be proposed to those indicted over the incident, and on the punishment that might be meted out by the court.

President-elect Trump promised there would be "all hell to pay" if the hostages being held captive by Hamas are not released prior to when he takes office on Jan. 20.

In a Truth Social post, Trump said nothing was being done to free those being held by the Iran-backed terror group since Oct. 7, 2023, after Hamas attacked Israel and killed at least 1,200 people and kidnapped at least 250 others.

At least seven of the hostages are Americans.

"Everybody is talking about the hostages who are being held so violently, inhumanely, and against the will of the entire World, in the Middle East – But it’s all talk, and no action!" Trump wrote.

"Please let this TRUTH serve to represent that if the hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025, the date that I proudly assume Office as President of the United States, there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East, and for those in charge who perpetrated these atrocities against Humanity," Trump added.

On Saturday, Hamas released a video of an Israeli-American hostage pleading for his release.

The footage shows Edan Alexander, 20, covering his face and crying. He was abducted by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023.

Trump said those responsible for taking the hostages "will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America."

Defense Minister Israel Katz said that if the November 26 ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah fails, the IDF will be more ready to strike non-Hezbollah Lebanese targets, during a visit to the northern border on Tuesday.

“If the ceasefire collapses – there will not be anymore exemption to the state of Lebanon,” said Katz.

Finally, he said that Israel would never return to the days when it would ignore "minor" rocket fire or a small tent that Hezbollah erected before the war illegally a small number of meters into Israeli territory.

The defense minister added, “If until now we distinguished between Lebanon and Hezbollah – this will not continue.

These statements were the farthest and most explicit a top Israeli defense official has gone toward threatening the wider state of Lebanon, though from time to time, some top officials have made similar implied threats.

Generally, Katz’s statements go against the messaging that top IDF officials have given off, with the military doing all it could over the last 14 months to almost solely target Hezbollah-Shiite areas and not Sunni, Christian, or Palestinian Lebanese areas.

The number of times that the IDF has attacked cities that are predominantly non-Shiite has been extremely small, and each time has involved a warning and a post-attack statement that those attacked were Hezbollah terrorists hiding among the non-Hezbollah sector.

Further, the statement is unusual because there are no signs to date that the Lebanese state has done anything to assist Hezbollah in violating the ceasefire.

Rather, Israel has complained that the Lebanese army has so far failed to contain Hezbollah from violating the ceasefire, but it has been well-known by all parties that the Lebanese army is much weaker than Hezbollah, too much weaker to do so.

Nearly a week into the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, tensions on the ground remain high.

“You need to calm down,” US officials reportedly told Israeli counterparts in recent days, according to a source familiar with the discussions. This comes amid daily scuffles that Israel claims are Hezbollah violations of the ceasefire, including reports of Hezbollah operatives patrolling the border area and rebuilding rocket storage sites.

The frustration expressed by the United States and France, co-chairs of the ceasefire monitoring mechanism, extends beyond Israeli airstrikes. Both nations view the return of Israeli drones over Beirut as a violation of the ceasefire.

“We have warned both sides – Israel and Hezbollah – against actions that jeopardize the implementation of the ceasefire agreement,” officials told The Jerusalem Post.
This “both sides” approach has sparked anger within Israel’s diplomatic and military leadership.

Behind the scenes
Behind the scenes, Israeli officials are increasingly critical of the ceasefire monitoring mechanism, claiming it is ineffective.

Maj.-Gen. Jasper Jeffers, commander of Special Operations Command Central (SOCCENT), recently traveled to Beirut to address these concerns and pressure the Lebanese Armed Forces to expedite their deployment in southern Lebanon.

Meanwhile, Defense Minister Israel Katz has instructed senior IDF officials to respond decisively to any ceasefire violations. “If there is a violation, do not hesitate – respond,” Katz said.

Despite the mounting tensions, US officials remain cautiously optimistic that the ceasefire will hold. A diplomatic source told the Post that, while the situation is fragile, they do not believe the agreement is on the verge of collapse.

As a Gaza aid conference was held in Egypt on Monday, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany issued a joint request to Israel urging the Jewish State to collaborate with United Nations bodies on a winter humanitarian program for Gaza as temperatures drop and precipitation increases in the territory.

"Winter is approaching in Gaza -- and with it rain and cold," the German Foreign Office said in a social media statement. "The Israeli government must ensure that the UN can implement its winter plan. The people in Gaza need much more humanitarian aid now."

The French Foreign and European Affairs Ministry said on X/Twitter that to facilitate the plan, the Israeli government would have to open crossing points and distribute humanitarian aid in Gaza to avoid a "catastrophic situation."

"France, the United Kingdom, and Germany call on Israel to respect its obligations under international humanitarian law and to guarantee the protection of civilian populations," said the French ministry.

UK Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Affairs Secretary David Lammy said on social media that Israel should implement the UN winter plan by repairing infrastructure and sending equipment to counter cold and flooding, as well as fuel. Lammy said that the humanitarian situation in Gaza was "unacceptable."

UK International Development Minister announced increased Gaza aid funding as she a participated at the Monday Cairo Ministerial Conference to Enhance Humanitarian Response in Gaza. The UK would commit 19 million pounds of Gaza funding, including 12 million for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and World Food Programme (WFP). Another 7 million pounds would be provided to the UNRWA’s Flash Humanitarian Appeal for Gaza to address winter conditions in the warzone.

"Gazans​ are in desperate need of food and shelter with the onset of winter. The Cairo​ conference will be an opportunity to get leading voices in one room and put forward real-world solutions to the humanitarian​ crisis," said Dodds, who is set to visit Israel and the disputed territories to meet with Israeli and Palestinian leadership, UK-linked hostage families, and a Palestinian community that is reportedly at risk of demolition.

The Egyptian aid conference was aimed at securing aid commitments from the delegates from 103 state, international bodies, and financial institutions, according to the Egyptian government.

Accusing Israel of collective punishment
UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed slammed Israel for "collective punishment" of Gazans and claimed that most of the Palestinian casualties since the October 7 massacre and ensuing war were women and children. Famine and malnutrition were rampant in the strip, said Mohammed, with 19,000 children reportedly hospitalized due to acute malnutrition.

"What we are seeing may well amount to the gravest international crimes," said Mohammed.

The UN deputy urged attendees to demand that all parties respect their international law obligations, to defend the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and the broader humanitarian aid system, and to intensify efforts for a political solution to end the conflict.

The European Union issued a statement in support of the UN system and UNRWA and reiterated support for a two-state solution in line with Mohammed's call to action. The EU echoed calls to open corridors into Gaza to facilitate the transfer of supplies and for urgent action to stop the looting of aid.

The Israel Defense Forces warned some 30 soldiers and officers who fought in the Gaza Strip to avoid traveling abroad after anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian groups filed complaints against them for alleged war crimes, according to a Wednesday report.

In eight cases, soldiers who did travel abroad were immediately told to return over fears they would be arrested or questioned by the country they were visiting, the Ynet news site reported. The soldiers were visiting Cyprus, Slovenia, and the Netherlands.

The IDF does not bar soldiers from traveling abroad, but it does conduct a “risk assessment” for troops who served in Gaza before approving their request, the report said.

IDF reservists who fought in Gaza are being advised to first check with the Foreign Ministry regarding the level of danger in any country they wish to visit.

Officials are concerned that aside from local legal actions, some senior officers could face prosecution at the International Criminal Court, which last month issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes.

A pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel group in Belgium reportedly filed a complaint to the Belgian government against Israel’s new military attaché in Brussels, accusing him of war crimes.

Belgium’s Flemish-language De Morgen newspaper reported on Tuesday that the Brussels-based Hind Rajab Foundation claimed that in his previous position, Col. Moshe Tetro was responsible for implementing a policy of starvation in Gaza.

Other foreign news outlets reported that the pro-Palestinian organization also referred Tetro to the International Criminal Court, which filed arrest warrants for Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant.

Tetro previously served as head of COGAT’s Coordination and Liaison Administration to Gaza, the IDF unit responsible for coordinating aid into the Strip.

“Here we are dealing with a key figure in the implementation of Israeli policy toward hospitals and the strategy of famine and thirst as a weapon of war,” Dyab Abou Jahjah, chairman of the Hind Rajab Foundation, told De Morgen.

More than three months after their bodies were recovered from Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, an IDF investigation has found that six hostages were likely executed by their captors amid an airstrike on a Hamas tunnel.

Hostages Alex Dancyg, 75, Yagev Buchshtav, 35, Chaim Peri, 79, Yoram Metzger, 80, Nadav Popplewell, 51, and Avraham Munder, 78, were recovered by the IDF from a tunnel in the Hamad Town residential complex of Khan Younis on August 20, months after they were killed.

The IDF investigation has found that the six men, after being abducted alive by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023, were taken to a central tunnel in Khan Younis where they were held until late December. The IDF reached that tunnel, which featured holding cells, in January.

By then, the hostages had been moved to another tunnel in Khan Younis, around four kilometers away. They were held in a narrow hidden passageway under Hamad Town that connected parts of a large underground network in Khan Younis, according to the military’s investigation.

The IDF had no information on where the hostages were moved to, and on February 14, airstrikes were carried out by fighter jets on Hamas tunnels in the Hamad Town area, targeting a battalion commander in the terror group.

The military says it did not know of any hostages held in the area, and the strikes were given all the required approvals because there was no suspicion of captives being there.

Six months later, using new intelligence, the IDF reached the site of the strike and recovered the bodies of the six hostages, all of whom were found to have gunshot wounds, indicating with high likelihood that they were executed by the Hamas guards holding them captive.

During the August 20 operation, the IDF also recovered the bodies of six Hamas terrorists from the tunnel.

According to findings from the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute, the six terror operatives had no signs of gunfire on their bodies, and they were killed as a result of a “byproduct” from the IDF’s airstrike, meaning they suffocated or were killed by carbon dioxide poisoning inside the tunnel due to a strike.

The IDF does not know exactly when the hostages were executed — before the strike, during it, or after it. Still, the military believes that the result would have been the same, and the hostages would have died due to the strike’s “byproduct” regardless.