[IMPORTANT] Hamas launches foot assault against settlements.

Post Reply New Topic

Israel has detained the director of one of Gaza’s last functioning hospitals, Gaza’s Health ministry said Saturday after Israeli forces “forcibly” removed patients and staff, and fires burned across the hospital.

“The occupation forces arrested Dr. Hussam Abu Safia, Director of Kamal Adwan Hospital,” the ministry said in a statement.

Fighting has raged in the areas around Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia for nearly three months, and on Friday, Israeli forces stormed the hospital, the ministry said, forcing patients and staff to leave the hospital and arresting dozens as military vehicles surrounded the area.

Israel's foreign ministry said on X the hospital was a Hamas stronghold and that it facilitated the "secure evacuation" of civilians away from the hospital before launching its operation.

Gaza’s health ministry said fire had spread to several departments of the hospital.

NBC News' crew in Gaza captured a blaze tearing through several units on Friday, with volunteers attempting to douse the flames with buckets of water, or sifting through smoldering rubble.

Israeli military spokesperson Nadav Shoshani said on X that there was no connection between the fire and IDF's activity, adding that a "small fire" broke out while IDF troops were not in the hospital.

Nurses rushed to treat the injured in a wing of the hospital unaffected by fire while in another section, the crew witnessed the moment a boy on a gurney was pronounced dead.

One woman, sitting next to several shrouded bodies stacked on the hospital floor told the NBC News crew the names of some of the dead: "Ehassan is 7 years old, Dinaa she is 10 years old, and Mohamed is 12 years old."

"What have the children done? Why are you silent?" she said, and pleaded to Allah, "reward us for our affliction and replace it with something better."

"Every day, we say farewell to roses; every day, we say farewell to grooms," she said, referring to the Gaza's youth killed in the war.

As the temperature plummeted outside, the ministry said patients and those injured in the attack were taken to the Indonesian hospital, which was already destroyed and out of service before the patients arrived.

“They are in a very miserable and difficult situation, with no water, no electricity, no blankets, no food, and no supplies,” the Health Ministry said.

In a video geolocated by NBC News to the area around the hospital, two dozen men, stripped down to minimal clothing could be seen walking in a line with their hands raised on Friday.

Flanked by Israeli tanks, the men carried some belongings. The surrounding buildings were in ruins.

It is unclear if the men were members of the hospital staff.

A video posted to Abu Safia’s social media account and verified by NBC News showed a quadcopter dropping a bomb a few yards from the hospital. The bomb exploded with a loud bang, sending plumes of smoke into the air.

The World Health Organization said it was "appalled" by the Israeli raid, adding in a statement on Saturday that the forced removal of the patients "pose grave risks to their survival." Saudi Arabia's foreign ministry also condemned the raid in a statement on Friday.

With the destruction of Kamal Adwan, the Palestinian Health ministry noted that all three public hospitals in northern Gaza, including the Beit Hanoun Hospital and the Indonesian Hospital, are now out of service.

The attack on the hospital and the removals followed a strike on a building opposite to the hospital on Thursday, which killed nearly 50 people, including five medical staff, according to the health ministry.

Shortly after the assault on Friday, Gaza’s health ministry said contact with Abu Safia had been “cut off.”

It said separately that nearly 350 people from the hospital had been detained by Israeli forces, including 180 medical personnel and 75 injured patients and their family members.

Some of the hundreds of detainees taken by Israel during its raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital have been released, but the fate of director Hussam Abu Safia remains unknown, the Gaza Health Ministry says.
The detainees described being beaten, spit on, stripped and left in the cold for hours as they were held and interrogated.

A fire ignited by Israel’s direct attacks has caused “significant destruction to the vast majority” of Kamal Adwan’s wards, our correspondent reports, after a raid described as “barbaric” by local authorities.

The UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) said Israel’s “systematic dismantling” of Gaza’s health system is a “death sentence for tens of thousands of Palestinians”.

The UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) called for the “immediate flow” of humanitarian aid as babies freeze to death in Gaza.

Israeli forces plan to drive out Palestinians from northern Gaza
Hassan Barari, a professor of international affairs at Qatar University, spoke to Al Jazeera about how Israeli forces are trying to drive Palestinians out of northern Gaza.

He said the Israeli forces have a clear objective in the north, and that is to “make life unbearable for the Palestinians, hoping that they will leave Gaza”.

“I think this strategy has failed. It didn’t pay off the way that the Israelis had planned,” he said, adding that the latest attacks and siege of Kamal Adwan Hospital should be viewed within the context of this plan to drive out Palestinians.

He noted that even Israeli officials have expressed support for such a plan.

Barari also referenced far-right conferences organised in Israel that called for the resettlement of the Gaza Strip.

Netanyahu ‘sacrificing our loved ones for his own seat’
Israeli media outlet Haaretz is reporting that Einav Zangauker, the mother of a captive held in Gaza, accused Israel’s prime minister of sabotaging a deal to secure the release of the captives.

Zangauker was quoted as saying that “a comprehensive deal could be reached, but Netanyahu refuses to end the war for criminal reasons.”

“While he instructs everyone to remain silent, he is running to torpedo the deal through interviews and press conferences,” she said.

“We remember how in July, Netanyahu introduced the ‘Philadelphi corridor‘ spin, and today it’s the ‘hostage lists spin’.”

The Philadelphi Corridor, also known as the Philadelphi Route, is the 14km (8.7-mile) long strip of land representing the entire border area between Gaza and Egypt. In late May, Hamas and Israel appeared close to a deal that would have seen an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the release of captives held in Gaza by armed groups and the release of hundreds of Palestinians from Israeli prisons.

However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu added four non-negotiable conditions, including keeping control of the Philadelphi Corridor.

“Netanyahu keeps inventing new excuses to prevent a deal, sabotaging it in cold blood, and sacrificing our loved ones for his own seat,” Zangauker said.

Photos: Israeli forces stand guard as settlers tour Hebron

Amid delays in negotiations for the release of the Israeli hostages from Hamas captivity, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi ordered preparations to expand military operations in the Gaza Strip by reallocating forces from other sectors, sources from the IDF General Staff reported on Saturday.

According to the sources, some units, including armored corps and combat engineering forces, have been instructed in recent days to prepare for redeployment to Gaza. This move is part of an effort to increase military pressure on Hamas and other terrorist organizations in additional areas. The units include armored and engineering forces.

At the same time, the Southern Command has already begun advancing planning and conducting aerial operations as part of preparations for an expanded operation. The IDF’s current efforts include operations by the 162nd Division in northern Gaza, the 99th Division in the Netzarim corridor, and the Gaza Division in the buffer zone, the southern Gaza Strip, and along the Philadelphi Route.

Also on Saturday evening, Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani met with a Hamas delegation headed by negotiation leader Khalil al-Hayyain Doha to discuss a ceasefire and hostage release deal in Gaza.

Earlier on Saturday, two rockets were launched from northern Gaza toward the Jerusalem area. Both were intercepted.

While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is undergoing prostate surgery today, Justice Minister Yariv Levin will fill in temporarily as acting premier, according to Hebrew-language media.

Defense Minister Israel Katz will be authorized to convene the security cabinet if needed.

Netanyahu will be put under full anesthetic for his operation and will remain in the hospital for several days following the surgery, his defense lawyer told the Jerusalem District Court earlier today as he requested that the prime minister’s scheduled testimony be canceled.

While in captivity in Gaza last year, two Israeli teenage hostages were forced to perform sexual acts on one another, and their captors sexually abused them, according to new details from a Health Ministry report set to be presented to the United Nations.

The testimony and many other damning details are included in a report cataloging the physical, sexual and mental anguish the now-former abductees — some of them children — were subjected to, and the lasting effects it has had on them.

It is set to be submitted this week to Alice Edwards, the UN’s special rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Compiled from the testimonies of hostages who were released under a November 2023 deal and those who were rescued by Israeli forces, the report details how they were burned and beaten, starved and humiliated, as well as how the abuse impacted their mental and physical health even long after they were freed.

It marks the first formal report by the Health Ministry about the hostages’ experiences.

However, some of the most graphic details included in a Hebrew-language copy of the report issued by the ministry, were absent from the English-language version. It was unclear why there was a discrepancy or which version would end up being filed to the UN.

While the Health Ministry did not answer a Times of Israel query on the matter on Sunday, the Ynet news site quoted an unnamed ministry source claiming the discrepancy was an “honest mistake that will be fixed before the report is filed to the UN.”

To protect the hostages’ identities, their names, ages and family statuses — as well as their genders, in the cases of minors — were not included.


Conditions were ‘designed to torture the hostages psychologically’
Released hostages related to authorities that they were deliberately separated from other family members who were being held. In one case, a woman was held in complete isolation, in darkness, bound, receiving very little water and food and not getting treatment for injuries.

“The hostages were denied medical treatment for acute injuries caused during October 7 and subsequently, in addition to for untreated chronic conditions,” the document says. “Fractures, shrapnel wounds, and burns were treated inadequately, leading to complications which required additional surgeries, that could have been prevented with proper care.

“The captors also tortured those injured by performing painful procedures without anesthesia. Many hostages also suffered from untreated chronic conditions (e.g., heart failure, diabetes, hypothyroidism), leading to severe short-term medical deterioration. In one case a hostage died from untreated medical complications,” it goes on.

Captives, including children, were forced to watch videos of the October 7 atrocities. Many of the terrorists who took part in the attack filmed it, including extreme acts of cruelty.

The men, meanwhile, “endured severe physical abuse,

The report says that the captivity “was designed to torture the hostages psychologically, break their morale, and make them easier to control. Their time in captivity was marked by intense trauma: family separation, immobilization, arbitrary and frequent transfers, and exposure to further violence.”

Some captives, the document says, “witnessed the killing of other captives, further deepening their sense of helplessness and hopelessness.

Deliberate starvation and pre-release excess feeding
According to the report, “about half of the returned hostages described being deliberately starved during their captivity. They were given a poor diet, which often led to hunger that worsened over time. In addition to inadequate nutrition, they were kept in dark spaces, increasing the risk of vitamin D deficiency.”

Adult hostages lost an average of eight to 15 kilograms (18 to 33 pounds) — 10-17 percent of their original body weight — while among child captives there was an average loss of 10% in body weight, though in one extreme case, a girl lost as much as 18% of her weight.

The report says that as last year’s ceasefire deal approached, the captors gave the hostages more food and provided them with fresh clothes, apparently in an attempt to present their conditions as better than they were.

“Those who received excess food before returning to Israel were at risk of Refeeding Syndrome and electrolyte imbalances such as hypokalemia, hypomagnesemia, and hypophosphatemia, particularly among elderly hostages. In cases with complex medical backgrounds, these electrolyte disorders can be life-threatening,” the report says.

The practice raised concerns among Israeli authorities as to the health dangers of eating too much food immediately after a period of starvation. In particular, authorities are concerned about the fate of the remaining hostages who have now been held for over 440 days in captivity. Efforts are ongoing to finalize another, mediated ceasefire to release more hostages, and authorities are concerned their captors may also try to overfeed them before a potential release.

Troubles continue even after return
Even after returning home, some adults and children suffered acute anxiety and panic attacks, as well as sharp mood swings that include extreme depression, the report says.

“Even those who appeared strong initially showed difficulties adjusting to reality, sometimes experiencing dissociative episodes,” it says. “Some returned hostages had paranoid anxieties, fearing retaliation against their loved ones still in captivity if they spoke about their experiences.”

Some had difficulty leaving home or speaking above a whisper, a reflection of the silence that some were ordered to maintain by their captors. Some were unable to return to their regular lives, whether at work or school.

Former hostages have had difficulty sleeping at night, while some, in particular children, suffer sharp pains that have no medical explanation. Some hostages have eating disorders, either eating too little or overeating. Some children secrete food away.

Some reported “severe nightmares and sleep deprivation, trying to avoid repeating nightmares. Some experienced derealization, struggling to accept their presence in the Israeli hospital as real, rather than a dream from captivity. They avoided anything that reminded them of their traumatic experiences, including certain foods,” the report says.

Many returned hostages “experience fear, restlessness, emotional detachment, and confusion. Some were afraid to leave their rooms, even in the hospital’s protected areas.”

Doctors and psychologists who compiled the report noted that the released hostages said they are unable to fully recover while they know there are others still being held.

Some have “survivor’s guilt,” feeling responsible for being rescued while their loved ones remain in Gaza.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said the report painted “a grim reality of the physical abuse and psychological torment” endured by the hostages.

It urged a comprehensive deal “to secure the immediate release of all hostages.”

Thousands of people attended pro-hostage deal rallies and anti-government protests across the country Saturday night, the fourth night of Hanukkah, days after Israel and Hamas once again accused each other of derailing negotiations for a deal to release the captives held by Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups in Gaza.

The families of several hostages delivered remarks at a press conference in Tel Aviv before the rallies kicked off.

Yehuda Cohen, the father of hostage Nimrod Cohen, claimed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was trying to “deceive” US President-elect Donald Trump into believing that he was truly interested in reaching a deal with Hamas.

“Dear President Trump, Netanyahu is trying to deceive you. Ending the war and returning all the hostages is in the interest of the State of Israel,” Cohen said. “You might be the last person who is able put pressure on Netanyahu. Do not compromise on a partial deal that will become a death sentence for the remaining hostages and will not bring about an end to the war.”

“The talk from Netanyahu and the defense minister about continuing the war and maintaining military control of Gaza serves the extremists in government and is contrary to Israeli interests,” he added.

Einav Zangauker, the mother of hostage Matan Zangauker, addressed Netanyahu during the press conference, accusing him of “rushing to torpedo” the latest efforts to reach a hostage deal.

“Netanyahu is afraid of [National Security Minister Itamar] Ben Gvir and [Finance Minister Bezalel] Smotrich and is refusing to end the war, in complete contradiction to Israeli interests,” Zangauker said. “Netanyahu and [Defense Minister] Israel Katz are sitting in heated rooms and bragging about continuing the war, while my Matan and the other hostages are freezing and rotting in the tunnels.

“The blood is on your hands,” she added. “End this war and get my Matan, and all the hostages, out of that hell.”

Zangauker led the crowd in a chant: “Netanyahu don’t forget, history won’t forgive.”

Saturday night also saw the Prime Minister’s Office deny a report by Channel 12 that Israel and Hamas could agree to a “limited” hostage deal as a gesture of goodwill ahead of the start of Trump’s second term in office. The report claimed both sides are interested in reaching a smaller deal in time for Trump’s inauguration on January 20.

In a short statement, the PMO called the report “a complete lie.” A senior Arab diplomat also denied the report to The Times of Israel.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum’s rally in Tel Aviv Saturday night was kicked off by former hostage Yocheved Lifshitz, who was released last November and whose husband Oded remains in captivity. Lifshitz lit the Hanukkah candles at the start of the rally with her son Yizhar.

The Forum has assailed Netanyahu for apparently aiming to reach a deal that would initially release only so-called humanitarian cases — female, elderly or sickly hostages.

“After 14 months, they’re all humanitarian,” the Forum said Thursday in an announcement of its weekend rallies and warning that the hostages may not survive the coming winter.

Speaking to a crowd of hundreds at Hostages Square, Yair Mozes, son of hostage Gadi Mozes, said: “Again there are negotiations, and again we hear the prime minister and defense minister in public statements that only prevent the return of everyone.”

Israeli negotiators were reportedly dismayed by Netanyahu’s statement to The Wall Street Journal last weekend that he wouldn’t sign a deal that ends the war, and Katz’s statement from Gaza’s Philadelphi Corridor on Wednesday that Israel would retain security control of the Strip, seeing them as likely to harden Hamas’s position.

“How much longer can this go on?” asked Mozes. “What more [must happen]? Everyone already knows [the hostages] don’t have any time left.

On Saturday morning, police arrested five people who had protested for a hostage deal outside Netanyahu’s home in Jerusalem, according to the Detainee Support Group, a team of lawyers who volunteer on behalf of detained anti-government protesters.

Channel 12 reported that the protesters were detained on their way back from the two-dozen-strong, 20-minute demonstration. According to the report, police followed the group and accused them of violating noise laws. The protesters were interrogated and later released.

An Israeli hostage freed by the IDF in August reportedly told his rescuers that he had heard a woman speaking Hebrew shortly before his extraction from a tunnel in southern Gaza’s Rafah.

Nonetheless, the army failed to take his testimony into account. Six other hostages were executed nearby when their Hamas guards heard Israeli troops approaching days later.

Farhan al-Qadi testified that he heard a woman say “Good morning,” in Hebrew several weeks before his August 27 rescue, Channel 12 reported on Saturday.

Qadi immediately informed his rescuers of what he had heard and repeated the assertion during his debriefing by the IDF and Shin Bet, which took place before Hamas executed female hostages Eden Yerushalmi and Carmel Gat along with Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Ori Danino, Alex Lobanov and Almog Sarusi on August 29.

Only on August 31 did the IDF briefly halt its activities in Rafah’s Tel Sultan neighborhood where the hostages were found, as it held a fresh assessment on the possibility that additional captives were in the area. The bodies of the six hostages were discovered hours later and returned to Israel.

The Channel 12 discovery came days after the IDF presented its findings from an investigation into the hostages’ execution, including an assertion that troops did not have any concrete intelligence that there were any Israeli captives in the area where they were operating

On the last day of 2024 it would be better if the government, for a change, told the public the truth. Despite the intensive negotiations held over the last weeks, talks about a hostage deal are stuck again, and the chances of moving them forward are slim. It's possible that only the intervention of President-elect Donald Trump can somehow haul this cart out of the mud it's stuck in close to his inauguration on January 20.

Sometimes, one has to turn to Arab media outlets to obtain a fuller picture of what is going on, or of what isn't. The Saudi newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reported on Sunday that disputes between Israel and Hamas remain in place.

Hamas is demanding a clear commitment to an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, backed by maps and rigid timetables. The organization also wants to reach an agreement on the criteria for releasing thousands of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails in the next phases of the deal. Israel is demanding that Hamas provide a complete and detailed list of all the hostages and their condition, whether dead or alive.

According to the Saudi paper, a further bone of contention is the Israeli government's wish for a partial deal, in which only hostages included in a "humanitarian" list will be released. This includes women, elderly men, the wounded and the sick. There is also a dispute over the definition of sick and wounded hostages who could be included in the humanitarian phase.

Since all the hostages are in dire condition after almost a year and three months in captivity, ostensibly almost all of them can be included in this group.

Israel is interested in enlarging their numbers as much as possible, since the execution of a second phase is in doubt. In contrast, Hamas' leaders in the Gaza Strip, led by Mohammed Sinwar and Ezzedine Haddad (who are the ones setting Hamas policies in the negotiations), wish to return only a minimal number of hostages in order to keep the rest as an "insurance policy" for themselves, on the assumption that combat will resume shortly after the first phase is completed.

This situation, as described accurately by the Saudi newspaper, has not changed much over the last year. Hamas, even though most of its senior leaders were eliminated in Israeli strikes, with over 15,000 of its activists and armed men killed in battle, is insisting on its main demands: an end to the war, a full Israeli withdrawal, a large-scale release of terrorists from Israeli prisons (including senior figures, whom the organization hopes will rebuild its leadership in the West Bank) and the rebuilding of the Gaza Strip.

Ever since the first hostage deal blew up in December 2023, there have been attempts to bypass these stumbling blocks, but every time significant progress was made, it ended up in a regression. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is unwilling to take the extra step to reach a deal, for a variety of political, personal and strategic reasons.

This dispute continues, and delegations to Qatar and Egypt come and go, while the hostages struggle to survive in the harsh winter conditions of the Gaza Strip.

IDF marching toward the so-called Generals' Plan
The freeze in the talks highlights the doubts around continuing the military operation in Gaza. At the end of last July, after the firing of the rocket that killed 12 youths in the Druze town of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights, Israel moved the center of gravity of its operations northwards, to Lebanon.

In mid-September, after the exploding pagers operation against Hezbollah, forces in the Gaza Strip were diluted, in order to add them to the ground operation in southern Lebanon. And yet, in early October, the IDF's began its biggest recent offensive in Gaza, an assault by Division 162 on the Jabalya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip.

This operation, the fourth in this camp since the beginning of the war, is still underway. The results this time are much more lethal and destructive. Most of the camp's houses have been destroyed by the IDF, and more than 2,000 Palestinians have been killed. The IDF has sustained over 40 fatalities in these battles.

Senior defense establishment officials continue to argue that military pressure, which has intensified over the last week with the expansion of the operation to the adjacent town of Beit Hanoun, is furthering the negotiations over a hostage deal.

In practice, it looks more like an operation done out of inertia. The negotiations are stuck, a cease-fire is not on the horizon, and with the lack of progress in the talks, Jabalya continues to be pulverized.

Without an agreement, it's likely that the operation will spread to other parts of the northern Gaza Strip, involving a systematic removal of the civilian population from the entire region.

The IDF's General Staff continues to deny that it is carrying out the so-called "generals' plan," which involves the forcible emptying of the northern half of the Gaza Strip. In practice, the army continues to move forward in that direction, step by step.

Will such a move vanquish Hamas? It's highly unlikely. The civil control of most of the Gaza Strip by Hamas continues. Hamas controls the humanitarian aid supplies, making money off it and imposing its rule over most of the population. Its military recovery is limited, and at this point it does not pose a real threat to communities along the Gaza border, despite a slight increase in the firing of rockets from the northern Gaza Strip.

Most of Hamas' efforts are devoted to taking a toll on Israeli forces operating in Jabalya, occasionally exacting a price in the Netzarim and Philadelphi corridors.

Under these circumstances, it's hard to see the war ending in the near future. Israel may be mired in the Gazan mud for years, without a real resolution.

Netanyahu needs the war to continue to justify his moves up to now, and in order to prevent the establishment of a state commission of inquiry over the failures that enabled the October 7 massacre, and in order to continue, under the fog of war, with his judicial coup legislation.

Media attention is wandering to other realms, some of them important ones. The prime minister underwent an operation due to a medical problem, and it seems that some of the details were not disclosed to the public; his wife is overseas, with a police investigation awaiting her here; the ultra-Orthodox parties are threatening to dismantle the coalition if a law enshrining their voters' draft evasion is not passed soon.

And yet, it's best not to forget the main issue. Two IDF soldiers were killed in the last two days in the northern Gaza Strip.

Both The Jerusalem Post and Channel 12 have received information indicating that Hamas is making a substantial comeback by recruiting new forces.

Along with Islamic Jihad together, Channel 12 said on Wednesday night that Hamas was up to between 20,000-23,000 fighters.

Information received by The Post in the recent period indicated numbers closer to around 12,000

The wild fluctuation in numbers becomes even more stark when compared to previous numbers put out by the IDF or Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The latest numbers publicized were that the IDF has killed between 17,000-20,000 Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists over the course of the war.

There has been a gulf of a few thousand between the IDF and Netanyahu throughout the war, drawing some of the estimates into question.

In June, the IDF said that already between 14,000-16,000 Hamas fighters had been wounded.
Further, The Post has learned that over 6,000 Gazans have been detained by the IDF during the war, with at least 4,300 remaining in custody and at most 2,200 being returned to Gaza as less dangerous.

Numbers don't add up
Given that at the start of the war, the IDF said Hamas's full forces were 25,000, the numbers do not come close to adding up unless one takes into account that Hamas has recruited almost an entirely new force, fully replacing its old force.

Another alternative is that despite IDF estimates at the start of the war of a Hamas force of 25,000, earlier estimates before the war started estimated numbers of 30,000 or even up to 40,000

The Post was told Wednesday night that the 40,000 number was more accurate.

This could suggest that a majority of the Hamas fighters are still from their original force, while they have undoubtedly added thousands of new recruits.

If the Channel 12 reporting is correct, that report said that around 9,000 Hamas forces are split between northern and southern Gaza, that Islamic Jihad has another 4,000 fighters, and that there are another 7,000-10,000 disorganized, more local clan-style fighters spread out throughout the Strip.

These numbers would seem to contradict recent iDF briefings to the Post and others indicating that much of northern Gaza has been cleared of fighters.

Alternatively, the Hamas numbers are closer to 12,000, with more fighters in southern Gaza than in northern Gaza.

However, sources on Wednesday night backed up Channel 12's numbers.

Still, even Channel 12's numbers had a significant gap and spectrum, such that IDF estimates may simply be more limited in a time period when most of Gaza's 2.3 million people are shoved together in a few small humanitarian areas, with little ability to distinguish between terrorists and civilians.

Another source told The Post that the total numbers were unclear but that the quality of new Hamas fighters who the terror group is giving weapons to was far inferior to earlier in the war, given that many of them are untrained minors.

US President-elect Donald Trump is preparing to increase activity against the Houthis once he is sworn in as president on January 20, two sources familiar with the details told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.

Trump and other officials in the incoming administration are interested in increasing the activity against the Houthis, including airstrikes.

“President Trump likely will add the Houthis back on the [State Department’s] Foreign Terrorists Organizations list, after President Joe Biden’s wrongheaded decision to remove them, as one of his first acts of president in 2021,” Mark Dubowitz, the CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said.

Elliott Abrams, who served as the US Special Representative for Iran from 2020 to 2021, said, “Trump will not stand for having US Navy ships attacked every day by the Houthis using Iranian missiles… He will hit the Houthis harder, and he will threaten Iran that if a missile [that] Iran supplied kills an American, Iran will get hit directly.”

Over the last month, the Biden administration has decided to change its strategy in Yemen, increasing the number of airstrikes against Houthi targets. This is because the administration has not managed to stop the Houthis from launching attacks against Israel and against ships in the Red Sea, which has caused trade ships to avoid vital shipping routes, threatening global trade.

"Tougher Policy after January 20"
Among other things, the Trump administration is expected to appeal to Gulf states in an effort to upgrade the regional coalition against the Houthis. Last year, the Biden administration tried to pressure these countries to join the regional coalition. However, except for Bahrain, the others refused.

They did this because “the US government refuses to give us protection and means to intercept missiles and UAVs if attacked by the Houthis,” said Jonathan Schanzer, executive director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

“They have been attacking US warships for months on end, not to mention firing ballistic missiles at Israel. We should expect Trump to reverse the Biden policy, which has been to tolerate the group’s terror activities. I would expect a much tougher policy after January 20.”

Hamas said a new round of indirect talks on a Gaza ceasefire resumed in Qatar's Doha on Friday, stressing the group's seriousness in seeking to reach a deal as soon as possible, senior Hamas official Basem Naim said.

The new talks will focus on agreeing on a permanent ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli forces, he added.

The White House on Friday said it "welcomes" Israel's decision to send another team of negotiators to Doha with National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby calling the move "a good step."

Kirby, in his first call of the year with reporters, indicated the White House has no plans yet to send National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan or Middle East envoy Brett McGurk back to the region for this new round of talks, but that President Biden "has made clear his national security team will be a participant all the way to the very end."

"We're going to be doing everything we can to see if we can broker a new ceasefire deal again that will get the hostages home," Kirby said. "So I don't have any breakthroughs to speak to today or announcements to make about participation physically, but I can tell you that we're definitely going to stay focused on this."

Kirby deflected a question to the IDF on why Israel hasn't decreased its strikes on civilians in Gaza if Hamas' capabilities have been downgraded and their allies defeated.

Destroying Hamas
There's no question that Israel has caused significant damage to Hamas' military capabilities and abilities to resource and operate, he said, adding Hamas still exists as a viable threat with fighters and infrastructure.

"Hamas still has some abilities, and I'll let the Israelis speak to the actions they've taken to mitigate the threat that Hamas poses," Kirby said. "What I would prefer to talk about today is the opportunity that Hamas has right now to sign on to a new hostage deal."

Kirby repeated the White House's position that Hamas started this war putting its own people in the current position, and could easily end the suffering by signing the deal.

Commenting on the recent US strikes in Yemen, Kirby said as long as the Houthis continue to threaten commercial shipping in the Red Sea and Israel, "we are going to continue to take actions to degrade their capabilities"

As its fighters attempt to flee northern Gaza and those that are remaining struggle to maneuver in the area, Hamas has pivoted it combat strategy to booby-trapping almost every structure that remains standing.

This military approach has become a threat to the IDF troops operating in the local combat zones.

Hamas terrorists are struggling to move within Jabalya, Beit Lahia, and Beit Hanoun due to the IDF’s aggressive operations in these areas. The military has deployed large ground forces that are conducting ambushes and targeted raids.

Additionally, the IDF also operates arrays of drones, as well as air force reconnaissance and attack aircraft.

Hamas knows it's at a disadvantage
Hamas realizes it is at an operational disadvantage. Most tunnels have been destroyed or rendered unusable. When terrorists surface above ground, they expose themselves to IDF targeting.

Most terrorists are attempting to flee from Jabalya and the northern Gaza Strip to Gaza City.

The IDF has struck hundreds of them over the past week. However, the terrorists now operate by rigging traps in nearly every standing structure.

This is typically done by hiding explosives inside closets or other furniture to harm troops conducting searches. Additionally, the buildings are stocked with weapons, including rifles, anti-tank launchers, and grenades.

"They’ve taken off their uniforms and are walking around like innocent civilians,” explained an officer from the Kfir Brigade leading the operations in Beit Hanoun. “They move from building to building. In each structure, weapons are waiting for them to fire at IDF troops. Immediately after firing, they stash the weapons and leave, posing again as unarmed civilians."

At the same time, the IDF has identified terrorists' attempts to blend with civilians, complicating the troops' ability to neutralize them.

The Biden administration informally notified the US Congress of a proposed $8 billion arms deal with Israel that includes munitions for fighter jets and attack helicopters alongside artillery shells, Axios reported on Friday, citing two sources.

The sources told Axios that the deal could be partly supplied from current US stocks, but most would take a year or more to deliver. The deal will presumably be the last to be approved by the outgoing Biden administration.

The package — which needs to be okayed by the US House and Senate foreign relations committees — reportedly includes AIM-120C-8 AMRAAM air-to-air missiles for fighter jets to defend against airborne threats, including drones; 155mm artillery shells; Hellfire AGM-114 missiles for attack helicopters; small diameter bombs; JDAM tail kits that turn “dumb bombs” into precision munitions, 500-lb warheads and bomb fuzes.

Axios quoted a source saying that the State Department told Congress the deal is aimed at “supporting Israel’s long-term security by resupplying stocks of critical munitions and air defense capabilities.”

The Biden administration informally notified the US Congress of a proposed $8 billion arms deal with Israel that includes munitions for fighter jets and attack helicopters alongside artillery shells, Axios reported on Friday, citing two sources.

The sources told Axios that the deal could be partly supplied from current US stocks, but most would take a year or more to deliver. The deal will presumably be the last to be approved by the outgoing Biden administration.

The package — which needs to be okayed by the US House and Senate foreign relations committees — reportedly includes AIM-120C-8 AMRAAM air-to-air missiles for fighter jets to defend against airborne threats, including drones; 155mm artillery shells; Hellfire AGM-114 missiles for attack helicopters; small diameter bombs; JDAM tail kits that turn “dumb bombs” into precision munitions, 500-lb warheads and bomb fuzes.

In late spring, the US held up a shipment that included 500-lb bombs, but these were subsequently delivered. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu complained about this policy in November, saying that such setbacks would soon end, an apparent reference to the incoming Trump administration.

Axios quoted a source saying that the State Department told Congress the deal is aimed at “supporting Israel’s long-term security by resupplying stocks of critical munitions and air defense capabilities.”

And it quoted a US official saying, “The President has made clear Israel has a right to defend its citizens, consistent with international law and international humanitarian law, and to deter aggression from Iran and its proxy organizations. We will continue to provide the capabilities necessary for Israel’s defense.”

A US official confirmed the Axios report to Reuters. The US State Department did not respond to a request for comment from the news agency.

Anti-Israel protesters have for months demanded an arms embargo against Israel, but US policy has largely remained unchanged.

Hamas has approved an Israeli list of 34 hostages to be exchanged in a possible ceasefire deal, Reuters reported, citing a Hamas official.

The Israeli government denied receiving a list of hostages from Hamas, but did not directly respond to the substance of the Reuters report.

The Reuters news agency reported on Sunday, citing an anonymous Hamas official, that the release of the hostages would be contingent on reaching an agreement regarding Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a permanent ceasefire.

Israel and Hamas are also still negotiating the number and identities of Palestinian prisoners and detainees who would be released in exchange for the hostages.

The Reuters report suggested the list had been presented by Israel.

However, the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office appeared to cast doubt on the report.

“Contrary to what was claimed, Hamas has yet to provide a list of hostages,” the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement.

CNN has asked the Prime Minister’s Office if Israel had put forward a list of 34 hostages.

It is not clear which hostages are on the list reported by Reuters, or whether they are living or dead. In recent weeks, Israel has told CNN they have yet to receive a full list of living hostages from the militant group.

This comes just days after indirect negotiations for a ceasefire-for-hostages deal resumed in Doha, talks that have so far shown few signs of progress, according to Israeli and Egyptian officials.

A source familiar with the matter told CNN that despite reports of new “optimism” around talks, “there is not much new, slow progress for now.”

White House Middle East adviser Brett McGurk is among the officials in the Qatari capital, a US official and another person familiar told CNN. Meanwhile Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer is expected to travel to Washington this week and will meet with Biden administration and Trump transition officials, according to an Israeli source.

On Saturday, Hamas turned up the pressure on Israel at the negotiating table, releasing a video of 19-year-old hostage Liri Albag.

Of the hostages remaining in captivity in Gaza, at least 36 are believed to be dead, according to the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office.

Attacks continue
While negotiations in Doha are underway, Israeli attacks in Gaza continued on Sunday.

Israeli strikes on a residential building in northern Gaza killed 12 members of the same family, with more trapped under the rubble, according to Gaza’s Civil Defense.

Four airstrikes targeted the house of the Zuhd family in Sheikh Radwan, north of Gaza City, the Civil Defense said.

CNN footage from the strike’s aftermath shows people desperately digging through the wreckage for survivors. Ammar Zuhd told CNN one child was pulled alive from the rubble and 11 other people were missing.

The footage also shows a young man’s lifeless body hanging suspended from an upper floor of the house. “This is my nephew; do you see how he is hanging? He was a young man who hadn’t yet married; he was just starting his life at 20 years old,” Zuhd said.

Local Palestinians told CNN they fear the Sheikh Radwan area is turning into a “red zone” amid the destruction.

“They attack us every day now, with missiles and bombs dropped by drones among the people. Everyone is at risk of being bombed at any moment,” Wissam Zuhd said.

The director of Gaza City’s Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital said it had been overwhelmed tending to casualties.

“Operating rooms are packed with critically injured patients, hallways filled with those waiting for surgery, and beds occupied by the suffering. The gate is crowded with bodies for burial,” Dr. Fadel Naim posted to X.

“We’ve never witnessed such horrors,” he said, adding that if the Israeli attacks did not end soon, the hospital would “no longer be able to handle the influx of victims.”

Gaza’s health ministry reported Sunday that 88 people had been killed in the previous 24 hours, bringing the cumulative death toll of Israel’s war on Hamas to at least 45,805 people, with more than 109,000 injured in the enclave as a result of Israeli military operations since October 2023.

To paraphrase Maya Angelou; when people tell you who they are, believe them.