[IMPORTANT] Hamas launches foot assault against settlements.

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Does Hamas think that anyone is stupid enough to believe that a bomb reached out and killed the kids with its bare hands? Here's news for Hamas -- bombs don't have hands. Everyone responsible needs to be brought to Justice. Unfortunately, with all the leftists out there making excuse after excuse for terrorism, it will probably never happen.

Israel carried out a series of airstrikes in Lebanon on Sunday, the Israel Defense Forces said, as the country prepared for the mass funeral of slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

According to Lebanese reports, the strikes occurred near the towns of Qlaileh and Zebqine, close to the coastal city of Tyre; near the village of Brissa in the Hermel District of northern Lebanon; near the town of Bodai in the Baalbek District; and near al-Ahmadiya in southern Lebanon.

The IDF later confirmed the strikes, saying they targeted Hezbollah sites containing rocket launchers and other weapons, and additional rocket launchers threatening Israeli civilians

The strikes were carried out after the military said it identified Hezbollah activity at the sites, which it said was a “violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon, and is a threat to the State of Israel and its citizens.”

The strikes came ahead of the joint funeral for Nasrallah, who was eliminated by Israel in September, and his intended successor Hashem Safieddine, whom Israel killed in October.

Israeli tanks deployed to the West Bank on Sunday morning for the first time in over 20 years, as the Israel Defense Forces said it was expanding an ongoing counter-terrorism operation in the north of the territory.

Defense Minister Israel Katz, meanwhile, said he had instructed the IDF to stay for at least the next year in West Bank refugee camps that have been cleared of terror operatives and civilians, and not allow some 40,000 displaced Palestinians to return.

Palestinian media outlets published images showing three Merkava tanks near the West Bank city of Jenin.

The IDF confirmed the reports a short while later, saying that a platoon from the 188th Armored Brigade was preparing to operate in Jenin “as part of the offensive effort.” An Armored Corps platoon normally consists of two or three tanks.

As part of the expanded activity, troops of the Nahal Infantry Brigade and the Duvdevan Commando Unit began operations in several villages near Jenin, the military said.

The deployment of tanks and expanded operations come after three empty buses exploded in quick succession in parking lots in the Tel Aviv suburbs of Bat Yam and Holon on Thursday night and the discovery of two more unexploded devices on additional buses in Holon. No casualties were reported as a result of the explosions. According to officials, the botched attack originated from the West Bank.

In a written statement Sunday, Katz said: “40,000 Palestinians have so far evacuated from the Jenin, Tulkarem and Nur Shams refugee camps, and are now empty of residents. UNRWA activity in the camps has also been stopped.”

He said the IDF was clearing “nests of terror” and destroying infrastructure and weapons “on an extensive scale.”

More than 40,100 Palestinians have left their homes since the launch of Operation Iron Wall, according to UNRWA.

Humanitarian officials say they haven’t seen such displacement in the West Bank since the Six Day War, when Israel — under threat from Jordan, Egypt, Syria and other Arab countries — captured the West Bank, along with East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, displacing 300,000 Palestinians.

Troops have killed more than 70 Palestinian terror operatives and detained some 300 amid the major ongoing counter-terrorism operation, according to the IDF.

The IDF has acknowledged mistakenly killing several civilians during the operation, including a toddler and a pregnant woman.

Four Israelis — Tal Shoham, Omer Shem Tov, Omer Wenkert and Eliya Cohen — who were freed from Hamas captivity on Saturday after more than 500 days in the Hamas terror group’s captivity were chained in the dark, starved and psychologically abused in Gaza, they and their family members said upon their return.

Two further hostages — Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed — who, suffering from mental illness, each entered the Gaza Strip of their own accord some 10 years ago — came home Saturday bearing evident psychological scars from their captivity, and were described by relatives as largely unresponsive upon their return.

Forced to watch friends go free
In a new sign of Hamas’s depravity, the terror group brought two hostages who are still in captivity to watch one of Saturday’s release ceremonies.

In a video published by Hamas, Eviatar David and Guy Gilboa-Dalal were seen inside a vehicle in the stage area set up by the terror group for the release of three of the captives in central Gaza’s Nuseirat.

They were seen in the video calling on Israeli officials to secure their release, as they watched Omer Shem Tov, Eliya Cohen and Omer Wenkert be freed from captivity after 505 days.

This was the first sign of life from David that has been made public since he was abducted on October 7, 2023, and the first sign of life from Gilboa-Dalal since June 2024. Their families authorized Israeli media to publish Hamas’s propaganda video.

Hostage made to kiss Hamas gunmen at ceremony
Omer Shem Tov, who was abducted from the Nova music festival during the cross-border onslaught, was held alone in a tunnel for all but the first 50 days of his more-than-16-month-long captivity, his father told the Kan public broadcaster.

For the first 50 days he was with Itay Regev, and all the rest, on his own,” Malki Shem Tov, Omer’s father, said.

Itay Regev — Omer’s friend, who was abducted from the festival alongside him — was released in November 2023 during a previous hostage-ceasefire deal.

Malki Shem Tov said his son “didn’t see daylight at all.”

Nevertheless, he said, his son returned the same person who was kidnapped: he is still “Omer the funny, Omer the optimist — just 16-17 kilos (35-37 pounds) less.”

The returnee’s father also addressed the images of his son kissing a Hamas gunman on the forehead during the propaganda ceremony for his release on Saturday morning — footage that has reportedly gone viral on Arabic-language social media, purporting to show gratitude from the hostage to the terror group.

Omer “told us that they compelled him to wave and to kiss that guard who was standing next to him. He said they told him what to do. You can see in the footage that someone came up to him and told him what to do,” his father said.

Shem Tov, who was held in part of Hamas’s underground tunnel network, had very little exposure to media, Kan reported, but said he was aware of protests being held for the release of the hostages, and said, “It strengthened me, and gave me hope that in the end I’d be freed.”

Channel 12, meanwhile, said Shem Tov was initially held in apartments and later in tunnels, and that he was required to dress as a Muslim woman when moved around by his captors. He was once lowered into a tunnel in a small bucket, the network reported. At first, his hands were bound. He was cursed and spat at, it said.

The hostage saw Al Jazeera broadcasts during his captivity, and the reports of the struggle being waged for the hostages strengthened him, Channel 12 said. However, he once saw Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on television talking about the need to destroy Hamas without mentioning the hostages, and this made him very concerned, the report added.

Upon his release, Shem Tov was airlifted from a military facility near the Gaza border to a hospital in central Israel, and wrote on a whiteboard, “Now everything is OK! Thank you to the dear people of Israel, and to all the soldiers!”

“I want a hamburger,” he added.

Held in pitch-black tunnels, chained by hands and feet
Eliya Cohen was held alone for some of his captivity, but spent much of it alongside Or Levy and Eli Sharabi, both of whom were recently released, and Alon Ohel, who is still being held, he told his family, according to Channel 12.

They were chained not only by their feet but also by their hands, which caused open cuts, and they were physically abused by their captors.

Most of the time they were held in a pitch-black tunnel; for a few hours now and again, the terrorists lowered a torch into the tunnel. For months on end, they were not allowed to walk and couldn’t stand. Their captors starved them, and ate their meals in front of them, the report said.

Cohen, who was also abducted from the Nova music festival, was shot in the leg on October 7 and did not receive appropriate medical treatment.

He reported that in recent days, leading up to his release, his captors allowed him to step outside, and get some exposure to sunlight, according to Kan.

Cohen only learned on his release Saturday that his fiancee, Ziv Abud, survived the October 7 massacre; he also learned, however, that his best friend was killed that day.

Omer Wenkert lost 30 kilograms (66 pounds) in captivity since his abduction from the rave, according to Kan.

He suffers from Colitis and did not receive the medicines he needs. He has left some friends behind, he has said, and has brought back some signs of life.

Wenkert has told his family he was very badly beaten when abducted from the Nova festival.

He was not exposed to any media during his captivity, he said, and only learned on Saturday that his good friend Kim Demati, who was with him at the festival, was murdered that day by terrorists.

He also had no awareness of the demonstrations calling for the release of the hostages, Channel 12 reported — though his first request upon his return was to join the campaign, the network said.

Captors fattened up Shoham and Wenkert ahead of release – report
Wenkert was held alongside Tal Shoham — also released on Saturday — for about eight months, the two returnees have told family. They were also held with other hostages, Channel 12 reported.

Shoham, who was hardly exposed to media during his captivity, was not aware until his release that his wife Adi and their children Yahel, 3, and Naveh, 8 — were also taken hostage, but released on November 25, 2023, during the previous weeklong truce.

Shoham’s mother-in-law Shoshan Haran, his wife’s aunt Sharon Avigdori, and her daughter Noam, 12, were also taken hostage and released the same day.

Wenkert and Shoham were held in extremely humid tunnels, Channel 12 reported. “All the seasons felt the same,” they said, with no difference between winter and summer.

After starving them throughout their captivity, the men’s captors fattened them ahead of their release so they wouldn’t look so bad, the network reported.

Wenkert’s first request was for a cigarette, saying: “I’ve waited 500 days for this cigarette.”

Both have said they have come to feel like brothers, and that this connection will continue for good, the report said.

Sign of life for Guy Gilboa-Dalal
One of the hostages released on Saturday testified that he’d been held in captivity alongside Guy Gilboa-Dalal, about whose status nothing had been known since he was abducted from the Nova festival on October 7.

Gilboa-Dalal was later seen in the Hamas video at the release ceremony.

“Now we know that Guy is alive, [he and other hostages] are being held in very difficult conditions, and we have to get him out of there, as soon as possible,” his father Ilan told Channel 12.

The family has not learned any details about Guy’s condition, or with whom he’s held, but expects to hear more in the coming days, he said. “We don’t know anything at the moment.”

Decade-long hostages return unresponsive, families say
Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed were also released on Saturday. They had been held hostage by Hamas for almost a decade by the time of the group’s October 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel.

Both men suffer from mental illness and entered the Strip of their own accord, at which point Hamas refused to return them.

Mengistu, then 28, entered Gaza from the Zikim beach in September 2014. His family had not heard from him since his abduction until a Hamas video purported to show him alive in early 2023. He spent 3,821 days in captivity.

The civilian captive appeared generally able-bodied at the propaganda ceremony on Saturday, but his condition was described as “not good” upon his return, and his family reported that he was almost unresponsive.

Netanyahu spoke to Mengistu on the phone after his release, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement.

Hisham al-Sayed ’emotionally and cognitively destroyed’
The family of Hisham al-Sayed, a Bedouin Israeli, who entered the Strip near the Erez Crossing in April 2015 when he was 28 years old, described him as “destroyed, emotionally and cognitively,” upon his return.

Sayed’s physical condition was better than expected, following a Hamas video from 2022 showing him looking sick and depleted in a bed, hooked up to an oxygen tank. The video constituted the first and last sign of life for the hostage throughout his near-decade of captivity.

Hamas did not stage a propaganda ceremony for al-Sayed’s release. It claimed the move was “out of respect for the Arabs of Israel,” despite having held him for nearly a decade, as well as murdering and abducting several Arab Israelis during the October 7, 2023, onslaught.

“His mental condition is very difficult, he isn’t responsive,” the returnee’s father told Kan radio on Saturday. “He looks like he was in a torture camp for 10 years. We didn’t imagine that Hamas could be so cruel, they did something disgusting. He is emotionally and cognitively destroyed.”

According to Human Rights Watch, in the years prior to his entering Gaza, al-Sayed was “diagnosed with schizophrenia and a personality disorder, among other conditions” and was repeatedly institutionalized.

Netanyahu spoke with Sha’ban al-Sayed, the father of Hisham al-Sayed, hours after his son’s release.

Hundreds of thousands of people bid farewell to Hezbollah’s slain leader, Hassan Nasrallah, at a mass funeral in Beirut on Sunday, nearly five months after he was killed in an Israeli air strike in a stunning blow to the Iranian-backed group.

Carrying pictures of Nasrallah and Hezbollah flags, supporters from Lebanon and other countries in the region filled the 55,000-seat Camille Chamoun Sports City stadium in the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut.

After a ceremony, they joined a funerary procession outside the stadium before burying Nasrallah nearby. A Lebanese security source estimated the crowd at about a million people.

The killing of Nasrallah, who led the Shiite Muslim group through decades of conflict with Israel and oversaw its transformation into a military force with regional sway, was one of the opening salvos in an Israeli escalation that badly weakened Hezbollah.

But the group’s current leader, Naim Qassem, whose address to mourners was broadcast on screens from an undisclosed location, said Hezbollah remained “strong”.

“We will not submit and we will not accept the continuation of our killing and occupation while we watch,” Qassem said.

Though Israel’s military has largely withdrawn from southern Lebanon, its air force is still striking what it says are Hezbollah positions across Lebanon and troops still hold five hilltop positions along the border.

Israeli troops also detained Lebanese civilians and Hezbollah fighters in south Lebanon, and have the bodies of slain Hezbollah fighters in their custody.

Qassem said Hezbollah would exert pressure to get them returned home. He said Hezbollah considered Israel’s five positions an occupation and was relying on the Lebanese government to secure a full withdrawal through diplomacy.

“We choose to fire when we see fit and are patient when we see fit,” he said.

Israeli warplanes struck in Lebanon’s south and east on Sunday and flew low over Beirut twice during the funeral, prompting shouts of “Death to Israel”.

Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, said on X that the planes “above Hassan Nasrallah’s funeral are conveying a clear message: whoever threatens to destroy Israel and attacks Israel — that will be the end of him. You will specialise in funerals — and we will specialise in victories.”

Israel’s military published a video of what it described as footage of Nasrallah’s killing “in several simultaneous raids”.

Black-and-white footage, which appeared to be shot from a military plane, showed buildings hit by about a dozen blasts in quick succession.

Among those at the funeral were Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araqchi, an Iraqi delegation including Shiite politicians and militia commanders, and a delegation from Yemen’s Houthis.

The mass funeral is aimed at showing strength after Hezbollah emerged battered from last year’s war with Israel, which killed most of its leadership and thousands of fighters, and wreaked destruction on south Lebanon.

Its weakened stature has been reflected in Lebanon’s post-war politics, with the group unable to impose its will in the formation of a new government and language legitimising its arsenal omitted from the new cabinet’s policy statement.

The impact on Hezbollah was compounded by the ousting of its ally Bashar al-Assad in Syria, severing a key supply route.

“We may have lost a great deal as a man, but we have not lost the value of the resistance because the resistance is clinging on,” said Hassan Nasreddine, a Lebanese man headed to the ceremony.

Earlier, Araqchi and other Iranian officials met Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun, who was invited but did not attend the funeral.

According to Aoun’s office, he told the Iranian delegation that Lebanon was “tired of the war of others” and it had “paid a heavy price for the Palestinian cause”.

Bundled up in baby blankets and wrapped in the warmth of her father’s arms, Sham Al-Shanbari came into the world at a time of relative calm in Gaza, born two weeks ago during the hard-won ceasefire between Hamas and Israel.

The war in Gaza claimed her life all the same.

On Monday night, Sham became one of at least seven children in Gaza to die of cold in recent days, according to local health officials. Her family, along with hundreds of thousands of other civilians, has been forced to live in tents and makeshift shelters after Israeli bombing made their homes unlivable.

"At around midnight, her mother nursed her and put her to sleep," Sham's father, Mohamad Tawfiq Al -Shanbari, told an NBC News' crew Beit in Hanoun in northeast Gaza on Tuesday.

In the morning, "we tried to wake her, but she wouldn't wake up," he said, before watching as his daughter was placed into a tiny shallow grave.

The cold has killed six other children over roughly the past two weeks, according to Dr. Munir Al-Bursh, director-general of the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza, where families whose homes have been destroyed are forced to sleep in tents and other makeshift shelters.

Sila Abdul Qader, less than 2 months old, was the latest to die from the cold weather, Al-Bursh said Wednesday.

Al-Shanbari said his daughter had been "100% fine, playing and smiling like usual" in the hours before she died.

But, he said, "I live in a tent. It's cold. How could the girl survive?"

Night-time temperatures in Gaza over the past week have fallen below 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit), according to meteorological data. Babies are particularly vulnerable to the cold as they are unable to regulate their body temperature in the same way as adults.

More than a year of Israeli bombing and shelling has also shattered the enclave's hospitals, making it difficult, if not impossible, for Palestinians to get basic life-saving medical help. At least 70% of infrastructure in Gaza, including hospitals and schools, and 60% of homes and 65% of roads have been destroyed, the United Nations said this month.

Medical Aid for Palestinians, a charity based in the U.K., said its team at the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis had documented the death of at least one 2-month-old baby in recent days. It said the infant had died from the cold, while three other children were also brought to the hospital recently with cold-related injuries.

"All admitted children were previously healthy, with no underlying conditions, but presented with cold injuries and hypothermia," the organization said in a statement sent over WhatsApp. So far this year, at least 15 children have been admitted to Nasser Hospital with cold-related injuries and illness, it added.

In Khan Younis, Najeih Al-Najar worried that her baby boy, Youssef, 2 months old, might not survive the war as he lay on a hospital bed.

"My son suddenly got very cold and turned bluish, and his feet swelled," she told NBC News. "Children are dying. They bring them dead.

The Israel Defense Forces on Thursday presented its top-level investigations into the military’s failures during the lead-up to the Hamas terror group’s October 7, 2023, onslaught, and on the day itself.

The material released by the IDF underlines the colossal failure for years ahead of Hamas’s invasion, in the final hours before it, and in the course of the terror group’s slaughter and abductions. It was only recognized months after the invasion and slaughter that the military’s Gaza Division, the regional unit responsible for the Strip and for protecting southern Israel, was “defeated” for several hours. The chaos and confusion catastrophically slowed the fightback on the day.

The IDF details intelligence material that was insistently misinterpreted over the years; the military’s overreliance on having an early warning to prepare its defenses; the degree to which troops were massively outnumbered by the invading terrorists; and the failure to understand what Hamas was doing during the attack.

The development of the IDF’s perception of Gaza over the past decade
The “perception” probe found that the IDF believed, prior to the October 7 onslaught, that the Hamas terror group in Gaza did not pose a significant threat to Israel, that it was uninterested in a large-scale war, that its tunnel networks had been significantly degraded, and that any cross-border threat would be thwarted by Israel’s high-tech border fence.

The investigation highlighted a widening gap between the IDF’s perceptions of Hamas, and what the terror group was doing in reality.

The IDF’s intelligence assessments of Hamas from 2014 until the outbreak of the war
The “intelligence assessments” investigation found that the Military Intelligence Directorate received information and plans outlining Hamas’s intent to launch a wide-scale attack against Israel over a period of several years, but dismissed the plans as unrealistic and unfeasible.

Instead, the Military Intelligence Directorate falsely assumed that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was a pragmatist who was not seeking a major escalation with Israel, and that the terror group viewed its 2021 war with Israel as a failure and was focusing its capabilities on rocket fire, and not a ground invasion.

As part of its investigations into its failures during the lead-up to the Hamas terror group’s October 7, 2023, onslaught, the IDF has now determined that Hamas had decided in April 2022 to launch such an attack. By September 2022, the terror group was at 85 percent readiness. And it decided in May 2023 to launch the assault on October 7.

intelligence and decision-making process on the eve of October 7
The investigation into the decision-making process made by top officials on the eve of the attack found that the IDF identified five signs of unusual Hamas activity the night before the terror group’s October 7 onslaught, but believed they did not indicate an imminent attack.

This investigation also found that the IDF’s conduct, decision-making, and intelligence assessments on the night between October 6 and 7 were based on the result of years of false assessments about Hamas.

As a result, intelligence officials on all levels failed to provide a warning for what would come.

The command and control and orders given during battles between October 7 and 10
Finally, the last investigation topic, focusing on the battles on October 7 and the following days, found out only in hindsight the IDF’s Gaza Division was defeated for several hours that day.

As a result of not realizing in real-time that the Gaza Division had fallen, the General Staff did not understand the severity of the attack and failed to put together an accurate picture of the operational situation, which became a major challenge during the efforts to block the attack.

The battles investigation found that the IDF failed to protect Israeli civilians and was not ready for a wide-scale surprise attack.

Investigations do not deal with political leadership
The probes were aimed at drawing operational conclusions for the IDF and did not look into the policies of the political leadership, thereby avoiding a fight with government leaders, who have insisted that investigations must wait until after the end of the war against Hamas.

The investigations — conducted by units seen as having had a role in the failure to notice Hamas preparations or adequately ready themselves for the terror group’s onslaught — were carried out concurrently amid the war.

Thousands of hours were spent by officers on the investigations — collecting material, conducting interviews, and compiling the information.

In addition to the four main topics, the IDF investigated 41 separate battles and major incidents that took place during the October 7 attack

Several hundred demonstrators attended an ultranationalist rally on Thursday night to hear a government minister and several MKs urge the removal of millions of Palestinians from Gaza, championing a proposal from US President Donald Trump to “clean out” the enclave and redevelop it as a glitzy coastal destination.

Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman of the ruling Likud party declared that the only solution for Gaza was “to empty Gaza of Gazans,” and said Israel must “inherit” Jenin and Nablus in the West Bank as well.

Silman couched her policy proposal as “encouraging emigration,” similar to some speakers at the Jerusalem rally who stopped short of Trump’s call for Palestinians to be forced out of the enclave and never allowed to return.

Others went further. Likud MK Nissim Vaturi proclaimed that Israel should remove “all Arabs from Gaza,” adding that Arabs should also be removed from the West Bank.

MK Itamar Ben Gvir, head of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party and, until recently, the national security minister, told the crowd he backed a policy of “encouraging emigration” of Palestinians from Gaza and called on the government to halt all humanitarian aid currently being transferred through Israel into the Gaza Strip.

The rally was organized by the Nachala settlement organization, which has strongly promoted the construction of Jewish settlements in Gaza since the early months of the war and was also an early proponent of expelling the Palestinian population from the territory.

Posters, banners, and fliers calling for the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza abounded at the demonstration. One banner declared, “Only transfer will bring peace,” while fliers being handed out said, “Gaza is ours forever."

The rally was entitled “This time we must triumph — Occupy, expel, settle.” Bumper stickers with the slogan were available at stands around the protest area.

“Encouraging emigration is the solution… The only solution for Gaza is to empty Gaza of Gazans,” said Silman.

“God sent us Trump,” she added, saying that the White House had said “explicitly to us that the time has come to inherit the land.”

Silman said, “There is no other solution to terrorism… [We must] inherit in Gaza, in [West Bank Palestinian cities] Jenin, Nablus, the answer to terrorism is sovereignty and inhering the land.”

In a short but fervid speech, Vaturi said that Israel should “remove all the Arabs from Gaza,” adding they should not be in “Judea and Samaria either,” using the Biblical terms for the West Bank.

“Transfer is not an illegitimate word,” he said, using a term that has become largely taboo and is mainly associated with outlawed extremists. “First of all, we need to transfer the Arabs of Gaza and also begin in Judea and Samaria, begin in Area C.”

Israel has full security and civilian control of Area C of the West Bank, which comprises some 60 percent of the territory and includes all the Israeli settlements, but is also home to at least 180,000 Palestinians, according to the left-wing B’Tselem organization.

“We need to wake up. We need to expel the Arabs from here. We need to expel everyone now. Send them to countries who want them so badly. We should not be afraid because God is with us,” concluded Vaturi.

Greeting the crowd like a rockstar with an ebullient “Good evening Jerusalem,” Ben Gvir railed against the government’s policy enabling humanitarian aid to enter Gaza.

“Right now, the government is sending in hundreds of tons of aid to Hamas. These are the trucks which enable Hamas’s rule,” averred the ultranationalist leader.

“I was the only one in the cabinet who opposed it. They said to me, ‘Biden, Biden, Biden.’ Now there is no Biden, so why are there trucks?” he demanded.

The former minister also repeated his policy, which was first stated last January in another Nachala rally, of “encouraging voluntary emigration” of Palestinians from Gaza, although he did not state how such voluntary emigration could be incentivized and what should happen if it was unsuccessful.

Ben Gvir’s ultranationalist party colleague MK Limor Son Har-Melech reinforced the calls for the forcible expulsion of Palestinians from the region. “The Land of Israel is for the People of Israel. Gaza is for Jews, Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] is for Jews. They are ours in the merit of our fathers and the merit of our deeds,” she said.

“The expulsion of our enemies needs to be forever. We are here not only to expel but to inherit, to establish flourishing settlements which are full of life. Victory will be when all of Gaza returns to our hands, where Jews [will] establish new generations of courageous settlers.”

he rally was held hours after Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a speech that he was accelerating the creation of a new authority that will facilitate the voluntary emigration of Gazans out of the Strip, either via the Ashdod port or the Ramon airport near Eilat.

And in a fiery speech, the chair of the Nachala organization and veteran settler activist Daniella Weiss called for the “destruction of the Gazan enemy” and the reestablishment of Jewish settlements in the territory.

“We must return to fighting and destroy the enemy in Gaza. We must destroy and expel all the enemy from Gaza outside the borders of the Promised Land,” she declared.

“Only the complete elimination of the enemy will bring all the hostages home,” she continued, referring to the Israeli hostages still being held by Hamas in Gaza.

“We must not give the enemy even a crumb of food—how can they live a normal life while our soldiers are being killed,” she demanded.

“In the Land of Israel, where there are no Jews, there are scorpions and snakes,” she continued in describing what she said was the necessity of Israel taking control of Gaza.

Israel halted all entry of humanitarian aid and goods into the Gaza Strip on Sunday and warned of “further consequences” after Hamas refused to accept its proposal to extend the first phase of the fragile ceasefire deal.

This followed a U.S. announcement that it would expedite the delivery of $4 billion in military aid to Israel and reverse a partial arms embargo from the Biden administration.

On Sunday morning, thousands of aid trucks were seen piling up at the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing after Israel closed its checkpoints into Gaza.

The first phase of the Hamas-Israel ceasefire expired Saturday, and negotiations for the second phase, which would ultimately lead to the end of the war, have been stalled for weeks.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu has decided that, as of this morning, all entry of goods and supplies into the Gaza Strip will cease,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement, adding: “If Hamas continues its refusal, there will be further consequences.”

Egypt, which helped broker the original ceasefire deal, condemned Israel’s closure of Gaza, with the foreign minister Badr Abdelatty accusing Israel of using aid “as a weapon of collective punishment and starvation.”

Basem Naim, a senior official for Hamas’ political bureau, said Israel was “sabotaging” the existing three-phase ceasefire agreement both sides had signed in January.

He condemned Benjamin Netanyahu and the Trump administration for what he called “a blatant coup against the ceasefire deal,” adding that Israel bears “all the responsibility for escalating the situation and for the lives of the people on both sides.”

Israel’s announcement came after Netanyahu held an overnight security meeting where Israel adopted a plan by U.S. special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff that proposed extending the first phase of the six-week ceasefire through Ramadan and Passover, rather than moving to the second phase of negotiations outlined under the original agreement.

Under Witkoff’s proposal, half of the remaining hostages, including the bodies of those who have died, would also be released on the first day, with the remaining released when both sides successfully negotiate a permanent ceasefire, according to Netanyahu’s office.

Hamas has refused the proposal, insisting that the ceasefire talks proceed to the second stage, which would see the release of additional hostages and prisoners, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, and lead to a permanent end to the war.

Hamas said Israel’s decision to halt aid amounted to “blackmailing” and urged mediators U.S., Egypt and Qatar to put pressure on Israel to implement humanitarian protocol under the ceasefire.

Israeli far-right lawmakers welcomed Netanyahu’s decision to block aid. “The decision we made last night to completely halt the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza ... is an important step in the right direction — ‘the threshold of the gates of hell,’” Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich posted on X on Sunday.

He then called for the gates of hell to be opened “as quickly and as lethally as possible.”

By Sunday morning, Israeli forces had killed at least four people across Gaza, Dr. Marwan Al-Hams, director general of field hospitals, told NBC News.

Violence broke out in the Knesset on Monday evening as guards used force to physically prevent bereaved families and relatives of hostages from entering the plenum’s visitors’ gallery to watch a debate on probing the October 7 catastrophe, including a speech by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

When members of the October Council — which represents October 7 survivors, former hostages, and victims’ families — tried to ascend a stairwell leading to the gallery, they were pushed, hit and grabbed in what quickly devolved into a chaotic scrum.

Video of the incident shared by the group showed one guard wrestling a man to the floor and pulling him aside — with his forearm across the man’s throat. Three people subsequently required medical treatment, according to Hebrew media reports.

During the fracas, one member of the group called out to the guards that they were “hitting bereaved parents.”

Several of the relatives were seen crying and comforting each other after the violence and before they were finally allowed into the gallery, with some reciting the Kaddish prayer for the dead.

The father of Yarden Buskila, who was murdered on October 7 at the Nova festival, fainted during the clash and required medical attention, Channel 12 reported. In a video shared online, Shimon Buskila said he was “broken” by the incident.

Is this how bereaved families are treated? With us on the floor? Is that our place?” he asked.

Speaking with Channel 12 on Tuesday morning, Yaira Gutman, whose daughter Tamar was murdered at the Nova Festival, said that after being blocked by the guards, the families “tried to talk to them, explaining that we had permission.”

“We did not succeed. And then the rest of the parents arrived. And one of the parents called out, ‘Come, let’s go in.’ And yes, we pushed. And when we pushed the Knesset guards, we started to receive physical blows,” she said.

“They didn’t stand in a line to block us. They hit us. They dragged us to the floor. Some of us fell, some of us were dragged. A parent was beaten by one of the guards. Other parents got involved to try to extricate him. There was a huge fracas.”

Comparing the guards to a “street mob,” Gutman asserted that they had “clearly been instructed not to let us enter, and not to be nice to us” despite the fact that “we had been invited.”

The families were in the Knesset to attend a so-called 40 signatures debate — a plenum discussion that the opposition can call once a month and that the prime minister is legally obliged to attend — on establishing a state commission of inquiry into the failure to prevent the October 7, 2023, invasion and massacre by Hamas in southern Israel and the events surrounding it.

’Predetermined’ findings
Despite the families’ appeals, Netanyahu doubled down on his longstanding opposition to an inquiry into the catastrophe by a state commission, the most powerful investigative body, which has the authority to subpoena witnesses and which most analysts believe would be deeply damaging to the prime minister.

In a fiery speech, Netanyahu agreed that it was “crucial to investigate in depth the events of October 7 and what led up to it,” but that “this investigation needs to win the trust of the nation, or the overwhelming majority of the nation.”

Red-faced and shouting into the microphone, he called for an “objective, balanced, independent investigation… not a commission whose findings are predetermined.”

Netanyahu also accused his critics of engaging in a “fictitious and cynical campaign” against him “on the backs of the hostages’ families.”

Interrupted repeatedly by opposition members, several of whom were removed from the chamber, the prime minister said that, while Israel is fighting its enemies, it has to deal with those who “are drilling holes in the national ship.”

Plea from Yarden Bibas
Addressing the Knesset plenum early in the debate, National Unity MK Chili Tropper read a letter to Netanyahu written by recently released hostage Yarden Bibas, whose wife Shiri and sons Ariel and Kfir were brutally murdered in captivity in Gaza.

In his letter, Bibas said that he “will no longer be able to hug my children and my wife” but that there are other hostages who can still be rescued, and called on Netanyahu to help bring them home.

Bibas also urged the establishment of a state commission of inquiry. And he invited Netanyahu to come with him to Kibbutz Nir Oz when he himself returns for the first time.

“Mr. Prime Minister, you and your government have still not taken responsibility,” he wrote. “So many citizens are asking for forgiveness. So few politicians are asking for forgiveness. So many citizens and fighters are taking responsibility. So few members of the government are taking responsibility. Eighty-three percent of Israeli citizens are demanding a state commission of inquiry, along with 1,500 October Council families, myself among them,” Bibas’s letter continued.

I am constantly thinking and regretting that I did not protect my wife and children better. It eats me up inside. I only had a gun and I am a simple citizen in a quiet kibbutz. Do you think about this? Do you also find it difficult to spend days and nights without a heavy sense of responsibility for what happened?” he asked.

“I have not yet entered my home in Nir Oz and I do not know what awaits me inside. I ask you to come with me, to join me for the first time since October 7. I ask that we do this together. If we do not look the disaster in the eye, we will not be able to recover.”

After reading the letter, Tropper walked over to Netanyahu to give it to him, but the prime minister did not look up, and Tropper then placed it in front of him.

Gantz and Lapid denounce PM
Both National Unity party chairman Benny Gantz and Opposition Leader Yair Lapid demanded a commission of inquiry during the stormy session, with Gantz reading lawmakers a letter to Netanyahu written by Yarden Adam, the brother of Mapal Adam, who was murdered at the Nova festival on October 7.

The prime minister understands that a commission of inquiry is “inevitable,” Adam wrote, adding that “the only question is how much longer you will continue to tear apart and torment Israeli society and us in particular until we get there.”

Gantz declared that avoiding establishing an official probe “is a prelude to anarchy” and condemned what he said are government efforts to allow those under investigation to “choose the investigators.”

We will not agree to any hybrid creation that will replace a state commission of inquiry,” Gantz told Netanyahu.

Last week, Likud MK Ariel Kallner presented a proposal for an alternative investigatory body whose members would be appointed by the Knesset in an effort to head off establishing a state commission of inquiry.

For his part, Lapid told Netanyahu: “The greatest disaster that has happened to the Jewish people since the Holocaust belongs to you. It will always belong to you.

“Any person on whose watch this disaster happened would take it with him to his grave until his last day,” he went on, adding that “there was never a government here that had so many reasons to ask for forgiveness.

“An entire country is in pain, anxious, angry, abandoned by a government that takes no responsibility for anything. Ask for forgiveness from them,” he urged the prime minister.

Lapid also took a jab at Netanyahu for losing his temper while being heckled and booed during his speech: “Prime Minister, you once gave me good advice: never lose your temper at the podium. I propose to give this advice to you. It was not an easy performance to watch,” he said.

“I think of the families sitting here, and I think of the soldiers in the army who see a prime minister losing his temper at the podium, why? Because you had a tough morning in court?”

Calls for resignation
Following Monday’s violence, the October Council called on the Knesset speaker to step down.

“Yesterday, we sent a letter to Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, announcing the intention of dozens of bereaved families to come to the visitors’ gallery and watch the discussion on establishing a state commission of inquiry,” the group said in a statement.

“The Knesset speaker should resign today. By ordering bereaved families to be beaten by the Knesset Guard, [he has caused] the entire State of Israel to be ashamed of him,” the group said. “Our patience is running out.”

It is not clear that Ohana, who later ordered an investigation into the violence, had a hand in the guards’ conduct, although he was also blamed for it by Lapid, who called him “a partner in this disgrace.”

The extreme hunger the released hostages experienced is “very concerning,” with some suffering a weight loss of 40% of their total body weight, the Health Ministry said on Wednesday.

Hagar Mizrahi, head of the Medical Division, said the starvation led to significant muscle deterioration, which requires the gradual rebuilding of muscle mass through physiotherapy treatments, which began in hospitals and will be continued in rehabilitation departments after their release.

Hostages suffered infections from drinking sea water
Some of the hostages drank diluted water or seawater, which also affected their immune systems and led to infections.

Mizrahi was asked whether differences in conditions were observed between female and male hostages and replied that all hostages suffered from extremely severe torture.

The hostages incurred significant damage to their mouths, as some suffered from broken teeth and will require prolonged treatments. The difficult psychological state also caused damage to their teeth.

Psychological condition
Regarding their psychological condition, Mizrahi said some of the hostages need to rebuild their lives entirely, and the consequences of captivity will stay with them for a long time.

On a small street at the entrance to the Jenin refugee camp, it's evident that the destruction wrought by the Israeli military takes more than one form. One house has been blown up and demolished down to its foundations. Adjacent to it, another house still stands, but its walls have vanished from the sides and front. A third house's windows bear black marks, the aftermath of an explosion or fire. Across the street, walls are riddled with bullet holes, and inside there is immense damage, likely caused during a search that left all furniture and belongings overturned.

This is the extent of destruction in a very small area at the edge of the camp. Last week, it was possible to enter this part of the camp relatively safely, a month into an army operation that saw troops destroying buildings and roads and searching every home. The widespread damage in this small portion of the camp raises many questions about the conditions at its center.

Though the army was not visible during a midday visit, the roads, now reduced to dirt tracks, stood empty after the vast majority of residents left due to the ongoing operation. Yet from one balcony, a family peeks out – a couple and their three children. They are the only ones nearby who have chosen to remain, says Yusuf [his real name is withheld due to his request], the father. "We left the camp for four days when they blew up the buildings, then returned," he says.

"Going in and out of our house puts us in danger, but because Israel has indicated this is a prolonged operation, not just one or two days, we want to stay," he adds, referring to Defense Minister Israel Katz's statement that Israel will prohibit those who have evacuated – around 37,000 people, according to current estimates – from returning to the camps for the coming year.

Yusuf says the nearby explosion shattered all his home's windows. "I covered the windows and doors with cloth because of the cold," he explains, adding that an army drone frequently passes near their home in the evenings, calling in Arabic: "Leave the building. The [Israel] Defense Forces is here. If you leave, we won't harm you." But they do not leave. Under the cover of this military operation and a preceding Palestinian Authority operation, his children have not attended school for 85 days. He also has no work to go to.

The damage to this family's home is considered incidental collateral damage. The military said that in the Jenin refugee camp alone, it had demolished 23 houses, even sharing documentation of their destruction – later updating that figure to at least 25. "From what we understand, that itself impacted another 80 houses at least that are also not habitable," says Roland Friedrich, director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, the UN agency that aids Palestinian refugees, in the West Bank. "They [the buildings] are all very close together so there is structural impact on adjacent buildings." Friedrich emphasizes that this is merely an estimate, as no agencies or observers have been allowed to enter the refugee camps since the operation began.

Due to the dense and often flimsy construction in the refugee camps, the potential for secondary destruction – damage to adjacent buildings from explosions or military vehicles – is high. The military says it demolished buildings housing terrorist assets, without specifying the exact nature of these assets. However, at least some demolitions in Jenin and other camps have explicitly been carried out to widen roads, making it easier for the military to reach the camp centers. From a hill overlooking the Jenin camp, a route created by the army is visible. In mid-February, Palestinian media reported the army's intention to demolish 14 buildings in the Tul Karm refugee camp for a similar purpose.

An explosion at the door
In Nur al-Shams, one of two refugee camps in Tul Karm, the army has also begun demolishing buildings to open pathways. On Wednesday last week, for the first time, residents were permitted into the camp briefly to retrieve belongings from 11 homes slated for demolition. "At about 11:30 P.M., we were informed our home would be demolished," says Amjad Al-Jabali, a camp resident and Red Crescent volunteer. "It was a shock, but God decided it would be our home."

Haaretz's entry into the camp revealed part of the damage caused since the operation began: large holes in building facades and widespread black soot from fires or explosions. Some of the destruction is likely the result of tactics that have already had severe consequences. On the first day of operations in Nur al-Shams, 21-year-old Rahaf al-Ashqar was killed by an explosive device soldiers had placed on her front door to force entry.

Under international law, an occupying power cannot destroy private or public property unless it is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations. "A necessary military need must be a concrete operational requirement with no reasonable alternative," says Prof. Eliav Lieblich, a scholar of international law and humanitarian law at Tel Aviv University's Faculty of Law. "This does not include demolition for punishment, deterrence, revenge, making an impression, or political aims, and certainly cannot include expelling residents from a specific area."

Regarding road demolitions, Lieblich says these might be justified if credible information indicates explosives planted underneath. "On the other hand, you can't assume in advance that every road is a potential site for explosives and thus destroy roads wholesale," he says. "The question is what information exists at that time. And remember, since this is occupied territory, Israel has heightened obligations toward protected persons [the civilian population] to enable normal life and allow infrastructure repairs as soon as possible."

The Israeli military announcement allowing Nur al-Shams residents to return to their homes to collect belongings limited their return until 11 A.M. While the announcement was officially directed only at owners of homes slated for demolition, other residents took advantage of it, too. On the main road, now a muddy dirt path, residents could be seen carrying bags of clothes, blankets or a television screen. When one family carrying belongings passed a street corner, shots were fired at them for no apparent reason. After 11, a military jeep sped along the dirt road that was previously paved, splashing those still standing alongside it with foul sewage water from puddles. Army bulldozers then crossed through the camp.

"You see so much destruction," says a 50-year-old camp resident. "The soldiers break and destroy, enter houses, and tear doors off their hinges. They searched all the houses, including mine. The entire entrance to my house is blocked by piles of sand, and the whole camp is in ruins. We don't know what the purpose of all this is. If you want a specific person, go after him. What's the connection to me?"

This resident says his family members are refugees from the 1948 Nakba who came to Nur al-Shams from Sabbarin, a depopulated village near Haifa. He returned to his home for the first time since the operation began to pick up some clothes. One of his children moved to Europe a few months ago and has received refugee status. The father is now waiting for a few years to pass so that he can join his child there. "I wouldn't stay here another minute," he says. "Life in this camp isn't life."

The army continues to assert, despite conflicting evidence, that it does not forcibly expel residents but only allows those who wish to leave to do so. Yet declarations by Defense Minister Israel Katz that evacuees will not be permitted to return to their homes for the next year have significantly impacted the displaced.

Lieblich says that international law permits evacuating a population from a defined area only if it's necessary for their safety or because imperative military reasons demand it. "Such needs must be genuine and cannot serve as a pretext for evacuating people to pressure any organization or for revenge," he says. "Moreover, such an evacuation carries the responsibility of ensuring the evacuated population has somewhere reasonable to stay." However, dozens of evacuees are currently staying in centers managed by volunteers in nearby villages. In some cases, these centers are auditoriums with numerous mattresses spread across the floor.

No one to rebuild
Lieblich says that "perhaps the most crucial point regarding evacuations is ensuring people are allowed to return immediately once the specific need has ended. If the defense minister has indeed instructed against allowing returns, it constitutes a violation of international law."

However, according to Yusuf, a resident of the Jenin refugee camp, it would be best if evacuees began returning soon, fearing they might otherwise have nowhere left to return to. "We believe people living on the camp's outskirts can return," he says. "Especially if they want to protect their homes from being taken over by Israelis."

The question of when residents can return is intertwined with who will rehabilitate the refugee camps – and how. The current wave of destruction, whose full extent is still unknown, follows several previous waves of infrastructure damage inflicted during military raids over recent years. "There's a cumulative effect impacting water network, sewage, and electricity and in some of the camps you have accumulation of that over months," says Friedrich. "Secondly, the destructions of private houses, and the cumulative effect is that these three camps have perhaps become uninhabitable. That is very worrying".

Concerns about rebuilding capacity are heightened by the anticipated steep costs, especially given the Palestinian Authority's dire financial situation and international organizations prioritizing Gaza's reconstruction. Further difficulties arise from Israel severing ties with UNRWA – the agency responsible for services in the camps – and barring entry to its foreign workers.

"In some camps, militants place IEDs in sewers, the IDF destroys them," Friedrich says. "The sewers is the most important thing to fix quickly because of the public health implications. At some places we replaced the sewers I don't know how many times just so there's no disease starting at the end of an operation. We don't know yet what is the level of the destruction, but clearly it will cost lots of money to rehabilitate."

The military said in response to a request for comment that the army "does not destroy buildings unnecessarily" and that it is operating in camps in the northern West Bank "to thwart terrorism in a complex security environment, where terrorists embed their infrastructure among civilian populations and inside civilian structures." The army added that since several camps and villages in the area have become "bases for deadly terrorism," hosting militants trained for attacks, the military is compelled to conduct operations in them.

The military added that certain operations inherently require modifications within the camps to ensure freedom of movement, particularly due to past incidents where planted explosives resulted in casualties among soldiers. Additionally, the army said it conducts targeted demolitions of structures identified as terror assets, including "homes of terrorists responsible for fatal attacks within Israel and the surrounding region."

The Air Force was carrying out “the Sword of Damocles” operation – a code name only being revealed on Thursday for the first time - to attack many Hamas commanders and their headquarters around 10:30 a.m. on October 7, 2023, just as it was carrying out the “Hannibal Directive” of gunning down anything that moved around the Israel-Gaza border.

The Air Force has been questioned about if the forces it had invested in attacking Hamas commanders deep in Gaza would have been better used to defend the Gaza border and to attack Hamas invaders in Israeli villages.

Air Force sources hoped air power had been used 'differently' on October 7
Air Force sources have said that they wish this air power had been used differently on October 7, given that protecting the villages and the border should have been a higher priority than killing top Hamas officials.

Further, Air Force sources indicated that had they known all of the information being debated between IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi and IDF Southern Command Chief Maj.-Gen. Yaron Finkleman, such as the Israeli SIM cell phone cards which Hamas had activated in Gaza, they might have pushed for the aircraft to be used differently.

In contrast, IDF southern command sources have indicated that they believe that the attack on the Hamas commanders and headquarters significantly reduced the number of invaders who would have streamed into Israel absent those attacks.

Some sources said that there were concerns that tens of thousands or even more Gazans might have invaded Israel, far more than the around 5,400 which actually attacked, and that activating the Sword of Damocles plan was the right move even looking backwards.

Besides that, essentially the Air Force took significant responsibility for being a part of the failure on October 7, but also said that it was simply not in the game.

The general Air Force plan for that weekend was to have only one drone watching over Gaza, as there was an assumption that there would be various warnings and time to prepare if there would be any major change in the stabilized situation.

While Halevi ordered that the Air Force have additional aircraft nearby a few hours before the invasion, and two more drones were directed toward Gaza, lower down Air Force officers decided along with lower down Operations Command officers to only move a fighter jet from Ramat David base in the North to Ramon base, much closer to Gaza, on a delay of a few hours from when the order was given.

It turned out that the invasion started 90 minutes before the aircraft was due to be finally moved as opposed to if it had been moved when Halevi ordered, two hours before the invasion.

On October 7, much of the Air Force was carrying heavier bombs which could be used to destroy much more powerful damage to an enemy, but which were too large to use in complex situations with Hamas invaders and Israeli civilians in close proximity to each other.

Israeli pilots were afraid of striking hostages in Hannibal Directive
Further, the Air Force said that many pilots were reluctant about hitting potential hostages even after the Hannibal Directive was issued.

In addition, the Air Force probe said that generally pilots receive highly specific information of where and what to attack and that: Most Air Force officers were not in the South due to vacations, those that were had a similar lack of full understanding of the constantly evolving situation, and the IDF Southern Command was similarly “blind” to how multi-pronged the invasion was.

The Air Force would carry out around 945 attacks with helicopters firing 11,000 times.

Out of 1,600 killed Hamas fighters, the Air Force estimates that it killed around 1,000.

157 Israelis were rescued by Air Force special forces Unit 669 and in at least two cases – at the IDF Nahal Oz position and near the “Black Arrow” and Miflasim village area – Air Force interventions scared away or killed Hamas invaders who were about to kill more Israelis.

According to the Air Force, some of its top aircraft which got into the air fairly quickly, were assigned to stay in the air near critical infrastructure areas, or were kept near the northern border lest Hezbollah stage a second invasion, and not to help with the defense of the southern border.

Bar was told by Halevi very early in the morning that he should be sending aircraft northward in case Hezbollah intervened.

Air Force sources said that had Hezbollah invaded, which almost happened, and the Air Force had not been ready in the North, it would have faced even harsher questions than it did about not being ready in the South.

Besides the fact that lots of the Air Force’s serious power was sent northward or to guard critical infrastructure sites, the Air Force probe also showed that its plans for reinforcing border areas downplayed Gaza and had its aircraft stationed too far away.

In one case where the Air Force tried to take the initiative based on pre-war intelligence and to attack without concrete real-time updated intelligence, it attacked a tunnel which officers thought Hamas might use to send fighters into Nativ Haasara. It turned out later that no Hamas fighters had been there.

Next, Hamas’s 3,889 rocket attacks in a short period of time exhausted the Iron Dome supplies in the South, leading to only less protection, which in turn meant that many southern runways were hit and required repairs.

After a long period without missile or drone attacks from the Houthis in Yemen, Israel is preparing for their resumption.

“The assessment is that the Houthis will resume fire when Israel renews the fighting in Gaza,” a person familiar with the matter told The Jerusalem Post Thursday.

Israel has so far attacked the Houthis in Yemen five times during the Israel-Hamas War. The last attack was on January 10.

During these strikes, Israel targeted civilian infrastructure with military use, such as airports, seaports, and power stations, as well as military targets.

The Houthis stopped their attacks when the hostage-ceasefire deal was announced several weeks ago.

'The hand is on the trigger'
But earlier this week, a senior Houthi official issued a threat on his X/Twitter account: “The eye is on Gaza, the hand is on the trigger, missiles and drones, and all military units are on alert. The decision of leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi is clear.”

Israel is coordinating with the Trump administration on the issue, and discussions are ongoing regarding the possibility of renewed fire, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Negotiations to secure the release of Israeli hostages from the hands of the Hamas terrorist group are at an impasse, as US President Donald Trump renewed his threat against the organization, warning Wednesday night “it is OVER” for Hamas if the hostages are not released.

Hours before the American president issued his warning to Hamas, a new Israeli military chief was sworn in. The new chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, said 2025 would be “a year of war,” with a focus on handling threats from Gaza and Iran.

Israel’s moves on both fronts will continue to take careful consideration of the US position. Since President Trump entered office, dynamics between Israel and the US have changed, with the new US administration offering significant support to Israel.

“All the players are at an intersection,” Gabriel Ben-Dor, an expert on political science and national security at the University of Haifa, told The Media Line. “Israel has to decide whether it wants to intensify the war on Gaza or secure the release of the hostages first, and Trump has to decide how to act upon his threats.”

The US president now has to decide how to act on his threat in order to maintain his credibility.
“Trump can provide Israel with more lethal weapons and give it free rein to act as it sees fit in Gaza, including a strict blockade and denial of humanitarian aid,” Ben-Dor said. “He can also apply intense pressure on Hamas supporters such as Turkey and Qatar and force them to coerce Hamas into giving up power. It will not be simple, and it will not happen overnight.”

He said that President Trump knows he will lose credibility if he fails to “deliver on his threats.”
According to Kobi Michael, a researcher at the Institute of National Security Studies and the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy, the president’s most powerful tool is his blanket support for Israel.

“Trump has freed Israel of all of the reins and restrictions,” Michael told The Media Line. “Israel is being given all the legitimacy to conquer the whole of the Gaza Strip, impose military rule, and evacuate civilian population from there. Trump is willing to let Israel do this, taking into account the dire consequences for Gaza, while letting Israel use extensive amounts of force.”

Witkoff's proposal
At the beginning of the week, when Hamas announced it did not accept the Witkoff proposal to extend the ceasefire, Israel announced it was closing all crossings into Gaza, barring the entrance of humanitarian aid. The move was backed by the US. Hamas said it wanted to continue negotiations towards a more permanent arrangement, as was laid out in the original ceasefire agreement. The Israeli government is reluctant to agree, as such a step would likely see the complete withdrawal of its forces from Gaza while Hamas still remains in power.

“Israel and Hamas’ end games can never be reconciled,” Michael said. “Even if Israel is willing to release an even greater number of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for more hostages and would agree to stop the war, it cannot accept the continued presence of Hamas in Gaza.”

Last weekend, the US also approved a massive weapons shipment to Israel, giving the Jewish state greater ability to threaten Hamas.

These changes coincide with the appointment of Zamir as the commander of the Israeli military. Israel media has reported that Zamir ordered the commanders in charge of the fighting in the Gaza Strip to draw out more aggressive plans for the resumption of fighting.

Israel’s war on Hamas has now entered its 17th month and is the longest war fought in Israel’s 77-year history. With the goals of toppling Hamas and releasing all of the hostages not yet achieved, the war is not near to conclusion.

The next stages
The next round of fighting will be much shorter, much more intense, and its result will be Gaza without Hamas,” Michael said. “Only then, when Hamas will not be an active and effective sovereign factor, the discussion on the future of the Gaza Strip can begin.”

The presence of Israeli hostages in Gaza has severely complicated the effort to eradicate Hamas.
Hamas took over 250 hostages during its offensive, the majority of them now released. Of the 59 still in captivity, at least 35 of them are believed to be dead.

“Any move by the IDF takes this into account and this was one of the factors that bogged down its progress,” Ben-Dor said. “But Israel now has more intelligence about what is going on there, and there are also fewer hostages alive. This changes the picture.”

Hovering above the Gaza conundrum is the fate of the Iranian nuclear program and how the US and Israel will respond to what is believed to be its massive acceleration towards nuclear power.

A day after Zamir said the IDF would focus on both Gaza and Iran, the Israeli air force held a joint exercise with the American air force.

“The forces practiced operational coordination between the two militaries to enhance their ability to address various regional threats,” read a statement by the Israeli military released Thursday, in what could be seen as a hint towards Tehran.

The US had indicated it is seeking to exhaust diplomatic options, enlisting Russia to pressure Iran into agreeing to a nuclear deal. Developments in the region could have an impact on the success of this effort. American backing for Israeli aggression in Gaza will echo throughout the Middle East.

“If Israel will display determination in Gaza and will obliterate Hamas as a sovereign power, this will have a huge impact on the negotiations and diplomacy towards Iran,” said Michael. “The Iranians will understand that the rules of the game havehttps://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-845488 changed. Any stuttering on Israel’s part, will negate the chance of a diplomatic solution with Iran.”

Israel, which has repeatedly vowed it will not allow Iran to cross the nuclear threshold, is believed to have plans to attack Iranian nuclear facilities. But it also needs American diplomatic and military support to do so.

“Israel cannot act alone without tight coordination with the US,” Ben-Dor said. “As long as there is a diplomatic effort, an imminent Israeli preemptive attack is off the table.”

Protesters continued to demonstrate outside the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv on Monday, demanding the return of the remaining hostages held in Gaza.

The protests began Saturday night, as police deployed trucks to block the roads and prevent demonstrators from reaching the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv.

Last Thursday, Kulanu Hatufim, a group of hostage families and activists who regularly demonstrate at Begin Gate, issued a call for protests.

"A nation will stand, brokenhearted but breathing, for the implementation of the agreement,” the group's statement read.

On Saturday night, hundreds gathered outside the Kirya, using megaphones and lighting bonfires to deliver their message. “It was horrible,” said one protestor. “I’m scared and terrified that the hostages that are still alive and waiting in the tunnels won’t make it.”

“I saw a live broadcast of the protest, which said that it was cold here at night, so I decided to bring mattresses and sleeping bags to help,” said Yvgeny, a resident of Tel Aviv. “Tonight, I plan to join in.”

Trump cares more than our prime minister
“We feel like the only man we can trust is Trump at the moment,” said another demonstrator, who attends protests every week. “It’s an absolute shame that we need to look to a foreign government and billionaires to care for our citizens instead of our own government. Trump cares a lot more than our own Prime Minister. It’s insane.”

Demonstrators traveled from all over the country to attend the protest, from Haifa to Kiryat Gat.

Operation Surround the Kirya”
“We will send a clear message to the government and the [IDF] chief of staff – you will not bury our children,” said Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan is still held hostage in Gaza.

“After the protest [outside the Kirya], we will go on 'Operation Surround the Kirya' – the place from which Netanyahu will direct the renewal of the war and cabinet meetings. We will sit together outside the gates, and we will not move.”

“We will not stop, and we will not let up until an agreement has been undertaken in full. And this time, everyone all at once,” she added.

Among the organizations who joined the call for the protest were Changing Direction, Standing Together, the Hi-Tech Protest Crime Minister, The Academia Protest, and Unxeptable, among others.

The US has launched a "decisive and powerful" wave of air strikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen, President Donald Trump has said, citing the armed group's attacks on shipping in the Red Sea as the reason .

"Funded by Iran, the Houthi thugs have fired missiles at US aircraft, and targeted our Troops and Allies," Trump wrote on his Truth social platform, adding that their "piracy, violence, and terrorism" had cost "billions of dollars" and put lives at risk.

The Houthi-run health ministry said at least nine had been killed and another nine injured in the strikes.

The group - which began targeting shipping in response to Israel's invasion of Gaza - told Arab media that it would continue its attacks.

Trump said that it had been more than a year since a US-flagged ship had sailed safely through the Suez Canal - which the Red Sea leads to - and four months since a US warship had been through the body of water between east Africa and the Arabian peninsula.

The Suez Canal is the quickest sea route between Asia and Europe, and is particularly important in the transportation of oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG).

Addressing the Houthis directly, Trump wrote that if they did not stop, "HELL WILL RAIN DOWN UPON YOU LIKE NOTHING YOU HAVE EVER SEEN BEFORE".

Meanwhile, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said that the Houthi's "benefactor", Iran, was "on notice".

Trump urged Iran to cease its support for the Houthis, warning that Washington would hold Tehran "fully accountable and, we won't be nice about it".

He also accused the previous White House administration, under Joe Biden, of being "pathetically weak" and allowing the "unrestrained Houthis" to keep going.

Israeli airstrikes pounded Gaza, killing more than 400 people, Palestinian health authorities said on Tuesday, threatening the complete collapse of a two-month ceasefire as Israel vowed to use more force to free hostages held by Hamas.

The Palestinian militant group, which still holds 59 of the 250 or so hostages seized in its October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, accused Israel of breaching the ceasefire and jeopardising efforts by mediators to secure a permanent truce.

Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said he had told the military to take "strong action" against Hamas in response to the group's refusal to release the remaining hostages and because of their rejection of ceasefire proposals.

The Israeli military described the attacks as a "preemptive offensive" aimed at thwarting Hamas' ability to launch attacks against Israel and to rebuild and rearm its forces. It said it targeted "mid-ranking military commanders, leadership officials and terrorist infrastructure" belonging to Hamas.

The airstrikes also hit homes and tent encampments housing civilians from the north to south of the Gaza Strip and Israeli tanks shelled across the border line into the enclave, witnesses said.
"It was a night of hell. It felt like the first days of the war," said Rabiha Jamal, 65, a mother of five from Gaza City.

"We were preparing to have something to eat before starting a new day of fasting when the building shook and explosions began. We thought it was over but war is back," she told Reuters via a chat app.

Netanyahu has vowed to eradicate his old foe Hamas. While the group has been weakened with relentless Israeli bombardment and ground offensives, it is still the dominant force in Gaza.
Among those killed in airstrikes on their homes were Essam Addalees, the de facto head of the Hamas government, Ahmed Al-Hetta, deputy justice minister and Mahmoud Abu Watfa, the deputy minister of interior and head of the Hamas-run security services, Hamas said.

Egypt, one of the mediators in the ceasefire deal agreed in January, called for restraint and urged all parties to work towards a lasting agreement.

Israel's intense pressure on Hamas came as tensions flared elsewhere in the Middle East, which has seen the Gaza war spread to Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq.

Israeli media said Israel was opening shelters in multiple areas in commercial hub Tel Aviv to prepare for possible retaliation from Hamas or Yemen.

BODIES STACKED UP
The airstrikes earned Netanyahu a political boost. Former National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who left the government over disagreements about the Gaza ceasefire, is rejoining the coalition after the resumption of Israeli strikes, a statement said, strengthening Netanyahu's government.

The Gaza attacks were far wider in scale than the regular drone strikes Israel has said it has conducted recently against suspected militants, and follow weeks of failed efforts to agree an extension to the truce agreed on January 19.

Witnesses in Gaza contacted by Reuters said Israeli tanks shelled areas in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Bewildered children sat next to bagged-up belongings, ready to flee north again having returned to Rafah with the ceasefire.

In hospitals strained by 15 months of bombardment, piles of bodies in white plastic sheets smeared with blood were stacked up as casualties were brought in. Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry said 404 people had been killed in one of the biggest single-day tolls since the war erupted. The health ministry said many of the dead were children, and 562 people were injured.

Israel has halted aid deliveries into Gaza for over two weeks, exacerbating a humanitarian crisis.

The Israeli military said its attacks would extend beyond airstrikes, raising the prospect that Israeli ground troops could resume fighting.

As Israel launched its operation in Gaza, its forces have pressed on with an operation in the occupied West Bank which the military says is aimed at Iranian-backed militant groups in long-standing refugee camps.

Israeli jets have also struck targets in southern Lebanon and Syria in recent days as the military builds on gains it made during months of fighting against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah and during the collapse of the former Syrian regime.

TRUCE STANDOFF
Negotiating teams from Israel and Hamas had been in Doha as mediators from Egypt and Qatar sought to bridge the gap between the two sides after the end of an initial phase in the ceasefire, which saw 33 Israeli hostages and five Thais released in exchange for some 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.

With the backing of the United States, Israel had been pressing for the return of the remaining hostages in exchange for a longer-term truce until after the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan and the Jewish Passover holiday in April.

However, Hamas has insisted on moving to negotiations for a permanent end to the war and a full withdrawal of Israeli forces, under the terms of the original ceasefire agreement.

On Tuesday, Hamas spokesperson Abdel-Latif Al-Qanoua told Reuters communication with mediators was ongoing, and the group was keen to complete the implementation of the original Gaza ceasefire deal.

Egyptian mediators said they were surprised by the overnight airstrikes as negotiations a day earlier had been calm and they had not been notified, two Egyptian security sources said.
They are now engaged in intense contacts to salvage the ceasefire and return to talks, they said.

At least 10 U.S. strikes targeted areas in Yemen, including Sanaa, the capital, and Hodeidah, Yemen's Houthi media reported early on Wednesday.

Pentagon officials promise a resurging fight with the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen won’t turn into an endless war. But it’s already getting more complicated.

The Trump administration is pledging to go after Houthi fighters until they end their attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea. And yet its days-old bombing campaign is running up against America’s political and industrial limits, including limited precision weapons stockpiles, a broader regional crisis and a terror group unlikely to back down — even in a fight against a military superpower.

“The Houthis can determine when this ends, and until then, the campaign will be unrelenting,” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell told reporters. “All options are on the table.”
American warplanes and ships have hit more than 30 targets in Yemen since Saturday, targeting Houthi leaders and missile storage facilities in what President Donald Trump called an “overwhelming” effort that will last “until we have achieved our objective.”

He also warned that every “shot fired by the Houthis” would be considered an attack by Iran and met with “dire” consequences.

The Houthis already have survived dozens of air and missile strikes by the Biden administration. And while the White House insists this will change under Trump’s leadership, U.S. officials also must contend with worsening tensions in the Middle East, including the potential for renewed fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Israel carried out its biggest assault on the territory Tuesday since a January ceasefire, although Hamas has yet to retaliate.

“Leave it up to the Houthis, they’ll fight up until the very last member of their movement,” said Bilal Saab, a former defense official under the first Trump administration. “They don’t give a damn. They welcome that fight with the United States.”

Any sustained American campaign against the Houthis will look different from the Biden-era bombing campaign, in both the scale and the intensity.

The Biden administration, in strikes during 2023 and 2024, coordinated with the French and British as part of a wider coalition. The Trump administration doesn’t appear interested in putting a team back together.

“An important and missing element this time around is the multinational one,” said Dana Stroul, the Pentagon’s top Middle East official under the Biden administration.

An EU maritime security mission led by Italy is proceeding in the Red Sea, and a broader American-led mission dubbed Prosperity Guardian continues to escort commercial shipping. But the new bombing campaign is the U.S. acting alone.

The Defense Department on Tuesday highlighted its solo effort. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth spoke with Qatari Defense Minister Sheikh Saoud Al Thani, according to the Pentagon, “to discuss U.S. operations to eliminate the Houthi threat to American commerce and restore American freedom of navigation.”

A bombing campaign could also strain U.S. weapons supply, which is already struggling to keep up with three years worth of shipments to Ukraine, previous efforts against the Houthis, missiles for Israeli offensives in Gaza, and defenses against Iranian attacks.

We know that the defense industry isn’t keeping up with the rate of expenditure either by the U.S. military or to support its allies and partners like Ukraine and Israel,” Stroul said.

The U.S. launched more than 800 missiles during its 2024 bombing campaign against the Houthis in Yemen, including 135 Tomahawk land attack missiles that cost as much as $2 million apiece, along with 155 standard missiles from U.S. warships, which cost between $2 million and $4 million per missile.

Parnell, the Pentagon spokesperson, insisted the latest effort “is not an endless offensive. This is not about regime change.”

But officials and former military officers also warned that strikes this time will do more damage.

“The last administration lived in thrall of escalation, and they self-limited everything they needed to do,” said Kenneth McKenzie, a retired Marine general who led the U.S. Central Command under Trump and President Joe Biden from 2019 until 2022. “These targets are broader and deeper than what the Biden administration chose to strike.”

While a long-term mission could overextend the Pentagon and turn its attention away from deterring China, McKenzie said it would also ensure navigation through one of the world’s most heavily-trafficked waterways.

“There’s a risk,” he said, “but I think there’s a greater risk of taking no action.”

A change in protocol could also prolong the fight. Trump, unlike under Biden, is allowing commanders in the region to determine when and where to launch strikes — rather than the president.

Vice Adm. Karl Thomas, the Navy’s intelligence chief, said Tuesday that the U.S. took a “pretty good offensive swipe” at the Yemen-based group. “We’ll see how far they want to go.”

Iran’s role — and the extent to which it’s controlling the Houthis — will also influence how long the fighting lasts.

“The audience is Iran,” said Saab, the former defense official. “It does beg the question whether Iranians have that kind of influence over the Houthis to tell them to calm down.”

Israel Police dispersed a group of protesters demonstrating in Jerusalem against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to resume the war in Gaza on Tuesday night.

The protesters clashed with security forces and plan to continue demonstrations nationwide, showing their rejection of the new "Strength and Sword" operation in Gaza.

Israel Police told The Jerusalem Post that while the initial protests had been permitted, participants attempted to start a march, which had not been coordinated in advance, causing police to physically confront them.

Members of Standing Together and other organizations got together to express their opposition to the Israeli government's decision to strike Gaza on Monday night in an effort to pressure Hamas and release the hostages that are still in Gaza.

Some of the demonstrators carried various signs showing discomfort, called the current situation in Gaza a "genocide," threw themselves to the floor, and tied themselves to trees.

According to witnesses, the police applied violence against both male and female protesters.
The demonstrators call this a war "of choice" and claim its goal is to preserve Netanyahu's power: "We refuse to participate in a war that will sentence the hostages in Gaza to death."

The government 'lacks legitimacy'
The protesters added that the country’s far-right sector is "addicted to violence" and that they refuse to send their children "to be killed in Gaza."

A statement published by Standing Together declared that the current Israeli government does not have a majority or any legitimacy.

In addition, they consider that the government coalition is a "minority government" that doesn't represent Israeli society and that citizens want to see it replaced "through elections."
"There was a ceasefire agreement that released the hostages and stopped the war. The government chose to destroy it, and it is prepared to destroy our future," the demonstrators claimed, emphasizing that they refuse to fight in Gaza "for Netanyahu."

Thousands protested in Tel Aviv on Tuesday against the potential dismissal of Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) chief Ronen Bar and in a call to return the hostages held in Gaza captivity.

The protest was planned earlier this week
After Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Sunday night announcement that he would move to Bar, a joint message went out from major protest organizations calling for a mass protest of the firing.

The decision was made after a three-hour collaborative discussion among approximately 100 protest leaders in Israel on Monday morning.

"The decision to dismiss the head of the Shin Bet, Ronen Bar, is being made by a person in a blatant conflict of interest, whose office is under a security investigation for cooperation with Qatar, and a black flag of illegitimacy flies over it," read a joint call to protest from the organizations.

“We cannot allow the coalition to realize its vision and destroy Israel completely,” Hofshi B’Artzenu (Free in Our Land) CEO Eran Schwartz said. “The protest is a way for the people to express their opposition to the regime. The majority of the people understand that what is at stake is [either] the future of the coalition or the future of the state, and the masses want to come and demand the future of the state.

Saw Netanyahu on the news say what would you do in our position if people took your people hostage, well I wouldn't basically carpet bomb civilians