ISRAEL AT WAR - DAY 475
The Times of Israel liveblogged Saturday’s events as they unfolded.
CAIRO – United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) has received a report of an incident approximately 55 nautical miles southwest of Yemen’s Hodeidah port, saying that authorities are investigating.
Vessels are advised to transit with caution, UKMTO adds.
UKMTO Warnings 023/DEC/2023
Category: Incidenthttps://t.co/FlHumcXav6#MaritimeSecurity #MarSec pic.twitter.com/rWou6KrNbE
— United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) (@UK_MTO) December 30, 2023
Former premier Naftali Bennett claps back at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for criticizing him over an op-ed he published revealing that he ordered a pair of attacks on Iran last year.
“When there are 1,400 dead, 140 Israeli hostages, 150,000 Israelis uprooted [from their homes]. This is the time for unity, not politics,” Bennett says in a statement. “With the help of God, we will know better days.”
At the Tel Aviv rally, reality TV actress Julia Haart speaks about the brutal actions of Hamas terrorists, asking if that’s what countries of the world want on their doorsteps.
“We will not be silenced,” says Haart. “We will not go quietly in the night.”
“I have never been prouder to be a Jew,” she adds. “I have never been prouder to stand with all of the nation of Israel. My soul is with the hostages and all of Israel.”
A dovish Democratic senator slams the Biden administration for bypassing congressional review to fast-track a weapons shipment to Israel.
“Congressional review is a critical step for examining any large arms sale,” says Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland.
“The administration’s decision to repeatedly short-circuit what is already a quick time frame for congressional review undermines transparency and weakens accountability. The public deserves answers,” Van Hollen adds.
The statement comes a day after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken waived congressional review, determining that an emergency exists that required the immediate sale to Israel of 155-millimeter artillery shells and related equipment worth $147.5 million.
Blinken used the same emergency authority to fast-track the $106 million sale of some 14,000 tank shells to Israel on December 9.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is asked about reports of possible progress toward a new agreement for the release of hostages.
“Hamas has issued all kinds of ultimatums that we’ve not accepted,” he says at his press conference, noting that if a viable deal is possible, “it will be carried out.”
Right now, he adds carefully, “We see a possibility, maybe, for movement.” But he also stresses: “I don’t want to raise exaggerated expectations.”
In answer to another question, Netanyahu says, as he has done often since the Hamas onslaught of October 7, that he will not resign: “The only thing I’m going to resign from is Hamas. That’s what I’m dealing with.”
He says the full investigation of the failures surrounding October 7 will take place only “at the end of the fighting,” although some lessons have “already been learned.”
He is reminded that 10 years ago, in an interview on the Eretz Nehederet satirical show, he said he would want to be judged historically for his contribution to the security of Israel, and is asked if that is still the case.
“History will judge,” he says, stressing that he works to “ensure Israel is strong economically, strong militarily, strong diplomatically.”
“In the years I’ve led Israel, it got much stronger,” he says, citing the fact that “we can manage a multi-front campaign” that will soon have lasted 90 days.
Support for Netanyahu, already sliding before the war over his handling of the controversial judicial overhaul, has plunged since the Hamas-led October 7 massacres, in which terrorists rampaged through southern communities and military posts, killing 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and taking some 240 hostages to Gaza.
According to a Channel 13 news survey published earlier this month, 70 percent of Israelis believe Netanyahu should resign as prime minister.
Among them, 41% believe he should quit at the end of the war, while 31% believe he should do so immediately. Only 19% of respondents said he is fit to continue in the position, while 9% answered that they didn’t know what he should do.
Asked a final question at the press conference, regarding when Israel will hold municipal elections, he says a decision will be made tomorrow, and it is likely the elections will be postponed again to the end of February. “That’ll be my recommendation,” he says.
Cabinet secretary Yossi Fuchs told members of the war cabinet during a meeting earlier this week that the high-level forum cannot hold discussions on postwar planning for Gaza because this would spark a coalition crisis, Channel 13 reports.
War cabinet minister Benny Gantz fumed at the remark, saying fear of a coalition crisis is not a reason to put off such critical discussions. “The army must know what is planned [for the next phase of the war] in order to prepare for the continuation of the fighting,” Gantz is quoted as having said.
“Since when do we not discuss such things in the war cabinet? Where does it say that it is forbidden to formulate a position on a matter before it is discussed in an expanded forum?” he reportedly added.
After Netanyahu put off the issue for over two months, he agreed to hold a war cabinet meeting to discuss postwar Gaza planning this past Thursday. The decision infuriated far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who demanded that the issue be discussed in the wider security cabinet, of which he is a member, so that he could weigh in.
Smotrich is understood to be even more adamantly opposed than Netanyahu to the PA returning to governing Gaza in any form, which would leave few options other than the IDF reoccupying the enclave — something that both the premier and the security establishment are against.
Netanyahu caved to the pressure and canceled the war cabinet meeting on Thursday, but no date has been set for the security cabinet to discuss the issue.
The older brother of Ofer Calderon, who was injured during the October 7 Hamas onslaught and is still held hostage in Gaza, addresses a rally this evening at Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square, says how much he misses his younger brother, “his laugh, his smile, his energies, the long conversations.”
“Our lives were stopped on October 7 and will never be the same,” says Nissan Calderon. “And until he returns, we can’t rebuild our new lives.”
Rotem Calderon, one of Ofer Calderon’s four children, says, “I can’t sleep without my dad.” Ofer Calderon was taken captive with two of his younger children, who have since been released.
“They came back and tell about the terrors there in captivity,” says Rotem Calderon.
“I turned 19 in October,” says Rotem. “I tried to celebrate that day and then was told my grandmother and cousin were killed. I haven’t mourned them yet. We have to yell and not just for the hostage families — for all of the nation of Israel.
“Am Yisrael Chai — the people of Israel lives, but we won’t live until all the hostages return home,” Rotem continues. “The whole world will celebrate the end of the year — I have one wish for this year, to celebrate it with Dad.”
The National Security Council has held eight separate discussions on how to handle the “day after” Israel’s combat operations in Gaza end, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says during a press conference in Tel Aviv, adding that the issue will be raised during this week’s security cabinet meeting.
Earlier this month, Channel 13 reported that Netanyahu had set up a small, secret team of top allies and representatives from the defense establishment to discuss postwar plans, which have been a source of tension between Jerusalem and Washington.
Netanyahu on Thursday night canceled a war cabinet meeting at the last minute that was meant to address postwar arrangements for the Gaza Strip, apparently due to pressure from his far-right coalition partners including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
Netanyahu has to date refused to hold any meetings on the matter, reportedly because he does not want to reveal the expected role that Palestinian Authority officials will have in managing Gaza’s civil affairs after the war.
Asked about the canceled meeting, he says the war cabinet instead held “a different debate” devoted to what he said was “the most important national security issue.” He did not elaborate.
“As regards the day after,” the prime minister says, “first let’s get to the day after… First, let’s destroy Hamas.”
His own opinion, he reiterates, is that Gaza after the war must be demilitarized, with subsequent civil governance that does finance or encourage terrorism: “Not Fatahstan and not Hamastan,” he says.
National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi recently implied that the government may allow a reformed Palestinian Authority a role in governing Gaza after the war, but this was later walked back by an Israeli official who told reporters that Hanegbi’s words had been “misunderstood.”
Asked about reports that he has prevented Defense Minister Yoav Gallant from meeting with the Mossad and Shin Bet chiefs without his presence, Netanyahu says “I’ve not prevented anyone from meeting.”
On other questions, he dismisses as “a joke” reports that Qatar funded a Likud election campaign to the tune of millions of dollars in 2013, and funded a 2018 campaign of his own. “Not a single shekel” was received from Qatar, he says.
He says “it would be a mistake to raise taxes” to help alleviate the costs of the war.
He repeats that if Hezbollah wants to widen the fighting, escalating the war, “it will get war” in return. The problem in the north can be solved, he says, “if possible diplomatically, if not then by other means.”
Asked about the transfer of funds to settlements, he denies the reporter’s question about whether he has “lost control” of Bezalel Smotrich, says no sections of the populace are cut off from the government budget, and objects to what he says is selective criticism of that part of the populace.
He also says the economy is resilient, and refers to Intel’s new agreement with the government.
Answering questions at his press conference, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slams former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett for publicly discussing Israeli attacks on Iran.
“This is extremely irresponsible. You don’t do that. And he doesn’t have the authority to do it — only a sitting prime minister does, and I would do that sparingly as well,” Netanyahu says during a press conference at the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv.
Bennett on Thursday revealed that as prime minister, he had directed Israel’s security forces to strike Iran on two occasions in 2022, in an op-ed published by The Wall Street Journal.
On another question, Netanyahu says the Philadelphi Route, which runs the 14 kilometers (8.7 miles) all along the Gaza-Egypt border, “has to be in our hands” in order to ensure that Gaza is demilitarized and remains demilitarized.
Asked about a leaked report that the High Court is set to narrowly rule to strike down the so-called “reasonableness law,” the only element of his government’s currently frozen judicial overhaul to have become law so far, Netanyahu says issues that divide the public should be “put aside” during the war. His comment would seem to imply that he thinks the justices should delay their ruling.
Later, asked why he doesn’t announce that he is scrapping the entire overhaul, he indicates that he will not do so. “We’ll come back to all these issues” after the war, he says, as is appropriate in a democracy. And others should do the same. “Let’s stay out of that minefield while we’re fighting for the home.”
Kicking off a press conference amid the war against Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel is “fighting on all fronts.”
Netanyahu says more time is needed to win and says the campaign will last many more months. He vows the the fighting will continue until all of the goals of the offensive are achieved, chiefly destroying Hamas and bringing the hostages home.
Gaza “will not be a threat to Israel,” he vows, and ultimately there will be no terrorist elements there.
He refers to international pressure to end the war before the goals are achieved, and expressed appreciation for US support in that context, including at the UN Security Council last week and through ongoing weapons supplies.
He says the IDF is operating to ensure “maximal protection” for its soldiers.
“Over 8,000 terrorists have been killed,” and Hamas’s military capabilities are being destroyed “step by step.”
The premier stresses he is also committed to restoring security along the northern border amid repeated Hezbollah attacks, so the residents who were evacuated from there can return home.
He also declares, “If Hezbollah widens the fighting, it will absorb strikes it never dreamed of. And so, too, Iran,” he says.
“We will fight by all means until we have restored security for the residents of the north.”
Iran leads the “axis of evil” and the aggression against Israel “on the various fronts,” he says, and threatens the entire free world.
In that context, he vows to “do everything, but everything, to prevent Iran from attaining nuclear weapons.”
IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari says many of Hezbollah’s rockets fired at Israel have fallen short inside Lebanon, including around 80 percent of the projectiles fired yesterday.
“We are continuing to attack and damage Hezbollah’s deployment in southern Lebanon. The area of southern Lebanon will never be the same again,” Hagari says in an evening press conference.
“Throughout the day, several launches from Lebanon into Israel were detected. Many of Hezbollah’s launches fall in Lebanese territory. Eighty percent of Hezbollah’s rockets yesterday fell in Lebanese territory,” he says.
Hagari says Hezbollah terror chief Hassan Nasrallah “is harming the state of Lebanon and endangering its future for the sake of his friends in Hamas, and his patron in Iran.”
80% of the launches fired by Hezbollah at Israel yesterday fell inside Lebanon. Not only does Hezbollah continue to violate @UN SC Resolution 1701, the terrorist organization also actively puts Lebanese lives at risk. pic.twitter.com/rGiVtjzKXk
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) December 29, 2023
Pvt. Ori Megidish, a soldier who was rescued from Hamas captivity in the Gaza Strip by the IDF and Shin Bet some two months ago, speaks in a video statement aired by the military during an evening press conference.
“My name is Ori Magidish, and exactly two months have passed since I was rescued by the IDF and Shin Bet from Hamas captivity. So many things happened in my life in these two months, and meanwhile, my friends are still being held in Gaza,” she says.
“Hamas kidnapped me on the seventh of October from the Nahal Oz post, where I served as an observer and monitored the border with Gaza every day, in order to protect my country,” Megidish says.
“They kidnapped us while some of us were still wearing pajamas. They murdered my best friends and many others,” she continues.
“I was held captive for 23 days, days that felt like years. My friends are still in captivity, held alongside women, men, children, old people, and sick people, while their family members are still waiting for their release,” Megidish says.
“Despite the pain, loneliness, and fear I felt when I was there, I had the hope that I would be rescued. I pray that my friends who are still in captivity have the same hope,” she says.
“While the world is celebrating New Year’s Eve, there are 129 hostages who cannot celebrate on their own. We must do everything, everything to bring everyone home,” Megidish adds.
היום פגשתי את החיילת אורי מגידיש שחולצה על ידי צה״ל ושב״כ משבי חמאס לאחר שנחטפה ב-7 באוקטובר ממוצב נחל עוז בו שירתה כתצפיתנית.
שיחה קצרה עם אורי מספיקה כדי להבין כמה כוחות ותעצומות נפש יש בה, כאלה שלמרות כל מה שעברה מחזקות גם את האחר >> pic.twitter.com/mfkfIDdfxR
— דובר צה״ל דניאל הגרי – Daniel Hagari (@IDFSpokesperson) December 27, 2023
IDF troops have encountered vast quantities of weapons manufactured by China being used in Gaza, Channel 12 news reports.
The report, which is unsourced, says Israel’s political leadership has been shown examples of the weaponry involved.
It says “nobody thinks” the weapons have been delivered on Chinese ships. But the quantities of weaponry involved indicate that they have been brought to Gaza in an organized supply process, rather than by ad hoc smuggling, the report says.
Rotem Telem, a Tel Aviv resident, says she came to the protest at Habima Square out of a profound sense of “despair and fear” over the situation in the country, specifically the ongoing deaths of Israelis soldiers and Palestinian civilians in Gaza amid the war against Hamas.
“People on both sides are dying for no purpose. I’m afraid they’re telling us we’re winning a war which we lost on October 7,” says Telem despondently.
“We can’t win this war. You can’t change paradigms with war. Children dying is not a policy,” she continues.
Telem says she wants immediate elections to be held and insists that holding an election campaign despite the ongoing war is possible, but says she doesn’t actually support any of the likely candidates.
“Gantz isn’t a solution, Lapid is too right-wing, but they would at least be able to renew the proper functioning of government departments which have been gutted by Netanyahu, and restore the state so we can continue onwards,” she says.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and war cabinet member Benny Gantz rejected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s request to hold a joint press conference with him this evening, according to Hebrew media reports. Netanyahu is set to hold the press conference without them shortly.
A source in Gantz’s National Unity party tells the Walla news site that “there is no special reason to hold the [press] conference. We did not see it as right to take part.”
Channel 13 news attributes the refusal by Gantz and Gallant to their anger at Netanyahu for preventing the war cabinet from deliberating the issue of “the day after” in Gaza, along with concerns the premier will again make political statements at the upcoming press conference.
The IDF details the operations of the 188th Armored Brigade in central Gaza’s al-Bureij camp, including an incident in which troops battled Hamas gunmen hiding in a school that was being used as a shelter for Palestinian civilians.
On Thursday, the 188th Brigade received intelligence of dozens of Hamas operatives hiding in a school where civilians were sheltering.
“The terrorists took advantage of the presence of civilians in the school area in order to fire RPGs and small arms at the forces, while hiding behind women and children,” the IDF says.
The IDF says the troops raided the school, capturing the operatives who were holed up inside and killing others near the complex.
In other operations in al-Bureij, the IDF says the 188th Brigade has encountered many more Hamas gunmen who attacked forces from civilian sites.
The brigade has also located and destroyed three rocket launchers and nine tunnel shafts, the IDF adds.
The IDF details the operations of the 188th Armored Brigade in central Gaza’s al-Bureij camp, including an incident in which troops battled Hamas gunmen hiding in a school being used as a shelter for Palestinian civilians.
On Thursday, the 188th Brigade received intelligence of… pic.twitter.com/n7vw4GfDjG
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) December 30, 2023
CHRISTIANSTED, US Virgin Islands — Yemen’s Houthi rebels show no signs of ending their “reckless” attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea, the top commander of US naval forces in the Middle East says today, even as more nations join the international maritime mission to protect vessels in the vital waterway and trade traffic begins to pick up.
Since Operation Prosperity Guardian was announced just over 10 days ago, 1,200 merchant ships have traveled through the Red Sea region, and none has been hit by drone or missile strikes, Vice Adm. Brad Cooper says in an Associated Press interview. He says additional countries are expected to sign on. Denmark was the latest, announcing yesterday it plans to send a frigate to the mission that US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced during a visit to Bahrain, where the Navy’s 5th Fleet is based, saying that “this is an international challenge that demands collective action.”
“I expect in the coming weeks we’re going to get additional countries,” Cooper says, noting Denmark’s recent announcement.
Cooper says the coalition is in direct communication with commercial ships to provide guidance on “maneuvering and the best practices to avoid being attacked,” and working closely with the shipping industry to coordinate security.
An international task force had been set up in April 2022 to improve maritime security in the region. But Cooper says Operation Prosperity Guardian has more ships and a persistent presence to assist vessels.
Since the operation started, the Houthis have stepped up their use of anti-ship ballistic missiles, Cooper says. “We are clear-eyed that the Houthi reckless attacks will likely continue,” he says.
The Houthis threatened to attack any vessel they believe is either going to or coming from Israel. That has escalated to apparently any vessel, with container ships and oil tankers flagged to countries such as Norway and Liberia being attacked or drawing missile fire.
The shipping company Maersk had announced earlier that it had decided to re-route its ships that have been paused for days outside the strait and Red Sea, and send them around Africa instead. Maersk announced December 25 that it was going to resume sending ships through the strait, citing the operation. Cooper said another shipping company had also resumed using the route.
“Commerce is definitely flowing,” Cooper says.
Amid a somber atmosphere, hundreds of people turn up to a protest at Tel Aviv’s Habima Square to demand immediate elections and “a better Israel” in the words of one speaker.
A central exhibition at Habima Square commemorates the victims of the October 7 atrocities and states, “Not in vain, we promise.”
Protestors demanding the return of all the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza hold up banners urging the government not to abandon those who were not freed in the hostage deal last month.
Close by, a protest is held demanding an end to the war against Hamas and Israel’s military control over the West Bank.
“This is our life with Netanyahu in power. Catastrophe after catastrophe after catastrophe,” chant demonstrators.
The IDF says it carried out “widespread” strikes on Hezbollah sites in Kfarkela in southern Lebanon.
According to the IDF, the strikes were carried in two waves on a series of sites belonging to the terror group this morning and afternoon.
The IDF says Kfarkela is a Hezbollah stronghold, where the terror group “uses the infrastructure in the area for terror purposes, exploiting the civilian population and using it as a human shield for its operations.”
According to the IDF, many rocket and missile attacks against Israel have been carried out from the village.
The IDF also hit targets in Bint Jbeil and Marwahin in southern Lebanon, footage released by the army shows.
The IDF says it carried out "widespread" strikes on Hezbollah sites in Kfarkela in southern Lebanon.
According to the IDF, the strikes were carried in two waves on a series of sites belonging to the terror group this morning and afternoon.
The IDF says Kfarkela is a Hezbollah… pic.twitter.com/dZu79YL2v2
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) December 30, 2023
Government Companies Authority director Michal Rosenbaum resigns following a months-long battle with Regional Cooperation Minister David Amsalem, citing his ministry’s pending takeover of her department on Monday.
In her resignation letter, Rosenbaum tells Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that she is leaving her position “due to the improper actions” of Amsalem, arguing that his behavior had prevented her from carrying out her duties properly.
In Amsalem’s eyes, “the government companies are not a public resource but a ‘pool of jobs,’ which should be used to accumulate power and political status,” she argues, asserting that he “exerted tremendous pressure on me and the authority to support the appointment of political activists” while the prime minister “chose to ignore, to remain silent and to practically enable the conduct of the minister.”
The Government Companies Authority was traditionally part of the Finance Ministry, but Amsalem insisted it come under his control as part of the agreement he made with Netanyahu to join the cabinet.
Amsalem has been pushing for Rosenbaum’s termination for months, claiming that she was unsuitable for the position because she had disobeyed his orders and bullied employees.
In response, Rosenbaum charged that Amsalem was working to make illegitimate and political appointments at dozens of government companies.
Responding to Rosenbaum’s resignation, Interior Minister Moshe Arbel states that he “regrets” her decision, calling her a “dedicated public servant.” Opposition Leader Yair Lapid tweets that her exit is a “victory for corruption, for the culture of the jobbers, for the appointments of associates and the crushing of the civil service.”
The IDF announces that a reservist of the 7018th Battalion was seriously wounded in the car-ramming attack earlier today in the southern West Bank.
Troops shot the alleged assailant, following the ramming near an army post close to the al-Fawwar refugee camp, south of Hebron.
The IDF announces the death of a soldier killed during fighting in the Gaza Strip over the weekend, and another who succumbed to his wounds from earlier fighting, bringing the toll of slain troops since the start of the ground offensive against Hamas to 170.
They are:
Master Sgt. (res.) Constantine Sushko, 30, of the Combat Engineering Corps’ 7086th Battalion, from Tel Aviv.
Cpt. Harel Ittah, 22, a team commander in the Givati Brigade’s reconnaissance unit, from Netanya.
Sushko was killed in central Gaza over the weekend, during a battle that seriously wounded another reservist.
Ittah was seriously wounded on December 22 in southern Gaza, and succumbed to his wounds over the weekend, the IDF says
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will hold his weekly press conference at the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv at 8:30 p.m. tonight.
During a phone call yesterday with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, war cabinet minister Benny Gantz says he stressed that the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah must be distanced from the border.
“The State of Israel cannot reconcile with such [a] threat, and Germany together with the international community have an important role to play in ensuring such [a] threat is removed,” Gantz writes on X, formerly Twitter.
He says the two also “discussed the growing threat the Iranian-led Axis of Terror poses to global stability, particularly in the Red Sea and other places around the world.”
I spoke yesterday with Chancellor of Germany Olaf Scholz @Bundeskanzler.
I conveyed my profound appreciation for Germany’s and the Chancellor’s continued support for the State of Israel during these challenging times, and their important efforts to release the hostages.
I…
— בני גנץ – Benny Gantz (@gantzbe) December 30, 2023
An IDF spokesman reveals the aftermath of a Hezbollah missile attack on a church near the Lebanon border earlier this week.
On Tuesday, Hezbollah fired a missile at the St. Mary’s Greek Orthodox Church in Iqrit, moderately wounding a civilian in his 80s who was near the building. The Iran-backed terror group then launched an anti-tank guided missile as the man was evacuated by Israeli troops, wounding nine of them.
In a video shared by Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, damage can be seen to a structure right outside the entrance to the church, along with debris on the ground.
— Lt. Col. Richard Hecht (@LtColRichard) December 30, 2023
Syria’s state-run SANA news agency, citing a military source, says “material losses” were caused in the alleged Israeli airstrike on Aleppo.
It says the Israeli fighter jets launched their missiles from over the Mediterranean Sea, west of Latakia, hitting several sites in Aleppo.
The report does not elaborate on the sites that were hit, but other media outlets in Syria say Aleppo International Airport was targeted in the strike.
The IDF says a fighter jet and other aircraft struck three terror cells in southern Lebanon today.
Additionally, the IDF says it carried out strikes against Hezbollah infrastructure and shelled areas in southern Lebanon with artillery.
The strikes come amid Hezbollah rocket, missile and drone attacks on northern Israel today.
The IDF says air defenses also intercepted a “suspicious aerial target” that entered Israeli airspace from Lebanon earlier.
מסוק קרב וכלי-טיס של חיל-האוויר תקפו מוקדם יותר היום שלוש חוליות מחבלים בשטח לבנון.
בנוסף, חיל-האוויר תקף תשתית מבצעית של ארגון הטרור חיזבאללה וכן תקף בירי ארטילרי הבוקר מספר מרחבים בשטח לבנון.
במהלך היום זוהו מספר שיגורים משטח לבנון לעבר שטח מדינת ישראל. pic.twitter.com/ym9xCUNvmK
— Israeli Air Force (@IAFsite) December 30, 2023
Syrian media outlets are reporting on an alleged Israeli airstrike in the Aleppo area in northern Syria.
The pro-government Sham FM radio says air defenses are engaging the strike over Aleppo International Airport.
It does not immediately report damage to the airport, but images circulating on social media show large plumes of smoke in the area.
#Syria: at least 6 successive explosions were heard amidst Israeli bombardment on #Aleppo International Airport (which didn't reopen since last strike in October). Looks like a massive strike. pic.twitter.com/UjpiavpXGE
— Qalaat Al Mudiq (@QalaatAlMudiq) December 30, 2023
Hezbollah claims responsibility for firing rockets at Israel after warning sirens were activated in several towns near the Lebanon border.
Police launch an investigation after four people are shot and wounded in the central city of Ramle.
The four Ramle residents are taken to a local hospital for treatment as police dispatch officers to search for suspects and gather evidence from the scene.
Incoming rocket alert sirens are activated in Kiryat Shmona and two other Israeli communities near the Lebanon border.
The IDF says troops of the 7th Armored Brigade have advanced further in southern Gaza, while raiding Hamas sites in Khan Younis, including the headquarters of the terror group’s intelligence division in the city.
The intelligence headquarters was responsible for all of Hamas’s intelligence activity in the Khan Younis area, the IDF says, adding that it also located a command center belonging to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the same complex.
According to the IDF, the troops recovered “very valuable” intelligence materials from the sites.
Meanwhile, troops of the Givati Brigade raided several more Hamas sites in southern Gaza, killing operatives in the process with sniper fire and tank shelling, the IDF says.
It says that the Givati troops also directed several airstrikes on Hamas gunmen in the area, along with other infrastructure belonging to the terror group.
Before the troops maneuvered deeper into Khan Younis, the IDF says the 98th Division and Air Force carried out some 50 strikes on targets in the area, including tunnels and other infrastructure used by Hamas to attack troops.
One Israeli is wounded in a car-ramming attack at a military position in the southern West Bank, the military and medics say.
The Israel Defense Forces says the attack took place near the al-Fawwar refugee camp south of Hebron, not far from the site of a car-ramming attack yesterday in which five soldiers were wounded.
It says troops “neutralized” the assailant in the attack a short while ago.
The wounded person is fully conscious, according to first responders.
דיווח ראשוני: פצוע בינוני בפיגוע דריסה סמוך לאל פוואר בהר חברון. המחבל חוסל.
קרוב מאוד למקום פיגוע הדריסה אתמול, שבו נפצעו חמישה חיילים – בהם אחד במצב קשה pic.twitter.com/elRMKjuWtD— Carmel Dangor כרמל דנגור (@carmeldangor) December 30, 2023
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps denies a report that 11 of its members were killed in an alleged Israeli airstrike in Syria.
The unverified report by the Saudi Al-Hadath TV channel claimed 11 senior IRGC members were killed in an Israeli strike targeting Syria’s Damascus International Airport late Thursday.
IRGC spokesman Brig. Gen. Ramezan Sharif calls the report “baseless” in a statement carried by Iranian media.
Sirens sounded a short time ago in northern Israel, including in the communities of Snir, Kibbutz Dan, Dafna and Ghajar.
There are no reports of rocket impact.
The Wall Street Journal reports that almost half of Gaza’s buildings have been damaged or destroyed in the war there, a figure that also accounts for almost 70 percent of its 439,000 homes.
The report cites analysis of satellite photography of the Strip and other remote sensing methods.
The paper noted buildings hit include factories, houses of prayer, schools, shopping malls and hotels. Israel has said many schools, mosques and other buildings have been hit after being used for military purposes and as bases of operation by Gaza terror groups.
WSJ adds that only eight of Gaza’s 36 hospitals can accept patients, and that most basic infrastructure including water, electricity and communications is demolished.
“The word ‘Gaza’ is going to go down in history along with Dresden and other famous cities that have been bombed,” Robert Pape, a political scientist at the University of Chicago who has written about the history of aerial bombing, tells the paper.
Citing the Shelter Cluster, a group of aid groups led by the Norwegian Refugee Council, it says “it will take at least a year just to clear the rubble,” in Gaza after the war, “a task complicated by having to safely remove unexploded ordnance.”
Rebuilding Gaza’s housing, according to the Shelter Cluster, “will take seven to 10 years,” if the $3.5 billion needed to do so is made available.
Three overnight airstrikes on eastern Syria near a strategic border crossing with Iraq killed six Iran-backed militants, two members of Iraqi militia groups say.
Washington did not immediately comment on the strike, though it has announced some were planned on Iran-backed militia positions following the surge of attacks over the past two months.
The strikes on the border region of Boukamal came hours after an umbrella group of Iran-backed Iraqi militants — known as the Islamic Resistance — claimed an attack on a US military base in the city of Erbil in northern Iraq. The group has conducted over a hundred attacks on US positions in Iraq and eastern Syria since the onset of the Hamas-Israel war on October 7.
Four of the killed were from Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah terror group while the other two militants were Syrian, the Iraqi militia members said. Another two were injured, they added.
Turkish authorities detain 189 people in 37 provinces suspected of ties to the Islamic State group, Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya says on social media platform X.
Authorities have ramped up operations against Islamic State and Kurdish militants in recent weeks, after Kurdish militants detonated a bomb near government buildings in Ankara on October 1.
Offering a morning update on its operations in Gaza, the military says the air force and navy struck cells of terror operatives and infrastructure throughout the Strip.
It says forces in Gaza City eliminated dozens of terror operatives over the past day in various battles, with air force assistance.
Troops also destroyed two buildings used by Hamas in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, while confiscating large amounts of military equipment including bombs, guns and communications equipment.
Palestinians reported fierce Israeli tank fire and aerial bombing in Khan Younis in southern Gaza overnight, and strikes appear to be continuing this morning. Planes also carried out a series of air strikes on the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, according to medics and Palestinian journalists.
Israeli forces have been pounding Khan Younis in preparation for an anticipated further advance into the main southern city, swaths of which they captured in early December.
כוחות צה"ל ממשיכים לפעול במרחבי רצועת עזה. הלוחמים מנהלים קרבות עזים מול מחבלים, חיל האוויר תוקף חוליות ותשתיות טרור בהכוונה של הכוחות ולוחמי זרוע הים מסייעים לכוחות המתמרנים ברצועה בתקיפות ואש מהים >> pic.twitter.com/wZdcxKDT8D
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) December 30, 2023
Reporting on the Israeli military’s failures on October 7, The New York Times says, based on interviews with current and former officials, that the IDF has no plan to handle a massive Hamas assault on the country as was seen on that day.
“There was no defense plan for a surprise attack,” Amir Avivi, a former deputy head of the Gaza Division, tells the paper.
“The army does not prepare itself for things it thinks are impossible,” adds former national security adviser Yaakov Amidror.
The report paints a picture of a military that for long hours failed to understand the scale of the attack, responding slowly and inefficiently, sending too small teams that were ill equipped to deal with a mass assault.
It also highlights Hamas’s attack on the IDF’s Gaza Division base at Re’im as key to the assault’s success, crippling the unit responsible for coordinating all military activity in the region.
Lacking clear directives or orders, many units resorted to using apps such as WhatsApp and Telegram to glean information on targets and people in need of assistance.
Israel is expected to launch a major investigation into the failures that enabled Oct. 7 when the war in Gaza concludes.
Sharing the New York Times report on sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas terrorists on October 7, American actor David Schwimmer (of ‘Friends’ fame) wonders: “Why do so many refuse to believe — despite all the evidence on camera and in testimony — the women, children and men brutally assaulted by terrorists on Oct. 7th?”
On Instagram, the actor laments that it’s clear some people’s “activism, their advocacy, is conditional. They’ll fight like hell for ALL victims of sexual violence — unless they’re Jews.
“For many of them, denying it even happened is a convenient way of avoiding compassion and personal responsibility.”
One of Hamas’s senior officials in Lebanon says there have been no talks regarding a hostage deal in exchange for another temporary truce amid reports in Hebrew media regarding progress toward that end.
Osama Hamdan tells Al Jazeera that Hamas has informed mediators that the terror group’s priority is a permanent ceasefire and that there is currently no talk of releasing hostages before the fighting stops.
The Hamas official goes on to accuse Israel of leaking false information in order to fend off mounting domestic pressure on the government for a hostage deal.
Russia launches a massive air attack over Ukraine, killing at least 30 people and wounding scores across the country in the fiercest assault since the first days of the war nearly two years ago.
Schools, a maternity hospital, shopping arcades and blocks of flats were among the buildings hit in the barrage, say Ukrainian officials.
The attacks — during which a Russian missile passed through Polish airspace — trigger international condemnation and fresh promises of military support to Ukraine, which has been fighting off invading Russian troops since late February 2022.
“Today Russia hit us with almost everything it has in its arsenal,” President Volodymyr Zelensky says.
Ukraine’s military estimated Russia had launched 158 missiles and drones on Ukraine and 114 of them had been destroyed.
Air force spokesman Yuriy Ignat tells AFP that this was a “record number” of missiles and “the most massive missile attack” of the war, excluding the early days of constant bombardment.
Russia tried to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defenses across most major cities, launching a wave of Shahed attack drones followed by missiles of numerous types fired from planes and from Russian-controlled territory.
Interior Minister Igor Klymenko announces on Telegram: “As of now, 30 people have been killed and more than 160 wounded as a result of Russia’s massive attack on Ukrainian territory in the morning.”
Russian authorities say a strike on a residential building in Belgorod, 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, had left one dead and four wounded.
A total of 13 missiles were intercepted over the Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine and a “drone-type aircraft” was destroyed over the Bryansk region further to the northwest, according to Russian authorities.
Eighty-one trucks carrying humanitarian aid entered Gaza through Israel’s Kerem Shalom and Egypt’s Rafah crossings today, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says.
Kerem Shalom had been closed for three days until today due to what OCHA says were security incidents, including an IDF drone strike, the seizure of aid by desperate locals and unannounced and uncoordinated prisoner and casualty transfers from Israel.
“The volume of aid remains woefully inadequate,” OCHA says in a statement. “The Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator ‘that this is an impossible situation for the people of Gaza and for those trying to help them. The fighting must stop.'”
Israel maintains that it is inspecting hundreds of trucks every day and that the reason for the bottleneck is the failure of UN facilitators to keep up with the pace. The UN has argued that mass aid delivery is impossible amid the IDF’s aerial and ground operations in Gaza.
Israel reopened its Kerem Shalom Crossing on December 17 for aid to enter Gaza directly from Israel for the first time since the war’s outbreak.
However, the move hasn’t led to the desired increase in aid delivery.
Two hundred trucks entered Gaza each day of last month’s week-long truce. The daily figure has not come close to that number since. Before the war and the massive humanitarian crisis that it has sparked, roughly 500 trucks of aid were entering Gaza each day.
NEW YORK (JTA) — A US citizen living in Egypt sought to join the al-Shabaab terrorist organization and wage violent jihad against America and its allies in the wake of Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, federal prosecutors say.
Karrem Nasr, 23, of Lawrenceville, New Jersey, was arrested December 14 after flying from Egypt to Nairobi, Kenya, where prosecutors say he was planning to meet with al-Shabaab members before traveling to train in Somalia, where the terror group is based.
Nasr was returned to the US yesterday and is scheduled to appear today before a federal magistrate in Manhattan. He is charged with attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
Court records don’t list a lawyer who could speak on Nasr’s behalf.
Nasr, also known as Ghareeb Al-Muhajir, expressed his desire to join al-Shabaab in online postings and communications with a paid FBI informant who was posing as a facilitator for terrorist organizations, according to a criminal complaint unsealed today.
Nasr told the informant “the No. 1 enemy is America,” which he described as the “head of the snake,” the complaint says. He posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that jihad was “coming soon to a US location near you,” the complaint says. The post, under the name “Egyptian Muslim,” included airplane, bomb, and fire emojis.
Nasr, who moved to Egypt in July, started communicating with the FBI informant in November via an encrypted messaging app, according to the criminal complaint. He told the informant that he had been thinking of waging jihad “for a long time” but that he was “not capable of doing it” before Hamas attacked Israel, the complaint says.
“After the October 7th events, I felt that something has changed,” Nasr told the informant, according to the complaint. “To the better, I mean. I felt that pride and dignity came back to the Muslims.”
