March 12: Israel confirms UN aid convoy entered north Gaza via new military road

Palestinian teen shot dead by cops in Jerusalem clashes; police: He shot a firework toward them

A Palestinian teenager from a refugee camp on the outskirts of Jerusalem has died, after he was wounded during clashes with Border Police.

The Israeli police do not confirm the death but say violent riots broke out in Shuafat for the second consecutive night and that during the unrest, a single shot was fired by an officer toward a suspect “who endangered the forces while firing aerial fireworks in their direction.”

“The suspect was apprehended, arrested, and transferred for medical treatment,” the statement says.

The teen, 13-year-old Rami Hamdan al-Halhuli, was later pronounced dead at a local hospital.

תיעוד האירוע בשועפאט@inbartvizer pic.twitter.com/lbGOz889PF

— החדשות – N12 (@N12News) March 12, 2024

Video of the incident shows him holding up a firecracker after it was lit by another young Palestinian, before falling to the ground as an apparent gunshot is heard. The firework is launched as he’s falling.

The Palestinian Red Crescent says it treated five wounded by Israeli fire.

COGAT confirms UN aid convoy entered north Gaza via new military road

A UN aid convoy enters north Gaza via a new military road used by the IDF along the Gaza border, March 11, 2024. (Israel Defense Forces)

Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories confirms that a convoy of six aid trucks entered the northern Gaza Strip via a new military road early Tuesday.

The route, stretching from the border near the southern community of Be’eri to the coast of the Strip, is used by the IDF to carry out operations in northern and central Gaza.

COGAT says the trucks, carrying aid from the UN’s World Food Programme, entered via the new route “as part of an experimental pilot in order to prevent Hamas from taking over the aid.”

It says the aid was “thoroughly” inspected by Israeli authorities at the Kerem Shalom border crossing on the southern Gaza border, before entering via the Strip’s north.

COGAT adds that the results of the trial run will be presented to Israel’s political echelon, which has ordered the move.

New poll shows anti-Netanyahu bloc with 74 seats, Smotrich’s Religious Zionism still out

Likud chairman MK Benjamin Netanyahu arrives for coalition talks in Jerusalem on November 6, 2022, after his bloc won a majority in the November 1 elections. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

A new poll aired by Channel 12 tonight shows that a potential coalition led by Benny Gantz would secure 69 seats of the Knesset’s 129 seats if elections were held today, compared to a bloc led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu which garnered 46 seats,

Hadash-Ta’al, which is non-aligned, would garner five seats, according to the poll. This would give the anti-Netanyahu bloc 74 seats in total if elections were held today.

The poll, which surveyed 504 people and with a margin of error of 4.4%, was conducted before tonight’s announcement by Gideon Sa’ar that he was splitting his New Hope party from the National Unity faction, dissolving his alliance with Gantz’s Blue and White party. The National Unity alliance joined Netanyahu’s coalition as an emergency measure at the start of the war and Gantz became a member of the war cabinet.

According to the poll aired tonight, the National Unity faction would garner 35 seats, while the Likud would earn enough votes for 19 seats. It projects Yesh Atid with 14 seats, Yisrael Beytenu with 10, the Arab-majority Islamist party Ra’am with five seats and Meretz also with five. These would form part of the anti-Netanyahu bloc.

Ultra-orthodox parties Shas and United Torah Judaism, currently in Netanyahu’s coalition, would get 11 and nine seats, respectively. The far-right Otzma Yehudit party, led by Itamar Ben Gvir, would secure nine seats, according to the poll, while Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party would not pass the 3.25 percent electoral threshold necessary to enter the Knesset, as projected in multiple recent polls.

In the last elections in 2022, Smotrich and Ben Gvir ran together, receiving 14 seats. Current polls have the two running separately. The Labor and Balad parties would also not make it into the Knesset if elections were held today, the poll shows.

When asked who they would like to see as prime minister, more respondents — 41% — said Gantz over Netanyahu with just 29% of the votes.

An overwhelming majority of 92% of respondents would like to see a state commission of inquiry into the October 7 failures. Almost half — 49% — want a state commission of inquiry now, while 43% say they would like to see an inquiry after the war. Just 2% say such an inquiry is not needed and 6% said they don’t know.

UN uses new land route from Israel to reach northern Gaza

The United Nations used a new land route today to deliver food to northern Gaza for the first time in three weeks as global pressure grows on Israel to allow more access to the coastal enclave amid a looming famine.

Jamie McGoldrick, UN aid coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, tells Reuters that a World Food Programme (WFP) convoy had used an Israeli military road that runs alongside the Gaza border fence to reach the enclave’s north.

Enough food for 25,000 people was delivered to Gaza City in the early hours of Tuesday, says WFP spokesperson Shaza Moghraby. It was WFP’s first delivery to the north since Feb. 20 and “proves that moving food by road is possible.”

“We are hoping to scale up, we need access to be regular and consistent especially with people in northern Gaza on the brink of famine,” says Moghraby. “We need entry points directly to the north.”

The UN has warned that at least 576,000 people in Gaza – one-quarter of the population – are on the brink of famine.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said earlier that the United States was working with Israel to increase the amount of aid “by ground both through Kerem Shalom and through a new crossing, where we had the first trucks get in last night and we need to see more where that came from.”

Limited aid via land has been reaching southern Gaza through the Rafah crossing from Egypt and Kerem Shalom from Israel.

‘I have not resumed my life, I don’t know where I am’: Rescued hostage describes long days in Gaza

Rescued hostage Louis Har speaks to Channel 12, March 12, 2024. (Screenshot)

Rescued hostage Louis Har, 70, tells Channel 12 of the initial moments of the daring IDF operation last month that last saved him and his brother-in-law Fernando Marman, 61, the long days as hostages in Gaza, and his life back in Israel after 129 days as an abductee.

“It’s a matter of seconds. Suddenly, there was an explosion. The first thought was that the building was being bombed by the Israel Defense Forces. I rolled off the mattress where I was sleeping in the direction of the terrorists,” he says, describing the initial moments when members of the Shin Bet security agency and the police’s elite Yamam counterterrorism unit used explosives to breach the second-floor apartment in Rafah where the pair were being held and killed three terrorists guarding them.

Har described non-stop shooting in every direction the likes of which he hasn’t seen “even in movies,” he says.

“Suddenly they yelled: ‘Louis, over here!’ Someone grabbed my leg and said ‘IDF! IDF! We came to take you home,'” he recounts, saying the Israeli security forces protected them with their bodies as the battle went on.

Har and Marman were hustled into armored vehicles to a makeshift helipad deep inside Gaza, then transferred to a military helicopter that brought them to Israel.

“I asked the soldier sitting next to me: Are you sure we are not in a movie? I really had to pinch myself to make sure I was awake, that it wasn’t another one of my dreams,” he says.

A screenshot from footage from February 12, 2024, from an APC showing Shayetet 13 commandos asking Fernando Marman (left) and Louis Har (right) about their wel-lbeing, shortly after they were rescued after being held by Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip since October 7. (Israel Defense Forces)

“I have not resumed my life, I don’t know where I am,” he responds to a question about what it has been like to be back from Gaza. “It will take time. That’s the truth.”

Har was taken hostage from Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak to Gaza by Hamas terrorists on October 7, along with Har’s partner, Clara Marman, 62, Clara’s brother Fernando Marman, 60, sister Gabriela Leimberg, 59 and Gabriela’s daughter, Mia Leimberg, 17.

They were held together in a small, dark apartment until the women and teenager were released after 52 days as hostages, as part of a weeklong truce in November that saw the overall release of 105 abductees.

Har says he and Marman were told their release was imminent but quickly understood, as the bombings persisted, that they may have longer to wait.

The days passed “very slowly,” he says, recalling that they told each other stories to pass the time.

“I know Nando [Fernando] more than anyone else because I’ve never been with anyone so closely like that, 129 days,” he says. “We argued, we even laughed at ourselves.”

“We made sure the other didn’t break,” he says, describing that the two had moments where they cried.

There was no TV or radio and they ate one pita per day, sometimes with an onion or tomato if these were available, according to the report.

“We did what we could to survive,” he tells the interviewer, later saying he didn’t think he would get out of there alive.

Louis Har (L) and Fernando Marman (2nd R) are reunited with loved ones at Sheba Medical Center, February 12, 2024. (Israel Defense Forces)

Har says his captors often told them that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not interested in a deal to release the remaining hostages and that he preferred them dead. He says the terrorists went into detail about the tragic, mistaken killing of three hostages by IDF forces in December.

“We didn’t believe most things, but after all, this was psychological warfare so it does [affect] somehow,” says Har.

Har says he “didn’t know anything about what happened on October 7” when terrorists killed some 1,200 and took 253 hostages. “So every time, [we hear] a little bit, and a little bit more. It’s hard, I discover every time that another friend had been murdered.”

He says the hardest moment for him since being back was when he encountered a young man at one of the protests for the release of the hostages who told him that his cousin was part of the rescue operation.

“I told him to tell him…but he told me he was killed the previous week,” he says breaking down in tears. “It broke me completely. I don’t know who he was, but just the thought of it was difficult.”

Abbas to appoint Mohammad Mustafa as next PA prime minister, officials say

FILE: Palestinian Authority deputy prime minister Mohammad Mustafa in Ramallah on Wednesday, June 12, 2013. (AP/Majdi Mohammed)

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will soon announce his decision to appoint economist and former senior government official Mohammad Mustafa to become the next prime minister of the PA, three officials familiar with the matter tell The Times of Israel.

The move is part of an effort on the part of Abbas to reform the PA so that it is better prepared to eventually return to govern Gaza after Israel’s war against Hamas in the enclave concludes.

Mustafa will now have several weeks to assemble a cabinet, during which outgoing PA premier Mohammed Shtayyeh will remain at the helm, a Palestinian official, a senior European diplomat and a US official tell The Times of Israel.

Mustafa has been holding consultations with prospective cabinet members in recent weeks and members are expected to be a group of technocrats unaffiliated with Abbas’s Fatah party, many of whom were educated in the West, the officials say.

“We’re swallowing this cosmetic reform because we don’t have anything to offer Abbas,” the senior European diplomat says. He suggests Western powers might have been able to coax Abbas to tap a more independent premier had they been able to successfully push Israel to cooperate with efforts to revitalize the PA.

Israel has all but blocked this effort, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasting about his efforts to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state and pledging to ensure that Gaza won’t become “Fatah-stan.”

Mustafa is still seen as a longtime Abbas confidant, leading to tapered expectations in Brussels and Washington that the new technocratic government will indeed be able to implement necessary reforms to the PA, which has long faced allegations of corruption, the US official and European diplomat say.

Mustafa himself is respected by many international stakeholders, holding a doctorate in economics from George Washington University and having worked for 15 years at the World Bank.

He has served as deputy prime minister, economy minister and as Abbas’s economic adviser. Mustafa has also sat on the Palestine Liberation Organization Executive Committee since 2022 and has served as the chairman of the Palestine Investment Fund since 2005.

The officials say Abbas’s announcement will be made this week, possibly as early as tonight.

Hezbollah says two operatives killed as terror group’s death toll since Oct. 7 hits 244

The Hezbollah terror group announces the deaths of two members killed “on the road to Jerusalem,” its term for operatives slain in Israeli strikes.

They are named as Sadiq Jaafar, from a town in the Beqaa Valley, and Muhammad Yaqoub from the northeastern city of Baalbek.

Their deaths bring the terror group’s toll since the beginning of the war in the Gaza Strip to 244.

The announcement comes following several IDF strikes on Hezbollah positions in northeastern Lebanon over the past day, in response to attacks on northern Israel.

Gideon Sa’ar announces breakup of National Unity alliance with Gantz, demands seat on war cabinet

Blue and White leader Defense Minister Benny Gantz (right) and New Hope leader Justice Minister Gideon Sa'ar announce a merger of their parties, July 10, 2022. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)

Demanding to join Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war cabinet, Gideon Sa’ar announces the breakup of the National Unity party, dissolving the alliance with Minister Benny Gantz that began in July 2022.

Speaking at a party gathering in Tel Aviv, the former senior Likud member who leads the New Hope party says that while he has “respect for my colleagues, who represent the National Unity party in the war cabinet…unfortunately, they do not convey the voice, positions and emphasis that I would bring there,” the Haaretz daily reports.

“Therefore, on your behalf, I express our demand to join the security cabinet and participate in shaping policy,” Sa’ar says. “Our voice, the voice of the dignified right, is more essential today than ever. Israel today needs an alternative to the dignified right. If we don’t lead this — I don’t see anyone else who can do it.”

“Therefore, I have come to a decision: after consultation and on the opinion of my friends to end the partnership with [Gantz’s] Blue and White party and immediately re-establish the New Hope faction — the statesmanlike right in the Knesset as an independent faction, which will clearly express our national and civil worldview.”

In response, Gantz simply tweets: “Thank you and good luck.”

In an interview with the Knesset Channel last month, Sa’ar indicated that he no longer believed that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be shunned.

Sa’ar, a former Likud minister, was pushed out of Likud after challenging Netanyahu for the leadership of the party several years ago.

National Unity, under Gantz, joined Netanyahu’s coalition as an emergency measure at the start of the war.

Before that, the party had refused to sit in a coalition with Netanyahu, who is on trial in three corruption cases and was accused of trying to undermine Israel’s democracy with his far-right government’s judicial overhaul that has since been suspended.

Sa’ar’s move does not reduce the size of the Netanyahu-led emergency coalition, which still has the support of 76 of the 120 Knesset members.

IDF says it hit Syrian army sites where Hezbollah is operating

The IDF says it struck two Syrian army sites in southern Syria earlier today, where members of the Lebanese Hezbollah terror group were operating.

In a statement, the IDF says it “holds the Syrian regime accountable for all activities which take place within its territory and will not allow for any attempted actions which could lead to the entrenchment of Hezbollah on the Syrian front.”

The rare strike was carried out after the IDF gathered “precise intelligence which incriminated the infrastructure,” the military says.

It publishes footage showing the airstrikes.

US military says it conducted another aid airdrop into Gaza

US military officials say American forces conducted a humanitarian assistance airdrop into northern Gaza today along with Jordan’s air force.

“A US C-130 dropped approximately 5,280 pounds of food, including rice, flour, pasta and canned food, providing life-saving humanitarian assistance in Northern Gaza,” says US Central Command on X.

The humanitarian airdrops “contribute to ongoing US and partner-nation government efforts to alleviate human suffering. These airdrops are part of a sustained effort, and we continue to plan follow-on aerial deliveries,” the US military says.

March 12 USCENTCOM Conducts Humanitarian Airdrops into Gaza
U.S. Central Command and the Royal Jordanian Air Force conducted a combined humanitarian assistance airdrop into Northern Gaza on March 12, 2024, at 2:00 p.m. (Gaza time) to provide essential relief to civilians in… pic.twitter.com/1HhQqHYZhn

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) March 12, 2024

US national security adviser dismisses reports Biden mulling conditions on Israel military aid over Rafah as ‘uninformed speculation’

WASHINGTON — US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan pours more cold water on recent reports that the White House is considering withholding aid to Israel if it moves forward with a major ground assault in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

“We’re not going to engage in hypotheticals about what comes down the line and the reports that purport to describe the president’s thinking are uninformed speculation,” Sullivan says during a press briefing.

Sullivan reiterates that the US won’t support an IDF operation in Rafah unless Israel puts forward a plan to evacuate the over one million Palestinians currently sheltering in the city, which Jerusalem has not yet done.

Riyadh laments ‘unfortunate’ incident where visiting US rabbi told to remove kippah

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, center, of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, speaks in front of civic and faith leaders outside City Hall, May 20, 2021, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

WASHINGTON — Saudi Arabia weighs in for the first time on what it calls an “unfortunate” incident that took place yesterday in which a rabbi leading a US delegation visiting a holy site in Saudi Arabia was told by local authorities to remove his religious head covering.

“The matter was escalated to senior officials, and HRH the Ambassador [Reema Bandar Al-Saud] had the opportunity to speak with the Rabbi,” reads a statement from Saudi embassy in Washington, without expressly voicing regret over the incident. “We look forward to welcoming him back to the kingdom.”

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) said Monday it cut short its visit to Saudi Arabia after Rabbi Abraham Cooper “refused their requests that he remove his religious head covering” during a visit to Diriyah, a historic town that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

“No one should be denied access to a heritage site, especially one intended to highlight unity and progress, simply for existing as a Jew,” Cooper said in a statement.

The USCIRF statement said Cooper and its vice chair Reverend Frederick Davie were invited to tour the site last Tuesday as part of their official visit when, after several delays to the tour, officials requested that Cooper remove his kippah “while at the site and anytime he was to be in public, even though the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs had approved the site visit.”

Saudi Arabia “is in the midst of encouraging change under its 2030 Vision,” Cooper noted. “However, especially in a time of raging antisemitism, being asked to remove my kippah made it impossible for us from USCIRF to continue our visit.”

https://twitter.com/SaudiEmbassyUSA/status/1767596731150057785

The USCIRF said it was particularly regrettable it happened to the representative of “an American government agency that promotes religious freedom.”

The commission is a US government advisory body mandated by the US Congress.

IDF chief meets with female surveillance soldiers at base on Gaza border

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi meets with female surveillance soldiers at an army base on the Gaza border, March 12, 2024. (Israel Defense Forces)

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi meets with female surveillance soldiers, referred to in Hebrew as tatzpitaniyot, at an army base on the border with the Gaza Strip earlier today, praising them for their actions on October 7, while vowing to investigate the army’s failures that led to many of the unit’s troops being killed and taken hostage during Hamas’s terror onslaught.

“We look at what is being done here in this war room and many other war rooms, on all our borders around the country, as something very, very important, a critical component in our ability to provide protection at the borders,” Halevi says.

He says the surveillance soldiers were essential on October 7 and their operations “contributed to the understanding of what was happening,” but that they also underwent a “difficult experience.”

“We have a lot of appreciation for the work done on October 7 and above all for a lot of resilience to go back to work. We really, really trust the work you do. We had a difficult point, we will learn and move forward with strength,” Halevi adds.

‘Israelis elect government, no one else,’ says top official, hitting back at US report suggesting PM’s coalition may be in jeopardy

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks before representatives of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in Jerusalem, on February 18, 2024. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

A senior Israeli official hits back at a US intelligence report overnight that warned Israel will be challenged by Hamas for years to come, and that the viability of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government “may be in jeopardy” amid criticism over the management of the war.

“Those who elect the prime minister of Israel are the citizens of Israel and no one else,” says the official in a statement issued to the media, interpreting the intelligence report as an effort to unseat Netanyahu.

“Israel is not a protectorate of the US but rather an independent and democratic country whose citizens are the ones who elect the government. We expect our friends to work to bring down the terror regime of Hamas and not the elected government in Israel,” the official says.

Opening its main nightly news broadcast, Israel’s Channel 12 says the statement came from “the most senior Israeli political source you can imagine.”

It says the new US intel report suggesting Netanyahu may lose power has the prime minister “fuming” and he has “decided to embark upon on strong, public and dramatic confrontation with the president of the United States.”

The US assessment last night read: “Distrust of Netanyahu’s ability to rule has deepened and broadened across the public from its already high levels before the war, and we expect large protests demanding his resignation and new elections. A different, more moderate government is a possibility.”

Netanyahu, Barkat clash over delayed decision to allow in foreign workers to replace Palestinians

File - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (right), and Economy Minister Nir Barkat in the Knesset on February 22, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Economy Minister Nir Barkat, a senior member of the ruling Likud party, trade public barbs over the issue of foreign workers ahead of Wednesday’s vote on the government’s proposed amended 2024 budget.

Speaking at a press conference in Tel Aviv, Barkat, who has been floated as a possible contender to replace Netanyahu as head of the Likud party, accuses the prime minister of delaying a cabinet decision to “allow the arrival of foreign workers from peaceful countries” to replace Palestinians barred from Israel following the October 7 attack.

“Prime Minister, returning the Palestinian workers to Israel is a grave mistake” both in terms of security and the economy,” he says, claiming that he had been stymied in his “repeated attempts to advance the arrival of tens of thousands of workers from peaceful countries.”

“Unfortunately, the prime minister is not bringing the decision regarding the entry of foreign workers from peaceful countries to the cabinet meeting. I am afraid that there are those who are delaying the decision to enable the return of Palestinian laborers to work in Israel.”

“Until now, the government has approved the entry of a few thousand foreign workers,” he continues. “The damage caused to the Israeli economy is in the tens of billions of shekels.”

Israel sharply restricted Palestinian entry to Israel after the Hamas attacks of October 7, in which thousands of Gazan terrorists rampaged across southern Israel, slaughtering some 1,200 people and taking 253 hostages.

Dozens of foreign nationals, most of them from Thailand, were killed or kidnapped during the assault, and some remain hostage in Gaza.

Thousands of foreign farmhands in southern Israel left the country in the wake of the attacks.

The labor gap was also been exacerbated by hundreds of thousands of able-bodied Israelis being called up for the war.

Jets strike Hezbollah targets in south Lebanon after rocket, missile attacks on northern Israel

The IDF says fighter jets struck Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon’s Odaisseh and Ayta ash-Shab a short while ago.

The strikes come after several Hezbollah rocket and missile attacks on northern Israel in the past few hours.

The IDF says it also shelled with artillery the launch sites of the attacks against the Zar’it, Shtula and Rosh Hanikra areas.

The IDF shares footage of the recent strikes, as well as of strikes earlier today in northeastern Lebanon’s Baalbek.

מטוסי קרב תקפו לפני זמן קצר תשתית טרור של ארגון הטרור חיזבאללה במרחב אל עדייסא ומבנה צבאי של הארגון במרחב עייתא א-שעב.

במהלך השעות האחרונות זוהו מספר שיגורים שחצו משטח לבנון לעבר מרחבים זרעית, שתולה וראש הנקרה>> pic.twitter.com/ohK3Q8txdV

— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) March 12, 2024

US troops depart for mission to build Gaza aid port

US Army soldiers load an AC unit aboard the USAV Monterey at the pier of the Joint Base Langley-Eustis during a media preview of the 7th Transportation Brigade deployment in Hampton, Virginia, on March 12, 2024. The Brigade is deploying to the Middle East to assist in the multinational humanitarian aid corridor for Gaza. (ROBERTO SCHMIDT / AFP)

Four US Army vessels departed a base in Virginia today carrying about 100 soldiers and equipment they will need to build a temporary port on Gaza’s coast for urgently needed aid deliveries.

The first — a hulking gray-painted watercraft known as a Logistics Support Vessel — slowly churned away from the pier at Joint Base Langley-Eustis as “The Imperial March” from “Star Wars” played over its loudspeaker system.

It was followed by three smaller vessels that will also make the roughly 30-day trip to the eastern Mediterranean for the port mission — part of US efforts to boost assistance for Gaza as Israel delays deliveries of aid by ground.

The new facility — which will consist of an offshore platform for transshipment of aid from larger to smaller vessels and a pier to bring it ashore — is expected to be up and running “at the 60-day mark,” US Army Brigadier General Brad Hinson tells journalists.

“Once we get fully mission-capable, we will be able to push up to two million meals, or two million bottles of water, ashore each day,” he says.

US Army Staff Sergeant Dustin Brown hugs goodbye to a close friend Sergeant Limiges at the Joint Base Langley-Eustis during a media preview of the 7th Transportation Brigade deployment in Hampton, Virginia, on March 12, 2024. The Brigade is deploying to the Middle East to assist in the multinational humanitarian aid corridor for Gaza. (ROBERTO SCHMIDT / AFP)

US officials have said the effort will not involve “boots on the ground” in Gaza, but American troops will come close to the war-torn coastal territory as they construct the pier, which has to be anchored to the shore.

“I’m not going to go into the specifics of who we’re working with in order to anchor the pier but we will have some assistance,” says Hinson, who also declined to discuss security measures.

A total of some 500 troops from the 7th Transportation Battalion (Expeditionary) will take part in the operation, he says, describing it as “the premier watercraft unit in our Army.”

“They can provide sustainment support over the water in austere environments. They are trained to do this, and they’ve gone on many exercises to be ready to provide this capability,” Hinson says.

US President Joe Biden has said Israel will provide security for the temporary port.

CIA Director Burns says there’s ‘still a possibility’ for Gaza truce, hostage deal

File: US Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns speaks at the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, Virginia, July 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

US Central Intelligence Agency director William Burns says there is “still a possibility” of a Gaza temporary ceasefire deal, although many complicated issues remain.

“I think there’s still the possibility of such a deal. And as I said, it won’t be for lack of trying on our part, working very closely with our Israeli, Qatari and Egyptian counterparts. This is a very tough process. I don’t think anyone can guarantee success. The only thing I think you can guarantee is that the alternatives are worse,” he tells a House of Representatives hearing.

IDF says Palestinian armed with knife attempted to stab Israeli in West Bank; no injuries reported

The IDF says a Palestinian armed with a knife attempted to stab an Israeli man on the outskirts of the Givat Ronen outpost in the northern West Bank.

The man was not injured, and the alleged assailant fled.

“IDF troops have launched a pursuit after the terrorist and are conducting searches in the area,” the military says.

Arab lawmaker says 2024 amended budget discriminates against Arab minority

United Arab List MK Waleed Alhwashla criticizes the government’s proposed 2024 amended budget for discriminating against Israel’s Arab minority during a debate in the Knesset plenum.

Alhwashla objects to plans to cut about 15% of funding for a five-year plan intended to advance the social and economic integration of Arab Israelis, calling the budget one that “doesn’t see Arab society or Bedouin society.”

“Just like Smotrich doesn’t see and doesn’t want to see the Arab women with his wife in the maternity ward, so he doesn’t see the Arabs in the budget,” he says about Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

“Instead of advancing the closure of gaps” the budget “widens them,” he says, accusing the government is “giving a green light” to crime in the Arab sector rather than combatting it.

The Shin Bet and National Security Council reportedly warned earlier this year that such cuts could “intensify the risks of an outbreak of violence.”

Alhwashla’s comments come on the heels of the killing of a former city council member in the northern town of Baqa al-Gharbiya on Sunday, the sixth violent killing in Israel’s Arab community within just 24 hours.

According to the Abraham Initiatives, the killing of Qadan marks the 38th violent death among Arab Israelis since the start of 2024, compared to 30 in the same period in 2023 — which was the bloodiest ever year in the community on record; 244 Arab Israelis were killed last year.

Lawmakers are currently engaged in a special 25-hour debate ahead of Wednesday’s vote on the proposed amended 2024 wartime budget.

NGOs say they will sue Denmark to end arms export to Israel

COPENHAGEN — A group of NGOs say they will sue the Danish state to end the Nordic country’s arms exports to Israel, citing concerns that its weapons were being used to commit serious crimes against civilians during the war in Gaza.

Amnesty International Denmark, Oxfam Denmark, ActionAid Denmark and Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq say in a joint statement they would bring the case against the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the national police, which approves Danish sales of weapons and military equipment.

“We feel that we are completely within the lines, the rules of the game that apply,” Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen told reporters. The National Police declined immediate comment without having seen details of the lawsuit.

Legal firm Kontra Advokater, who will be representing the NGOs, said it would file the lawsuit to a Copenhagen district court within the next three weeks.

“For five months we have been talking about a potential genocide in Gaza, but we have not seen politicians take action,” Tim Whyte, secretary-general of ActionAid Denmark, said.

Israel vehemently rejects the genocide claims, saying its war is targeting the Palestinian terror group Hamas, not the Palestinian people, following its October 7 massacre across southern Israel when terrorists killed some 1,200 and took 253 hostages.

EU to mull measures against Iran over possible missile transfers to Russia

European Union leaders are ready to respond with new and significant measures against Iran amid reports that Tehran may transfer ballistic missiles to Russia for use against Ukraine, draft conclusions of a summit to be held next week said.

“The European Council calls on third parties to immediately cease providing material support to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine,” says the draft text, seen by Reuters.

Iran has provided Russia with a large number of powerful surface-to-surface ballistic missiles, six sources told Reuters, deepening the military cooperation between the two countries, which are both under US sanctions.

“Reports that Iran may transfer ballistic missiles and related technology to Russia for use against Ukraine are very concerning,” the draft conclusions of the March 21-22 summit say.

“The European Union is prepared to respond swiftly and in coordination with international partners, including with new and significant measures against Iran.”

The conclusions also say the leaders would call on High Representative Josep Borrell and the Commission to prepare further sanctions against Belarus, North Korea, and Iran.

Food rescue organization launches petition to support farmers from Gaza border area

Farm fields at Kibbutz Gvar’am in December 2023. (Bernard Dichek)

Leket, a not-for-profit organization that rescues food that would otherwise be thrown away and distributes it to those in need, launches an online petition to draw attention to the plight of farmers from the Gaza border area and southern Israel.

They produce 75 percent of all produce grown in the country, Leket says.

The organization hits out at the government for its decision to cut 12% of the Agriculture Ministry’s 2024 budget, saying it will “directly impact tens of thousands of farmers who need immediate assistance.”

“It would be expected that during this critical period, Israeli farmers would receive government support and a long-term plan for rehabilitation, but this is not the case,” it says.

Leket has worked for 21 years with farmers and says they have been the largest donors of food (surplus crops) to the organization and in turn to vulnerable Israelis.

Knesset committee okays funds for defense-related programs including grants for reservists, trauma treatment

The Knesset Joint Defense Budget Committee unanimously approves the allocation of funds made available via the 2024 defense budget for the Defense Ministry and defense-related departments operating under the Prime Minister’s Office.

The government’s proposed amended 2024 wartime budget allocates NIS 117 billion ($32 billion) for defense, an increase of NIS 53 billion ($14 billion) over the NIS 64 billion ($17 billion) budget originally approved last year — an increase of 82 percent.

In addition, the committee approves an NIS 50 billion ($13 billion) in income-contingent spending, an increase of around NIS 32 billion ($8.7 billion), “most of which is from the designated aid grant from the United States” intended to fund the war in Gaza.

According to law, the internal division of the defense budget is approved by the Joint Committee of the Finance Committee and the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on the Defense Budget rather than the Knesset plenum.

After consulting with the heads of the Shin Bet security agency, the deputy head of the Mossad and the chief of the IDF Planning Directorate, among others, the committee allocated money for a variety of programs. These include grants for IDF reservists, the rehabilitation of wounded soldiers and the bolstering of efforts to treat war-related trauma.

The Knesset plenum is currently in the middle of a special 25-hour debate ahead of a vote of the proposed amended 2024 wartime budget.

According to the revised budget bill, which was passed by the cabinet in January and approved by the Knesset Finance Committee for its second and third readings last week, the government expenditure limit for 2024 will stand at NIS 584.1 billion ($160 billion), more than NIS 70 billion ($19 billion) higher than the original 2024 budget approved in May 2023, prior to the outbreak of war on October 7.

The budget bill’s second and third readings are scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.

PM amid friction with Biden: ‘You can’t say you support Israel’s goal of destroying Hamas, then oppose Israel when it takes the actions necessary’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers an address by video to an AIPAC conference, March 12, 2024 (GPO screenshot)

Amid growing tensions with the White House, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tells AIPAC delegates gathered in Washington that he “deeply appreciate[s] the support we have received from President Biden and the administration, and I hope it will continue.”

“But let me be clear,” Netanyahu continues, “Israel will win this war, no matter what.”

Netanyahu says in order to do so, the IDF has to operate in Rafah, otherwise Hamas will “regroup, rearm, and reconquer Gaza.”

“That is an intolerable threat to our future, and we will not accept it. We will destroy Hamas, free our hostages, and ensure that Gaza doesn’t pose a threat to Israel again,” he says.

Netanyahu promises that Israel “will finish the job in Rafah, while enabling the civilian population to get out of harm’s way.”

He says Israel has “taken measures to minimize civilian casualties that no other army has taken in history.”

He offers a broadside against Israel’s allies, saying, “To our friends in the international community, I say this: You cannot say you support Israel’s right to defend itself, and then oppose Israel when it exercises that right.”

“You cannot say you support Israel’s goal of destroying Hamas, and then oppose Israel when it takes the actions necessary to achieve that goal,” he goes on.

“You cannot say that you oppose Hamas’s strategy of using civilians as human shields, and then blame Israel for the civilian casualties that result from this Hamas cynical strategy,” Netanyahu insists. “For Israel, every civilian death is a tragedy. For Hamas, every civilian death is a strategy.”

Therefore, he says, “it is wrong and immoral to hold Israel to a standard for avoiding civilian casualties that no other country on earth is held to.”

“None of these pressures will stop us,” he pledges. “Israel’s very future, its very survival is at stake. We have no other option but total victory, and that victory is in and within reach.”

In an oblique message to Biden, Netanyahu says that “the overwhelming majority of the American people stand with us. I know that the overwhelming majority of Congress stands with us.”

The over 1,600 AIPAC activists estimated in attendance are also hearing from Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Charles Chuck Schumer and Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell during the conference, which began Sunday.

Hezbollah threatens strong response to Israeli airstrikes in Baalbek

Hezbollah threatens a “stronger” response to earlier Israeli strikes in the Baalbek area in northeastern Lebanon, where the military targeted what it says were two Hezbollah command centers.

Those strikes came in response to a barrage of some 100 rockets fired from Lebanon on northern Israel earlier today.

“Hezbollah will not be silent about the Israeli attacks,” a source with the Iran-backed terror group tells the London-based publication The New Arab, also known as Al-Araby Al-Jadeed. “The response will be the same and stronger.”

“All options are open and Hezbollah is prepared and ready for any expansion” of hostilities,” the source says.

Biden ‘devastated’ to learn of killing of US-Israeli citizen, Sgt. Itay Chen, on October 7

Itay Chen, 19, from Netanya, declared killed in action and his body seized by Hamas on October 7, 2023, while on duty near Gaza border (Courtesy)

WASHINGTON — US President Joe Biden says that he is “devastated” to hear the news that Israeli-American hostage Sgt. Itay Chen, 19, was killed during Hamas’s October 7 terror onslaught.

Itay’s parents were among the leading figures in the campaign to free the hostages, holding countless leaders with world leaders, including Biden as they tried to galvanize the international community around their cause.

“In December, Itay’s father and brother joined me at the White House, to share the agony and uncertainty they’ve faced as they prayed for the safe return of their loved one,” Biden says.

“No one should have to endure even one day of what they have gone through. At the end of our meeting, they gave me a menorah — a solemn reminder that light will always dispel the darkness, and evil will not win,” he adds.

Jonathan Dekel-Chen (left), father of Sagui Dekel-Chen, Ruby Chen (middle), father of Itay Chen, and Ronen Neutra, father of Omer Neutra, speak to reporters after a meeting with President Joe Biden and the families of Americans who were taken hostage by Hamas during the October 7 attacks in Israel, Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2023, in Washington. (AP/Evan Vucci)

“Today, as we join Itay’s parents, brothers, and family in grieving this tragic loss, we keep this reminder close to our hearts.”

“I reaffirm my pledge to all the families of those still held hostage: we are with you. We will never stop working to bring your loved ones home,” says the US president.

Chen, who was serving in the Israeli army near the Gaza border, was earlier believed to have been taken hostage by Hamas.

His death was recently declared by the Military Rabbinate based on findings and new intelligence information.

Chen served in the 7th Armored Brigade’s 75th Battalion, and his body was taken from the Gaza border, following a battle with terrorists during the Hamas onslaught.

Chen’s family will not hold a funeral or sit shiva, the traditional seven-day Jewish mourning, until his body is returned from the Strip.

There are now believed to be five American hostages still alive among the 134 abductees in Gaza.

IDF: Some 4,500 Hezbollah targets hit, 300 operatives killed since start of war

Smoke billows following an Israeli airstrike on the outskirts of the village of el-Habbariyeh in the southern Lebanese Hasbaya district on the border with Israel on March 10, 2024. (Rabih DAHER / AFP)

The IDF says it has targeted some 4,500 Hezbollah targets, mostly in Lebanon but also in Syria, amid the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip which began on October 7.

According to the IDF’s estimates, more than 300 Hezbollah operatives have been killed, including five senior commanders, and another 750 have been wounded by Israel’s strikes.

Over the past five months, the Northern Command has led strikes from the air against more than 1,200 targets and another 3,100 sites from the ground using artillery and tanks, the IDF says.

The targets include weapons depots, buildings used by Hezbollah for attacks, more than 150 observation posts along the border, some 70 command centers where terror operatives were gathered, more than 50 significant rocket launching positions, and dozens of squads carrying out anti-tank missile attacks, the IDF says.

More than 450 sites belonging to Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force, which is believed by Israel to be tasked with potentially infiltrating into Israel, were also hit, the IDF says.

The IDF notes that some of the 4,500 Hezbollah targets were struck in Syria.

The IDF says its “intense strikes” against Hezbollah are causing damage to the terror group’s “air and ground capabilities as well as its top command.”

“The IDF is constantly working to push Hezbollah’s forces and its systems out of southern Lebanon, and has carried out significant attacks in this area,” the military says.

Recently, the IDF has also stepped up attacks in northeastern Lebanon’s Baalbek, a Hezbollah stronghold.

The IDF says it is also “well aware of the great and ongoing difficulty of the residents of the north” who have been displaced due to Hezbollah’s daily attacks.

It says the military “appreciates the resilience that the residents demonstrate” and is “committed to continuing to operate” to restore security.

Knesset Science Committee chair pledges to shield agricultural research body from budget cuts

An aerial view of the Volcani Institute. (Yigal Elad, Wikipedia)

Science and Technology Committee chairman MK Ayman Odeh (Hadash-Ta’al) pledges to advance a bill to protect the Volcani Institute, Israel’s world-renowned agricultural research body, from budget cuts that could potentially halt its activities.

The institute has warned that if a planned cut of over 20 percent to its budget is approved, it would freeze all research work and have to renege on national and international research contracts worth tens of millions of shekels.

Addressing the committee, Deputy Agriculture Minister Moshe Abutbul (Shas) says that the proposed budget cut would “cause great damage to science and technology,” pledging to “fight to the last drop so that there is no damage.”

In response, Yesh Atid MK Yorai Lahav-Hertzanu blames Abutbul for the threat to the institute, asserting that as a representative of the government “you set the priorities. Instead of science and innovation, you transfer hundreds of millions to Jewish identity.”

On Sunday, the cabinet voted to allocate NIS 25 million (roughly $7 million) for the establishment of a Jewish National Identity Authority headed by far-right MK Avi Maoz, a deputy minister in the Prime Minister’s Office and the Knesset representative of the anti-LGBTQ Noam party.

Lahav-Hertzanu’s criticism is echoed by Labor MK Naama Lazimi, who says that by proposing to cut the Agriculture Ministry’s budget by 12 percent, “you eliminated the ministry” — to which Abutbul replies that “the previous government eliminated everything, we are sustaining agriculture and farmers.”

A representative of the Finance Ministry tells lawmakers the decision of what programs to cut was made by the ministry itself and was “carried out at the discretion of the agriculture minister.”

Last year, according to sources at the institute, NIS 320 million ($88 million) was budgeted for the institute. But following the war that broke out in response to Hamas’s October 7 massacre, the budget was reduced to NIS 304 million ($84 million).

Before the war, the government had planned a 2024 budget for the institute of NIS 343 million ($94.7 million), the sources added. Current Finance Ministry plans are to reduce this to NIS 277 million ($76.5 million), they said.

If the new cuts are approved, the sources warned, the institute would also have to cut 24 research posts this year by not filling vacancies and not replacing people who have retired.

However, Sivan Yankowitz of the ministry’s budget department tells lawmakers that Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter had instructed his staff “not to harm farmers and agriculture because of the challenges they are facing due to October 7” and therefore the ministry decided to enact a “significant cut in the research institute.”

“This means that if we want to increase funding in the directorate of agricultural research, there will be a harm in [our] support for farmers,” she says.

Addressing a special plenum debate on the budget, Yesh Atid MK Vladimir Beliak declares that if Dichter and Abutbul are unable to prevent the cut to the institute’s funding they should resign and “go home.”

Sue Surkes contributed to this report.

Hebrew University suspends professor who accused Israel of Gaza genocide, cast doubt on Hamas sexual violence

Screen capture from video of Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, professor of social work and law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, during a presentation. (YouTube screenshot; used in accordance with clause 27a of the copyright law)

The Hebrew University has suspended Prof. Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian of the Faculty of Law after a series of inflammatory statements and actions, the university says.

Shalhoub-Kevorkian, who has spoken out against Israel and Zionism in the past, was interviewed by Channel 14 yesterday where she accused Israel of genocide in Gaza and called into question the rapes and other atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7.

The university had previously asked Shalhoub-Kevorkian to resign, but then took the unusual step of suspension after her latest statements and continued pressure from the academic community and lawmakers.

“The Hebrew University rejects all of her distorted statements with disgust. The Hebrew University is proud to be an Israeli, public, and Zionist institution,” the university says in a statement.

Shalhoub-Kevorkian, the Lawrence D. Biele Chair in Law at the Faculty of Law-Institute of Criminology at the Hebrew University, according to her faculty page, is an expert on “trauma, state crimes and criminology, surveillance, gender violence, law and society.”

Judicial Selection Committee appoints seven new judges to family and traffic courts

The Judicial Selection Committee appoints seven new judges to family and traffic courts in the North and Haifa districts, the third round of judicial appointments since the government was formed in late 2022.

One judge and one registrar are appointed to the family courts, and two judges are appointed to the traffic courts in the Northern District.

Two judges and one registrar are appointed to the family courts, and two judges are appointed to the traffic courts in the Haifa district.

The nine-member committee also continues deliberations over appointments to the Jerusalem District Court but fails to come to a consensus for the second meeting in a row.

The committee did not hold deliberations on the two vacancies on the Supreme Court or on a permanent Supreme Court president.

IDF announces death of Sgt. Itay Chen, who was killed and abducted by Hamas on Oct. 7

Itay Chen, 19, from Netanya, declared killed in action and his body seized by Hamas on October 7, 2023, while on duty near Gaza border (Courtesy)

The IDF announces the death of Sgt. Itay Chen, 19, from Netanya, who was killed and abducted by Hamas on October 7.

Chen served in the 7th Armored Brigade’s 75th Battalion, and his body was taken from the Gaza border, following a battle with terrorists during the Hamas onslaught.

His death was recently declared by the Military Rabbinate based on findings and new intelligence information.

Chen’s family will not hold a funeral or sit shiva, the traditional seven-day Jewish mourning, until his body is returned from the Strip.

Hamas-run health ministry says Gaza death toll passed 31,000

At least 31,184 Palestinians have been killed and 72,889 have been wounded in Gaza since October 7, the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says.

The terror group’s figures are unverified, don’t differentiate between civilians and combatants, and list all the fatalities as caused by Israel — even those believed to have been caused by hundreds of misfired rockets or otherwise by Palestinian fire.

Israel has said it killed some 13,000 Hamas members in Gaza fighting, in addition to some 1,000 killed inside Israel in the aftermath of the terror group’s October 7 invasion and onslaught.

IDF confirms airstrikes in northeast Lebanon, says two Hezbollah command centers hit

People walk past a damaged building in the aftermath of an overnight Israeli airstrike on the city of Baalbek in east central Lebanon on March 12, 2024 (AFP)

The IDF confirms carrying out additional airstrikes in the Baalbek area in northeastern Lebanon, targeting what it says are two Hezbollah command centers.

“Hezbollah used these sites to store significant assets used to strengthen its weapons arsenal,” the IDF says.

The strikes were carried out in response to a barrage of some 100 rockets on northern Israel earlier today.

The IDF also says it targeted a building used by Hezbollah in Khiam and additional infrastructure in Bint Jbeil earlier. It publishes footage of those strikes.

מטוסי קרב תקפו לפני זמן קצר שתי מפקדות צבאיות של ארגון הטרור חיזבאללה במרחב בעלבכ שבעומק לבנון.
באתרים אלו אוחסנו אמצעים משמעותיים המשמשים את הארגון בהיבטי התעצמות באמל"ח.

התקיפות בוצעו בתגובה לשיגורים שביצע ארגון הטרור חיזבאללה לעבר צפון הארץ הבוקר >> pic.twitter.com/9RxqoaaIiN

— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) March 12, 2024

Italy says military vessel shot down two drones in Red Sea

An Italian military vessel serving in the European Union’s naval mission in the Red Sea has shot down two drones, Italy’s Defense Staff says.

In a statement, it describes the incidents involving the Italian Navy’s “Caio Duilio” destroyer as acts of self-defense, without elaborating.

The same ship had shot down another drone earlier this month.

The EU’s mission in the Red Sea, dubbed Aspides, was launched in February to help protect the key maritime trade route from drone and missile attacks by Yemen’s Houthi militia, which says it is retaliating against Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza.

MKs claim amended budget perpetuates ‘injustice’ against Haredi education institutions

MK Yisrael Eichler (L) speaks to MK Moshe Gafni during a discussion on the state budget at the Knesset in Jerusalem, March 12, 2024 (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Labor and Welfare Committee chairman Yisrael Eichler criticizes the amended 2024 budget during a debate in the Knesset while also expressing disapproval of what he calls “an aggressive media campaign” against allocations for ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, education.

There are “teachers in Haredi education who do the same job as any other teacher” but do not receive funding under the government’s Ofek Hadash (New Horizon) plan “just because they are Haredi,” he claims, calling the disparity “a matter of plunder, usurpation and injustice” against Haredim.

The new budget allocates billions of shekels in funding for ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, educational institutions that fail to teach the state-mandated core curriculum but does not include them in the New Horizon program.

The Haredim have long sought to become part of the program, which funds work in small groups between teachers and pupils and bumps up teacher salaries, among other initiatives.

However, the program is currently restricted to state schools and not does not apply to independent Haredi schools, which do not teach secular subjects.

The government and the Knesset “need to decide not to discriminate against children in Haredi education,” he says.

Finance Committee chairman Moshe Gafni (UTJ) also frames the contentious budget as an effort to secure equality between Haredi and secular schools.

“If you don’t want Haredi education, say so. But there is Haredi education in the law. The ministries of Education, Justice and Finance are breaking the law. Let everyone know that an injustice has been done here and I will continue to fight for [Haredi teachers] to receive equal pay for equal work,” he declares.

Lawmakers are currently at the beginning of a 25-hour debate ahead of a vote of the proposed amended 2024 wartime budget set for Wednesday at noon.

Qatar: ‘We are not near a Gaza ceasefire deal, situation is very complicated on the ground’

Qatari Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari gives details of a planned hostage release, at a press conference in Doha, November 23, 2023 (CNN screenshot, used in accordance with clause 27a of the Copyright Law)

Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari says that while a hostage and ceasefire deal is not close to being agreed upon, Doha remains hopeful.

“We are not near a Gaza ceasefire deal but remain hopeful,” he says at a press conference in Doha, adding that talks are ongoing.

“We are not seeing both sides converging on language that can resolve the current disagreement over the implementation of a deal,” he says.

All parties were “continuing to work in the negotiations to reach a deal hopefully within the confines of Ramadan,” Ansari says.

But he adds that he cannot not “offer any timeline” on a deal and explains the situation remains “very complicated on the ground.”

He also says that Qatar is working to establish a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, rather than a short-term truce of a few days.

Israel has said any ceasefire must be temporary and that its goal remains the destruction of Hamas and the return of all hostages. The terror group says it will release the hostages it has been holding since October 7 only as part of a deal that ends the war.

The apparent outline of a six-week truce deal, thus far rejected by Hamas, would see 40 children, women, elderly and sick hostages released in a first phase, in exchange for some 400 Palestinian security prisoners, with the possibility of further releases to be negotiated.

It is believed that 130 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza — not all of them alive.

Israel strikes near Saraain, some 80 kilometers from Israel’s border — Lebanese media

Lebanese media outlets report a new Israeli strike in the Baalbek District in the northeastern part of the country.

The strike takes place near the town of Saraain, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) from Israel’s border.

Images show smoke rising from the targeted site.

مراسل المنار في البقاع :

الطيران الحربي المعادي يشنّ غارة جوية بالصواريخ مستهدفًا منطقة "ضهور العيرون" خراج بلدة #سرعين pic.twitter.com/IDhAk8sT90

— علي شعيب || Ali Shoeib 🇱🇧 (@alishoeib1970) March 12, 2024

IDF says brigade killed over 100 gunmen in Khan Younis suburbs al-Qarara, Abasan

Troops of the Bislamach Brigade operate in southern Gaza's Khan Younis, in a handout image published March 12, 2024. (Israel Defense Forces)

The Bislamach Brigade — the IDF’s School for Infantry Corps Professions and Squad Commanders in wartime — has killed more than 100 gunmen in the Khan Younis suburbs of al-Qarara and Abasan, the IDF says.

The IDF says the brigade carried out dozens of operations in the area, in southern Gaza, mainly targeting Hamas sites close to the Israeli border.

The troops killed over 100 operatives with sniper fire, mortars, tank shelling, and by calling in airstrikes, the IDF says.

The IDF also says the troops seized firearms and other military equipment.

COGAT announces conditions for West Bank Palestinians’ entry to Jerusalem during Ramadan

Worshipers pray outside the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem's al-Aqsa Mosque compound during the holy fasting month of Ramadan, on March 11, 2024 (AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP)

The military’s liaison to the Palestinians announces Israel’s entry restrictions for West Bank Palestinians to Jerusalem during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

In a Facebook post, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) says that men above the age of 55, women above the age of 50, and children up to the age of 10 will be allowed to enter Israel to pray at Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem on Fridays.

Worshipers will need a valid permit from COGAT, subject to security approval, and there may be changes per fresh assessments of the situation and other developments.

COGAT does not say if West Bank Palestinians can visit Jerusalem between Sundays and Thursdays during Ramadan.

Unlike previous years, due to the war, Gazan Palestinians will not be permitted to pray at Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced that Israel will not reduce the number of worshipers allowed to pray on the Temple Mount during Ramadan, amid concerns over efforts by Hamas and its backer Iran to stir up violence at the flashpoint site and in Jerusalem.

Lawmakers kick off Knesset debate on contentious amended 2024 budget

Finance Committee head MK Moshe Gafni speaks during a discussion on the state budget at the Knesset in Jerusalem, March 12, 2024 (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

The Knesset plenum begins a special 25-hour debate ahead of a vote of the proposed amended 2024 wartime budget.

According to the revised budget bill, which was passed by the cabinet in January and approved by the Knesset Finance Committee for its second and third readings last week, the government expenditure limit for 2024 will stand at NIS 584.1 billion ($160 billion), more than NIS 70 billion ($19 billion) higher than the original 2024 budget approved in May 2023, prior to the outbreak of war on October 7.

The new budget also increases the deficit target from 2.25% of GDP to 6.6%.

The budget pairs across-the-board cuts with additional spending on war-related matters, with NIS 55 billion ($15 billion) of the additional 70 billion going toward financing military needs while the rest is allocated to civilian needs.

It has generated widespread opposition — both within and outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition — with many complaining that it fails to trim extraneous spending while cutting back on critical services.

In December, the Finance Ministry reportedly recommended closing 10 superfluous government ministries to cover the wartime budget shortfall of NIS 70 billion, but this has not been done.

In addition, critics allege that it allocates funds to coalition-linked interests, such as ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, educational institutions which fail to teach the state-mandated core curriculum, while slashing spending for society at large.

According to a poll of 600 people carried out by the Smith Institute and published by Channel 12 today, a large majority of Jewish citizens oppose the budget’s allocation of billions of shekels to the Haredi school system, including supporters of the current government.

Seventy-three percent of respondents state that they are against the budget and that “all possible budgets should be directed to the needs of the fighting and the reconstruction of the Western Negev, the north and the reserve soldiers” rather than be used as “coalition funds allocated to the ultra-Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox parties.”

While 93% of secular Israelis, 57% of the national-religious and 67% of Likud voters are against the budget, no Haredim polled expressed opposition.

Speaking to reporters at his Religious Zionism party’s weekly faction meeting in the Knesset yesterday, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that he “expects the opposition to understand the magnitude of the hour and not oppose a responsible budget.”

“A vote against the budget is like a vote against the continuation of fighting and civilian resilience,” he said.

IDF says Islamic Jihad member in Jenin arrested for attacks on troops

The IDF says troops nabbed a wanted Palestinian Islamic Jihad member in the West Bank city of Jenin this morning.

Mahdi Fayyad is accused of shooting and hurling explosives at Israeli forces.

Another two wanted Palestinians were arrested in Jenin, and an assault rifle was seized, the IDF says.

In the village of Urif, close to Nablus, the IDF says troops also seized four lathes used to manufacture weapons.

Another seven wanted Palestinians were detained in other areas of the West Bank, the IDF adds.

Israel strikes house in Hezbollah stronghold Bint Jbeil — Lebanese report

Israel has struck a house in Bint Jbeil, the Ynet news site reports, citing the Hezbollah-linked Lebanese news outlet al-Akhbar.

Bint Jbeil is a Hezbollah stronghold in south Lebanon, and large parts of it were destroyed during the 2006 war between Israel and the Iran-backed terror group.

Earlier today, Hezbollah said it fired some 100 Katyusha rockets at northern Israel.

NYT details Gazans’ struggles to find food amid spiraling humanitarian crisis

The New York Times follows three families in Gaza, from Beit Lahiya, Rafah, and Gaza City, on their search for food in the war-torn Strip.

In the northern Gaza Strip, aid convoys have been rare — in February one was the scene of a deadly melee — so many Gazans head to street markets.

“Some vendors used to run grocery stores and are selling what stock they have left,” says the newspaper. “Others buy and resell humanitarian aid.”

One of the families makes small pitas from ground barley, generally used in animal feed, and corn flour.

“I can’t even describe how awful it tastes,” one man says.

Prices in the stores are inflated, chipping away at the families’ savings.

Many of the children wait in line for hours at charity kitchens distributing soup.

The situation is somewhat better in Rafah in the far south, where aid reaches more consistently and the IDF has yet to launch a widespread ground offensive. But there too inflation is severe, at over 500%.

A resident named Nizar says that some sell humanitarian goods that they don’t need, and those without connections struggle to receive aid.

There are also tensions within overcrowded apartments: “People start criticizing each other and keeping track of everything, trying to hide things for fear they’ll run out,” says a Rafah resident named Amany. “Some sneak out in the middle of the night to eat everything before anyone notices.”

Hezbollah claims responsibility for firing some 100 rockets at north

Impact sites in northern Israel after Hezbollah fired a massive rocket barrage, March 12, 2024 (Screen grab used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)

Hezbollah claims responsibility for firing some 100 rockets at northern Israel this morning.

In a statement, the terror group says it targeted two Israeli army bases in the Golan Heights with more than 100 Katyusha rockets.

Hezbollah says the rocket barrage come in response to recent Israeli attacks, including last night’s strike in northeastern Lebanon’s Baalbek, which reportedly killed a civilian.

IDF says troops killed terrorist who fired mortar at south, destroyed several rocket launchers

Troops operating in the Gaza Strip in an undated photo released for publication by the military on March 12, 2024 (Israel Defense Forces)

The IDF says it struck and killed a terror operative who launched mortars at southern Israel yesterday.

The operative was spotted leaving the launch site in the southern Gaza Strip, before an airstrike was called in against him.

The IDF says several buildings and infrastructure used by Hamas in the area of the incident were also struck by aircraft.

Troops are meanwhile still clearing through the Hamad Town residential complex in Khan Younis.

The IDF says the Egoz commando unit found a cache of firearms, explosives, and military equipment in a building in the Hamad area.

The Givati Brigade called in an airstrike against a four-man cell in Hamad who were attempting to plant a bomb near a building where troops were operating, the IDF says.

Meanwhile in central Gaza, the IDF says the Nahal Brigade discovered and destroyed several rockets launchers used in recent attacks on Israel.

In another incident, two rockets were fired at Nahal troops inside Gaza, causing no injuries. The IDF says the soldiers called in an airstrike against the operatives behind the attack.

Labor MK: Knesset panel on West Bank civil rights activists a ‘smokescreen’ for settler violence

Gilad Kariv (2nd R) at a hearing at the Knesset subcommittee for the West Bank on alleged actions by civil rights activists, March 12, 2024 (Jeremy Sharon/Times of Israel)

Tensions flare in a hearing of the Knesset subcommittee for the West Bank over alleged violence by civil rights campaigners and pro-Palestinian activists, whom the panel describes as “anarchists” and “extremist left-wing activists.”

Hard-right Likud MK Ariel Kallner describes these activists as “extreme antisemites who support terrorism.”

Ultranationalist MK Limor Son Har-Melech of the Otzma Yehudit party accuses them of “aggression against the IDF, against soldiers, against settlers” and of damaging property and “blackening the name of Israel around the world” and engaging in a global campaign of delegitimization against Israel.

Meanwhile, left-wing Labor MK Gilad Kariv denounces the hearing itself, pointing out that National Security Committee has not sent a representative to the subcommittee and charging that the panel was a “smokescreen” to “obscure extremist settler violence.”

“The purpose of this hearing is to turn the reality in the territory upside down, and blur the real phenomenon which is that extremist elements, who are a minority of the settlers in Judea and Samaria, have shaken off the yoke of Israeli law,” says Kariv.

“If there is a phenomenon that needs to be dealt with aside from the terror against Israeli citizens, it is the violence of these marginal elements,” says Kariv, adding that such violent activists have received backing from “people in this house.”

There has been substantial documentation of rising settler violence in recent months following the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel. The attacks have included alleged killings. The vast majority of cases go unprosecuted, according to rights groups.

Accusations against civil rights activists are far rarer and less extreme.

Labor MK Gilad Kariv and Otzma Yehudit MK Limor Son Har Melech in a less than friendly exchange of words in the Knesset hearing on “anarchists” – civil rights campaigners and pro-Palestinian activists – in the West Bank. pic.twitter.com/gOl9h9YHIi

— Jeremy Sharon (@jeremysharon) March 12, 2024

IDF says it struck 3 rocket launchers in south Lebanon used to fire barrages at north

The IDF says fighter jets struck three rocket launchers in southern Lebanon used to fire large barrages at northern Israel this morning.

מטוסי קרב תקפו לפני זמן קצר שלושה משגרים מהם בוצעו שיגורים לעבר רמת הגולן הבוקר pic.twitter.com/fyFXxBC5wm

— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) March 12, 2024

Report: US officials say Biden has ‘definitely thought about’ conditioning military aid if Israel begins Rafah offensive

US President Joe Biden looks on before speaking about the costs of living during an address at the YMCA Allard Center March 11, 2024, in Goffstown, New Hampshire. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP)

US President Joe Biden has considered placing conditions on military aid to Israel if it launches a widespread ground offensive in the southern Gaza city Rafah, four unnamed American officials tell Politico.

“It’s something he’s definitely thought about,” one of the officials says.

When asked for a response by Politico, National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson tells the outlet that “we are not going to comment on speculation by anonymous sources or add to what the president said this weekend.”

White House deputy press secretary Olivia Dalton says: “[Biden] thinks that there are other approaches which we have taken and are taking that are more effective.”

Israel has vowed to move into Rafah to eliminate the last Hamas stronghold there. It also believes that some of the hostages and Hamas leaders are in Rafah. Last month, special forces rescued two Israeli hostages from captivity in an apartment in the city.

Over half of the Gaza Strip’s population has fled to Rafah during the war sparked by Hamas’s devastating attack on October 7. The offensive in Gaza has displaced most of the enclave’s 2.3 million people and led to critical shortages of food, water and medicine.

The White House has not hidden its dissatisfaction with Israel over civilian casualties in Gaza and the humanitarian situation there throughout the war.

However, it has recently adopted a harsher tone and there is a deepening public spat between Biden and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Biden said in an interview broadcast Sunday that the planned major offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah would be a “red line,” before he seemingly backtracked and said, “I’m never going to leave Israel” and that “there’s no red line.”

Biden and his aides have urged Netanyahu in strong terms not to launch a major offensive in Rafah until Israel crafts and presents what the US considers to be an effective plan for mass evacuation of civilians. The IDF presented its operational plan to the war cabinet last month.

First ship with humanitarian aid for Gaza sets sail from Cyprus port

Aid packages are seen at left, on a platform near to the docked ship belonging to the Open Arms aid group, center front, as it prepares to ferry some 200 tonnes of rice and flour directly to Gaza, at the port in Larnaca, Cyprus, March 11, 2024 (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

A boat carrying aid to Gaza sets sail from Larnaca, Cyprus, according to the World Central Kitchen.

WCK, along with the UAE and Cyprus, sent over 200 tons of food on the Open Arms, a ship belonging to a Spanish relief organization of the same name.

The ship will dock along the Gaza coast south of Gaza City at a pier built by WCK.

The organization is responsible for distributing the food to Gazan civilians, an Israeli official tells The Times of Israel.

The shipment marks a pilot run for a sea corridor to supply Gaza, which faces widespread hunger and shortages of essential supplies after nearly five months of war, sparked by Hamas’s devastating October 7 attack on Israel.

WCK-provided aid has set sail for Gaza on the @openarms_fund boat. We dispatched almost 200 tons of food—rice, flour, legumes, canned veggies & proteins. Alongside the @UAEAid & @CyprusMFA, our Relief Team is working to send as many aid boats as possible.#ChefsForThePeople pic.twitter.com/oypXF8WbDH

— World Central Kitchen (@WCKitchen) March 12, 2024

Terror suspects arrested in December in Bosnia, Austria had images of Jewish, Israeli targets – report

A number of terror suspects arrested in December in Bosnia and Austria had images of Jewish and Israeli targets on their cellphones, the Wall Street Journal reports.

According to the report, the suspects were among individuals in two separate groups of refugees from Afghanistan and Syria who were detained on suspicion of terror activities.

The suspects possessed arms and ammunition including Kalashnikovs and pistols, the newspaper says.

2nd barrage of some 30 rockets fired at Israel from Lebanon, taking morning’s total to 100

A second barrage of around 30 rockets is fired from Lebanon, taking the total projectiles launched this morning toward Israel to some 100.

Sirens did not sound for the second barrage as the rockets impacted in open areas, Hebrew-language media reports.

There are no reports of injuries or damage.

The heavy rocket fire came after the Israel Defense Forces confirmed it carried out strikes deep in Lebanon, saying fighter jets hit a pair of sites used by Hezbollah.

According to an IDF statement, the strikes targeted facilities belonging to Hezbollah’s air defense unit and were in response to the Lebanese terror group’s recent launching explosives-laden drones toward the Golan Heights.

Hamas official: Mediators working to advance deal, but Israel must meet terror group’s conditions

Protesters call for the release of hostages held by terrorists in Gaza, outside the US Embassy Branch Office in Tel Aviv, March 5, 2024. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)

Hamas official Mohammad Nazzal says that while negotiations for a potential hostage deal and temporary ceasefire at an impasse, mediators are still working to try to advance an agreement.

“The negotiations have not stopped. It has reached an impasse in recent days, but Qatar and Egypt are working hard to continue it,” he tells Al Jazeera, according to the Kan public broadcaster.

“Hamas responds to the mediators and is trying to cooperate positively, but [Primes Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu is a stumbling block to any understanding. The negotiations will not stop until Netanyahu meets Hamas’s conditions,” Nazzal says, without giving further details.

IDF: Hezbollah fired 70 rockets at Israel, one of the largest barrages launched by terror group

Impact sites in northern Israel after Hezbollah fired a massive rocket barrage, March 12, 2024 (Screen grab used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)

The Hezbollah terror group fired a barrage of some 70 rockets from Lebanon at the Golan Heights this morning, according to the IDF.

It marks one of the largest barrages fired by the terror group amid the ongoing war.

There are no reports of injuries.

Australian FM: Israel must change course in Gaza to keep international support

Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs Penny Wong at Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, Jan. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong says that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is undermining Israel with his approach to the war against Hamas in Gaza, and urges the country to change course or lose even more international support.

US President Biden said on Saturday that Netanyahu was “hurting Israel more than helping” by conducting the war in a way contrary to the country’s values.

Asked about his comments, Wong agrees and says international support for Israel will continue to fray unless it addressed the “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza.

“October 7th was a terrorist attack and the world was rightly very sympathetic to and in solidarity with Israel at that time,” Wong says at the Australian Financial Review Business Summit.

“I think the world is horrified with the current situation … and I would say that unless Israel changes its course it will continue to lose support.”

Rocket barrage fired at north; multiple projectiles intercepted by Iron Dome

Multiple rockets are apparently intercepted by the Iron Dome air defense system over northern Israel.

Footage posted to social media shows trails of smoke from the Iron Dome interceptor missiles.

Sirens had sounded several communities in the northern Golan Heights and the Galilee Panhandle.

המטח לצפון: כמה מהרקטות יורטו, אחרות נפלו בשטחים פתוחים. לא דווח על נפגעים בגוף | עדכונים שוטפים >>> https://t.co/xHEW42wpMc@rubih67 pic.twitter.com/0fPuKJDgv2

— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) March 12, 2024

Rocket sirens sound in communities close to northern border

Sirens sound in a number of communities close to the northern border, warning of incoming rocket fire.

Hezbollah-led forces have been launching daily attacks on Israeli communities and military posts along the border with Lebanon since October 8.

Jordan opens investigation after remains of drone found in Irbid area

Jordanian security forces have located the remains of a drone in the northern Irbid region, according to Jordan’s official Petra news agency.

Quoting a security spokesman, the report says no significant damage was caused and that an investigation has been opened.

The announcement comes after the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a grouping of Iran-backed militias, claimed to target Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport.

CENTCOM confirms Houthis targeted US ship in Red Sea

The US Central Command says early Tuesday that Yemen’s Houthis fired two anti-ship ballistic missiles from Houthi-controlled areas into the Red Sea toward merchant vessel Pinocchio, adding that there are no injuries or damage reported.

Yemen’s Houthis threaten to ramp up attacks on ships during Ramadan

Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis targeted what was described as the “US ship Pinocchio” in the Red Sea, according to a speech of the group’s military spokesman Yahya Sarea that is televised early Tuesday.

The group will escalate their operations in solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza war, Sarea says in the speech.

Prayers at Temple Mount on 2nd night of Ramadan end without incident

Palestinian Muslim worshippers pray at the Temple Mount compound in Jerusalem's Old City during the holy fasting month of Ramadan, on March 11, 2024. (Ahmad Gharabli/AFP)

Ramadan prayers at the Temple Mount passed without incident this evening, following scuffles between worshippers and Israeli police during the start of the Muslim holy month a night earlier.

Yemen’s government says at least 11 killed in US-British strikes against Houthis

ADEN, Yemen — Airstrikes attributed to a US-British coalition hit port cities and small towns in western Yemen, killing at least 11 people and injuring 14 while defending commercial shipping, a spokesperson for Yemen’s internationally recognized government tells Reuters.

At least 17 airstrikes are reported in the country, including in the principal port city of Hodeidah and at Ras Issa Port, according to Al Masirah, the main Houthi-run television news outlet.

The strikes come just days after the first civilian fatalities and vessel loss since the Iran-aligned Houthis began attacking commercial shipping in November in solidarity with the Palestinians amid the Israel-Hamas war. The strikes also coincide with the first day of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, a period of fasting for Muslims.

Despite reprisals from the US-British coalition and other navies, the Houthis have escalated their campaign of attacks on commercial vessels in one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

The Houthis killed three crew of the Barbados-flagged, Greek-operated True Confidence on Wednesday in an attack off the port of Aden.

That came days after the sinking of the cargo ship Rubymar, which went down about two weeks after being hit by a Houthi missile on February 18.

Many ships are now making the longer, more expensive trip around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope to avoid the dangerous route through the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea to the Suez Canal — sharply raising shipping costs.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.

Biden says no plans to address Knesset amid deepening public spat with Netanyahu

US President Joe Biden speaks at the National League of Cities at the Marriott Marquis, March 11, 2024, in Washington. (AP/ Andrew Harnik)

US President Joe Biden tells reporters he does not have any plans to address the Knesset, after saying over the weekend that he might take that step in order to directly appeal to the Israeli public regarding his concerns over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s prosecution of the war in Gaza.

After telling MSNBC that he might take the far-reaching step, he declined to provide any additional information.

Earlier today, a member of the White House pool asked him if he has plans to address the Knesset, and he responded, “No, not at this moment.”

Asked whether he has scheduled a meeting with Netanyahu, who he last spoke with roughly two weeks ago, Biden responded, “no.”

Pressed whether he plans to schedule such a meeting, Biden adds, “We’ll see what happens.”

Biden regularly takes questions from the White House pool while traveling to and from events. Over the past several months, a wildly disproportionate number of questions have been about Israel.

In the footage aired by MSNBC of its interview with Biden, nearly eight of the ten minutes were of questions regarding Israel.

"Have you scheduled your 'come to Jesus' meeting with Bibi Netanyahu?"
BIDEN: "No."
"Do you plan to, sir?"
BIDEN: "We'll see what happens."
"Do you plan to address the Israeli Parliament?"
BIDEN: "No, not at this moment." pic.twitter.com/SKjSCCJf3s

— Howard Mortman (@HowardMortman) March 11, 2024

IDF confirms striking deep in Lebanon, says it targeted Hezbollah air defense sites

The Israel Defense Forces confirms it has carried out strikes deep in Lebanon, saying fighter jets hit a pair of sites used by Hezbollah.

According to an IDF statement, the strikes targeted facilities belonging to Hezbollah’s air defense unit and were in response to the Lebanese terror group’s recent launching explosives-laden drones toward the Golan Heights.

מטוסי קרב תקפו לפני זמן קצר שני מתחמים של ארגון הטרור חיזבאללה במרחב הבקעא שבעומק לבנון. המתחמים משויכים לכוח האווירי של חיזבאללה שתכנן והוציא לפועל מתווים שונים אל עבר שטח מדינת ישראל.

התקיפות בוצעו בתגובה להפעלת כלי טיס של חיזבאללה לעבר רמת הגולן במהלך הימים האחרונים pic.twitter.com/rPMC4KZsbE

— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) March 11, 2024

Group of former senior officials warns Gaza aid crisis threatening Israel’s ‘vital interests’

Displaced Palestinians collect food donated by a charity before an iftar meal, on the first day of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan, in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, on March 11, 2024. (AFP)

A group representing 550 former Israeli senior officials has penned a letter to the war cabinet warning of “cumulative damage to Israel’s security and strategic interests caused by the government’s policy on humanitarian aid for over two million Gaza non-combatants.”

“Beyond the moral aspects, the crisis in the Gaza Strip, which is on the brink of a humanitarian disaster, poses a threat to vital national interests,” states the letter penned by Commanders for Israel’s Security, which lobbies for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“The government must revamp its approach to this issue: stop quarreling with friends and others over every delivery of assistance, significantly expand aid quantity, its transportation and the number of dedicated crossings, while ensuring safe distribution to the two million non-combatants,” Commanders for Israel’s Security states.

“The damage caused by the policy of humanitarian stinginess, like that of outrageous statements of irresponsible ministers and MKs, undermines the foundations of security and diplomatic support for Israel emanating from capitals that are most important for our security.”

“We urge you all to restrain the extremist firebrands, prioritize Israel’s security and strategic interests over coalition considerations, and urgently lead extensive humanitarian aid efforts, before the IDF freedom to operate in the Strip, Israel’s freedom to shape the Strip’s future, and our relations with the US, Arab peace partners, Europe and the international community suffer irreparable damage,” the letter adds.