March 18: US says Hamas added new conditions in truce talks, but deal still possible

US says Netanyahu promised Biden to get more aid into Gaza

Trucks carrying humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip pass through the inspection area at the Kerem Shalom Crossing in southern Israel, March 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicated during his call earlier today with US President Joe Biden that he would push his government to ensure that more aid enters Gaza, according to US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, who clarifies that Washington is more interested in seeing results, as compared to statements.

He acknowledges during a press briefing that Israel has taken several steps in recent days to facilitate the entry of more aid into Gaza, including opening a new gate to allow trucks to directly enter northern Gaza from Israel, allowing additional convoys to reach northern Gaza from the southern Strip and expanding the number of trucks entering the enclave from the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings.

However, he notes that the amount of aid has dipped in the past, after initial bursts of improvement, partially due to the breakdown of law and order, or Israeli restrictions that prevent the proper distribution of assistance throughout the Strip once it enters Gaza.

Sullivan says the US will keep working to “flood” the Strip with aid by land, air and sea, adding that Israel is primarily responsible for facilitating the assistance followed by the international community.

He brands as “alarming” a UN-backed report warning earlier today that Gaza faces impending famine if steps are not taken to address the crisis.

US says Hamas return to Shifa hospital shows need for a viable alternative to control Gaza

Israeli soldiers show the media an underground tunnel found underneath Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, November 22, 2023. (AP/Victor R. Caivano, File)

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan says Israel’s latest military operation targeting Hamas in Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital highlights Washington’s concern that Jerusalem lacks a sustainable strategy in targeting the terror group.

“Israel cleared Shifa once. Hamas came back into Shifa, which raises questions about how to ensure a sustainable campaign against Hamas so that it cannot regenerate, cannot retake territory,” Sullivan says during a press briefing.

Washington has long accused Israel of failing to advance a viable alternative to Hamas rule, by rejecting efforts to promote local Palestinians linked to the Palestinian Authority with support from Arab allies to fill the vacuum created by the terror group’s initial dismantlement by Israel.

Instead, Netanyahu has sought to empower local clan leaders with no ties to the PA or Hamas to facilitate the distribution of aid and eventually govern the Strip, though, there are no indications this strategy has worked.

In various spots throughout northern Gaza have seen a resurgence of Hamas activity in recent weeks, as the IDF has reportedly pleaded with the political leadership to make more clear-cut, realistic decisions regarding the post-war management of Gaza or risk wasting the military’s gains.

“From our perspective, it is connecting Israel’s objective to a sustainable strategy. That is the final thing we need to focus on right now, rather than have Israel go smash into Rafah. That is what the president talked to the prime minister about today,” Sullivan says.

Still, he defends aspects of the latest Israeli operation in Shifa, noting that the IDF is pursuing senior Hamas commanders and that “it is clear that Hamas fired back at Israel from that hospital.”

Sullivan also reiterates that Hamas continues to use civilian infrastructure “to store weapons, for command and control and to house fighters.”

“That places an added burden on Israel that very few militaries have to deal with — an entrenched insurgency, a terrorist group using the shield of civilian institutions to protect themselves during a fight, rather than meeting Israel on some open field of battle,” he adds.

Israel yet to provide assurances it will use US military aid in accordance with international law

Illustrative: An F-35 at Hatzerim Air Base in the Negev desert, June 29, 2023. (Ofer Zidon/Flash90)

Israel has yet to provide the US with a written assurance that it will use American military aid in line with international law, with only five more days to do so, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan says.

“What they have to do by Sunday is just provide credible and reliable assurances that they will abide by their international obligations — not obligations we have imposed upon them, but obligations they have freely accepted with respect to international humanitarian law, which includes not arbitrarily impeding the flow of humanitarian assistance where they can control that,” Sullivan says in a press briefing.

The written assurance is a new condition that the US placed on all aid recipients, laid out in a memo signed by US President Joe Biden on February 8. The directive does not single out Israel, but came at a time of increasing calls from progressive lawmakers for conditions on US aid to Israel, amid concerns that Jerusalem was not doing enough to protect civilians in Gaza. US security aid recipients were already required to use it in line with international law, though the request for written assurance was new.

“I cannot tell you today that they have provided that… They have several more days before they have to do so, and we anticipate that they will,” Sullivan clarifies.

The Walla news site reported last Thursday that Defense Minister Yoav Gallant had signed off on the written assurance, though Israel has yet to publicly confirm as much.

US says Hamas added new conditions in truce talks, but deal still possible

Friends and relatives of the Israeli hostages held in the Gaza Strip by the Hamas terror group attend a rally calling for their release, in Tel Aviv, March 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Hamas in its response last week to the latest hostage deal framework added new conditions that Israel says it cannot accept, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan says.

Sullivan offers the most detailed response from a US official regarding last week’s Hamas response during a press briefing in which he was asked for a status update on the talks.

“Hamas has put a proposal on the table — this is after Israel, working with Qatar, Egypt and the United States, had indicated a willingness to move forward on a six-week ceasefire in return for the release of a number of hostages, leading to further phases from there, and Hamas had given us nothing for quite some time,” Sullivan says, reiterating that there could be a deal immediately if Hamas would just agree to release roughly 40 Israeli female, elderly, and wounded hostages.

Instead, Hamas “put a proposal on the table where they’ve added a series of other conditions… The Israeli government has responded by saying they can’t just accept that. They regard some of those conditions as going too far, but that’s what a negotiation is about,” the US national security adviser continues, noting that negotiating teams are in Qatar trying to secure a deal.

“We believe that those discussions are very alive, that a deal is possible,” Sullivan says.

Biden did not threaten Netanyahu with repercussions if he launches Rafah operation

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan speaks during a press briefing at the White House in Washington, March 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

US President Joe Biden did not threaten Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with repercussions if Israel moves forward with a major ground invasion in Rafah, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan says.

“The president didn’t make threats,” Sullivan says during a press briefing.

“What the president said today was, ‘I want you to understand, Mr. Prime Minister, exactly where I am on this. I am for the defeat of Hamas. I believe that they are an evil terrorist group with not just Israeli, but American blood on their hands. At the same time. I believe that to get to that (defeat), you need a strategy that works, and that strategy should not involve a major military operation that puts thousands and thousands of civilian, innocent lives at risk in Rafah. There is a better way. Send your team to Washington, and let’s talk about it. We’ll lay out for you what we believe is a better way,'” Sullivan recalls.

The national security adviser says the US has “every expectation” that Israel will not proceed with a Rafah offensive before the sides discuss the matter in Washington.

Asked why previous contacts have not been sufficient in explaining Washington’s stance to Israel, Sullivan says this will be the first time that the sides will have an opportunity to have “an all-encompassing, comprehensive, integrated, strategic discussion on defeating Hamas and ensuring that civilians are protected.”

“There are ways for Israel to prevail in this conflict… and not smash into Rafah,” Sullivan reiterates, adding that the US will present its case when the teams meet later this week or early next week.

The national security adviser denies reports that the call ended abruptly. “It ended in a totally normal way when they had each gotten through all of their points. It was very businesslike.”

He also somewhat angrily dismisses another question about whether Biden told Netanyahu that a Rafah operation is a “red line” for the US. He calls the question an “obsession” of the media that “is not stated as a declaration of our policy, and we’ve made that clear.”

After criticism, White House says Israel interferes in US politics more than the other way around

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress, Washington DC, March 3, 2015. (Amos Ben Gershom/GPO/File)

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan says Israel weighs into American politics more than the US weighs into Israeli politics, amid fury in Jerusalem over Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s call for early elections in Israel to replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Sullivan is asked during a press briefing whether the US could do more to speak directly to the Israeli people regarding its concerns over a mass IDF invasion of Rafah. He says it is ironic that the press is asking that question given Netanyahu’s recent appearance in American media, in which he has blasted Washington for interfering in Israeli politics.

“In fact, we don’t do nearly as much as they speak into ours,” Sullivan asserts without elaborating.

Netanyahu has long been criticized by Democrats over what they saw was his support for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in 2012, but more notably the 2015 speech that the Israeli premier organized in Congress behind then-president Barack Obama’s back in order to lobby lawmakers against the Iran nuclear deal that Obama was seeking to ink.

Sullivan appears to try and soften his criticism, saying it was not “a constructive answer to your question, just an observation.”

He reveals that Netanyahu on the call raised his concern regarding “a variety of things that have come out in the American press,” but avoids detailing them further.

“From President Biden’s perspective, this is not a question of politics, it’s not a question of public statements, it’s a question of policy and strategy. That’s what he’s focused on, that’s what he was focused on in the call,” Sullivan says.

Biden is not focused on what’s popular or on shaping public opinion, but rather in advancing his broader regional initiative to see a two-state solution with Israel enjoying normalized relations with all of its Arab neighbors, Sullivan maintains.

“While it is true that many voices in Israel can’t see that today, that is not going to alter the president’s view… that that is what is not just in the US national security interest, but it’s really the only solution to secure Israel’s future as a democratic, Jewish state that is secure and at peace with its neighbors, including its most immediate neighbors — the Palestinian people.”

Driver seen running over ultra-Orthodox protester blocking road during protest

Video footage shows a driver running over an ultra-Orthodox protester who was blocking the road during a protest in Jerusalem.

In the clip, several youths can be seen sitting in front of cars at the entrance to the city, when one starts to move, apparently running over one of the demonstrators.

Police said the man sustained an injury to his leg and was in a good condition.

Police said several of the demonstrators were also arrested for damaging vehicles. They also called police officers “Nazis” and told them to “go die in Gaza.”

The ultra-Orthodox are protesting efforts to draft them into the IDF.

תיעוד דרמטי מירושלים: נהג דרס מפגין שניסה לחסום אותו בהפגנת הפלג הירושלמי בנושא חוק הגיוס

https://t.co/9bPvNU1TtV pic.twitter.com/0r2RWGyvor

— החדשות – N12 (@N12News) March 18, 2024

Al-Jazeera says reporter detained in Gaza hospital raid is released

The Al-Jazeera television network says Israel’s military has released a freelance correspondent who was detained during its raid on Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital.

Correspondent Ismail Alghoul was detained along with other journalists early today when he was covering the raid on the hospital, the network said. It said Israeli troops beat him and destroyed the network’s broadcast vehicle as well as cameras and equipment.

Later, the Qatari-owned network reported that Alghoul was released. It quoted him as saying that he and other journalists were handcuffed, blindfolded, and stripped of their clothes for 12 hours.

The Israeli military had no immediate comment.

Macron tells French Jews he will prosecute antisemitism relentlessly

President of the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF) Yonathan Arfi, left, offers a poster to French President Emmanuel Macron, during a ceremony celebrating the 80th anniversary of the Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF) at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, March 18, 2024. (Yoan Valat/ Pool Photo via AP)

French President Emmanuel Macron vows to combat resurgent antisemitism that is seeding fears and doubts among France’s Jewish population, the largest in Europe.

‘’There is no place for antisemitism’’ in France, Macron says at a ceremony Monday marking the 80th anniversary of France’s leading Jewish organization, called CRIF.

He decries a rise in anti-Jewish attacks since the October 7 Hamas massacre and acknowledged fears of Jewish people questioning whether they are still safe in France. He says the government is punishing antisemitism relentlessly, “whether in the street, on screens, in our universities.’’

Tensions erupted at the prestigious Sciences Po in Paris last week, after pro-Palestinian demonstrators were accused of barring entrance to a member of a Jewish student union.

‘’Wherever antisemitism prospers, all other forms of hatred prosper — hatred of differences, of minorities, of foreigners, of Muslims, of women, of homosexuals,’’ Macron said.

France’s government initially sought to restrict pro-Palestinian protests after October 7. In recent months, Macron has been increasingly critical of Israel’s protracted and deadly offensive on Gaza.

“To defend and love Israel, to want its security, does not mean subscribing to all the choices of the democratic government of the moment,’’ he says.

White House outlines reason it’s opposed to Rafah operation

Palestinian break their fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan outside their destroyed home in Rafah, Gaza Strip, March 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan lays out the three reasons why President Joe Biden is “deeply concerned” about a massive Israeli offensive in Rafah akin to the ones carried out thus far in other major Gaza cities.

Sullivan notes that over one million people are sheltering in Rafah after fleeing repeatedly from other cities in Gaza.

“They have nowhere else to go. Gaza’s other major cities have largely been destroyed, and Israel has not presented us or the world with a plan for how or where they would safely move those civilians, let alone feed and house them and ensure access to basic things like sanitation,” Sullivan says during a press briefing.

The border city of Rafah is also the primary entry point for humanitarian assistance to Gaza from Egypt and Israel, Sullivan points out, lamenting that it would be shut down or severely hampered “at the moment when it is most sorely needed” if an IDF offensive moved forward.

“Third, Rafah is on the border with Egypt, which has voiced its deep alarm over a major military operation there and has even raised questions about its future relationship with Israel as a result of any impending military operation,” the US national security adviser says.

US to keep pressing for hostage deal, not enough international pressure applied to Hamas

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan speaks at a press briefing at the White House in Washington, March 18, 2024. (AP Photo/ Andrew Harnik)

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan acknowledges that the effort to secure an extended truce between Israel and Hamas through a hostage deal “has been more elusive than we would have hoped,” but insists that the Biden administration “will keep pressing because we regard this as an urgent priority.”

US President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed the ongoing talks during their call earlier today, Sullivan says during a press briefing, explaining that a deal would be the most effective way to surge humanitarian aid into Gaza.

The national security adviser reiterates the US belief that Hamas could end the conflict today if it agreed to surrender. “Far too little of the energy and the pressure to end this conflict has been applied to Hamas. We will keep pointing that out,” he adds.

White House says major Rafah op would be a ‘mistake,’ Netanyahu agrees to send interagency team to US to discuss alternative

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan speaks at a press briefing at the White House in Washington, March 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

US President Joe Biden all but shut the door for any potential support for a major Israeli ground offensive in Rafah during his call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier today, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan reveals.

“A major ground operation there would be a mistake. It would lead to more innocent civilian deaths, worsen the already dire humanitarian crisis, deepen the anarchy in Gaza, and further isolate Israel internationally,” Sullivan says, offering a readout on the call in his opening remarks at a White House press briefing.

“More importantly, the key goals Israel wants to achieve in Rafah can be done by other means,” Sullivan adds, revealing that Biden asked Netanyahu during the call to send an interagency team to Washington “to lay out an alternative approach that would target key Hamas elements in Rafah and secure the Egypt-Gaza border without a major ground invasion.”

“Obviously, [Netanyahu] has his own point of view on a Rafah operation, but he agreed that he would send a team to Washington to have this discussion, and we look forward to those discussions,” the US national security adviser adds.

Sullivan clarifies that Biden again rejected during the call “the strawman (argument) that raising questions about Rafah is the same as raising questions about defeating Hamas. That’s just nonsense. Our position is that Hamas should not be allowed a safe haven in Rafah or anywhere else.”

The US has indicated that it could support an operation in Rafah if Israel presents a credible plan for how it will protect the over one million civilians who are sheltering in the southern Gaza city. Netanyahu says the IDF will evacuate the civilians to areas north of Rafah before beginning the operation and declared Friday that he had approved the military’s plans for the offensive.

Washington began hardening its approach in recent weeks, with Biden saying earlier this month that an Israeli offensive in Rafah would be a “red line,” adding that “there cannot [be] 30,000 more Palestinians dead as a consequence of going after” Hamas. But he then appeared to backtrack, insisting that “there’s no red line (in which) I’m going to cut off all weapons so they don’t have the Iron Dome to protect them.”

Regardless, no operation is seen to be imminent, given that Israel has withdrawn most of its reservists from Gaza after over 100 days, and thousands would likely need to be called up again before any offensive in Rafah could begin. Netanyahu reportedly told security cabinet ministers on Friday that he never said the operation would take place during Ramadan, which ends on April 9.

Talk of an imminent operation in Rafah appears to be part of an Israeli effort to put pressure on Hamas to agree to the hostage deal currently being negotiated or risk having its last stronghold dismantled by the IDF.

Smotrich vows more settlements as EU sanctions extremist settlers

Finance Bezalel Smotrich holds a press conference at the Knesset, Jerusalem, March 13, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich says Israel will further entrench its settlements in the West Bank in response to new sanctions announced by the EU against extremist settlers.

“The false BDS campaign against the State of Israel is working. A campaign which is designed in its entirety to besmirch the State of Israel,” says Smotrich, who as a minister in the Defense Ministry with authority over civilian affairs in the West Bank has strongly promoted settlement expansion during the course of the current government.

The minister, who heads the ultranationalist Religious Zionism party and himself lives in the settlement of Kedumim, claims that any violence by settlers is dealt with by the justice system.

“There is one, holistic, Zionist response to this [EU] declaration – strengthening and entrenching settlement in all parts of the Land of Israel,” Smotrich concludes.

Israeli, Hamas delegations in Doha to be separated by corridor in same hotel

Israel’s delegation to the hostage talks in Qatar will be in the same hotel as a Hamas delegation, Hebrew media reports say.

However, there will be no direct contact and the mediators will go back and forth between the two rooms, divided by a corridor, the reports say.

Talks started this evening with the Israeli delegation taking part in a meal with the Qatari hosts to break the fast for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Israeli officials have said they expect the talks to take at least two weeks, and believe that the Hamas delegation will refer every decision back to Yahya Sinwar, who is believed to be in the tunnels in Gaza.

US confirms Israel killed Hamas no. 3 Marwan Issa

Marwan Issa, the deputy head of Hamas’s military wing, circled in a photo circulated on social media in 2015. The photo or its source could not be immediately verified.

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan becomes the first government official to confirm reports that Israel killed Hamas’s number three military official, Marwan Issa, in a strike last week.

“The rest of the top leaders are in hiding, likely deep in the Hamas tunnel network, and justice will come for them too. We are helping to ensure that,” Sullivan says in a press briefing.

Yesterday, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said that Hamas was trying to hide the fate of Issa, the deputy commander of the terror group’s military wing after last week’s strike.

Sullivan says US President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed Israel’s military operations in Gaza during their call earlier today, with the former “emphasiz[ing] his bone-deep commitment to ensuring the long-term security of Israel and [re]-affirm[ing]…that Israel has a right to go after Hamas, the perpetrators of the worst massacre of the Jewish people since the Holocaust.

“Israel has made significant progress against Hamas. They’ve broken a significant number of Hamas battalions and killed thousands of Hamas fighters including senior commanders,” Sullivan adds.

IDF releases footage of commandos battling Hamas gunmen in Shifa hospital

The IDF releases footage showing troops of the Navy’s Shayetet 13 commando unit battling Hamas operatives inside Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital early this morning.

According to the IDF, some 20 gunmen were killed by troops in the hospital complex and another 20 were killed in the area surrounding Shifa.

More than 200 suspects have been detained so far during the raid, IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari says, in an evening press conference.

Netanyahu said to block meetings between US envoy with Shin Bet head, IDF intel chief

Barbara Leaf, US assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, speaks to reporters at a media roundtable in Kuwait City on October 19, 2022. (YASSER AL-ZAYYAT / AFP/ File)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has blocked two senior Israeli officials from meeting with a senior US envoy, in a bid to signal his ire with the Biden administration, Channel 12 reports.

Barbara Leaf, the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, was blocked from meeting with Shin Bet Chief Ronen Bar and IDF military intelligence chief Maj. Gen Aharon Haliva, the report says citing two Israeli sources.

The report says the move was an attempt by Netanyahu to send a signal to the White House over the deepening criticism of Israel’s conduct in Gaza and calls seen as targeting Netanyahu.

EU foreign ministers approve sanctions against violent settlers in West Bank

Spain's Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares Bueno speaks with the media as he arrives for a meeting of EU foreign ministers at the European Council building in Brussels, March 18, 2024. (AP Photo/ Virginia Mayo)

EU foreign ministers have “unanimously” approved sanctions against violent settlers who harass Palestinians in the West Bank, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares tells reporters after meeting with his EU counterparts in Brussels.

“Today, we have approved, unanimously, the sanctions against the violent settlers that harass the Palestinians in the West Bank,” he says.

US says seeking information on reports Israel detained Al Jazeera reporter in Gaza

The United States is aware of reports that an Al Jazeera journalist was detained by Israeli Defense Forces, State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel tells a news briefing, adding that Washington has sought information from Israel on the incident.

Qatar-based Al Jazeera network accused the Israeli forces of “attacking” its correspondent Ismail Alghoul in Gaza while he was working, saying his equipment was also destroyed. The IDF was not immediately available for comment on the incident.

المختل قـتل معظم الصحفيين في غزة واعتقال المتبقي منهم وآخرهم اسماعيل الغول.

لم يتبقى سوى عدد قليل جداً جداً من الصحفيين.

تحدثوا عن المخطوفين ، صوت غزة بدأ يختفي. pic.twitter.com/J5pACjLKFQ

— MO (@Abu_Salah9) March 18, 2024

Trump says he can’t post bond to cover full amount of a $454 million civil fraud judgment

Republican presidential candidate former US President Donald Trump gestures towards the crowd at a campaign rally March 16, 2024, in Vandalia, Ohio. (AP Photo/ Jeff Dean)

Donald Trump’s lawyers tell a New York appellate court that it is impossible for him to post a bond covering the full amount of a $454 million civil fraud judgment while he appeals.

The former president’s lawyers write in a court filing that “obtaining an appeal bond in the full amount” of the judgment “is not possible under the circumstances presented.”

Trump’s lawyers asked the state’s intermediate appeals court to overturn a previous ruling requiring that he post a bond covering the full amount in order to halt enforcement while he appeals the judgment in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ lawsuit.

With interest, Trump owes $456.8 million. In all, he and co-defendants, including his company, sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr. and other executives, owe $467.3 million. To obtain a bond, they would be required to post collateral worth $557 million, Trump’s lawyers said.

Trump is appealing Judge Arthur Engoron ruling in February that he, his company, and his top executives, including his sons, schemed for years to deceive banks and insurers by inflating his wealth on financial statements used to secure loans and make deals.

Israeli official says Jerusalem pessimistic about Doha talks; US hinting at slowing arms sales

Families of Israelis held hostage by Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip and activists protest calling for the for their release outside the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem, March 17, 2024. (Chaim Goldberg/ Flash90)

An Israeli official tells The Times of Israel that they are not “optimistic at all” as negotiations over a hostage deal kick off in Doha.

At the same time, says the official, because of building international and domestic pressures, “we cannot afford to not exhaust this opportunity.”

The prospect of the US slowing the sale of ammunition to Israel is “looming in the background,” says the official, adding that there has never been an explicit threat.

“It’s communicated through back channels, more hinted. But it’s something that is happening.”

Netanyahu says he discussed Israel’s commitment to achieving war goals with Biden

After his 45-minute call with US President Joe Biden, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu releases a video saying that the two leaders discussed “Israel’s commitment to achieving all the goals of the war: the elimination of Hamas, the release of all our hostages, and the promise that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel.”

Netanyahu stresses that Israel will provide to Gazans “the necessary humanitarian aid that helps achieve these goals.”

IDF hits Hezbollah cell, facilities in southern Lebanon

The IDF says it targeted a group of Hezbollah operatives who were spotted entering a building used by the terror group in southern Lebanon’s Mays al-Jabal earlier today.

Fighter jets also hit another building used by Hezbollah in Odaisseh, the IDF says.

Separately, an observation post in Kafr Kila was struck earlier, the IDF adds.

Projectiles were fired from Lebanon at the Mount Dov, Yiftah, and Menara areas today, with the IDF saying it shelled the launch sites with artillery.

כלי טיס זיהה מוקדם יותר היום מחבלים נכנסים למבנה צבאי של ארגון הטרור חיזבאללה במרחב מיס אל ג'בל, זמן קצר לאחד הזיהוי, מטוסי קרב תקפו את המבנה.
בנוסף, מטוסי קרב תקפו מבנה צבאי ששימש את ארגון הטרור חיזבאללה במרחב אל עדייסא.

צה״ל תקף מוקדם יותר היום עמדות תצפית במרחב כפר כילא >> pic.twitter.com/ve7DGOEFai

— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) March 18, 2024

White House says Biden, Netanyahu discussed Rafah, humanitarian aid to Gaza

This combination photo shows US President Joe Biden, left, on March 8, 2024, in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, Oct. 28, 2023 (AP Photo)

US President Joe Biden just got off the phone with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the White House confirms, in what was their first conversation since February 15 amid an increasingly public split regarding the war in Gaza.

The two “discuss[ed] the latest developments in Israel and Gaza, including the situation in Rafah and efforts to surge humanitarian assistance to Gaza,” the White House says, adding that a readout on the call will be issued shortly.

This was their 20th call since the outbreak of the war on October 7.

Last week, the most senior Congressional Democrat, Sen. Chuck Schumer, called for early elections in Israel to replace Netanyahu, whom he branded as an obstacle to peace along with Hamas, the Israeli far-right and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Biden hailed the speech and said many Americans feel as Schumer does, though the White House clarified that elections were a matter for the Israeli people to decide.

Biden was vocally supportive of Israel in the immediate aftermath of Hamas’s October 7 terror onslaught, becoming the first US president to visit Israel during wartime and sending a pair of US army aircraft carriers to the Mediterranean in an effort to deter adversaries from joining in the war against Israel. But the rhetorical backing has waned as the fighting has dragged on and as the humanitarian situation in Gaza has continued to deteriorate.

Washington has avoided turning the rhetoric against Jerusalem regarding its prosecution of the war into action, though, and has refrained from conditioning military aid, cutting it off entirely or demanding an immediate ceasefire.

In the meantime, it is working to secure a temporary ceasefire of at least six weeks through a hostage deal, which it hopes to use to negotiate a more enduring truce and advance a regional initiative that would see Arab allies participating in the reconstruction of Gaza, a reformed PA returning to govern the Strip, Saudi Arabi normalizing ties with Israel and Jerusalem agreeing to create a pathway to an eventual Palestinian state.

While the US in recent weeks has insisted that Israel is cooperating with the hostage deal and has said it is Hamas that is dragging its feet, Netanyahu has all but rejected the idea of such an agreement to secure a broader regional alignment, as he and the vast majority of his coalition are against a two-state solution.

Haredi demonstrators block Jerusalem light rail in protest against plans to draft them

Israeli policemen try to forcibly remove ultra-Orthodox protesters demonstrating against against their planned conscription into the Israeli armed forces, in Jerusalem on March 18, 2024 (Photo by AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP)

Declaring that they would rather die than enlist in the IDF, dozens of ultra-Orthodox men block the tracks of the Jerusalem light rail on Jaffa Street and scuffle with police to protest efforts to end their community’s longtime exemption from military service.

“If you go to the army, you and dogs are equal,” they chant, riffing off of enlistment advocates’ call for “equality of the burden” between Haredi and secular Israelis.

Police later said they had opened the road.

The demonstrators belong to the Jerusalem Faction, an extremist Haredi group numbering some 60,000 members. Considered among the most conservative of Haredi factions, its members regularly demonstrate against the enlistment of yeshiva students.

Last month, members of the group blocked Route 4 near the Haredi city of Bnei Brak while others blocked a light rail route in the nearby city of Petah Tikva.

Haredi men of military age have been able to avoid the draft for decades by enrolling for study in yeshivas and obtaining repeated one-year service deferrals until they reach the age of military exemption.

״אם ללכת לצבא, אתם והכלבים שווים״
מחאת הפלג הירושלמי בצומת שרי ישראל – יפו בירושלים נגד הגיוס תחת גשם שוטף. שלושה עצורים עד כה pic.twitter.com/u3olN5CJjI

— Haim Goldich | חיים גולדיטש (@HGoldich) March 18, 2024

A law that authorizes this exemption expired in June 2023, and a temporary regulation to extend it is set to expire at the end of March, after which the military will not be authorized to exempt Haredi young men from the draft and will need to start enlisting them.

According to the IDF’s Personnel Directorate, some 66,000 young men from the Haredi community received an exemption from military service over the past year, reportedly an all-time record at a time when the army is facing a significant manpower shortage.

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi has called drafting Haredim “the need of the hour.”

Despite this, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly hopes to postpone the enlistment of members of the Haredi community until the beginning of July, while the coalition works to formulate a new conscription law.

Suspected settler vandals tear down farm fence in West Bank Palestinian village

Israelis, likely from settlements in the northern West Bank, dismantle and make off with a fence put up by Palestinian farmers around their land at the outskirts of the village of Burin in Area B of the West Bank.

In video footage taken by a researcher for the Yesh Din organization, which campaigns against the settlements, two young men wearing tzitzit, one of whom is also wearing a yarmulke, can be seen rolling up the chain link fence and carrying it off.

According to Yesh Din, the incident was reported to the District Coordination and Liaison of the COGAT Defense Ministry agency, which coordinates between the IDF and the Palestinian authorities, but no military or law enforcement officials arrived to deal with the issue.

Residents of Burin have frequently faced harassment and violence from extremist settlers in the area. On Saturday, stones were thrown by youths towards homes in Burin in full view of IDF soldiers who took no action against the stone throwers.

Israeli negotiating team said to arrive in Qatar, talks expected to take at least 2 weeks

File: Head of Mossad David Barnea attends a state ceremony marking 50 years since the Yom Kippur War, held at the military cemetery at Jerusalem's Mount Herzl, on September 26, 2023. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Israel’s negotiating team led by Mossad director David Barnea arrives in Qatar for indirect talks about a temporary truce in Gaza and a hostage release, the Haaretz daily reports.

A senior diplomatic official tells Haaretz that the talks will take at least two weeks and are expected to be painstaking.

“The talks will take two weeks at least and will be conducted with [Hamas Gaza leader Yahya] Sinwar in the tunnels, not with the mediators,” the official says. “So every change to the framework will take 24-36 hours.”

The expected talks would mark the first time both Israeli officials and Hamas leaders join the indirect negotiations since the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan last week. Mediators had hoped to secure a six-week truce before then, but Hamas refused any deal that wouldn’t lead to a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, a demand Israel flatly rejects.

Ben Gvir urges PM to intervene to allow police chief to make appointments before he retires

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir speaks ahead of a faction meeting in the Knesset, March 18, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir calls on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to intervene after the attorney general ordered that police chief Kobi Shabtai not promote people ahead of his pending retirement.

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara is “trying to do everything so that I don’t appoint the next head of the police investigations unit,” Ben Gvir says at a meeting of his ultranationalist Otzma Yehudit party in the Knesset.

“I demand that the prime minister get involved” and “clarify the situation to her,” he says, insisting that the head of the police be treated the same as IDF chief of staff Lt Gen. Herzi Halevi — who has come under fire from far-right members of the coalition for recently appointing senior officers in the wake of the October 7 attack.

According to Hebrew media reports, the two clashed during a security cabinet meeting on Sunday evening when Ben Gvir challenged Baharav-Miara over the issue.

Today he accuses her of discriminating against the police chief because “he did not come from the right place [and] his name is Shabtai.”

IDF says 20 Hamas gunmen killed in Shifa; Gallant: We turned it into a ‘death trap’ for terrorists

Weapons found at Gaza City's Shifa Hospital, March 18, 2024. (Israel Defense Forces)

The IDF and Shin Bet security agency say Israeli troops have so far killed some 20 Hamas gunmen during the ongoing raid at Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital, with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant saying that troops turned the hospital into a “death trap” for the terrorists.

The operation began early this morning.

Dozens of suspects have also been detained for questioning, the IDF says.

At the hospital, the IDF says troops found weapons and money provided by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad to its operatives at the hospital.

Speaking to troops, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant says the raid is another step toward bringing down Hamas.

“The place that the Hamas terrorists thought was their hiding place and a safe place immediately became, with a rapid raid, a death trap for the terrorists in Shifa,” Gallant says.

“In this, we have taken another step to defeat Hamas, another brick, another blow. This will continue and strengthen until we eliminate the Hamas organization and everything it represents,” he says.

Ben Gvir says Israel safer after issuing 100,000 gun licenses since October 7

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir speaks ahead of a faction meeting in the Knesset, March 18, 2024. (Sam Sokol/ Times of Israel)

Putting more weapons on the streets has made Israel safer, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir declares, celebrating the fact that his office has approved 100,000 gun licenses since October 7.

“This week we reached a milestone at the National Security Ministry: the 100,000th citizen received his firearms license,” Ben Gvir, standing in front of a poster with an image of an oversized handgun and the slogan “100K Israelis armed,” tells reporters ahead of his far-right Otzma Yehudit party’s weekly faction meeting in the Knesset.

“In fact, out of 299,354 applications submitted since the war…more than 100,000 citizens have already been approved to arm themselves because weapons save lives,” he says.

“We have seen throughout the last months how much a weapon saves lives,” he continues, stating “the dimensions of the [October 7] disaster were less” in places where “civilians could protect themselves.”

“We have also seen this in recent attacks, and I think that the work in the National Security Ministry is proving itself,” he says.

Asked about concerns relating to crime and domestic violence raised by women’s groups concerned about the influx of guns into the public sphere, Ben Gvir responds that his ministry is working to make sure that weapons only end up “in the right hands.”

Women were raped and murdered “because there were not enough weapons,” he argues, adding that he had given out permits to “tens of thousands of armed women who can now defend themselves.”

Requests for gun permits surged following October 7 and the National Security Ministry granted temporary authority to approve gun license applications to his personal staff appointees, Knesset employees, and young women performing civilian National Service volunteer duty.

According to Hebrew daily Haaretz, thousands of licenses were granted illegally. Ben Gvir intervened personally to help former spy for Israel Jonathan Pollard overcome police and court objections to his obtaining a gun license.

Ben Gvir has himself threatened people with his handgun on two occasions.

Lapid says Netanyahu endangering state by postponing enlisting of Haredim

Opposition leader MK Yair Lapid leads a Yesh Atid faction meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem, on March 18, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is endangering Israel’s security by delaying the enlistment of the ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, community, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid says, calling for the immediate enlistment of at least 10,000 Haredi young men.

“The Israeli government is preparing to request another postponement of the conscription law. This is a repugnant act. I have no other expression,” he says.

Netanyahu reportedly hopes to postpone the enlistment of members of the Haredi community until the beginning of July, while the coalition works to formulate a new conscription law.

“It is no longer just an ideological discussion. It is an operational necessity. If we want to be able to operate in the north, if we want to deal with the threats that are increasing in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank], we need more soldiers,” Lapid says.

He criticizing those who want to delay because “it’s a process.”

“What process exactly? Do you think that our children went through a process before they enlisted? The only process is that you enlist, go to training, and at the end of the training you are a soldier.

“The debate about recruitment should have ended on October 7. The military has been saying this for months. The chief of staff said it, the defense minister said it. We need to recruit at least 10,00 Haredi young men,” he continues.

He urges the coalition to tell its Haredi parties: “You need to realize that you are done getting without giving. Those who do not enlist will not receive a single penny from the state.”

Top Hamas man killed in Shifa hospital is brother of terror group leader assassinated in Dubai

Palestinian Faiq Mabhouh sits in front of posters of his brother Hamas commander Mahmoud Mabhouh, left and right, who was assassinated in Dubai, and Hamas member Mohammed Hussein Mabhouh, in the family house in Jabaliya, northern Gaza Strip, February 16, 2010. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

Faiq Mabhouh, the Hamas internal security commander killed by IDF troops at Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital this morning, is the brother of Mahmoud Mabhouh, who was allegedly assassinated by the Mossad in Dubai in 2010, Israeli defense sources confirm to The Times of Israel.

Mahmoud Mabhouh was chief of logistics and weapons procurement for the military wing of Hamas. He was also wanted by Israel for the 1989 kidnappings and murders of IDF soldiers Ilan Saadon and Avi Sasportas in separate incidents.

The killing made international headlines when Dubai police published photographs and CCTV footage of the alleged hit team at the airport and the hotel, carrying Australian, German, British, Irish, and French passports.

It later emerged that some of the identities were fraudulent and were stolen from Israeli dual nationals, sparking a diplomatic firestorm.

الجيش الإسرائيلي يعلن اغتيال فائق المبحوح خلال العملية في مستشفى الشفاء.

هو برتبة عميد وهو قائد العمليات في الأمن الداخلي في قطاع غزة pic.twitter.com/PcRirvnBG7

— Hanzala (@Hanzpal2) March 18, 2024

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.

Netanyahu tells AIPAC that criticism from Washington is ‘deliberately false’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers an address by video to an AIPAC conference, March 18, 2024 (GPO screenshot)

Speaking in Israel to the leadership of AIPAC, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insinuates that criticism from Washington over the conduct of the war on Hamas is “deliberately false,” and expressed for domestic political gain.

“The description [from Washington] is you have an outlier prime minister with some extreme fringe groups and that’s what’s driving the policy,” Netanyahu says. “False. I would say deliberately false. They know it’s false. But that falsehood is perpetrated and it’s wrong.”

Netanyahu says that Israelis are unified behind the war aims of destroying Hamas and bringing the hostages back.

“I’ve said this to the president,” says Netanyahu. “I’ve said this to the people that I’ve talked to. They keep saying that local politics is interfering with this.”

“They may be right,” he continues. “On which side of the pond?”

Biden, trailing Republican challenger Donald Trump in polls, has seen support drop since October 7, especially among progressives and Muslim Americans.

“We have to stand together and win this war,” Netanyahu insists. “We have to stand together here and we have to stand together there.”

Netanyahu and Biden are slated to have a phone call this afternoon.

Sa’ar threatens to bolt coalition if he’s not given more say over war

New Hope leader Gideon Sa'ar at the Knesset on March 13, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

During his New Hope party’s first faction meeting following its split from the National Unity faction, MK Gideon Sa’ar pans the government’s progress in Gaza and declares that unless he is given more influence over the course of the war he cannot remain in the coalition.

“We believe in the ambitious goals set by the security cabinet for the war. They are ambitious, as I said, but they are achievable,” the former senior Likud lawmaker says. “Unfortunately, the rate of military progress, the rate of military pressure has decreased in recent months” and has even had knock-on effects on the conflict with Hezbollah in the north.

“In the international arena as well, the passage of time is not helpful to us, to say the least,” he continues, asserting that while “patience is required in the campaign…we must act at a faster pace with more forces, we must increase the military pressure on Hamas.”

“In the first week of the war, I prioritized the establishment of the emergency government over my membership in the limited [war] cabinet” but “we no longer have this privilege,” he insists, calling his split with National Unity leader Benny Gantz an “opportunity to try and influence a change in the direction of the war and to make our voice heard.”

“We joined the government that we opposed only because of the war and only to influence the war issue. If we cannot do this – we cannot be in the government. “Either way – we will act out of national responsibility, and out of a commitment to achieving the goals of the war.”

Asked if he is currently in talks with former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett regarding any sort of shared political future, Sa’ar responds that he is not.

Announcing his exit from National Unity last week, Sa’ar demanded to be made a member of the war cabinet.

WHO ‘terribly worried’ as battle rages at Gaza’s Shifa hospital

File: Israeli soldiers stand outside Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, November 22, 2023. (Victor R. Caivano/AP)

The World Health Organization chief voices alarm after Israeli forces launched an operation at Gaza’s largest hospital, Shifa, warning the fighting was “endangering health workers, patients and civilians.”

“We are terribly worried about the situation at Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus writes on X, formerly Twitter.

“Hospitals should never be battlegrounds.”

The IDF launches the raid, saying a senior Hamas terrorist had reestablished a command center in Shifa.

Tedros pointed out Monday that Al-Shifa had “only recently restored minimal health services.”

“Any hostilities or militarisation of the facility jeopardize health services, access for ambulances, and delivery of life-saving supplies,” he warns.

“Hospitals must be protected. Ceasefire!”

Netanyahu to speak with Biden amid deepening rift

File - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with US President Joe Biden in Tel Aviv, October 18, 2023. (Miriam Alster/ Flash90)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden will speak by phone at 4:30 p.m. Israel time, an Israeli official tells The Times of Israel.

Biden initiated the conversation, according to the official.

The conversation comes amid rising public friction between Israel’s government and the White House over the war in Gaza.

Despite criticism, Halevi announces wave of senior IDF appointments

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi speaks during an assessment in northern Israel, February 27, 2024. (Israel Defense Forces)

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi announces a new round of senior appointments in the military, the second since the October 7 onslaught.

Nominations of senior officers had been on hold since the Hamas attack, save those for temporary appointments of those replacing slain commanders.

The promotions came under fire by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who argued that as Halevi had failed in his role, he should not be the one to appoint commanders.

The appointments were carried out by Halevi anyway.

The list includes 32 new colonels, as well as one brigadier general and 22 colonels who are only moving to new positions at the same rank.

The IDF will not be appointing new commanders to roles considered sensitive and related to ongoing internal probes into the IDF’s failures in the lead-up to the October 7 attack.

Binyamina mom arrested over suspicion she caged her kids

A cage suspected of being used for punishing children, in a photo released by police on March 18, 2024. (Israel Police)

Police say they arrested a Binyamina woman yesterday suspected of repeatedly locking her three kids in small cages as a punishment.

The woman, in her 30s, has been conditionally released by a court pending the conclusion of an investigation, police say. She has been barred from returning to Binyamina or being near her children.

The children have been referred to social services, and their condition is not known.

“This is one of the toughest cases I’ve ever come across,” Zichron Yaakov police head Gilad Partok says in a statement. “There was an infant left alone in a closed steel cage not bigger than half a meter (1.5 feet), with no way to get out.”

Staunch Netanyahu opponent Liberman asks Schumer to butt out of Israeli politics

Yisrael Beytenu party leader MK Avigdor Liberman arrives to a court hearing on petitions against a government law at the Supreme Court in Jerusalem, September 28, 2023. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Despite his own long-standing insistence that the current government has “no right to exist,” hawkish Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman criticizes US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s recent call for Israel to hold elections to replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Insisting that outsiders not interfere in internal Israeli politics, Liberman tells reporters at his party’s weekly faction meeting that “it’s better to be smart than correct.”

However, he declines to engage in the kind of harsh criticism expressed by Netanyahu, who responded to the American Jewish lawmaker’s statement by declaring that Israel was “not a banana republic,” during an appearance on Fox News.

Calling Schumer “very pro-Israel,” Liberman says that there is no need to engage in a fight over his comments.

His rhetoric is echoed by Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, who, ahead of his Yesh Atid party’s own faction meeting, accuses Netanyahu of harming US-Israel relations.

American support is Israel’s “political Iron Dome,” he says, adding that while he had sharp disagreements with the Americans, he did not engage in criticism in front of the cameras.

Chuck Schumer is a “lover of Israel” and a “friend,” he says.

Egypt urges US to warn Israel of consequences should IDF roll into Rafah

Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry says the US should lay out actions it will take against Israel should it barrel ahead with a military offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, after Washington voiced opposition to such a move.

“It is not enough for rhetoric, it is not enough to state opposition, it is also important to indicate what if that position is circumvented, what if that position is not respected,” Shoukry says at a briefing in Cairo.

“It is also up to the international community and the United States, who have indicated their refusal to such an eventuality, to make clear what are the consequences if their appeals are not heeded,” he adds in English.

Bashing Smotrich, coalition MK lambasts government as ‘worst ever’

Minister of Religious Affairs Matan Kahana speaks during a plenary session in the Knesset plenum, June 28, 2021. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

Coalition MK Matan Kahana declares the current government “the worst and most terrible” in Israel’s history, accusing it of being “responsible for the most terrible tragedy that has befallen the Jewish people since the Holocaust.”

The National Unity lawmaker’s remarks come in response to Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s attacks on the leadership of the IDF, which the far-right cabinet member blames for failures surrounding the October 7 massacre.

Smotrich, Kahana says, “does not even begin to understand the meaning of responsibility.”

During a heated security cabinet meeting on Sunday evening, senior ministers attacked Smotrich, who declared that “the IDF and its head failed not only tactically and operationally, but conceptually.”

During his Religious Zionism party’s weekly faction meeting in the Knesset last week, Smotrich declared that IDF chief of staff Lt Gen. Herzi Halevi has no mandate to design a “new and reformed IDF” during wartime, following the announcement of a round of senior appointments.

National Unity joined the government following October 7 to have a hand in steering the war effort, but is generally opposed to the government’s other activities, especially those led by the far-right flank Smotrich hails from.

Top Hamas operative killed in hospital raid, army says

The IDF says troops killed a senior Hamas operative during this morning’s raid on Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital.

Faiq Mabhouh, who served as the head of operations in Hamas’s internal security force, was armed and hiding inside the Shifa complex, “from which he was working to advance terror activity,” the IDF says.

Mabhouh was killed amid an exchange of fire during an attempt to arrest him, the IDF says.

In a nearby room, the IDF says troops recovered a cache of weapons.

Mabhouh, according to the IDF and Shin Bet, was responsible for the “synchronization” of various Hamas units in the Gaza Strip, including during the war.

As head of operations for internal security, he played a key role in a secret police force largely engaged in quashing political dissent within the Strip, according to the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Israel denies blocking UNRWA chief from entering Gaza after Cairo accusation

UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini speaks to the press after a briefing to diplomats on the situation in Gaza, at the United Nations Offices in Geneva, on February 13, 2023. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP)

Israel says it did not block the head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency from entering Gaza today, after Egypt accused Jerusalem of an “unprecedented” decision to bar him.

“I intended to go to Rafah today, but I have been informed an hour ago that my entry into Rafah is declined,” United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees chief Philippe Lazzarini says during a press conference in Cairo with Egyptian foreign minister Sameh Shoukry.

Shoukry says Lazzarini was barred by Israel.

“You were declined by the Israeli government, refused the entry which is an unprecedented move for a representative at this high position,” he says.

But a spokesperson for Israel’s Foreign Ministry tells The Times of Israel it did not block Lazzarini.

The UN relief chief also says that hunger in the Gaza Strip is “man-made.”

“We are engaged in a race against the clock to try to reverse the impact of the spreading hunger and the looming famine in the Gaza Strip,” he says.

Jordan says Israel starving kids to death, calls for war crimes prosecution

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, right, and Jordan's Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi hold a news conference in Amman, Jordan, November 4, 2023. (Jonathan Ernst/Pool via AP, File)

At a press conference in Amman with his Brazilian counterpart, Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Al-Safadi accuses Israel of “starving children to death and taking more than 2 million Palestinians hostage.”

Safadi calls the alleged policies “a humanitarian crime driven by extremist ideology and inhuman racism.”

“The Israeli war on Gaza is an aggression that flouts all international laws and during which Israel commits war crimes for which those responsible must face justice,” he says.

Jordan, which has a large Palestinian population, is a leading critic of Israel’s war to topple the Hamas terror group in Gaza, though it maintains close security ties with Israel and has kept their joint border quiet.

Brazil’s Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira calls for a ceasefire, the introduction of more aid into Gaza, and the release of hostages.

Brazil’s president recently compared the war in Gaza to Hitler’s attempts to exterminate the Jews.

PLO denounces alleged Israeli prison abuse of terror convict Marwan Barghouti

A banner with a picture of jailed Palestinian terrorist Marwan Barghouti and some fellow inmates, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, May 1, 2017. (Nasser Nasser/AP)

The Palestine Liberation Organization alleges that Israeli prison authorities are mistreating Fatah Central Committee member Marwan Barghouti, who is serving five life terms for planning three terror attacks that killed five Israelis during the Second Intifada.

In a statement, the PLO claims that the Israeli prison administration has subjected Barghouti to “isolation and torture,” and is “waging a war on Palestinian prisoners that is no less fierce than the field battle in Gaza and the West Bank.”

The appeal was issued after lawyers who visited detainees in Megiddo prison heard and reported that Barghouti was recently subject to abuse and beatings, according to a statement by the Campaign to Free Marwan Barghouti and All Prisoners.

Barghouti’s popularity on the Palestinian street has made him a top future candidate to lead the Palestinian Authority. Hamas has included him among the hundreds of terror detainees it seeks to see released in exchange for hostages kidnapped from Israel on October 7, even though Barghouti is a member of its rival movement Fatah.

Hussein al-Sheikh, a top aide to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and Qadura Fares, director of the Palestinian Prisoners Club, also urge the international community to intervene to stop repressive measures against Barghouti and pressure Israel to release him.

In January, Barghouti petitioned an Israeli court in January to be removed from isolation in the Ayalon prison, where he was at the time, alleging mistreatment by guards and poor conditions.

The PLO statement also calls on international institutions to ensure fair treatment of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, and demands “the immediate release of 7,000 West Bankers who have been arrested since October 7.” The IDF puts the number at 3,500, including more than 1,500 affiliated with Hamas.

Report says famine imminent in much of northern Gaza

Palestinian children transport water to a camp for displaced people in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on March 17, 2024. (MOHAMMED ABED / AFP)

A UN-backed report says famine is expected in some 70% of households in the north of the Gaza Strip between now and May.

Across the whole of the Gaza Strip, the number of people facing “catastrophic hunger” has risen to 1.1 million, about half the population, says a report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a collaboration of over a dozen international organizations, including several UN agencies.

“Famine is now projected and imminent in the North Gaza and Gaza Governorates and is expected to become manifest during the projection period from mid-March 2024 to May 2024,” it says.

The report also says it is not too late to stop famine from taking hold.

“The rapidly escalating hunger crisis in the Gaza Strip must immediately be curbed. This requires putting an end to the hostilities, mobilizing necessary resources and ensuring the safe delivery of humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza,” the report reads.

Relaunch of municipal rabbi bill piques tensions in wartime coalition

The planned reintroduction of a bill funding appointments of new municipal rabbis is ratcheting up tensions in the wartime coalition headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Erstwhile partners Benny Gantz and Gideon Sa’ar both object to the planned relaunch of the bill from 2023, which was stalled by the war, to appoint hundreds of new city rabbis at a cost of tens of millions of shekels annually, representatives of their parties say.

Ze’ev Elkin, a member of Gideon Sa’ar’s New Hope party, has informed coalition whip Ofir Katz of Netanyahu’s Likud party of the objection, citing an agreement signed by all coalition members to refrain from advancing any legislation without the pre-approval of all coalition parties, Makor Rishon reports. The bill’s advancement threatens to violate the deal’s terms, Elkin says.

Gantz’s National Unity party also opposes the planned advancement of the Jewish Religious Services Bill, Makor Rishon reports.

The report does not say whether New Hope and National Unity are explicitly threatening to pull out of the wartime coalition, established following Hamas’s October 7 onslaught.

The bill, submitted in June by Religious Zionism MK Simcha Rothman and Shas’s Erez Malul, is scheduled to go up for a preliminary discussion and possibly a vote tomorrow at the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee.

Critics of the bill say it gives Shas excessive power over municipally employed rabbis, because of its influence within the chief rabbinate and its municipal rabbis, who would play an important role in appointing neighborhood rabbis under the new bill.

Drone sirens, rocket alarms sound in towns near Lebanon border

Suspected drone infiltration alarms have sounded in the Galilee Panhandle, near the border with Lebanon.

The alerts are activated in the communities of Sde Nehemia, Amir, Gonen, Shamir, Kfar Blum, Kfar Szold, Neot Mordechai, and Lehavot Habashan.

Rocket sirens also sound in Yesod Hama’ala and Hulata, apparently due to an interceptor missile being launched.

The IDF Home Front Command says the incident is over, without elaborating further.

EU set to slap sanctions on violent Israeli settlers and Hamas, Borrell says

High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell arrives for a Foreign Affairs Council meeting at the EU headquarters in Brussels, on March 18, 2024. (Kenzo TRIBOUILLARD / AFP)

The European Union’s foreign policy chief Joseph Borrell says he is confident the EU will agree today on sanctions against both Hamas and violent Israeli West Bank settlers.

“It seems that today all will agree on putting sanctions on both Hamas and the violent settlers who are harassing Palestinians in the West Bank,” he tells reporters ahead of a foreign ministers meeting in Brussels.

The EU is close to agreeing on sanctions for Israeli settlers attacking Palestinians in the West Bank after Hungary signaled an end to its opposition, European diplomats said on Friday.

Some EU members close to Israel, such as Germany and Austria, had said they were ready to approve sanctions on violent settlers once more had been imposed on Hamas.

Israel bites back after EU foreign minister claims famine in Gaza ‘provoked’ by IDF

Foreign Minister Israel Katz says Israel is allowing aid into Gaza, rejecting EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell’s claim that the IDF is purposefully starving Gazans.

“Israel allows extensive humanitarian aid into Gaza by land, air, and sea for anyone willing to help,” Katz writes on X. “Despite Hamas violently disrupting aid convoys and UNRWA’s collaboration with them, we persist.”

He adds that Borrell should “stop attacking Israel and recognize our right to self-defense against Hamas’s crimes.”

Borrell told an EU meeting that “starvation is used as a weapon of war. Israel is provoking famine.” He made similar comments to the UN Security Council last week.

Soldier killed in fighting near Shifa Hospital

Staff Sgt. Matan Vinogradov, who was killed during an IDF raid against Hamas operatives at Gaza City's Shifa Hospital, early March 18, 2024. (Israel Defense Forces)

The IDF announces the death of a soldier killed during fighting against Hamas in the area of Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital early this morning.

He is named as Staff Sgt. Matan Vinogradov, 20, of the Nahal Brigade’s 932nd Battalion, from Jerusalem.

Vinogradov’s death brings the toll of slain troops in the ground offensive against Hamas to 250.

Israeli team going to Doha with broad mandate for truce deal, expecting drawn-out talks

Israel’s negotiating team, headed by Mossad chief David Barnea, will be landing in Doha today.

The cabinet last night approved Israel’s “red lines,” an Israeli official tells The Times of Israel, “in order to allow the delegation to hold the negotiations.”

The official would not expand on what those red lines are.

Barnea’s team has a “broad mandate” to hammer out a hostage deal in indirect negotiations with Hamas, Israeli officials tell Hebrew media, with one source saying both sides will need to show flexibility.

Talks will kick off later today with a meeting between Barnea, Qatar Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani and Egyptian envoys, a source tells AFP.

“There is going to be a long and complex process here,” an Israeli official tells Channel 12, explaining that though they will be engaged in indirect talks with Hamas’s leadership in Doha, they really need to be speaking to the terror group’s Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar.

“Even if there is Hamas abroad, they have zero mandate to make decisions,” says the official. “Each comma and each period will take between 24 and 36 hours. It’s going to be a complicated process.”

Talks have been on hold since last week, when Israel rejected a Hamas reply to its latest offer for a six-week truce that would see 40 hostages released, with later stages possible to extend the break in fighting and allow more hostages to be freed. The terror group is reportedly seeking a deal for the release of hundreds of high-level Palestinian prisoners and an Israeli commitment to end fighting permanently and pull troops out of Gaza, with residents of north Gaza allowed to return home.

The official tells Channel 12 that Hamas’s last proposal “is not good, both sides will have to be flexible.”

“We are coming with a clear mandate, it’s not amorphous,” the official explains. “We are coming with a plan on what is possible and what is not, where Israel is willing to be flexible and where it isn’t.”

Sources who were in the cabinet debate last night say it was a “good discussion” that drilled down into details, and gave the negotiating team a “mandate that allows real negotiations.”

There are certain issues that the team is empowered to make decisions on without cabinet approval, in order to speed up the process, the station reports.

TAU professor wins top electrical engineering prize for weather monitoring work

Tel Aviv University Faculty of Engineering Professor Hagit Messer-Yaron. (courtesy TAU)

Prof. Hagit Messer-Yaron of Tel Aviv University has been awarded the top prize in electrical engineering for her “groundbreaking technology [that] uses existing wireless communication to monitor meteorological phenomena,” the university announces.

The New Jersey-based Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers awards the Medal for Environmental and Safety Technologies.

Messer-Yaron’s research combines issues of climate change and big data processing by harnessing signals from cellphone networks to monitor weather conditions and rainfall, eliminating the necessity to install dedicated radars and weather stations.

“The technology we developed enables processing and analyzing the big data collected by these existing communication networks for other purposes. Specifically, it uses changes in signal intensity to monitor meteorological phenomena in general and precipitation in particular. This is a breakthrough in monitoring climate change and the ways to address it,” Messer-Yaron explains in the announcement, adding that she was “thrilled” to receive the award.

Messer-Yaron, who has been on the TAU Faculty of Engineering since 1986, first presented her article in a paper in the journal Science, followed by a 2009 study that showed her technique could predict flash floods, opening the gates for further research in the new field of “opportunistic environmental sensing.” She has served as chief scientist at the Science Ministry and as president of the Open University.

Iran, China quick to congratulate Putin on election win as others reject vote

Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, speaks to Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi, back to a camera, on the sideline of the summit of Caspian Sea littoral states in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, on June 29, 2022. (Grigory Sysoyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)

Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi is among the first to congratulate Vladimir Putin on his “decisive” win in Russia’s presidential election, state media reports.

“The President of the Islamic Republic of Iran in a message sincerely congratulated Vladimir Putin on his decisive victory and re-election as the President of the Russian Federation,” state news agency IRNA reports.

Chinese President Xi Jinping also sends a congratulatory message to Putin, saying his re-election “fully reflects the support of the Russian people,” Beijing’s state media reports.

The tone from the West is starkly different, with France and others charging that Putin’s re-election was neither fair nor free.

The French Foreign Ministry says in a statement that the vote took place in a context of repression within civil society and the conditions for a free and democratic election were not respected.

The ministry also praises the courage of “the many Russian citizens who peacefully protested against this attack on their fundamental political rights.”

Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis also says the vote lacks legitimacy.

“In this atmosphere of non-freedom definitely there can be no elections,” Landsbergis says before a meeting with fellow ministers from the EU in Brussels.

Putin won a record post-Soviet landslide in Russia’s election on Sunday, cementing his already tight grip on power in a victory he said showed Moscow had been right to stand up to the West and send its troops into Ukraine.

EU foreign policy czar says Israel ‘provoking famine’ in Gaza

Josep Borrell, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, speaks at a joint press conference with Lebanon's foreign minister following their meeting in Beirut on January 6, 2024. (Anwar Amro/AFP)

EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell says Israel is provoking famine in Gaza and using starvation as a weapon of war, sharpening his rhetoric against Jerusalem.

“In Gaza we are no longer on the brink of famine, we are in a state of famine, affecting thousands of people,” Borrell says at the opening of a conference on humanitarian aid for Gaza in Brussels.

“This is unacceptable. Starvation is used as a weapon of war. Israel is provoking famine.”

Doha talks could take 2 weeks due to communication issues with Hamas in Strip — official

An Israeli official confirms that negotiators are expected in Doha today for talks on securing a six-week truce with Hamas and the release of 40 hostages.

Mossad chief David Barnea will head the delegation, the official says.

This stage of the negotiations could take at least two weeks, the official estimates, citing difficulties that Hamas’s foreign delegates may have in communicating with the group in the besieged enclave after more than five months of war.

Military says Hezbollah building in southern Lebanon hit overnight

The IDF says fighter jets struck a building used by Hezbollah and an observation post belonging to the terror group in the southern Lebanese town of Ramyeh overnight.

Another site used by the terror group in Naqoura was also struck yesterday, the IDF adds.

It publishes footage of the strikes.

מטוסי קרב תקפו במהלך הלילה מבנה צבאי ועמדת תצפית של ארגון הטרור חיזבאללה במרחב רמיה.

אתמול הותקפה תשתית טרור נוספת של הארגון במרחב א-נקורה pic.twitter.com/GK6a4PQiGY

— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) March 18, 2024

Reports detail ministerial brawling over army promotions at security cabinet meet

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends a Finance Committee meeting at the Knesset on December 4, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Reports in Hebrew media shine a light on angry arguments that broke out during a security cabinet meeting last night between Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over the army’s decision to implement a round of promotions.

According to Ynet, Gallant, a former senior general, took Smotrich to task for publicly attacking IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi and his staff over the failure to prevent the October 7 Hamas massacre, accusing the minister of trying to turn the army into a politicized force.

“You are harming Israel and undermining the defense system for political reasons only. This is really bad, especially during war,” Gallant is quoted scolding Smotrich. “I won’t let anybody turn the army into a militia at the service of one actor or another.”

According to the report, ministers Avi Dichter and Benny Gantz, former Shin Bet and IDF heads respectively, also flogged Smotrich, with the latter accusing him of “delegitimizing the army.”

It adds that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu backed Halevi and said nobody is allowed to meddle in the appointment process.

Kan reports that Smotrich continued his attacks on Halevi during the meeting, declaring that “the IDF and its head failed not only tactically and operationally, but conceptually.”

He added that only the next chief of staff should be allowed to promote people. “This chief of staff failed and so only has backing to deploy force” in the ongoing war against Hamas.

Channel 12 news reports that National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir sparred at the meeting with Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, demanding to know why she said police chief Kobi Shabtai couldn’t promote people, but Halevi could.

After Baharav-Miara told him she would discuss it with him in a more appropriate forum, Ben Gvir continued pushing, throwing out oblique accusations of racism and elitism.

“It sure is for here. Let’s get into it. Why do you intervene for the police commissioner but not the IDF chief and Shin Bet head? Because he is Shabtai? Because he was not in the Sayeret Matkal [commando unit]? Because he didn’t come from the right place? You don’t want him to promote people because you can’t say that I can’t promote people. You have no reason, so you search for one.”

Footage ostensibly shows troops coming under attack from hospital

The IDF releases footage of what it says are Hamas operatives opening fire at troops from Shifa Hospital in Gaza City this morning as the army carried out a fresh raid on the medical center.

The footage also shows a roadside bomb being detonated against an armored vehicle, which the IDF says was activated by operatives at Shifa.

The IDF says it returned fire at gunmen shooting from the hospital, killing and wounding several of them. One Israeli soldier was lightly wounded in one of the exchanges.

Army tells Gazans near Shifa, Gaza City’s Rimal to flee south

The IDF is calling on those living near Shifa Hospital and residents of the nearby Gaza City neighborhood of Rimal to evacuate to the al-Mawasi “humanitarian zone” on the coast of southern Gaza, as the military launches a new raid in the area.

Lt. Col. Avichay Adraee, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman, publishes a map of the zones that need to be evacuated alongside the announcement.

#عاجل ???? نداء الى كل المتواجدين والنازحين في حي الرمال وفي مستشفي الشفاء ومحيطه:
من اجل الحفاظ على أمنكم – عليكم اخلاء المنطقة بشكل فوري غرباً ومن ثم عبر شارع الرشيد (البحر) جنوباً إلى المنطقة الإنسانية في المواصي pic.twitter.com/X95ASt8zJP

— افيخاي ادرعي (@AvichayAdraee) March 18, 2024

He says civilians should evacuate southward via the Strip’s coastal road.

At the beginning of Israel’s ground offensive against Hamas, the IDF called on all Palestinian civilians in northern Gaza to evacuate southward, although some 300,000 have remained, in increasingly dire conditions.

FM calls Schumer speech ‘unacceptable,’ as rift downplayed amid Rafah planning

Foreign Minister Israel Katz tours the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial museum in Jerusalem, February 19, 2024. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Foreign Minister Israel Katz tells the Kan public broadcaster that US Senate Leader Chuck Schumer is a “friend of Israel,” but calls his speech urging elections “unacceptable.”

Speaking to Army Radio, former US Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides defends both Schumer and his remarks, which have been backed by US President Joe Biden, deepening a rift between Jerusalem and the White House.

Nides calls Schumer the best friend Israel has and a “true Zionist.”

US Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides, at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem, on March 27, 2022. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

“The senator has the right to say what he believes, and Israelis will decide how and when they want elections,” he says.

Speaking to Kan, Katz claims that Israel and the US are on the same page regarding an impending Israeli invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah and moving civilians out of harm’s way.

“It’s clear we will act in Rafah. Ahead of the massive operation, we will evacuate the civilians from there. Not north — but to an area to the west,” he says, seemingly referring to the al-Mawasi area — where an Israeli settlement bloc once stood — which Israel has repeatedly suggested as an appropriate civilian safe zone.

Palestinians perform the first Friday noon prayer of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan over the ruins of of Al-Farouq Mosque on March 15, 2024 in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip (MOHAMMED ABED / AFP)

The station reports that US officials estimate that moving civilians out of Rafah will take weeks at least, with such an operation requiring the area to be “flooded” with food, and for living quarters or temporary shelters to be constructed there.

Katz says “There are Arab countries who can help with putting up tents, or other things, in the framework of humanitarian action.”

IDF says troops take control of Shifa hospital as Hamas members hole up inside

The IDF says it has established control over Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital, and is calling on Hamas members inside to come out and surrender.

So far, some 80 suspects have been captured by troops according to the IDF. It claims some of those captured are confirmed terror operatives.

The IDF says several Hamas gunmen were killed and wounded in gun battles on the hospital grounds. One Israeli soldier has been lightly wounded.

The IDF’s intelligence has indicated that Hamas operatives recently arrived at the hospital premises to use the buildings as a command center.

There is no information on hostages being held in the area, the army says.

Police probing if Kfar Saba synagogue destroyed overnight was broken into

A synagogue on fire in Kfar Saba on March 18, 2024. (Fire and Rescue Service)

Police announce they are investigating whether a Kfar Saba synagogue that burned down overnight was broken into before catching fire.

According to a statement, police are checking whether metal bars meant to secure the house of worship were cut, as they look into the reasons for the fire.

Firefighters said earlier that they managed to save 11 Torah scrolls after being called to the blaze at Beit Knesset Ohev Tzedek at around 3:30 a.m.

Firefighters stand with saved Torah scrolls from a synagogue in Kfar Saba on March 18, 2024. (Fire and Rescue Service)

However, the building is completely gutted, pictures show.

Man shot to death in Yafia, marking 40th slaying in Arab community this year

A resident of the northern city of Yafia has been shot dead.

The slaying marks the 40th killing in the Arab community this year, putting 2024’s bloodletting ahead of 2023’s record-setting pace, according to the Abraham Initiatives NGO.

The Magen David Adom rescue service says it found a man, aged 29, dead after responding to a call in the Nazareth suburb. A second person found next to him, aged 60, is also wounded and taken to a hospital in good condition.

Hebrew media reports say the two were in a car when they were shot, and list the victim’s age as 27.

Gaza videos show Shifa building ablaze, people fleeing hospital

Palestinian reports claim to show a building in the al-Shifa medical complex in Gaza City on fire from Israeli shelling, and troops operating in buildings on the edge of the complex.

⚠️IDF announced overnight that troops are operating inside the Shifa Hamas HQ in #Gaza city after intelligence was revived that senior Hamas terrorists are inside the compound #Israel pic.twitter.com/eR6Y13xJv5

— parallel_universe (@ignis_fatum) March 18, 2024

Another video purports to show Gazans fleeing the complex in the predawn darkness.

????BREAKING | AL SHIFA.

The occupation army forces the displaced people in Al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City to leave under showers of bullets and violent bombardment. pic.twitter.com/G1bM1eAHei

— Suppressed Voice. (@SuppressedNws) March 18, 2024

A statement from Hamas carried by Palestinian media outlets condemns the Israeli incursion, accusing Israel of disregarding the well-being of patients, staff and displaced Gazans sheltering there. It calls on the UN and other bodies to protect the facility.

IDF says terrorists opened fire on troops at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City

Security forces operating at the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City overnight came under fire by terrorists “from within the hospital compound,” the IDF and the Shin Bet say in a statement.

Israeli security forces “returned fire and hit the terrorists,” the statement says.

Earlier, the IDF sent out an announcement that an operation at the hospital was underway amid “concrete intelligence” that Hamas operatives had regrouped at the hospital and were planning terror activity

“The IDF and the Shin Bet are now working in a targeted manner to thwart terror [activity] and arrest terrorists in the area of the Al-Shifa hospital, following intelligence information indicating the presence of terrorists in the hospital and the use of the hospital’s infrastructure to carry out terrorist acts,” the two organizations say in the statement

“As part of the activity, during the encirclement, terrorists opened fire from within the hospital compound at our forces, who returned fire and hit the terrorists. Our forces continue to operate in the area of the hospital,” the announcement reads.

Witnesses in Gaza City told AFP they saw tanks surround the hospital site.

Ex-minister who lost soldier son on Oct. 7 says he supports release of ‘abominable murderers’ for hostages

Izhar Shay poses at the Knesset, on April 29, 2019. (Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90)

Former science and technology minister Izhar Shay, whose son, IDF Sgt. Yaron Oree Shay, was killed on October 7 defending an Israeli community during Hamas’s attack on Israel, says he would support the release of “abominable murderers” in exchange for the release of hostages taken during the massacre.

Talks are set to resume Monday in Doha on a deal to secure a temporary halt in fighting in Gaza and the release of hostages in exchange for Palestinian security prisoners. The discussions will cover the remaining gaps between Israel and Hamas, including the number of Palestinian prisoners who could potentially be released in the deal, as well as humanitarian aid to Gaza. Hamas is said to have demanded the release of 700-1000 Palestinian prisoners, among them some 100 of whom are serving life sentences for terror offenses.

In a post on X, Shay says he writes with “trembling hands” to say that if the “despicable [Hamas] terrorist who killed my son was currently in an Israeli prison, I would be happy to watch his execution” but that if his release could secure freedom for Israeli hostages, he would call on the government to sign the deal.

Yaron Oree Shay in an undated photo from his father Izhar Shay. (used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law).

“If it is possible to bring home Israeli hostages from Gaza in exchange for the poor soul of this scum and his friends in the human sewer called Hamas, I call on the prime minister and the cabinet ministers: release the abominable murderers and bring the hostages home,” he writes.

“The life of one Israeli is worth no less…And so, take the one who took my son from me, and also [took] my life, [and] bring our people home. Because they deserve to live and it is your duty to make sure they exercise this right,” he says.

“The hands are shaking as I write these words, but the heart is completely intact,” writes Shay.

In December, Shay said he received threats and abuse since the death of his son on October 7. Yaron Oree Shay was fighting terrorists and defending Kibbutz Kerem Shalom that day.

Since his son’s death, Shay, a tech entrepreneur and venture capitalist, has called on fellow tech investors and founders to join his initiative to commit to founding a new startup for each of the victims of the attacks, and the heroes who gave their lives to protect the country.

Shay represented Benny Gantz’s former Blue and White party between 2019 and 2021.

IDF: Troops operating at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City following intel on Hamas terror activity

IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari gives a statement on an operation at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, March 18, 2024, following intelligence on Hamas terror activity in the compound. (Screenshot)

The Israel Defense Forces says troops are operating overnight at the Al-Shifa hospital complex in Gaza City amid intelligence that senior Hamas officials were in the area and using the hospital to plan and carry out terror activity.

In a statement overnight, the military says troops at the hospital were “briefed in advance regarding the importance of preventing harm to civilians, patients, medical teams, and medical equipment” and that Arabic speakers were with the security forces to facilitate communication with patients and staff.

IDF doctors were also on hand, according to the announcement.

The patients and the medical teams were not ordered to evacuate the hospital but the military created pathways for civilians to leave the area, the IDF says.

Once the operation at the hospital is over, “the IDF will continue the humanitarian effort and provide food, water and additional supplies to the patients and civilians in the complex,” the military says.

Israeli soldiers stand outside Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, November 22, 2023. (Victor R. Caivano/AP)

In an accompanying video message, IDF Spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari says the IDF is conducting a “high-precision operation in limited areas of Shifa Hospital, following concrete intelligence that demanded immediate action.”

“We know that senior Hamas terrorists have regrouped inside the hospital,” he says, “and are using it to command attacks against Israel.”

He says forces have undergone “specified training to prepare them for the sensitive environment and the complex scenarios they may encounter” at the hospital.

“We seek no harm to the civilians Hamas is hiding behind,” he says, adding that the IDF will conduct its operation “with caution and care while ensuring that the hospital continues its important functions.”

Hagari says IDF doctors were with the troops “to assist those in need.”

“We call upon all Hamas terrorists hiding in [the] hospital, surrender immediately. Medical facilities should never be exploited for terror. Hamas must be held accountable,” he says.

The IDF has repeatedly accused Hamas of deliberately operating from civilian areas, including hospitals, schools, mosques, and shelters.

Israel has presented evidence to back up long-standing allegations that Hamas used Al-Shifa Hospital as a major operational hub and command center and that the hospital sat atop tunnels housing headquarters for Hamas fighters using patients as shields. The US has previously corroborated the evidence presented by Israel.

Last month, the New York Times reported that a tunnel underneath Al-Shifa was used extensively by Hamas for military operations and is nearly twice as long as the IDF had previously revealed.

IDF: ‘Suspicious aerial target’ from Red Sea region fell in open area near Eilat

The Israel Defense Forces announced that a “suspicious aerial target” crossed into Israeli territory from Red Sea in southern Israel and “fell in an open area north of Eilat a short time ago.”

“The target was monitored by the Israeli Air Force,” and there are no damage or injuries, the military says in a short statement.

Security cabinet okays departure of Israeli delegation to Doha for hostage talks — report

The security cabinet has approved the departure of the Israeli negotiating delegation to Doha later today (Monday) for talks about a temporary truce in Gaza and a hostage release, Hebrew media reports.

According to Walla, the delegation led by Mossad director David Barnea received a “general mandate” to conduct negotiations, citing a senior Israeli official. Some of the issues related to the talks will need to be weighed and approved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant separately, the report says.

Ynet reports that the negotiating team asked for “a significant amount of time to conduct the negotiations so that it would be possible to improve the deal, and to bring an outline that we can stand behind.”

An Israeli official cited by Ynet says: “We need to change the deal, it is important that we arrive with significant flexibility.”

Jordan army says it detected suspicious aerial movements near Syria border

The Jordanian army says its air defense radar system had detected suspicious aerial movements from an unknown source along the border with Syria.

Jets believed to be Jordanian had been heard hovering over the Jordanian city of Irbid and areas near the border crossing with Syria, witnesses say.

The army says an air force squadron had flown to ensure the airspace was not under any threat. It did not say from where the movements came.