In unusually blunt threat, Hamas said to warn Israel of another Oct. 7-style attack

Reports: Hamas explicitly threatens Israel with another Oct. 7-style attack

Palestinians wave the national flag and celebrate by a destroyed Israeli tank at the southern Gaza Strip fence east of Khan Younis on October 7, 2023. (AP/Yousef Masoud)

Hamas recently delivered an unusually blunt message to Israel that it is prepared to carry out another attack resembling the onslaught of October 7, 2023, with a top Israeli military official filing an urgent update on the matter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, multiple Hebrew media outlets have reported.

Senior members of the Palestinian terror group conveyed the message last week to UN humanitarian coordinator Ramiz Alakbarov during a meeting in the latter’s office in the Gaza Strip, and asked for it to be delivered to Israel, the Ynet news outlet reported on Thursday.

Alakbarov then met and conveyed the Hamas message to the IDF’s chief liaison to the Palestinians, who penned the urgent letter to Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz, an excerpt of which was published Saturday evening by Channel 13 news.

“Senior group members claimed that IDF activity in the Gaza Strip, the moving of the Yellow Line, and the cancellation of the [Palestinian] elections by the Palestinian Authority are leading Hamas to lose control in the field, and clarified that they are unwilling to accept the continuation of this situation,” Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories Maj Gen. Yoram Halevy reported wrote.

“Against this backdrop, they threatened that, as they see fit, Hamas is ready to again carry out an attack such as the October 7 attack, and that it is prepared to act in this vein on any front in which this becomes possible — in the State of Israel, in Judea and Samaria, and abroad,” he added, using the biblical name of the West Bank.

“This is an unusual threat message, which hasn’t been previously conveyed in this level of bluntness and directness.”

Israel’s security establishment is checking if such an attack can be carried out in practice given the extensive IDF presence in the Strip, Channel 13 reports, though such an attack could materialize in the distant future as well.

Ynet reported that the security cabinet has been presented with security briefings saying Hamas has recently made increased preparations for the option of renewed fighting, including stockpiling weapons and transferring them to civilian areas, recognizing that Israel’s hands are tied on launching large-scale new operations until after the US midterm election on November 3.

Implementation of US President Donald Trump’s peace plan for Gaza has stalled, with Hamas refusing to disarm and Israel refusing to withdraw from any part of Gaza until that condition is fulfilled.

Meanwhile, the IDF continues to carry out daily strikes on what it says are terror operatives readying imminent attacks, and it has steadily moved the Yellow Line — which separates the IDF-held part of the territory from the Hamas-ruled portion where pretty much all Gazans are staying in — westward, enlarging the IDF-held areas.

IDF to impose lockdown on West Bank, bar Palestinians from settlements until after election day

The Israeli military will be imposing a lockdown on the West Bank during Israel’s national elections on Tuesday, as well as preventing Palestinian laborers from entering settlements on Sunday and Monday.

The IDF says that following a fresh assessment, on Sunday and Monday, Palestinians with work permits will not be allowed to enter Israeli settlements across the West Bank and Jordan Valley, with the exception of industrial zones and a “limited number of other approved areas.”

According to data from last year, some 9,000 Palestinians have permits to work in settlements or nearby industrial zones.

Additionally, Israel’s political leadership has approved the defense establishment’s recommendation to impose a complete ban on Palestinian workers entering all settlements and industrial zones on election day, as well as shuttering all West Bank land crossings with Israel for Palestinians, the military says.

The crossings will reopen and the ban on Palestinian workers will be lifted after election day.

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir last week placed the military on its “highest state of alert” and canceled soldiers’ leave, saying the IDF’s mission was to ensure that Tuesday’s election could take place safely and on schedule “without external interference.”

The IDF also said it would be conducting a major military drill on Sunday and Monday in the north and center of the country.

Trump says more strikes on Iran before midterms possible, but deal also possible

US President Donald Trump bristles when asked how far he is from a possible attack on Iran.

He recently said on social media that he would not hit Iran again before the November 3 midterm elections.

“Do you really think I’m going to tell you if I’m going to do it?” Trump responds. “And there’s a possibility I will. There’s also a possibility we’ll have a nice, big, beautiful agreement.”

Trump repeats his assertion that Iran wants to make a deal, “but the problem is, will they hold the deal?”

Meanwhile, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian accuses Washington of disrupting negotiations to end the war but says he still believes “we have to go and finish it.”

In comments aired on state television, he says Iran’s supreme leader has instructed Iranian officials to “go and finish [the deal],” but “these scoundrels broke the rules of the game. We were holding talks, and they disrupted them.”

The region has braced for the possibility that the US or Israel will resume attacks on Iran before or just after Tuesday’s election in Israel or the US midterm elections.

Car crash in central West Bank kills one, wounds 3, police say

A collision involving a truck and two private vehicles killed a driver and moderately wounded three passengers a short while ago on Route 465, near the Palestinian village of Aboud in the central West Bank, Israeli police say.

The dead man is about 35 years old, according to the Magen David Adom ambulance service. It adds that two of the wounded have been taken to a hospital by the Red Crescent, indicating they are Palestinian. The statements don’t specify whether the other casualties are Israeli or Palestinian.

Officers are on the scene, and traffic inspectors are en route to investigate the crash, police say, adding that the road has been shut down in both directions.