Middle East War Briefing

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Four Palestinian terrorists killed in IDF counterterrorism operation​

Throughout the operations, Israeli security forces located and eliminated terrorist infrastructure responsible for planning and executing shooting attacks, attacks with explosive devices, sniper attacks, and dispatching terrorists into Israel.

Four terrorists were killed during the operations in the Palestinian city of Tulkarm, the IDF stated.

Also on Monday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said that four "martyrs," among others who were wounded, had arrived at the Tulkarm Government Hospital.

According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, the four slain terrorists are Momen Saeed Balaawi (20), Az al-Din Raed Awad (25), Jihad Mehraj Shahada (22), and Qasim Muhammad Rajab (20).

 

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IDF ‘tightening noose’ around Hamas in Gaza City; PM: No truce before hostages freed​

His remarks came a month after the Hamas terror group launched a surprise onslaught, killing some 1,400 people and injuring thousands — mostly civilians — and taking at least 240 men, women and children back to Gaza as hostages. Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas and remove it from power in the Strip but has also had to contend with rocket fire from Lebanon and deadly attacks along its border with that country. A barrage of rockets was fired from across the northern border on Tuesday.

All three members of the war cabinet established to oversee the military campaign made separate statements during the evening, with Netanyahu and Defense Minister Gallant ruling out a ceasefire until the hostages are returned home.

 

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Israel says nothing new as White House says it agreed to daily 4-hour humanitarian pause​

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“We’ve been told by the Israelis that there will be no military operations in these areas over the duration of the pause, and that this process is starting today,” Kirby says.

While this is the first time the US has announced this policy, Israel has been implementing these pauses since Sunday, opening a daily four-hour humanitarian corridor on Salah a-Din road for Palestinians to evacuate northern Gaza to its south. However, it has been referring to the policy as a “humanitarian corridor” and not “humanitarian pauses,” ostensibly sensitive to the limited political appetite in Israel for the IDF to be holding its fire while the hostages remain in Gaza.

Nonetheless, the localized pause has been implemented each day. On Wednesday, it was extended by one hour, and on Thursday, it was six hours due to the large number of Palestinians seeking to leave the area.

The IDF estimates that on Wednesday alone, some 50,000 Palestinians used the corridor to head south.

Because Israel has not described the holding of its fire to allow for the evacuation of Gazans from the north as “humanitarian pauses,” it appears to have sparked backlash, leading Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office to issue a statement saying that the IDF’s fighting is continuing and that there will not be any ceasefire without a return of the hostages.

 

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Troops captured key Hamas stronghold and fought gunmen in tunnels during 10-hour battle, IDF says​

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The IDF says the soldiers battled Hamas and Islamic Jihad operatives in the stronghold, who were both “above ground and in an underground route in the area.”

According to the IDF, dozens of terror operatives were killed during the fighting.

It says troops located many weapons and uncovered tunnel shafts, including one located adjacent to a kindergarten that led to an “extensive underground route.”

 

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Gaza Resident: Israel Intel Spent Hours On Phone Warning Me, Neighbors To Evacuate​

“I’m speaking with you from Israeli intelligence,” a man told him in perfect Arabic, addressing him by his name. “He told me he wanted to bomb three towers … and ordered me to evacuate the surrounding area,” Shaheen recalled to the BBC. Suspicious that the call might be fake, Shaheen asked for a warning shot to be fired. A warning shot was then fired at a nearby building.

“I asked him to ‘shoot another warning shot before you bomb,” Shaheen reportedly said. Another warning shot was fired.

Shaheen tried to stall the forthcoming attack; he said the man on the other end of the phone said he would give him time because he didn’t want anyone to die.

“Why do you want to bomb?” Shaheen said he asked, eliciting the reply, “There are some things that we see that you don’t see.”

When a nearby tower was hit, the man on the phone told Shaheen, “This is the tower that we want, stay away.” After the bombing was over, the man told him, “We’ve finished … you can go back.”

 

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Israel Pushes Back on ‘Misinformation’ on Fighting near Gaza Hospitals, Hamas HQ​

It has been undisputed fact for more than a decade that Hamas uses the hospital site for its underground headquarters, and also as a facility to to torture and kill political dissidents. The IDF also presented evidence of Hamas tunnels underneath other hospitals, and Hamas rocket launches near hospital facilities.

On Thursday, the IDF announced that it had begun a combined air and ground assault on the “military quarter of the Hamas terrorist organization in the heart of Gaza City, near the Shifa hospital.”

Since then, accusations have been made in international media that Israel is targeting Shifa Hospital or causing deaths there, including the deaths of babies. The IDF has pushed back, arguing that Shifa was hit by an errant Palestinian projectile — just as an errant Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket had hit the parking lot of the al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City earlier in the war.

 

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Hamas blocks IDF fuel delivery to Gaza's Shifa Hospital​

Israeli security forces delivered 300 liters of diesel fuel to Shifa Hospital in Gaza early Sunday morning and later received intelligence indicating that Hamas had intercepted the delivery, according to a Sunday night IDF statement.

Hamas on Sunday denied it had refused 300 liters (79.25 gallons) of fuel from Israel intended for medical use at Gaza's Al Shifa hospital.

"The offer belittles the pain and suffering of the patients who are trapped inside without water, food, or electricity. This quantity is not enough to operate hospital generators for more than thirty minutes," Hamas added in a statement.

The statement also added that Hamas was not associated with Al-Shifa hospital management, "nor is (Hamas) part of its decision-making structures. (The hospital) is completely subject to the authority of the Palestinian health ministry."

 

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Hamas Is Shooting At Palestinians Trying To Flee Gaza In Evacuation Zones​

“Hamas is doing everything in their power to keep them in harm’s way,” he said, later adding: “It’s fired on the safe zone and the safe corridor that we enacted the other day to prevent Palestinians from leaving harm’s way.”

He called Hamas’ actions “savagery of the highest order,” saying that it was important that the U.S. and Europe assist Israel in its fight against Islamic terrorism before it spreads back into the Europe and the U.S.

“The Middle East will fall,” he said. “Europe is next. You will be next.”

When Bash confronted Netanyahu about civilians that have potentially been killed in Israel’s precision airstrikes inside Gaza, Netanyahu said that the country was doing everything in its power to minimize the loss of innocent life unlike Hamas, which invaded Israel last month and intentionally targeted civilians.

“The Allies were attacked by Hitler, and so they invaded France and then Germany,” Netanyahu said. “And when they did that, they went into the cities. They had to fight the German army that was often embedded in the cities, in civilian neighborhoods. And many civilians were killed.”

 

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[Kyle]

 

[stgislander]

View attachment 173678

I wonder if TPD can sell those at the store?

 

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Israeli Forces Are Reportedly Getting Crucial Intelligence From an Unlikely Source​

Israeli forces have cut the Gaza Strip in two, surrounded Gaza City, and are tightening the noose around the reported nerve center of Hamas. Before the ground invasion began on October 28, Israel pounded the strip with artillery and air strikes, killing scores of terrorists and their leaders. Many have hidden in the matrix of tunnels, which has been an operational concern for the IDF. They’re booby-trapped. It’s nearly impossible to see, and some tunnels are 250+ feet underground. So far, Israel has been able to make inroads, but some 30-40,000 Hamas terrorists remain embedded in the strip like ticks. They’ll be uprooted, especially now that re-supply from Iran is now impossible. It will take time.





Hamas’ grip has loosened enough that scores of civilians have been able to make to make it safety. Terrorists are still shooting at Gazans trying to flee south, but those who have made it to IDF lines have reportedly been providing valuable intelligence on the whereabouts of Hamas hideouts and weapons stashes. The IDF did a leaflet drop, promising financial compensation for any information on the whereabouts of the 200-plus civilians that were taken by Hamas on October 7. Most who replied didn’t want money, just safe passage out of the war zone:

 

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Gallant’s comments came shortly before IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari held a press briefing asserting that an Israeli special forces unit had obtained proof that Hamas militarized hospitals as part of its war strategy. “I just got back from Gaza, where I joined an operation inside the Rantisi Children’s Hospital. I went to the hospital with a video camera and personally documented more concrete evidence,” Hagari said during a press briefing later Monday.

“The concrete evidence is that Hamas uses hospitals as an instrument of war. Underneath the hospital, in the basement, we found the Hamas command and control center, suicide bomb vests, grenades, AK-47 assault rifles, explosive devices, RPGs, and other weapons, computers, money, et cetera. We also found signs that indicate that Hamas held hostages here.”

During Hagari’s presentation, he shared images of munitions, weapons, and other military hardware allegedly seized during the special-forces raid.

“Additionally, we found evidence that Hamas terrorists came back from the massacre on October 7 to this hospital, among others, after butchering Israelis in their homes,” Hagai continued. “Hamas hides in hospitals. Today, we will expose this to the world.”

“Our war is against Hamas, not the people of Gaza. Especially not the sick, the women, and children,” Hagari said later. “Our war is against Hamas who uses them as human shields.”

Hamas Has ‘Lost Control of Gaza,’ Israeli Defense Minister Says | National Review

The IDF also provided what it says is proof that Hamas has been using a children’s hospital in Gaza as a military base.

www.nationalreview.com

 

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Hamas command center found under Gaza children’s hospital; hostages were likely held there​

“Underneath the hospital, in the basement, we found a Hamas command and control center, suicide-bomb vests, grenades, AK-47 assault rifles, explosive devices, RPGs, and other weapons, computers, money, etc,” Hagari says, in an English-language press conference.

“We also found signs that indicate that Hamas held hostages here,” he says, adding that “this is currently under our investigation,” but that the IDF has intelligence to verify it.

“Additionally, we found evidence that Hamas terrorists came back from the massacre [in southern Israel] on October 7 to this hospital, among others, after butchering Israelis in their homes,” he says.

“Hamas hides in hospitals. Today, we will expose this to the world,” he says.

 

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White House says Hamas and Islamic Jihad DID hide under hospitals in Gaza, backing up Israeli claims​

• The White House cited U.S. intelligence as the source of the information
• Groups use tunnels 'to conceal and to support their military operations'
• Israel claims Hamas hiding forces as it pummels Gaza

 

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Israeli military launches "precise and targeted" ground operation inside Gaza's Al-Shifa hospital, IDF says​

The Israel Defense Forces says it is carrying out a "precise and targeted operation against Hamas in a specified area" of Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza.

The ground operation, based on intelligence and "operation necessity," came after the Israeli military had repeatedly warned Hamas against using the hospital as a base for its operations, the IDF said in a statement issued Wednesday morning local time.

"Yesterday, the IDF conveyed to the relevant authorities in Gaza once again that all military activities within the hospital must cease within 12 hours. Unfortunately, it did not," the Israeli military said, adding that Hamas's alleged use of the hospital violates international law.

 

[Kyle]

Hamas Says All The AK-47s Found In Gaza Hospital Were Strictly For Medicinal Use


GAZA — As reports began to come out that Israeli Defense Forces had discovered a Hamas weapons depot hidden in a Gaza children's hospital, a spokesman for Hamas was adamant that all of the AK-47s found in the hospital were for medicinal use only.

"These were clearly medical machine guns," said Ali Mohammed Al Mohammed. "By confiscating these weapons, they are depriving sick children of the life-saving medical care that these rifles, rockets, and bombs provide. Only people who are truly heartless would take these weapons away from children who are ill. Death to Israel, thank you."

Hamas Says All The AK-47s Found In Gaza Hospital Were Strictly For Medicinal Use

GAZA — As reports began to come out that Israeli Defense Forces had discovered a Hamas weapons depot hidden in a Gaza children's hospital, a spokesman for Hamas was adamant that all of the AK-47s found in the hospital were for medicinal use only.

babylonbee.com