Israel-Hamas War: What happened on day 96?

Four members of the Palestinian Red Crescent were killed on Wednesday when an Israeli strike hit an ambulance near Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, the Red Crescent said in a statement.

Israeli Air Force fighter jets attacked an operational headquarters base belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organization in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, the IDF said.

This was after three launches from Lebanese territory were fired toward the Bedouin village of Arab al-Aramshe in northern Israel, which fell in open areas.

The IDF attacked the source of the launches.

Egypt and Jordan will try to rally momentum for a ceasefire in Gaza and press to ease the humanitarian crisis there as their leaders meet Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Aqaba on Wednesday, a senior Egyptian official said.

Abbas, Jordan's King Abdullah and Egypt's Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will also affirm their opposition to any displacement of Palestinians from their lands, he said - a risk Egypt warns has grown as Israel's all-out war against Hamas has driven most Gaza residents southward towards the Egyptian border.

Jordan has been concerned by increased instability and attacks on Palestinians by Jewish settlers in the West Bank, with which it shares a border.

"The Arabs are telling the Americans the priority now is to get a ceasefire and push Israel to allow Palestinians to go back to northern Gaza, and ease the overcrowding near (the southern town of) Rafah, which is alarming both the Egyptians and the Jordanians," a Jordanian official said.

Ahead of the Aqaba summit, Abbas met US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is on a tour of the region that is expected to finish in Egypt and has been pressing Israel's leaders to offer a pathway to a Palestinian state.

The Western-backed Palestinian Authority exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank and held talks with Israel on a Palestinian state before they collapsed in 2014, while Islamist Hamas has ruled in Gaza since 2007 and is sworn to Israel's destruction.

Egypt, along with Qatar, has separately been trying to mediate between Israel and Hamas to negotiate a new ceasefire in Gaza and the release of Israeli hostages that Hamas captured in its surprise Oct. 7 incursion into Israel.

That mediation has resumed following a pause after the killing last week of Hamas deputy chief Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut, and an Israeli delegation visited Egypt on Tuesday to discuss the possibility of a long-term ceasefire in return for the freeing of hostages, two Egyptian security sources said.

Reconstruction funding

Israel has killed more than 23,000 Palestinians in Gaza since launching its campaign to destroy Hamas, after its terrorists killed 1,200 Israelis and took 240 hostages in a cross-border rampage on Oct. 7 that triggered the war.

Arabs are alarmed by indications from Israel that the war will continue for months and that it will maintain a presence or conduct security operations in Gaza afterwards.

The summit in Aqaba is expected to address the situation in Gaza during the war and after it, including foreign funding for the reconstruction of the devastated territory and a mechanism for holding elections there within six months of a ceasefire deal, the Egyptian security sources said.

Israeli strikes in southern and central Gaza intensified on Wednesday despite a pledge by Israel that it would pull out some troops and shift to a more targeted campaign, and pleading from the US for fewer civilian casualties.

More than one million of Gaza's 2.3 million residents are crammed in extremely overcrowded conditions into the Rafah area, according to the United Nations. Some 1.9 million people are displaced throughout the coastal enclave, the UN estimates.

A new Qatari proposal for a ceasefire would see the leaders of Hamas all be deported and all of the hostages captured by the terrorist group released in exchange for the withdrawal of the IDF from Gaza, according to news revealed by Channel 13 citing sources close to officials in Doha, Qatar.

If such a proposal were implemented, hostages would be released in stages.

The Hostage and Missing Families' Forum, in response, demanded that the Israeli war cabinet approve any deal that would lead to the release of the hostages. "The reports about a new deal that will be presented to the cabinet tonight give some hope to the families who are anxious about the fate of their loved ones - who have been suffering in the Hamas tunnels for almost 100 days and nights without food, water, and life-saving medical treatment. Every day that passes, the condition of the hostages is getting worse. 

"We demand that the war cabinet must not concern itself with anything other than the return of the hostages, we demand that they approve any deal that will lead to their immediate release alive!"

The war cabinet will convene on Wednesday at 6 p.m. to discuss the proposal, according to N12.

Hostages who were abducted by Hamas terrorists as part of a hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel, November 30, 2023 (credit: Hamas Military Wing/Handout via REUTERS)

More humanitarian aid for Gazan civilians?

It was reported on Channel 13 on Tuesday that a senior IDF official returned to Israel after visiting Egypt, during which discussions were held on the expansion of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip and the question of "the day after" in the Philadelphi corridor.

Also, at the request of the Biden administration, Israel discussed with the Egyptians the possibilities of further increasing humanitarian aid to the Strip - something that was a significant part of the senior official's visit to Cairo. Senior Israeli officials told Channel 13 that "there is no breakthrough in the issue of the hostages."

The IDF announced on Wednesday that it has achieved operational control of Khirbat Ikhza'a in southern Gaza after a few weeks of fighting dating back to late December.

Khirbat Ikhza'a is just slightly southeast of Khan Yunis, making it an important strategic location for cutting off Hamas forces from maneuvering or fleeing in various directions there.

It is also only a few kilometers from the Jewish kibbutz of Nir Oz and was one of Hamas’s invasion launch points to take over that kibbutz on October 7, along with Nirim and Ein Hashlosha.

How the IDF achieved operational control in Khirbat Ikhza'a

The IDF’s 5th Brigade destroyed hundreds of terror positions and killed dozens of Hamas terrorists to achieve operational control both above and below ground.

In addition, IDF forces found a variety of personal items, such as challah covers, bicycles, agricultural items that Hamas stole from Nir Oz residents, and some clues relating to Israelis who were kidnapped on October 7.

Israeli forces operate in the Gaza Strip on January 10, 2024 (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)

Among the destroyed terror positions were large numbers of tunnels and positions for firing anti-tank missiles.

Further, the IDF seized a sizable number of mortars, rocket launchers, grenades, and guns. Also, IDF sources said every other house had weapons or terror-related items.

Videos distributed by the IDF showed a variety of different kinds of fighting, from open agricultural areas to close-up room-to-room fighting in urban buildings.

The World Health Organization canceled another planned medical aid mission to Gaza on Wednesday over security concerns.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said it was the sixth mission to northern Gaza canceled by the UN agency because requests to visit had not been approved or assurances over security provided since its last visit, on 26 December.

"Intense bombardment, restrictions on movement, fuel shortage and interrupted communications make it impossible for WHO and our partners to reach those in need," he told a virtual press conference from Geneva. "We call on Israel to approve requests by WHO and other partners to deliver humanitarian aid."

The Gaza Strip is effectively free of Hamas rule, Minister Benny Gantz said in a Wednesday statement to the press, declaring the terror group's hold on Gaza City and the northern strip to be "nonexistent."

However, Gantz warned that the IDF must continue its operations in the Gaza Strip amid the threat of Hamas regaining control of the Strip.

"If we stop now, Hamas will regain control," the war cabinet minister warned.

The Southern District Attorney's Office indicted today an Israeli citizen who impersonated a captain in the IDF, joined in the military's activities on October 7, despite not being called to IDF reserve duty, and obtained access to highly classified information, which he documented in various ways.

The suspect was further accused of having shared that confidential information on several occasions with unauthorized civilians and military officials.

Accused of several charges 

The accused was arrested and questioned following suspicions that arose in the IDF. The indictment attributes to the accused a number of offenses, namely fraudulent acceptance under aggravating circumstances, providing confidential information, possessing unauthorized confidential information, and entry into a military locale.

It is important to note that the investigation revealed that the defendant did not act on behalf of hostile parties and did not give to such parties any confidential information he gleaned.

The defendant's lawyers, attornies Moshe Mazor and Reut Rahman, were cited by Maariv as saying: "The accused, an officer in the reserves, has denied what is alleged in the indictment, and he has evidence that proves his innocence and his authority to receive the alleged information, which naturally, given the gag order, we are unable to detail at this stage. We believe that at the end of the legal hearing, the matter will receive the right proportions, and the legal process will end with his acquittal."

The IDF is focusing its military efforts in Gaza on the tunnel system below the southern city of Khan Yunis, based on the Israeli military's belief that senior Hamas leaders remain hidden in the vast underground complex.

The IDF has reportedly withdrawn thousands of its soldiers from northern Gaza amid discussions over the military's transition to the third phase of the war against Hamas in the Strip.

However, it has deepened military efforts in the center and south.

Close to two full IDF divisions are operating across Khan Yunis, focusing operations on the tunnel complex underneath the city.

US State of State Antony Blinken and Palestinian President Mahoud Abbas discussed US efforts to address extremist violence in the West Bank and minimize civilian harm in Gaza in their meeting on Wednesday, the State Department said.

The two officials also discussed "administrative reforms, which, if implemented, would benefit the Palestinian people," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement.

Abbas: Gaza is integral to Palestinian statehood

Abbas told Blinken that Gaza is integral to Palestinian statehood hopes and should not be cut off as a result of Israel's war with Hamas, an official statement said.

The statement, published by the Palestinian news agency WAFA, further quoted Abbas as saying that Palestinians must not be displaced from Gaza or the West Bank, where he wields limited governance following a 2007 schism with Hamas.

Abbas further called for the "convening an international peace conference to end the Israeli occupation of the land of the State of Palestine, with east Jerusalem as its capital, which achieves peace and security for all," according to WAFA.