Israel-Hamas War: What happened on day 139?

The war cabinet agreed to send a high-level delegation to a second Paris summit on hostage talks in hopes of a breakthrough that would allow a deal to be reached before the month-long Ramadan holiday, which begins on March 10.

“We are confident that the Israeli delegation... will promote a quick deal to return all the hostages, those who are alive and those who have been murdered,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said as it welcomed the decision.

What has been the role of Mossad Director David Barnea in the hostage negotiations with Hamas and the many third-party intermediaries?

Answering that question is far from easy, because Barnea eschews media attention compared with his predecessor, Yossi Cohen.

He has gone especially dark regarding public appearances since the war started on October 7.

Israel’s 57-year “occupation” has deprived Palestinians of their basic rights to a state, Irish and Jordanian officials told the International Court of Justice as they urged its judges to issue an advisory opinion rendering the situation illegal.

“By its prolonged occupation of Palestinian lands and continuous settlement activity on those lands – Israel has prevented the exercise by the Palestinian people of their right to self-determination,” Ireland’s Attorney General Rossa Fanning told the court on Thursday.

Foreign ministers at the G20 group of nations meeting in Brazil were nearly unanimous in their support for a two-state solution as the only path to peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Brazilian minister hosting the event said on Thursday.

"There was virtual unanimity in the two-state solution as the only solution to the conflict," Brazil's foreign minister, Mauro Vieira, said at the close of the two-day meeting.

Vieira said all members of the group of the world's largest economies highlighted concerns about the war in Gaza and the risk of the conflict's spreading in the Middle East.

There were calls for a ceasefire and access to Gaza for humanitarian aid, while "many" countries criticized Israel's military offensive in Rafah, he said.

The meeting, which set the agenda for the G20 group presided by Brazil this year, discussed current tensions in the world, mainly focused on the fighting in Gaza and Ukraine.

Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira speaks during a press conference following the G20 Foreign Ministers' Meeting, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil February 22, 2024. (credit: REUTERS)

Overwhelming consensus

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said earlier that there was consensus on the need for a two-state solution in Israel, supported by every speaker who addressed the conflict.

"Everybody here, everybody, I haven't heard anyone against it. There was a strong request for a two-state solution," Borrell told reporters. "It is consensus among us.

"There is not going to be peace ... not going to be sustainable security for Israel unless the Palestinians have a clear political prospect to build their own state," he said.

Borrell, EU minister for foreign affairs, said the crisis in Gaza extends to the West Bank, which is "absolutely boiling" as Israeli settlers are "attacking Palestinian civilians."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition government largely reject the establishment of a Palestinian state. Still, the United States, Israel's main ally, maintains that the two-state solution is the only feasible way to bring lasting peace to the region.

On Ukraine, Borrell said he saw no sign of Russia's accepting a ceasefire. "Putin wants to continue this war," he said, speaking of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Western foreign ministers from the G20 on Wednesday attacked Russia for its invasion of Ukraine as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov listened during the meeting, diplomats said.

Vieira said all G20 countries backed the priorities set by Brazil for the group in 2024: reform of the United Nations and other multilateral organizations, fighting climate change, and reducing hunger and poverty in the world.

Tens to hundreds of humanitarian organization employees who work in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including from UNRWA, are facing deportation in the near future because the Welfare and Social Affairs Ministry has stopped recommending their renewals since October 7, according to a thread on X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday.

פרסום ראשון | עשרות עובדים בארגונים הומניטריים בישראל, כולל אונר"א, צפויים להיות מגורשים מישראל בקרוב. הסיבה? משרד הרווחה, האמון על מתן המלצה למשרד הפנים לחדש להם את האשרות, הפסיק להעביר את ההמלצות מאז ה-7 באוקטובר.
פרטים נוספים עקבו אחר השרשור>>>

— Yanir Cozin - יניר קוזין (@yanircozin) February 22, 2024

NEW YORK - Tim Kaine, a Democratic senator from Virginia on the Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committee, urged the Biden administration to ensure weapons transferred to Israel are primarily defensive and not offensive weapons, according to a release from Kaine's office. 

Kaine issued a letter to Biden on Wednesday expressing his concerns following reports of a pending major weapons transfer and ahead of a potential Israeli military offensive in Rafah.

If the worst happens, and Hezbollah rains down its full onslaught of rockets on Israel, including thousands of direct hits, Israel may need to manage the situation using local civilian drones, IDF Maj. (res.) Or Adar, Founder of “Local Drone Patrol,” said on Thursday.

Speaking at the UVID Dronetech Conference in Tel Aviv, Adar explained that in the nightmare scenarios where the sheer volume of a barrage of 150,000 Hezbollah rockets succeeds in getting thousands of hits on the home front, the IDF, police, and even the municipalities will not have the capacity to keep up with all of the hits and the damage they are causing.

Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis conducted three military operations including targeting the Islander ship in the Gulf of Aden with naval missiles, and Israel's Eilat with ballistic missiles and drones, the group's military spokesman said in a televised speech on Thursday.

They also targeted an American destroyer in the Red Sea with a number of drones, Yahya Sarea added.

The "Arrow" defense system shot down a ballistic missile from Yemen that was headed towards Israel, the IDF announced on Thursday.

According to the announcement, the system detected the missile's trajectory, and it was destroyed outside of the borders of Israel.

This marks the seventh operational interception by the "Arrow" defense system since the start of the war.

Israel Police took diplomatic efforts into their own hands and escorted officials from the German Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) - the Federal Criminal Police Office of Germany, on a mission to bear witness to the impact of the October 7 massacre by Hamas across Israel's South on Wednesday.

Israel Police Commissioner Yaakov Shabtai and Southern District Commander Deputy Commissioner Amir Cohen led a delegation headed by Holger Münch, the President of the BKA, visiting several Gaza border communities that were hit hard by terrorists on October 7. Israel's police force lost a number of officers while confronting terrorists and defending communities in the area.