Israel-Hamas War: What happened on day 152?

The IDF operated in the Khan Yunis area in the Gaza Strip, where troops killed Nukhba forces and other terrorists who were involved in the Nir Yitzhak massacre on October 7, the IDF reported on Wednesday.

In Beit Hanoun, an Israel Air Force fighter jet eliminated terrorists who fled to a nearby military building. The IAF worked in coordination with the Northern Brigade of the Gaza Division to complete the operation. 

Fighter jets attacked two terrorists complicit in the massacre of Nir Yitzhak on October 7 who hid in a military structure. The IDF was successful in killing two platoon commanders and a squad commander from the Nukhba Force, Hamas's elite unit. 

Troops from the Nahal Brigade operated in the central Gaza Strip and killed approximately 20 terrorists in the last day through sniper fire, remotely manned aircraft, and IAF fighter jets. 

Coordination among ground troops, IAF, and intelligence

In one particular attack, as part of a sniper ambush initiated by IDF, troops killed 15 terrorists. In another, the brigade's fire complex, alongside the IAF and guided by military intelligence, attacked terrorist infrastructure from which terrorists launched anti-aircraft fire at IDF troops. After this operation, explosions were seen, indicating that large amounts of ammunition were stored in the area, the military noted.

Soldiers from the Givati Brigade operated in the Hamad neighborhood in Khan Yunis, where they identified several terrorists that were promptly eliminated by a combat helicopter. Later, IDF troops identified a terrorist approaching them, who was killed.

IDF troops operate in the Gaza Strip, March 6, 2024 (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)

Additionally, soldiers from the IDF Commando Brigade continued to search the buildings of the Hamad neighborhood and eliminate terrorists. On one such search, troops found weapons caches containing Kalashnikovs and cartridges. While searching the same neighborhood, soldiers from the 7th Brigade found more weapons and military equipment. 

During an ambush, soldiers from the Bislach Brigade identified five armed terrorists and killed them with short-range fire. 

Hamas terrorists complicit in Kibbutz Kfar Aza massacre arrested 

In other developments, IDF troops arrested Hamas terrorists who took part in the October 7 massacre, who were handed over for investigation by security officials, Walla! reported. One such terrorist was complicit on October 7, who had entered Kibbutz Kfar Aza and managed to escape back to the Gaza Strip. 

According to military sources, Israel holds approximately 230 Hamas terrorists suspected of taking part in the October 7 attacks. Fifty have completed the investigation and are defined as "participants in the massacre" who will undergo criminal investigation. Another 140 are currently under investigation, and the rest are at varying stages of investigation, Walla! stated. 

There are rising questions of who would be given the task of indictment and prosecution, the military or the civilian judicial system, with rising criticisms about the under-preparedness of the IDF in dealing with the task. A possible hostage deal would also raise issues in relation to a prisoner exchange. 

The IDF struck two sites belonging to the Syrian Army in southern Syria on Wednesday night after two rockets were fired from Syria toward the Golan Heights, according to Syrian reports.

According to the local Daraa 24 news site, the Israeli strikes targeted sites near Jasim, about 10 km from the Israeli-Syrian border.

The United States continued to project optimism as the prospects for a hostage deal by the start of Ramadan on Sunday seemed to dim and talks in Cairo failed to yield any perceivable progress.

“We continue to believe that the obstacles are not insurmountable and that a deal can be reached,” US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters in Washington.

Such a “deal is in the interest of Israel. It’s in the interest of the Palestinian people, and it’s in the interest of the broader region. So we’re going to continue to push for one.”

Miller said that Israel had “put a serious proposal on the table, and it’s for Hamas to accept it. It’s also for Hamas to engage in good faith and show that they actually want to get a deal.

Staff and volunteers of Amnesty International USA, MoveOn, Oxfam America and Win Without War hold a vigil outside the White House calling for a ceasefire in the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Washington, U.S., December 18, 2023. (credit: REUTERS/Leah Millis )

“And we’re going to continue to engage in good faith on our behalf and continue to try to get a deal over the finish line,” Miller said.

The US believes that a deal is “possible, and we’re going to continue to push for it,” he stressed.

In Cairo, Egyptian and Qatari officials mediating the deal met with Hamas, in an attempt to secure a six-week pause to the war in exchange for the release of 40 remaining 134 hostages.

Hamas pledged to continue to take part in the Cairo talks, but officials in the terror group said a ceasefire must be in place before hostages are freed, Israeli forces must leave Gaza and all Gazans must be able to return to homes they have fled.

“We are showing the required flexibility in order to reach a comprehensive cessation of aggression against our people, but the “occupation” is still evading the entitlements of this agreement,” Hamas said in a statement.

Israel reportedly staying away from talks

A source had said earlier that Israel was staying away from the Cairo talks because Hamas refused to provide a list of hostages who are still alive. Hamas says this is impossible without a ceasefire as hostages are scattered across the war zone.

The deal presented to Hamas for Gaza would allow for increased humanitarian assistance and for the release of 400 Palestinian security prisoners and terrorists jailed in Israel.

Hamas says any hostages cannot be released until after a ceasefire. Israel wants a pause in fighting that includes a hostage release. It has agreed to increased assistance, but will not end the conflict before Hamas is “eliminated.”

Senior Hamas official Bassem Naim said the Islamist group presented its own draft deal and was awaiting a response from Israel, and that “the ball now is in the Americans’ court.”

On Wednesday, a source familiar with the matter said that humanitarian aid for Gaza is expected to sail from Cyprus in the coming days.

It was not immediately clear which country was supplying the aid, where it would land, or how it would be distributed. The source said aid was being coordinated with the United Arab Emirates.

"They want the aid to be dispatched before the start of Ramadan" on Sunday, the source told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Limassol, Cyprus (credit: Rich@rd 015 / CC 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en)

Delivering aid to Gaza has become urgent as a humanitarian crisis there deepens. Israel unleashed an offensive following a deadly Hamas raid on Israel on October 7, and Gaza health officials say more than 30,700 people have been killed.

Numbers from the Gaza health ministry

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said two Palestinians, aged 15 and 72, died of dehydration and malnutrition on Wednesday, raising the toll of such deaths to 20. Reuters could not verify the deaths.

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was due in Cyprus late Thursday and was to visit the port of Larnaca on Friday. The port has been identified as a launch point for aid shipments.

Cyprus lies 370 km (230 miles) northwest of Gaza in the Mediterranean and is the closest European Union state to the region.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich (Religious Zionist Party) on Wednesday authorized a new public committee on the structure of the IDF and the defense budget to examine IDF pensions.

He announced his approval in a letter to Likud MK Hanoch Milwidsky, who published it on his X account. The move followed repeated calls by Milwidsky.

עבודה קשה ועקבית משתלמת בסוף-
לאחר מאמצים רבים קיבלתי את הסכמת שר האוצר לפתוח מחדש את כל נושא הפרשות המדינה לפנסיות התקציביות במסגרת דיוני הועדה הציבורית לבחינת מבנה צה״ל ותקציב הבטחון. מדובר בכספי ציבור בשווי של עשרות מליארדים כל שנה.
למה זה חשוב עכשיו ואיך זה רלוונטי? צפו 👇🏼… pic.twitter.com/0XQoqmKllM

— חנוך מילביצקי - Hanoch Milwidsky (@hanochmilwidsky) March 6, 2024

“It cannot be that with a budget as we have and at a time like this, when we are all hurt [by the current financial situation], people with budgetary pensions will continue to enjoy the same benefits that are worth tens of billions of shekels per year,” Milwidsky said.

The committee is being formed as part of budget deliberations among Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Smotrich, the letter stated.

“There is no doubt that the sharp increase in the defense budget, as it relates to the costs of the war and as it relates to the expected permanent budget increase in the next few years, mandates a change to our budgetary priorities in the IDF and defense budget as well [as in the rest of the state’s budget],” Smotrich wrote.

DEFENSE MINISTER Yoav Gallant and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich hold a joint news conference in Jerusalem, in December. (credit: CHAIM GOLDBEG/FLASH90)

Budgetary pensions

Budgetary pensions are paid from the budget of the employer to retirees who joined the public sector before 2002. Those eligible include police officers, Israel Prison Service employees, and teachers employed by the state. The budgetary pensions that Smotrich has authorized the committee to review are IDF pensions, with a specific focus on “chief of staff” increases and “bridge pensions,” the letter said.

The chief of staff increases are pension increases that the IDF chief can authorize.

Bridge pensions are paid to retired IDF officers until they reach state pension age, as professional IDF staff retire at an earlier age than the general age of retirement. Bridge pensions cover the gap in employment this creates.

IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi on Wednesday appeared to issue a veiled rebuke of government officials who consider retaining the haredi sector’s blanket military draft exemption.

Speaking at the navy's captain's graduate course, Halevi said, "we promise at all times that our victims, those who have fallen, will not have been in vain. There is no other way to do this other than to be drafted for substantial service, to adorn the uniform, and to become commanders."

Halevi’s comments came as Defense Minister Yoav Gallant lined up alongside war minister Benny Gantz, opposition head Yair Lapid, and others, against the haredi parties in the coalition.

Halevi and Gallant’s aggressive stances have potentially pitted them against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who in principle is in favor of haredi service, but in practice has been a major enabler of their exemption in favor of the political backing it gave him over the years.

Yoav Gallant (credit: ELAD MALKA)

It remains unclear whether the sides will reach a compromise on the issue or whether Netanyahu  will prioritize haredi demands and lose Gantz, and possibly even Gallant, or will the disagreements eventually cause the government’s collapse?

Halevi also warned, given the ongoing war, joining the IDF’s operational level would look quite different from what the naval graduates might have expected when they started training more than two years ago.

Military announces name of fallen soldier

The military announced on Wednesday night that St.-Sgt. David Sasson, 21, from Ganot Hadar, was killed in battle in the Hamad neighborhood of Khan Yunis. Five other soldiers were seriously wounded in the incident. The IDF has been operating there in force over the last few days.

IDF kills chief Hamas rocket commander 

The IDF and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) announced that troops had killed Hamas’s top rocket commander in central Gaza, Amar Atia Deruyash al-Adini, who was a critical part of Hamas’s rocket firing apparatus since 2008.

A statement said he was intimately involved with directing rocket fire both at central Israel and the South. The two security bodies added that al-Adini was involved in planning and managing aspects of the October 7 attack.

Recently, Hamas’s rocket fire has fallen to single digits, with many days, including Wednesday, with no rocket fire at all.

In northern Gaza in Beit Hanun, an IAF fighter jet eliminated terrorists who tried to escape to a nearby military building.

In Khan Yunis, fighter jets attacked terrorists complicit in the massacre of Nir Yitzhak on October 7 killing two platoon commanders and a squad commander from the Nukhba Force, Hamas’s elite unit.

Troops from the Nahal Brigade operated in the central Gaza Strip and killed approximately 20 terrorists.

IN THE NORTH, the IAF attacked Hezbollah military structures in the Yarun and Kafra regions of Lebanon, in addition to a strike in the Kfar Hamam region.

Earlier on Wednesday, an explosive Hezbollah UAV crossed into Israel in the Metulla area. The military said forces shot it down, and no injuries were reported.

After firing dozens of rockets at Israel on Tuesday, on Wednesday, Hezbollah fired single digits at press time.

The Middle East chief of The International Committee of the Red Cross said that an escalation of fighting on Lebanon’s southern border would further strain hospitals already struggling with a national financial crisis.

Since October 7, more than 50 civilians have been killed in Israeli shelling on Lebanon, along with more than 200 Hezbollah fighters, according to Lebanese medical and security sources.

About a dozen IDF soldiers and half as many civilians have been killed in shelling from Lebanon into Northern Israel.

Doctors in southern Lebanon have sounded the alarm, saying an influx of wounded has pushed the health sector to its limits. 

Israel says about a dozen of its soldiers and half as many civilians have been killed in shelling from Lebanon into the north of the country.

Doctors in southern Lebanon have sounded the alarm, saying an influx of wounded has pushed the health sector to its limits.

Minister-without-portfolio Benny Gantz, a member of the war cabinet, has been in tough talks about hunger in the Gaza Strip with Israel’s two staunchest allies, the United States and the United Kingdom. His trip comes at a critical moment in the Israel-Hamas war.

Senior officials in London and Washington have spoken with him about the food crisis in Gaza, while the United Nations warned that Gazans are facing starvation.

Gantz met with UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron in London on Wednesday and with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday. He also met with US Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday.

The Israel-Hamas war has complicated the delivery of humanitarian goods in Gaza due to ongoing combat and the absence of passable roads and working utilities. The IDF and the UN have not found an adequate distribution system, and the US and the UK have considered alternative options.

The US and the UK have said Israel could do more.

TRUCKS CROSS at Kerem Shalom, the main passage point for goods entering the Gaza Strip from Israel. (credit: ABED RAHIM KHATIB/FLASH90)

US and UK want Israel 'to do more'

Cameron on Monday said: “We are now at that point where people are dying of hunger; people are dying of otherwise preventable diseases.”

Great Britain has pushed Israel to allow in more humanitarian assistance, but the quantity of goods that entered Gaza in February was half what it was in January, he said in a speech at the House of Lords.

“So, patience needs to run very thin, and a whole series of warnings needs to be given,” Cameron said, adding that he planned to do this when he met with Gantz.

There must be a pause in the war, increased humanitarian assistance, improved passage and distribution of goods, and resumption of utility services, such as water and electricity, Cameron said.

Too many dual-use items have been banned from entering Gaza, he said, adding that some of the items were necessary for medical services.

When the UK evaluates whether Israel is compliant with international law, it takes the presence of hunger in Gaza into account, Cameron said.

“Israel is the occupying power,” he said. “It is responsible, and that has consequences, including in how we look at whether Israel is compliant with international humanitarian law.”

A few weeks ago, Cameron said, he had spoken of “the danger of this tipping into famine and the danger of illness tipping into disease, and we are now at that point people are dying of hunger; people are dying of otherwise preventable diseases.”

Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy on Wednesday said: “The problem is not getting aid into Gaza. The problem is the distribution inside Gaza.”

The UN has relied on UNRWA, “a Hamas front,” and that has failed, he said.

Israel has called on the UN to use alternative agencies to ensure that Palestinians receive humanitarian assistance, Levy said.

South Africa has asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to order additional emergency measures against Israel, which it says is breaching the measures already in place, the U.N.'s top court said on Wednesday.

In its application South Africa warned that Palestinians in Gaza were facing starvation and asked to court to order that all parties cease hostilities and release all hostages and detainees.

South Africa also asked to court to order that Israel take "immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address famine and starvation" in Gaza.

It added that the ICJ, also known as the World Court, should take these measures without scheduling a new round of hearings because of the "extreme urgency of the situation."

In January the World Court, as the ICJ is also known, ordered Israel to refrain from any acts that could fall under the Genocide Convention and to ensure its troops commit no genocidal acts against Palestinians, after South Africa accused Israel of state-led genocide in Gaza.

Israel and its Western allies described the allegation as baseless.

A final ruling in the case in The Hague could take years.

South African has also approached the International Court of Justice (ICJ) with an application to urgently act to prevent famine in the Gaza Strip, South Africa's presidency said on Wednesday.

Many countries that paused funding to the UN Palestinian refugee agency are likely having second thoughts and payments could resume soon, Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said on Wednesday.

Several countries, including the United States and Britain, paused their funding to UNRWA after accusations by Israel that a dozen of its 13,000 staff in Gaza took part in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

Norway, a top donor to UNRWA, has maintained its funding and transferred 275 million crowns ($26 million) in February, its regular annual contribution, and said more could come. It is also lobbying countries that have paused funding to resume.

"I think that a large number of those countries who suspended are (having) second thoughts," Barth Eide told Reuters in an interview, citing the recognition from these nations that "they cannot punish the whole Palestinian society".

"This is increasingly recognised and agreed by many," he said, after meeting Norwegian aid organisations to take stock of the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Iceland's Foreign Minister Bjarni Benediktsson, Jordan's Foreign Minister Ayman Al Safadi, Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud, Norway's Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide and Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Najeeb al-Maliki in Oslo, Norway December 15, 2023. (credit: NTB/Stian Lysberg Solum via REUTERS )

"But then, of course, they need an honorable way out, which means they are hoping, I think - without speaking for individual countries - that they will get something from these investigations that suggest that they can say: "Well, we needed to suspend, but now we're back'."

The UN is conducting an internal probe, while former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna is leading an independent review.

UNRWA sacked the staff accused by Israel of involvement in the Oct. 7 attacks, saying at the time that the Israeli allegations - if true - were a betrayal of UN values and of the people UNRWA serves.

Juliette Touma, UNRWA director of communications, said none of the 16 donors which had frozen their funding had resumed yet, and urged them to reconsider their decisions.

"We are operating from hand-to-mouth. That's how we got through February. That's how we will get through March," she told Reuters. "Every penny counts."

The head of the UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, warned on Monday of "a deliberate and concerted campaign" aimed at ending its operations as Israel accused the organization of employing over 450 "military operatives" from Hamas and other armed groups.

The war in Gaza began when Hamas fighters attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people and seizing 253 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Israel's air and ground campaign in Gaza has since killed more than 30,000 Palestinians, health authorities in the Hamas-run enclave say.

"Irreplaceable" 

It was difficult for the US to "come back" to UNRWA, the Norwegian minister said, but there could be solutions, he said, with an "understanding between the US and Europe" on sharing the work.

"The US could do more of something else and Europeans (could) concentrate more on UNRWA," he said, adding that "the combination of Europeans stepping up and Arab states (as well) is probably necessary".

Qatar said on Wednesday it would give an extra $25 million to the UN agency. Iraq pledged the same amount.

There had been suggestions early on by some donors to replace UNRWA with another humanitarian organisation, Barth Eide said, but that idea was now "off the table".

"They were told by the rest of the international humanitarian community, UN agencies and NGOs that there is no way to do that in time," he said.

On Friday the European Commission said it would pay 50 million euros ($54 million) to UNRWA but hold back 32 million euros while it investigates with the Israeli allegations.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the continued funding showed that the EU acknowledged UNRWA "as an irreplaceable actor".

Britain is awaiting the outcome of the Colonna-led review, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said.

The UK government expects the report in the coming weeks and will then provide an update. Britain has distributed all its planned funding for UNRWA for this financial year. Its next payment - around 35 million pounds - is due in May.

Canada is planning to resume funding to the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA weeks after pausing donations over Israeli allegations that 12 of the agency's staff were involved in the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, CBC News reported late on Tuesday.

The federal government plans to go ahead with a scheduled C$25 million ($18.5 million) payment in April and announce new funding, CBC reported, citing an unnamed government official.

Spokespeople in the foreign ministry and in the ministry of international development, which oversees Canadian aid, declined to comment on the CBC report.

A 14-year-old terrorist stabbed and wounded Tzvi Tal, 64, near a bus stop in Jerusalem’s Neveh Ya’acov neighborhood on Wednesday. Tal was moderately wounded in the upper body.

The terrorist is a resident of Kafr Akab in northern Jerusalem, the police said.

Magen David Adom medics and paramedics treated Tal and took him to Hadassah-University Medical Center on Jerusalem’s Mount Scopus.

Security forces searched the area and found the terrorist, who had fled the scene.

Later on Wednesday, police detained another 14-year-old suspect from Kafr Akab on suspicion of involvement in the attack.

MDA ambulance seen at the scene of the stabbing. (credit: MDA SPOKESPERSON)

This is a developing story.