Operation Swords of Iron: What happened on Day 13?

A US Navy warship traveling near Yemen intercepted multiple projectiles, a US official told Reuters on Thursday. The missiles, according to Israeli media citing the Pentagon, were launched at Israel.

Washington is on heightened alert for activity by Iran-backed groups as regional tensions soar during the Israel-Hamas war.

The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said there were no injuries and a number of projectiles, including drones, were brought down near the destroyer USS Carney.

Sheikh Hassan Youssef, a senior member of the Hamas terrorist organization, was arrested in Ramallah overnight, according to Israeli media sources.

The head of the military wing of the terrorist organization "People's Resistance Committees" was killed overnight in Rafah, according to Israeli media reports.

Rafat Harev Hossein Abu Halal was neutralized by IDF warplanes guided by Shin Bet intelligence information, Maariv reported.

The European Union's migration ministers meet on Thursday to discuss improving security in the bloc after deadly attacks in France and Belgium, as well as worries whether the war between Israel and Hamas would force mass displacement of people.

Some in the 27-nation bloc have already called for tighter borders, more repatriations of foreigners and new deals with African states to keep refugees and migrants from Europe since a Tunisian failed asylum-seeker killed two in Brussels on Monday. A teacher was slain in northern France last week in an attack President Emmanuel Macron condemned as "Islamist terrorism." The killings occurred at a time of heightened security concerns across much of Europe linked to the Israel-Hamas war.

"The implications of the situation in the Middle East for our internal security... are very topical right now," said an EU diplomat involved in preparing the ministerial talks. "Both with regard to the situation as it develops in the Middle East and to what we're seeing happening inside of the EU."

It will be the ministers' first chance to exchange views in person since the Oct.7 attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas that killed at least 1,400 Israelis, mostly civilians, and to which Israel has responded by bombarding Gaza.

The ministers are not expected to take any specific decisions but will discuss topics including what particular developments could cause Palestinians to flee in large numbers, or trigger violent acts inside the bloc.

Palestinians relatives of Sabreen Abu Jazar, who died when a boat carrying migrants sank offshore Greece, mourn in her family home in Gaza Strip March 3, 2023 (credit: REUTERS)

New policies

Similar concerns in some EU quarters about a potential spike in immigration did not materialize after the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021.

But the bloc has been wary since it was caught by surprise as more than a million people - mostly refugees from the war in Syria - reached its shores across the Mediterranean in 2015.

The attack in Brussels underlined persistent failings of the EU's troubled migration and asylum systems, including security gaps and ineffective returns. Only about a fifth of people whose asylum cases fail in Europe are actually sent away.

Proponents of a looming overhaul of the EU's migration policies - expected to be finalized this year - say it would improve the situation, including by facilitating quicker repatriations of foreigners with criminal records.

There is also a new push for deals with African countries - including Egypt and Morocco - akin to the one the EU has recently sealed with Tunisia, offering aid in exchange for Tunis bringing down departures for Europe.

Critics of the EU's new migration and asylum policies doubt they would be effective and point to growing risks to human rights while focus is on deterring unauthorized immigration.

The EU, a bloc of 450 million people, has recorded some 250,000 irregular arrivals this year, in large part aided by smugglers.

Last year, the EU took in several million refugees for Russia's war in the neighboring Ukraine. But it wants to reduce irregular immigration from the Middle East and Africa.

The Lancet, one of the world’s leading general medical journals published in the UK, has printed an urgent call signed by 1,500 senior physicians and other medical professionals for the immediate release by Hamas of the nearly 200 hostages in Gaza. 

The journal published it just two days after it was sent. (Access the letter here.)

The lead authors of the correspondence were Prof. Shani Paluch-Shimon (director of breast oncology) and Prof. Aron Popovtzer (head of the oncology department and the Sharett Institute of Oncology at the Hadassah-University Medical Center in Jerusalem, and Dr. Raya Leibowitz (a clinician-investigator and a practicing medical oncologist at Shamir Medical Center in Tzrifin). 

“The past few days have been harrowing for Israel. We are in shock at the greatest loss of civilian life since the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.  Civilians – Jewish, Christian, and Muslim – were massacred on a scale that is incomprehensible, in a calculated act of terror. Jewish families have been massacred in their homes, foreign agriculture workers have been slaughtered in the fields, hundreds of young people in a party were shot in the back while escaping, and Bedouin children have been shot dead by Hamas militia. More than 3,000 rockets hit Israel on Oct 7th alone leading to an almost complete halt of normalcy and routine across many parts of the country.

The Israeli writers continued that the “barbaric rampage was indiscriminate. Entire villages in the south of Israel have been decimated. Entire families were lost. This was the largest pogrom in 1 day against Jewish people since the Holocaust. It is a crime against humanity.” 

People call on the release of Israelis held hostage by Hamas militants in Gaza, outside the Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv, October 18, 2023. (credit: Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Authors highlight diversity of Israel's medical system

They noted that Israeli hospitals are on full alert and all physicians and medical personnel have been called upon. The healthcare system has always been and will continue to be a model of co-existence for all – Jews, Muslims, Druze people, Christians –people of all faiths and ethnicities working together, caring for all human beings regardless of their nationality, identity, gender, religion, or political belief. 

“This is our oath. These are our values…Videos have emerged of bodies being mutilated on the streets of Gaza, of hostages paraded, humiliated, beaten in front of cheering crowds, of hostages tied and bound in abhorrent conditions, of Israeli children being hit by both Gazan adults and children.”

The signatories urgently called on the international medical community committed to the preservation of human life to condemn the savage massacre, to immediately call for guarantees for the safety and health of all those being kept hostage and to unequivocally call for the immediate and unconditional return of our families and friends who have been cruelly taken hostage.” 

It was only a matter of time before a tragic incident in the war between Israel and Hamas would become a battle of versions between the two adversaries and their supporters.

Israel and Hamas have continued to trade blame on the explosion that rocked a hospital in Gaza on Tuesday.

The terrorist group blamed the blast on an Israeli airstrike. The Israeli military said a rocket that was misfired by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad landed in Gaza rather than in Israel. The Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip, which is run by Hamas, reported that 500 people were killed in the strike. Israeli officials did not immediately deny Israel’s involvement, saying, instead, that they would review the incident. They came up with proof of their non-involvement only hours later. For many Palestinian supporters, Israel's investigative efforts made no difference; the adoption of the Hamas version of events was almost immediate.

Israel's credibility at stake

“Hamas and similar terrorist organizations are quick to accuse Israel,” Prof. Motti Neiger, from the School of Communication at Bar-Ilan University, told The Media Line. “Israel takes more time and, in the meantime, the narrative sticks.”

He added: “Israel sees its credibility at stake. Because the fighting is expected to be long, it wants to maintain credibility.”

A child holds a placard as Palestinians take part in a protest in support of the people in Gaza, after hundreds of Palestinians were killed in a blast at Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza that Israeli and Palestinian officials blamed on each other, in Nablus in the West Bank October 18, 2023 (credit: RANEEN SAWAFTA/REUTERS)

According to Neiger, Israel learned this lesson from the killing of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh over two years ago when it immediately denied involvement in the shooting and later had to admit she was likely killed by Israeli military fire. The incident led to widespread condemnation of Israel.

Following the hospital blast, several Arab nations declared national days of mourning, with the Palestinian Authority announcing three such days. Demonstrations were held in several Arab cities in the West Bank, Lebanon, and Jordan. In Lebanon, protestors rallied in front of the US and French embassies, criticizing them for their support of Israel. They also tried to break into UN offices in Beirut. In Jordan, angry citizens tried to storm the Israeli Embassy.

“Gaza is considered an underdog by the Arab world,” Wadea Awawdy, a Nazareth-based political analyst from Radio Anas, told The Media Line. “The years of a blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt have led to a lot of anger, even though there are reservations about what Hamas did to civilians in Israel.”

According to Awawdy, “Israel’s attempts to explain the hospital incident are ridiculed in the Arab world. They claim the missiles in Gaza cannot cause such damage. There is no chance for Israel's explanations to be accepted, there is no belief,” he added.

Israeli media interviewed experts who said Israeli bombs would create a major crater in the ground, one that is not visible in drone or satellite imagery.

“The more technology there is, the easier it is to fabricate things,” Professor Hillel Frisch, a senior fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, told The Media Line. According to Frisch, the number of casualties reported by the Hamas Health Ministry does not align with footage streamlined live from Gaza, which showed no increased traffic of ambulances in the immediate aftermath of the explosion or movement of bodies from the site.

The incident occurred just hours before US President Joe Biden landed in Tel Aviv on a visit to show support for Israel. After landing on Wednesday, Biden met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and said he “was deeply saddened and outraged by the explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday. Based on what I’ve seen, it appears it was done by the other team, and not you.” Biden added that he had viewed intelligence shown to him by the Pentagon, alluding to the fact that the US had its own information.

Denying responsibility, the Israeli military provided what it said was proof that it was not behind the deadly incident.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said in a video statement released hours after the incident that “an analysis of IDF operational systems indicates that a barrage of rockets was fired in Gaza passing in close proximity to the Ahli hospital in Gaza at the time it was hit.”

He added: “Intelligence from multiple sources that we have in order hands indicates that Islamic Jihad is responsible for the failed rocket launch that hit the hospital in Gaza.”

The IDF later released a recording and transcript of a conversation between Hamas operatives it had intercepted in which they acknowledged it was their own rocket that hit the hospital.

“They are saying that the shrapnel from the missile is local shrapnel and not like Israeli shrapnel,” said one of the participants in the conversation, as quoted by the IDF.

“There are two sides in the struggle. On the one hand, we have a state whose interest is not to hurt uninvolved citizens because that hampers its efforts to hit Hamas and continue the fighting. Such incidents only harm this effort,” Neiger said. “On the other hand, we have a terrorist organization that, just a week ago, committed a heinous massacre and is trying to destabilize the whole region—why should we believe their narrative?”

There was some criticism in Israel as to whether the army should have refuted the claims quicker, in an attempt to counter the claims that it was responsible for the incident.

“The IDF’s main goal is to win the battle and reach its goals. Propaganda is secondary in importance, and the army shouldn’t be preoccupied with that,” said Frisch.

After visiting Israel, Biden was scheduled to stop in Jordan for a summit with leaders from the Arab world. The meeting was canceled shortly after the hospital strike before its circumstances were known.

Biden was to meet with Jordan’s King Abdullah, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Immediately after images of the hospital explosion began streaming, Abbas said he was withdrawing from the summit, and Jordan announced its cancellation.

“The anger among Arab leaders towards the US is so great,” said Awawdy. “The repeated declarations of friendship by Biden for Israel and the almost complete adoption of Israel’s position, make them believe there will be no benefit in speaking with Biden. They don’t see him as someone able to extricate the region from this catastrophe.”

For now, the reaction among Arab countries that have relations with Israel has been mainly condemnation. As the war persists and public opinion in Israel becomes harsher, this could shift.

“The room for maneuvering will become smaller,” Awawdy said. “If the fighting intensifies, especially if there will be a ground invasion of Gaza, this will change the positions of these countries. Until now, they have acted only to fulfill what they see is their obligation.”

The war comes after weeks of reports that there had been significant progress in normalization talks between Israel and Saudi Arabia. The fighting has put a hold on that process and could derail it completely, along with recent relations that Israel forged with the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, and Bahrain. After Hamas’ opening offensive last week, Bahrain and the UAE condemned the terrorist organization. After the incident at the hospital, though, the UAE, together with Russia, asked to convene a special UN Security Council meeting, which was held on Wednesday.

“Even those who believed in normalization, have now lost hope. This conflict has killed the chance for compromise, distancing any opportunity for peace,” Awawdy summarized.

The IDF said it struck a number of targets belonging to Hezbollah near the Lebanese-Israeli border, including an observation post near the coast where anti-tank missiles were launched toward Rosh Hanikra on Wednesday.

Lebanese reports published a photo of a plume of smoke on top of a hill, saying that the smoke came from a site hit in the strikes between Kfarkela and Aadaysit.

The @IDF said it struck a number of targets belonging to #Hezbollah in southern #Lebanon, including an observation post near the coast where anti-tank missiles were launched toward Rosh Hanikra on Wednesday.

📹IDF Spokesperson's Unit
🔗https://t.co/eN0fOX9DSr pic.twitter.com/qswLPsCSx7

— The Jerusalem Post (@Jerusalem_Post) October 19, 2023

The Lebanese Al-Mayadeen TV reported that an Israeli airstrike targeted a monument to former Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani near Kfarkela in southern Lebanon on Wednesday night.

#بالفيديو | الآن قصف من طائرة مسيّرة للعدو في منطقة #الناقورة جنوب مدينة #صور pic.twitter.com/iQqhLOwH2h

— قناة المنار (@TVManar1) October 18, 2023

Later in the night, Lebanese media reported an Israeli airstrike near Naqoura, north of Rosh Hanikra.

Smoke rises over a part of Lebanon as seen from Israel's border with the country, in northern Israel, October 18, 2023. (credit: Lisi Niesner/Reuters)

Hezbollah claims responsibility for seven attacks on Israel in one day

The IDF said the strikes came in response to a number of attacks launched from Lebanese territory on Israel on Wednesday.

Hezbollah announced on Wednesday that it had conducted seven attacks directed at Israeli territory, including anti-tank missile attacks and shooting at soldiers and surveillance equipment. The terrorist movement also said that three of its members were killed on Wednesday.

Additionally on Wednesday, a terrorist cell was assassinated by the IDF after firing mortar shells toward Israel from Lebanon, according to the IDF Spokesperson's Unit.

On Wednesday afternoon, nine rockets were fired from Lebanon toward Kiryat Shmona, with the IDF intercepting four of the rockets. The rest of the rockets fell in open areas.

One IDF soldier was moderately injured amid the attacks, according to Israeli reports.

Amid concerns that the clashes between Hezbollah and Israel could escalate, Saudi Arabia's Embassy in Lebanon called on Saudi citizens in Lebanon to leave the country immediately due to "current events in southern Lebanon."

US President Joe Biden will deliver an address to the nation from the White House’s Oval Office on Israel and Ukraine, a sign of how invested the United States is in the outcome of Israel’s war with Hamas.

“Tomorrow, President Biden will address the nation to discuss our response to Hamas’ terrorist attacks against Israel and Russia’s ongoing brutal war against Ukraine,” Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House spokeswoman, said in an email Wednesday night to reporters.

The speech will be broadcast at 8 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday

Oval Office addresses are rare and signify major crises. President George W. Bush used the Oval Office in 2003 to announce his intention to invade Iraq.

President Barack Obama spoke about a deadly Islamist mass shooting in San Bernardino in 2015. President Donald Trump announced measures to combat the COVID-19 pandemic in a March 2020 address.

U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks as he visits Israel amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Tel Aviv, Israel, October 18, 2023. (credit: REUTERS/EVELYN HOCKSTEIN)

Biden wants Congress to fund US defense assistance for Israel as it deals with the aftermath of the deadly Hamas attack on Oct. 7, and as Ukraine seeks gains in its bid to oust Russian invaders.

Congress remains stuck in neutral as Republicans remain unable to replace Kevin McCarthy as speaker, after radicals on the party’s far right engineered his ouster two weeks ago.

There is widespread support for Israel funding in Congress but growing Republican opposition to additional funding for Ukraine.

The latest republican to seek the speakership, Ohio’s Jim Jordan, says he would not advance funding for Ukraine. Jordan failed Wednesday in his second bid this week to be elected speaker, as Republican moderates and right-wingers remain incapable of reconciling.

Biden made a lightning visit Wednesday to Israel to show his support. While there, he secured an agreement from Israel to allow the transfer of humanitarian aid into Gaza, which Hamas controls, from Egypt.

Hundreds of activists protesting against the war between Israel and Hamas were arrested after storming the US Capitol on Wednesday night.

The protest was organized by the anti-Israel Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow organizations. Many of the protesters were shirts reading "Jews say ceasefire" and "not in our name" and carried signs reading "ceasefire now."

Just as we demand an end to genocide in Gaza, we must put the same effort into dismantling the systems of Zionism, apartheid, and colonialism that brought us to this moment. pic.twitter.com/LADb6ASgmt

— Jewish Voice for Peace (@jvplive) October 18, 2023

US Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Cori Bush (D-Mo.) spoke at the protest. A Capitol Police spokesperson told ABC news that about 300 people were arrested.

“I wish all the Palestinian people would see this. I wish they could see that not all of America want them to die. That they are not disposable, that they have a right to live,” said Tlaib, according to The Hill.

Rep. Brandon Williams (R-NY) dangles an Israeli flag over protesters, many of whom said they are Jewish, as they hold a civil disobedience action calling for a cease fire in Gaza and an end to the Israel-Hamas conflict while occupying the rotunda of the Cannon House office building on Capitol Hill. (credit: JONATHAN ERNST/REUTERS)

During the protest, US Rep. Brandon Williams (R-NY) dangled an Israeli flag from a balcony overlooking the demonstration.

US Capitol Police said in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Wednesday that "we warned the protestors to stop demonstrating and when they did not comply we began arresting them."

"Arrests in the Canon Rotunda and the rolling road closures are ongoing. Amongst these arrests, three people have been arrested and charged with Assault on a Police Officer during processing."

Jewish Voice for Peace says Israel committing 'genocide'

Jewish Voice for Peace accused Israel of genocide and ethnic cleansing in its social media posts about the protest. The posts did not reference Hamas's deadly attack on southern Israel last week.

The organization additionally repeated claims that the IDF had bombed the al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza, retweeting a tweet claiming that 1,000 people were killed in the explosion. The IDF, the US, and independent open-source intelligence investigators have found that the explosion at the hospital was likely caused by a rocket fired by a Palestinian group in Gaza.

On the day of Hamas's assault on southern Israel, Jewish Voice for Peace blamed Israel for the attack, saying that "Israeli apartheid and occupation — and United States complicity in that oppression — are the source of all this violence."

(JTA) – A historic but defunct synagogue in Tunisia was reduced to rubble on Tuesday amid mass rioting after an explosion in Gaza that Hamas blamed on Israel.

Hundreds of people were filmed setting fire to a synagogue in the central Tunisian city of Al Hammah in the hours after the explosion, at a Gaza City hospital where Hamas said many people died. Videos that circulated widely on social media showed people planting Palestinian flags and chipping away at the synagogue building’s stone walls, all without any police intervention.

Some users shared the video of the arson alongside a “#Palestine” hashtag. A video taken Wednesday shows heavy damage to the site, including to the fenced-off grave of a 16th-century rabbi that been a historic pilgrimage site for some Jews.

Images de la destruction de la synagogue filmées ce matin à El Hamma pic.twitter.com/NmO8Iah3ir

— Joseph Hirsch (@josephhirsch5) October 18, 2023

The incident, which has deprived Al Hammah of a key vestige of its Jewish past, comes amid attacks on other Jewish and Israeli sites around the world — including Germany, France, Portugal, China, and Australia — as Israel retaliates in the Gaza Strip following Hamas’ sweeping, deadly attack on Israel Oct. 7.

Protests against Israel ramped up Tuesday night after the hospital explosion. Dozens of rioters targeted the Israeli embassy in Amman, Jordan. Riots also broke out in Palestinian areas of the West Bank, Hebrew media reported.

Israeli and US officials said they believed with near certainty that the blast was caused by an errant rocket fired by Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Same synagogue damaged in Arab Spring protests

The Al Hammah synagogue was not an active site of worship, as no Jews live in the city; however, it is the site of the tomb of 16th-century Kabbalist Rabbi Yosef Ma’aravi. The same site was previously damaged during the 2011 Arab Spring protests, which were not about Israel.

The American Jewish Committee denounced the vandalism in a statement.

“We are horrified by the burning and destruction of the Al Hammah synagogue in Tunisia,” the group said on X, adding that it was “closely monitoring the situation” and in touch with Tunisian Jewish community leaders.

Tunisia’s small Jewish population of around 1,000 also contended with a deadly terrorist attack earlier this year when a gunman stormed a synagogue on the island of Djerba. Five people died, including two Jewish pilgrims who had traveled to the area from Israel and France, and wounding several others.

In response to the Djerba attack, Tunisia’s president, Kais Saied, pledged he would increase security for the country’s Jewish residents. Saied also drew criticism for using the occasion of the attack to criticize Israel.

Since the latest explosion of violence in Israel and Gaza, Tunisians have taken to the streets in large numbers to support Palestinians. Tunisian schoolchildren have saluted the Palestinian flag, and Saied has pledged to stand by Palestinians while continuing to snuff out any talk of normalization with Israel, a path that four Arab countries took in 2020.