Israel at war: What happened on Day 58?

The Israeli civilian who sprang to action to stop a terror attack in progress last week, only to be fatally shot by an IDF soldier, yelled "I'm a Jew, don't shoot" in the moments before he was shot, an eyewitness said. Surveillance video showed the man kneeling on the ground with his hands up as well.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had said "this is life" in response to the incident, drawing sharp criiticism from the man's father, as well as MK Benny Gantz.

IDF fighter jets attacked several Hezbollah targets on Sunday in Lebanon, including military targets and terrorist infrastructure, according to an IDF statement.

The president of the Islamic University in Gaza City was killed in an Israeli air strike on Sunday, Israeli media reported according to an announcement from the Palestinian Higher Education Ministry.

International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan on Sunday issued a statement on the conclusion of his first visit to Israel and the West Bank over the weekend, attempting to project his authority as encompassing both alleged illegal actions by Israel and the Palestinians.

Khan, who arrived Thursday on an unofficial and unannounced visit, said, "I have just concluded my first visit to Israel and the State of Palestine. During this mission, I had a simple message: my Office is here to ensure that the protection of the law is felt by all."

He said he was "grateful for the warmth and openness shown by all those I met with during this visit. The clarity, compassion and courage that victims, in particular, in both Israel and Palestine, demonstrated in explaining their experiences were deeply impactful.  While not investigative in nature, this mission allowed me to listen to their accounts and deepen my understanding of what they experienced."

Khan explained that his "visit to Israel was conducted at the request of family members and friends of Israeli citizens who were either killed or taken hostage by Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups on 7 October 2023."  

Next, he said that during his visits to both Kibbutz Be'eri and Kibbutz Kfar Azza, as well as at the site of the Nova Music Festival in Re’im, "I witnessed scenes of calculated cruelty. The attacks against innocent Israeli civilians on 7 October represent some of the most serious international crimes that shock the conscience of humanity, crimes which the ICC was established to address."

KARIM KHAN, new ICC prosecutor. (credit: MICHAEL KOOREN / REUTERS)

Reaching out to Israel to sidestep Israeli legal concerns, he said, "I also stand ready to engage with relevant national authorities in line with the principle of complementarity at the heart of the Rome Statute. Such engagement, like my visit, would be without prejudice to the position of Israel on jurisdiction, and as a non-State Party to the Rome Statute."

Further, he stated, "I called for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages taken by Hamas and other terror organisations. There can be no justification for the holding of any hostages, and in particular the egregious breach of fundamental principles of humanity through the taking and continued holding of children. Hostages cannot be treated as human shields or bargaining chips."

During his visit to Ramallah, he noted that he met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayeh, and Minister of Justice Mohammad Shalaldeh.  

"I underlined to them that it was of real significance to me that this represented the first official visit by an ICC Prosecutor to the State of Palestine...Our discussions were highly productive as we look to further deepen our cooperation under the Rome Statute," he said.

Moreover, he said that he spoke "with the families of Palestinian victims. I was grateful to hear such personal accounts of their experiences in Gaza and the West Bank. We must never become numb to such suffering."

In relation to Gaza, he tried to walk a tightrope, saying, "notwithstanding any ongoing violations of international humanitarian law by Hamas and other armed groups in the Gaza Strip, the manner in which Israel responds to these attacks is subject to clear legal parameters that govern armed conflict. Conflict in densely populated areas where fighters are alleged to be unlawfully embedded in the civilian population is inherently complex, but international humanitarian [law] must still apply and the Israeli military knows the law that must be applied."

Khan also said, "Israel has trained lawyers who advise commanders and a robust system intended to ensure compliance with international humanitarian law. Credible allegations of crimes during the current conflict should be the subject of timely, independent examination and investigation. On this visit, I again stressed that the clear legal principles of distinction, precaution and proportionality must be complied with so that the protection of the law is rendered meaningful for those who need it. I emphasized that not only must the letter of the law be complied with, but also the spirit upheld."

In addition, he said, "The United Nations, the World Health Organization and the International Committee for the Red Cross and Red Crescent have continued to underline the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza. As I have repeatedly emphasised, civilians must have access to basic food, water and desperately needed medical supplies, without further delay, and at pace and at scale.  And when such aid arrives, it must not be diverted or misused by Hamas. I cannot be more clear about this." 

Regarding settler violence, he stated he has "profound concern with the significant increase in incidents of attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank. I stated that no Israeli armed with an extreme ideology and a gun can feel they can act with impunity against Palestinian civilians. In Ramallah, I heard directly from those affected by such attacks."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged not to repeat the mistakes made under the Oslo Accords by allowing the Palestinian Authority to return to Gaza after its military campaign to oust Hamas from that enclave is over.

“One thing for sure I am not doing. I am not ready to delude myself to say that the defective act that took place under Oslo through a terrible error” must now take place a second time with the return of a “hostile entity” to Gaza and the West Bank, he told reporters on Saturday night.

Netanyahu referenced the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s initial exit to Tunisia. He noted that this was a correct decision, adding that the error that had been made was to allow it to return in 1994 with through the Palestinian Authority under the auspices of the 1993 Oslo Accords.

“I won’t repeat this mistake and return this body to Gaza, because the same thing will happen,” he said. He referenced the 2007 coup in which Hamas ousted the PA’s Fatah party from Gaza and forcibly seized control of the enclave

The Palestinian leadership has split into two, Netanyahu said, but the ideology that denies Israel’s right to exist is common to both those who rule in the West Bank and in Gaza.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. (credit: REUTERS)

 Instead of seeing the kind of governmental reform that took place in Germany and Japan after defeat in World War II, the opposite will occur if “we will return the same entity - that has not undergone any reform or transformation — into Gaza,” Netanyahu said.

“This is what even our good friends are proposing,” he said.

 “I think differently and I oppose this. We have to build something different” once the war is over, he said. He emphasized that Israel must have general control over the territory, including security, but that the internal governance would be Palestinian,” Netanyahu said. He clarified that this reference newly created government entity and not the PA.

“The PA doesn’t fight terror it supports it. It doesn’t educate for peace, it educates for the destruction of Israel,” he said.

“This isn’t the entity that needs to enter there [Gaza],” he said.

The international community and the United States has pushed Israel on the issue of what happens to Gaza after Israel completes it military campaign to destroy Hamas. It did so after the terror group infiltrated southern Israel, killing over 1,200 people and seizing some 240 captives.

The United States supports Israel’s military campaign in Gaza but is concerned about the high number of displaced people due to aerial bombings, some 1.9 million out of the 2.7 million that live there, as well as by the high death toll. Hamas has asserted that some 15,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza war-related violence, without specifying how many of those are combatants.

The United States and the international community have called on Israel to minimize civilian casualties and ensure a flow of aid. But they have also looked to the day after and stressed that the PA should govern Gaza, even though they have not offered a viable security alternative for that option. Israel has insisted that the IDF must maintain military control of the enclave.

US Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday addressed the Biden administration’s day-after vision for Gaza, when she spoke with reporters on the sidelines of the United Nations COP28 Climate Conference in the United Arab Emirates.
“Hamas can not control Gaza and Israel must be secure,” while the Palestinians have a political horizon, she said, explaining that this included the return of a revitalized PA to Gaza.

“The PA security forces must be strengthened to eventually assume security responsibilities in Gaza,” Harris said.

“Until then there must be security arrangements that are acceptable to Israel, the people of Gaza, the PA, and the international partners,” Harris said.

The humanitarian situation in Gaza

“The PA must be revitalized driven by the will of the Palestinian people,” she said, adding that this revitalized PA must be able to govern Gaza as well as the PA.

Moving forward, she said, “we can not conflate Hamas with the Palestinian people.”

Harris clarified that “Hamas is a brutal terror organization that has vowed to repeat October 7 until Israeli is annihilated. No nation could possibly live with such danger.”

But how Israel conducts its military operations against Hamas, “it matters how” and international law must be respected.

“To many innocent Palestinians have been killed. The scale of humanitarian suffering and the images coming from Gaza have been devastating,” she said.

“Israel must do more to protect innocent civilians,” she said.

On Saturday night in Ramallah PA President Mahmoud Abbs said that Gaza was “an integral part of the Palestinian state and that “any political solution” must include that enclave as well as the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

According to his statement posed on the Palestinian news agency, WAFA, the only solution to the bloodshed, he told PA leaders, is recognition of a Palestinian state on that territory, including UN membership.

Abbas called for an international conference to discuss and set a timetable for an Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines.

“We continue with our people to remain steadfast in the battle for survival, freedom, and independence. We will not kneel. We will not surrender to the fait accomplice. We will not allow the Nakba of Palestine in 1948 to be repeated, whatever the circumstances, and no matter how costly the sacrifice.”

An anti-tank missile fired from Lebanon into Israeli territory injured four people on Sunday afternoon.

All were reported as suffering from light injuries and were transferred to medical facilites for further examination.

The IDF responded to the fire by attacking Hezbollah targets in Lebanon.

During a recent visit by senior officers to various brigade headquarters, a troubling revelation came to light. It became apparent that surveillance camera footage along the border, dating back to the day the war broke out, had mysteriously vanished. Furthermore, critical recordings from the Oct. 7 massacre had been removed from the central database. These developments have raised suspicion and fueled a sense that everyone is primarily looking out for their own interests with an eye on what comes next.

The IDF's official statement on this issue is that the videos were not deleted but rather restricted to authorized personnel.

In preparation for the possibility of a ground incursion into the Gaza Strip, special work teams were formed last week. These teams were tasked with analyzing the lessons learned from the war and studying Hamas' operational strategies. Their objective was to disseminate this knowledge among the combat units of the various divisions. Simultaneously, investigation teams were set up for the "day after," focused on aiding in the planning of the border area and the security measures designed to protect the municipalities.

Addressing the concerns 

During the senior officer's visit from the IDF General Staff, reserve officers voiced their concerns about the apparent disappearance of crucial video footage. These videos originated from various IDF surveillance cameras along the Gaza border, part of the military network known as "ZiTube." The missing footage dated back to October 7th and seemed to have been deliberately removed to hinder any in-depth investigations into events that transpired in Palestinian territory, border breaches, and the overall situation.

The clothes of Thai workers, many of who were killed or kidnapped, hang outside a destroyed home, following the deadly Oct. 7 attack by Hamas terrorists from the Gaza Strip, in Kibbutz Kissufim, southern Israel November 1, 2023. (credit: REUTERS/EVELYN HOCKSTEIN)

One senior reserve officer from a brigade recounted the situation, saying, "We had planned to show one of the key figures a video of a particular incident from last week, only to discover that someone had deleted the videos. It was a highly embarrassing situation, and it subsequently led to suspicions about the motivations behind these actions. Eventually, special permissions were granted to those who requested them. The question arises, do officers at our level require such permissions? It appears as if there's a power struggle among high-ranking officials and those with specific roles, with a general sense that everyone is now prioritizing their interests for what lies ahead."

Disrupted recordings and deliberate decisions 

Sources within the Gaza Division also revealed a "disruption" in the recordings of communications from October 7th. According to these sources, "some of the recordings have either disappeared or were simply downloaded from the network and relocated under the directives of commanding officers. Consequently, we are unable to access them. Communication recordings are typically deleted after a specific period, unless someone intentionally preserves them within the system, and there exists such a functionality. It seems that someone made a deliberate choice to either transfer or delete these recordings to ensure that no one could listen to them. These recordings are vital as they provide a comprehensive account of what transpired, what actions need to be taken, with particular emphasis on the critical initial eight hours, including moments when there was a lack of communication channels.

Even as it tries to recover hostages through indirect talks with Hamas and army operations in the Gaza Strip, Israel has been declaring some of the missing as dead in captivity, a measure designed to grant anxious relatives a measure of closure.

A three-person medical committee has been poring over videos from the Oct. 7 rampage by Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists in southern Israel for signs of lethal injuries among those abducted, and cross-referencing with the testimony of hostages freed during a week-long Gaza truce that ended on Friday.

That can suffice to determine that a hostage has died, even if no doctor has formally pronounced this over his or her body, said Hagar Mizrahi, a Health Ministry official who heads the panel created in response to a crisis now in its third month.

"Designation of death is never an easy matter, and certainly not in the situation embroiling us," she told Israel's Kan radio. Her committee, she said, addresses "the desire of the families of loved ones abducted to Gaza to know as much as possible."

Of some 240 people kidnapped, 108 were freed by Hamas in return for the release by Israel of scores of Palestinian detainees as well as boosted humanitarian aid shipments to Gaza.

Since the truce expired, Israeli authorities have declared six civilians and an army colonel dead in captivity.

This has not been confirmed by Hamas. It has previously said dozens of hostages were killed in Israeli airstrikes, has threatened to execute hostages itself and suggested that some hostages were in the hands of other armed Palestinian factions.

Hostages have been kept incommunicado despite Israel's calls on the Red Cross to arrange visits and verify their wellbeing.

AN EMPTY Shabbat table is set in Wilson Plaza on UCLA's campus earlier this month at a pro-Israel protest, representing the hostages held by Hamas and missing Shabbat dinners with their families. (credit: EMILY SAMUELS )

Mizrahi said she and her fellow panelists - a forensic pathologist and a physical trauma clinician - have been watching clips shot by the Hamas attackers themselves, cellphone video by Palestinian spectators and CCTV footage of the hostage-taking "again and again, frame by frame."

That has allowed them to map out life-threatening wounds and spot any cessation of breathing or other essential reflexes.

Additional considerations have been hostages' rough handling by captors, the reduced chances of them getting adequate medical care in Gaza and accounts of deaths by former fellow hostages.

Religious reasons included in the decision

The panel has been consulting with a religious expert, she said, given Jewish laws that prevent a widow from remarrying unless her bereavement is formally recognized by authorities.

"We assemble the overall picture," Mizrahi said, adding that every determination of death has to be unanimously agreed upon.

The risk of getting it wrong was laid bare in the case of Emily Hand, who went missing on Oct. 7 and whose father Tom was initially informed "unofficially" that she had been killed. The girl had in fact been taken hostage and was freed in the truce.

Being denied a burial may pose a psychological barrier for grieving kin, however.

Last week, the Israeli military - which has rabbinical and intelligence units scouring Gaza battlefields for information about the fate of lost soldiers, as well as remains of hostages -- declared dead Shaked Gal, a conscript missing since Oct 7.

His mother Sigalit said in a Facebook post addressed to the 19-year-old that she would not observe the traditional Jewish mourning period for him "until your body is returned."

Mizrahi said her panel had yet to encounter a family that refused to accept its determination, but was prepared for that:

"We are here to provide the professional side. We do not, God forbid, debate or confront the families regarding their decision, and we accept their choices with understanding."

The military has recovered the bodies of one captive soldier and two civilian hostages, and freed one soldier in a rescue operation.

IDF Arabic Spokesperson Avichay Adraee warned on X (formerly Twitter) the commanders of Hamas's Shujaiya Battalion ahead of the IDF's resumed military operations in Gaza, and presented them with two options: surrender, or end up like former battalion commander Wessam Farhat, who was killed yesterday in an Israeli airstrike.

"This is a final announcement, you are all targets. The IDF will act in the area to dismantle Hamas," Adraee wrote.

In addition, he noted that the commanders had two options: "surrender and lay down the weapons," or "deal with a fate similar to that of Wessam Farhat."

#عاجل هذا البلاغ موجه لقادة كتيبة الشجاعية في حماس: اعتبِروا هذا الإشعار إشعارًا أخيراً.
🔻إنكم جميعًا مستهدَفون. جيش الدفاع سيعمل بقوة شديدة للغاية في الحي من أجل تفكيك البنى التحتية الحمساوية الارهابية. أمامكم خياران:
⭕الاستسلام ووضع أسلحتكم
⭕البقاء ومواجهة مصير مشابه لذلك… pic.twitter.com/MifzrLQOXS

— افيخاي ادرعي (@AvichayAdraee) December 3, 2023

Hamas senior commander killed 

Farhat, who was head of the Shujaiya Battalion. In 2014, Farhat commanded Hamas terrorists in an attack on an armored personnel carrier in the Shujaiya neighborhood, killing seven soldiers, including Oron Shaul, whose body was taken by Hamas terrorists and has been held by the terrorist organization in Gaza since.

Farhat also helped plan the Hamas massacre on October 7, sending the Nukhba terrorists who targeted Kibbutz Nahal Oz and the Nahal Oz outpost. The Hamas commander was also one of the terrorists who planned a deadly attack against a pre-military school in Atsmona in Gush Katif in 2002 and anti-tank fire which targeted a bus in 2011 and killed an Israeli child.