Israel at War: What happened on Day 59?

The IDF announced on Monday morning the names of three soldiers who fell in combat in the Gaza Strip on Sunday.

The soldiers were identified as Sgt.-Maj. (res.) Neriya Shaer, 36, from Yavne; Sgt.-First Class (res.) Ben Zussman, 22, from Jerusalem; and Sgt. Binyamin Yehoshua Needham, 19, from Zihron Ya'akov.

The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Mirjana Spoljaric Egger, was set to visit the Gaza Strip on Monday as part of efforts to get Hamas to allow Red Cross representatives to check on hostages being held by the terrorist group, Army Radio reported on Sunday.

An IDF fighter jet conducted a targeted strike in the area of the Shati refugee camp outside of Gaza City, successfully killed the commander of Hamas’s Shati Battalion, Haitham Khuwajari, the IDF and Shin Bet said on Sunday evening.

"Today, the IDF, based on guidance by the Shin Bet and intelligence units, and as part of the Southern Command's operation, targeted and killed the commander of the Shati Battalion through an airstrike," IDF Spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari stated during a subsequent press briefing.

The IDF noted that Khuwajari, in addition to being the commander of the Hamas forces in the Shati area, was one of the Hamas commanders that orchestrated the deadly Hamas rampage in southern Israel on October 7.

Securing Hamas activity inside of Al-Shifa Hospital

The IDF also said that Khuwajari was responsible for facilitating Hamas activity inside of Al-Shifa Hospital and had previously carried out a number of terrorist attacks on Israelis.

"Under his command, there were also infiltrations into Israeli territory, including the brutal massacre on October 7th," Hagari said. "We will continue to pursue, locate and eliminate every commander who terrorizes the area under their control, as we did yesterday in the Shejaiya Battalion.

On Saturday, the IDF eliminated Hamas Shejaiya Battalion commander Wissam Farhat, the terrorist responsible for directing the attack on Nahal Oz on October 7.

The IDF subsequently warned the remaining Shejaiya Battalion commanders that they had the option to either surrender or be similarly eliminated.

Israel is taking steps to reduce the number of Palestinian civilian casualties from the Israel-Hamas war, US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told ABC’s This Week on Sunday, two days after the IDF resumed its military campaign to oust Hamas from the enclave.

“We believe they [Israel] have been receptive to our messages in terms of trying to minimize civilian casualties,” he said.

“In the last 24-to-48 hours, they [the IDF], published an online map of places where people could go to avoid combat... to find safety from combat. There is not a whole lot of modern militaries that would do that,” Kirby said as he referred to Israeli actions in the South.

“They are making an effort,” he added. US officials, including US Secretary of State Antony Blinken who visited Israel last week have pushed Israel to reduce the casualty count.

A growing death toll in Gaza creates unease among Israel's allies

Hamas has asserted that over 15,000 Palestinians have been killed from violence related to the Israel-Hamas war, a number which Israel’s allies have found troubling, and opponents of the Gaza have harshly criticized, with some accusing Israel of genocide.

John Kirby, National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications, answers questions during the daily press briefing at the White House in Washington, US, February 17, 2023. (credit: REUTERS/EVELYN HOCKSTEIN)

The US has been particularly concerned about IDF action in the South, where many Palestinians have fled from the North for safety.

“We have said that we do not want to see them move into the South until they have accounted for the civilian population,” Kirby said.

The US has supported Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, which was sparked by the terrorist groups’ killing of over 1,200 people and its seizure of some 240 hostages on October 7.

The military’ focus now, particularly with regard to intelligence, Kirby said, as he alluded to Israel’s targeted assassinations, should be on IDF efforts against Hamas’s leaders.

“The focus has got to be on making sure that Israel has what it needs to go after Hamas’s leadership. They are taking out its leadership one by one, but they are going after them and we want to see that progress continued,” he stressed.

Kirby spoke about Qatar and Egyptian mediated talks to put the Gaza war back on hold in exchange for more hostages releases had broken down. Last week, during a lull in the war, 110 hostages were freed, according to number provided by the Prime Minister’s Office.

Reuters contributed to this report.

The IDF on Sunday continued its third day of bombing parts of the southern Gaza Strip, with a special focus on Khan Yunis, while its ground forces remained focused on the north.

Two more soldiers were named as killed in action on Sunday: St.-Sgt. Aschalwu Sama, 20, from Petah Tikva, who died from wounds sustained in battles in the north on November 14, and St.-Sgt.-Maj. (res.) Or Brandes, from Shoham, killed in central Gaza on Saturday.

IDF sources hinted there is more than meets the eye when it comes to the southern operation, with no Palestinian reports of a serious invasion yet, though these moves are likely setting up positions for an upcoming one.

IDF Chief-of-Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi told troops they would be taking the same tactics used to seize most of northern Gaza – for the south.

Past attacks

One notable attack happened late on Saturday, when the IDF killed Wissam Farhat, the head of Hamas’s Shejaia Battalion, who is behind a 2014 attack that resulted in the abduction of the body of Oron Shaul, still being held in Gaza, along with the hostages from October 7. Farhat was also behind the deadly massacre in Nahal Oz.

In 2014, Farhat commanded Hamas terrorists in an attack on an armored personnel carrier in Shejaia, killing seven soldiers, including Shaul.

He was also one of the terrorists who planned a deadly attack against a pre-military school in Atzmona in Gush Katif back in 2002 and an anti-tank attack against a bus in 2011.

In 1995, Farhat was arrested while on his way to carry out a suicide attack and was imprisoned for 10 years. After he was freed and returned to Gaza, he worked in rocket production for Hamas.

Palestinian Hamas terrorists attend an anti-Israel rally in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip May 27, 2021 (credit: REUTERS/IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA)

Following his killing on Sunday, IDF Arabic Spokesman Avichay Adraee warned the commanders of the Shejaia Battalion on X after the IDF resumed military operations in Gaza, presenting them with two options: surrender, or end up like Farhat.

Hamas fired dozens of times on southern Israel, one of which directly hit a synagogue in Sderot.

At press time, Hamas had not fired on Sunday toward the center of the country, namely Tel Aviv, something it had done both on Friday and Saturday after the temporary pause collapsed.

On Sunday, the IDF announced that its special joint operations unit within the air force carried out over 10,000 air strikes since the invasion began. This unit is unique because it is trained from the start to work in direct cooperation with ground forces.

Although the IDF tried to make this kind of joint operating activity between air and land forces standard practice in the war, for most of military history in which air forces existed, there was nowhere near this level of coordination.
Additionally, the amount to which air forces of democracies could support ground forces advancing in real time in dense urban settings was minimal, both because of the concern of hitting civilians, and the concern of accidentally hitting friendly forces, given the blunt power of bombs dropped by aircraft.

The unit within the IAF has flipped all of these problems using a mix of unique training with ground forces long before the war, along with using advanced precision munitions.

These new trends have allowed the special unit – which at first was mostly made of attack helicopters, but over time has added drones and even some other kinds of aircraft – to strike within 150 meters of advancing IDF forces, most often without hitting civilians or IDF forces.

A senior IDF official told of three particular instances where the elite unit saved IDF forces who would have taken larger losses without its intervention. In one case, a battalion from Brigade 551 was pinned down by Hamas’s anti-tank missiles and sniper units while operating in Beit Hanun of northern Gaza. Despite their efforts, the IDF infantry could not even get near the Hamas positions without being gunned down. Within 15 minutes of being warned, the IDF special unit struck from the air and removed the Hamas threat.

In another instance, Unit 401 was being ambushed in Jabalya in northern Gaza, by a complex trap again of anti-tank missiles and other Hamas forces. In this case, the IDF already had wounded soldiers and it was unclear whether there would even be a safe way to evacuate them. In one hour, the Joint Special Forces-Air Force unit attacked Hamas 11 times, ended the ambush, and succeeded in spiriting off the wounded IDF soldiers.

In the third incident, Golani forces were being ambushed and having trouble extracting themselves. The special unit carried out eight attacks against Hamas within 15 minutes, helping the Golani forces deal with the situation.

Questioned about whether these tactics could work in southern Gaza, where there are even more Palestinian civilians than before, and the urban setting may be even more dense, a senior IDF official said the same tactics used in the North should work in the South, and that years of training and drilling together had made his special unit ready for the current challenges.

Halevi said that a large component of IDF victory in Gaza would be the strong joint work of the different arms of the Israeli military.

The IDF said late Saturday that the 551st brigade completed a mission in Jabalya, having eliminated Hamas terrorists and destroyed terrorist infrastructure, which included tunnels and subterranean structures.

During the operation, which began before the initiation of the temporary pause, IDF troops destroyed a terrorist tunnel that extended dozens of meters underground, located in the courtyard of a school compound. Another one was located and destroyed in the home of a Hamas naval force operative, the IDF stated.

Soldiers of the 551st brigade, along with special forces, also worked to eliminate subterranean infrastructure north of Jabalya, where troops subsequently isolated and secured an area to facilitate further IDF activity.

Additionally, along with the air force and artillery units, troops destroyed numerous pieces of Hamas combat equipment, including weapons, explosives, launchers, and ammunition.

Overall, the IDF said on Sunday that it had discovered over 800 tunnel shafts in Gaza since the ground invasion against Hamas began, of which 500 have been destroyed.

Many of the tunnels connected strategic Hamas locations underground and were located in civilian areas, such as in or near kindergartens, mosques, and children’s playgrounds, amounting to further evidence of Hamas’s use of Gaza’s civilian population as a weapon of war.

After discovery, the IDF carries out in-depth research to understand the layout of the tunnel network and then prepare it for demolition. The 500 tunnel shafts so far destroyed have been done with a mix of explosives, blockages, and flooding.

Despite this success, IDF sources failed to deny that the vast majority of tunnels in Gaza have yet to be destroyed, given that each tunnel can have many shafts branching off to others. 

Two ships hit in an attack near the Bab al-Mandab strait claimed by the Iran-backed Houthi militia in Yemen on Sunday had no connection to the State of Israel, IDF Spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a briefing on Sunday evening.

"Today, missiles were fired at two commercial vessels with no connection to the State of Israel, I repeat once more to be clear, without any connection to the State of Israel," said Hagari. "One ship was significantly damaged and is in distress with an apparent risk of sinking and another ship was slightly damaged."

Hagari stressed that the Houthis used Iranian weapons and intelligence to conduct such attacks, adding that this is also a global and regional problem. "Freedom of navigation is becoming dangerous in this part of the world," said Hagari.

US Central Command (CENTCOM) said on Sunday night that four attacks had been conducted against three separate commercial vessels in the southern Red Sea. The three vessels are connected to 14 separate countries.

Israel Navy missile ships head to the Red Sea after several aerial intrusions by Houthi drones, November 1, 2023 (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)

According to CENTCOM, the Arleigh-Burke Class destroyer USS CARNEY responded to distress calls issued by the ships and provided assistance.

The attacks began with a ballistic missile strike fired from Houthi controlled areas of Yemen targeting the Unity Explorer. The attack was detected by the USS Carney.

A few hours later, the Carney shot down a drone launched from Houthi controlled areas. While the drone was headed toward the Carney, its specific target is not clear. No damage was caused to the US vessel and no injuries were reported.

Shortly afterward, a missile hit the Unity Explorer causing minor damage, with the Carney responding to a distress call from the vessel. While assisting with a damage assessment, another drone was launched toward the vessel which the Carney intercepted. The Unity Explorer is a Bahamas flagged, UK owned and operated, bulk cargo ship crewed by sailors from two countries.

A few hours afterwards, the Number 9 was struck by a missile fired from Houthi controlled areas of Yemen while operating in the Red Sea. The vessel was damaged and no injuries were reported. The Number 9 is a Panamanian flagged, Bermuda and UK owned and operated, bulk carrier.

Shortly afterward, the Sophie II sent a distress call saying they were struck by a missile. The Carney responded to the call and reported no significant damage. The Sophie II a Panamanian flagged bulk carrier, crewed by sailors from eight countries.

While en-route to give support to the Sophie II, the Carney shot down another drone headed in its direction.

"These attacks represent a direct threat to international commerce and maritime security," said CENTCOM. "They have jeopardized the lives of international crews representing multiple countries around the world. We also have every reason to believe that these attacks, while launched by the Houthis in Yemen, are fully enabled by Iran. The United States will consider all appropriate responses in full coordination with its international allies and partners."

The Houthis said its navy had attacked two Israeli ships, Unity Explorer and Number 9, with an armed drone and a naval missile.

A spokesperson for the group's military said the two ships were targeted after they rejected warnings, without elaborating.

In a broadcast statement the spokesperson said the attacks were in response to the demands of the Yemeni people and calls from Islamic nations to stand with the Palestinian people.

The reported incident follows a series of attacks in Middle Eastern waters since war broke out between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas on Oct. 7.

An Israeli-linked cargo ship was seized last month by the Houthis, allies of Iran. The group, which controls most of Yemen's Red Sea coast, had previously fired ballistic missiles and armed drones at Israel and vowed to target more Israeli vessels.

Multiple engagements

The Bahamas-flagged bulk carrier Unity Explorer is owned by Unity Explorer Ltd and managed by London-based Dao Shipping Ltd, LSEG data showed. The ship was scheduled to arrive in Singapore on Dec. 15. Dan David Ungar, an Israeli citizen, is listed as the director at Unity Explorer LTD.

Number 9, which was headed to Suez port, is a Panama-flagged container ship owned by Number 9 Shipping Ltd and managed by Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK-based Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement (BSM), the data showed.

BSM said in a statement to Reuters Number 9 is currently sailing and there were no reports of injuries or pollution after the incident. The vessel was hit by a projectile while transiting the Bab al-Mandab Strait, the company said.

Unity Explorer's owners and managers could not be reached immediately for comments.

British maritime security company Ambrey and sources said earlier that a bulk carrier and a container ship had been hit by at least two drones while sailing in the Red Sea.

Ambrey said the container ship had reportedly suffered damage from a drone attack about 63 miles northwest of the northern Yemeni port of Hodeidah.

Last week a US Navy warship responded to a distress call from an Israeli-managed commercial tanker in the Gulf of Aden after it had been seized by armed individuals.

The existing Palestinian Authority lacks the credibility to govern Gaza once Israel’s military campaign to oust Hamas from the enclave is over, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told ABC’s This Week.

“Whatever governance looks like in Gaza, it has to be responsive to the aspirations of the Palestinian people and right now the Palestinian Authority doesn’t have that credibly,” he said.

Kirby spoke one day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed that he does not plan to allow the PA to return to Gaza when the war ends. The US has supported Israel’s goal of removing Hamas from governance in Gaza.

Kirby clarified that the existing PA in Gaza is also problematic. The issue, he explained, was not Palestinian governance of Gaza, but the nature of the current PA.

“What [Netanyahu] said is that right now you have an unreformed PA and that is unacceptable to him and that is unacceptable to us too.

Smoke from an explosion rises in Gaza, after a temporary truce between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist terrorist group Hamas expired, as seen from southern Israel, December 2, 2023 (credit: REUTERS/ALEXANDER ERMOCHENKO)

“We don’t believe the PA is in a position right now to be in credible control of governance in Gaza, whatever it looks like,” he stated as he issued an unusually candid Biden administration assessment of the PA.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken last week visited PA President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah while he was in Israel and the region, pleading support to “advance tangible steps for a Palestinian state.”

Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer told ABC’s This Week. “I know that everyone is racing forward to try and establish a Palestinian state. The people of Israel do not even understand that.”

The renewed talk of Palestinian statehood comes in the aftermath of Hamas's October 7 infiltration of southern Israel in which it killed over 1,200 people and seized some 240 hostages.

“The last thing you want to do is send a message to any terror group that the way you are going to achieve some sort of aim is to perpetrate some sort of massive terror attack. Right now what we have to focus on is destroying Hama,” he said.

The destruction of Hamas will open the door to a regional peace, Dermer said. “In the context of that regional peace, we will have to figure out we can put ourselves on a path to an ultimate political settlement with the Palestinians...I think we can get there.”

Netanyahu won't allow PA to run Gaza

At a press conference in Jerusalem on Saturday night Netanyahu focused on the day after the war. Returning the PA to Gaza, he said was akin to repeating the mistakes of the 1993 Oslo Accords, which created the PA and allowed it to govern portions of the West Bank and Gaza.

“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.

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 governing power 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.

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

“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 have pushed Israel on the issue of what happens to Gaza after Israel completes its military campaign to destroy Hamas.

US supports Israel but concerned about high number of casualties in Gaza

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 humanitarian. 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 and the creation of a two-state resolution to the conflict.

“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 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 West Bank.

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 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.

Abbas: Gaza is 'integral part of Palestinian state'

On Saturday night in Ramallah PA President Mahmoud Abbas 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.”

A US air strike killed five Iraqi militants near the northern city of Kirkuk as they prepared to launch explosive projectiles at US forces in the country, three Iraqi security sources said, identifying them as members of an Iran-backed militia.

A US military official confirmed a "self-defense strike on an imminent threat" that targeted a drone staging site near Kirkuk on Sunday afternoon.

A statement by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group representing several Iraqi armed factions with close ties to Tehran, said five of its members had been killed, and vowed retaliation against US forces.