Israel-Hamas War: What happened on day 85?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a stern warning to Iran and Hezbollah and confirmed that the Gaza war could continue for months, amid a push to bring to fruition a Qatari proposal to secure the release of additional hostages.

“On the northern border - we are landing heavy blows against Hezbollah, eliminating many terrorists and destroying the enemy's capabilities,” Netanyahu said in a press conference in Tel Aviv on Saturday night.

He spoke as Israel continued its military operation to destroy Hamas in Gaza even as it thwarted Hezbollah violence along its northern border, working to contain the situation from escalating into a full-fledged war.

Netanyahu said that diplomacy was the best option to restore security to that border, but noted that Israel would not hesitate to act against the Iranian proxy group Hezbollah should those options fail.

“We approved operational plans for the continuation of the fighting. If Hezbollah expands the war - it will receive blows it never dreamed of, and so will Iran. We will act in any way until we restore security to the residents of the north,” Netanyahu stated.

“Iran leads the axis of evil and aggression against us on the various fronts,” Netanyahu stated.

“This aggression is directed not only against Israel but against the entire free world. We act against Iran all the time, everywhere, in every way,” Netanyahu said, as he declined to provide details to back up his statement.

One person was wounded on Saturday afternoon in a suspected ramming attack at the Beit Hagai intersection near Hebron, in the West Bank, the IDF confirmed.

The attack targeted an Israeli military post located near the Palestinian town of Fawwar, the IDF said.

The driver was shot at before being detained by Israeli forces, operating in increased presence in the area.

Magen David Adom personnel arrived at the scene to provide medical treatment to the injured man who was conscious.

This comes less than a day after five IDF soldiers were wounded in a similar incident.

One person was injured on Saturday afternoon after a suspected ramming attack at the Beit Hagai intersection in the West Bank near Hebron.

IDF soldiers detained the suspected terrorist.

The terrorist arrived by car and tried to run over a group of young people.

MDA personnel arrived at the scene to provide medical treatment to the injured.

This is a developing story.

The IDF raided a Hamas military headquarters base belonging to the terrorist group's military intelligence chief on Saturday.

The raid was done by the IDF's 7th Brigade Combat Team and the Givati Brigade Combat Team.

The Hamas military intelligence commander is responsible for all the intelligence operations of the terrorist organization in the area.

PIJ headquarters location uncovered in raid

During the raid, Israeli forces also uncovered the location of a Palestinian Islamic Jihad headquarters.

Video documentation of the raid by the IDF's 7th Brigade and the Givati Brigade in Khan Yunis can be seen below:

Two drones by Hezbollah exploded over Mount Dov in an open area, Maariv reported on Saturday.

There were no Israeli casualties in the incident.

Airstrikes killed at least six Iran-backed terrorists at the Syria-Iraq border, two members of Iraqi militia groups told The Associated Press on Saturday.

Hours before the Associated Press report, the Hezbollah terrorist organization announced that four operatives within their ranks were killed by Israeli attacks around the same time, according to Walla, which states that they were among the six that were killed in eastern Syria. The other two were reportedly Syrian fighters, the Iraqi militia members said.

Since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas War, more than 160 Hezbollah members have been killed. 

Arab media also reported that airstrikes were carried out against sites identified with pro-Iranian militias in the Boukamal region of Syria near the Iraq border. Some of the reports, such as the Lebanese source Al-Mayadeen, state that the airstrikes have been attributed to Israel.

Further insight into the strikes' target

The attacks hit a weapons depot, a militants’ convoy that had arrived from Iraq to Syria, and a training complex belonging to the pro-Iranian militia, according to The Syrian Observatory For Human Rights, which states that the number killed at the border is actually nine, saying that three of them were Syrian nationals, and said that that strike was done by US forces. The organization also said that the "death toll is likely to increase due to the presence of more than 27 injured members of the militias."

A pair of US Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles fly over northern Iraq after conducting airstrikes in Syria (credit: REUTERS)

The Press report stated that the attack on the border came hours after an "umbrella group of Iran-backed Iraqi militants — known as the Islamic Resistance — claimed an attack on a US military base in the city of Irbil in northern Iraq." The militant group has conducted attacks on over 100 US positions in Iraq and eastern Syria since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

These reports come only days after Iran announced that Sayyed Razi Mousavi, a senior commander in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, who was responsible for coordinating between the IRGC and Syria, was killed in an Israeli attack in Damascus.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday that 70% of all Gaza homes and about half of all its buildings have been either damaged or destroyed due to Israeli airstrikes during its war with the Hamas terror organization.

The report states that Gaza contained about 439 thousand homes. Israel states that their target in their airstrikes is Hamas, who is responsible for the murder of 1,200 civilians on October 7, and has also said that they are taking steps to avoid killing civilians.

Buildings destroyed, the WSJ claims, include "Byzantine churches and ancient mosques, factories and apartment buildings, shopping malls and luxury hotels, theaters and schools." Furthermore, the infrastructure used for water, healthcare, electricity, and healthcare is "beyond repair."

The WSJ's extensive report also mentioned the health services in the Gaza Strip and claimed that most of the hospitals in the Gaza Strip are closed, with only 8 out of 36 hospitals receiving patients. It also stated that more than two-thirds of the schools in Gaza were damaged, and many orchards, greenhouses, and agricultural areas were "completely wiped out."

The WSJ also cites the Hamas-run Health Ministry's claim that 21,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 7, but notes that the number "doesn’t distinguish between civilians and militants."

Israeli soldiers operating in Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip, December 28, 2023 (credit: YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90)

It will take a while for Gaza to rebuild - N12

Around the Journal's publication came out on these statistics, N12 cited an estimate by aid organizations stating that it would take at least a year after the war to clear the rubble, and would take approximately seven to ten years to rebuild destroyed houses, with the overall cost at restoring Gaza to be estimated at $3.5 billion.

Turkish authorities detained 189 people in 37 provinces on Saturday suspected of ties to terrorist group Islamic State, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on social media platform X.

Authorities have ramped up operations against Islamic State and Kurdish terrorists in recent weeks, after Kurdish terrorists detonated a bomb near government buildings in Ankara on Oct. 1.

The IDF reportedly did not have an organized response plan for an invasion scenario by Hamas, according to an investigation conducted by the New York Times, citing past and present soldiers and officers quoted in the American newspaper.

If there was indeed such a plan, no one practiced it or followed it, and the Times investigation concluded that "the soldiers that day made it up as they went along."

Their report, only days after publishing a separate investigation on Hamas's sexual violence on the October 7 attack, stated that IDF believed, in the worst-case scenario, that the terrorist organization would only be able to break through the Israel-Gaza border fence in a few places but that they thought in theory that Hamas "was neither interested in nor capable of launching a massive invasion." The NYT based their report on internal Israeli government documents they obtained.

Israeli officials even reduced eavesdropping on Hamas radio traffic because they thought it was a waste of time, as they thought that such an attack was extremely unlikely.

The picture of the situation became clear in the weeks after October 7 which showed that Hamas breached the fence in 30 different points and moved quickly towards the communities bordering Gaza.

A general view of a gate breached in the deadly October 7 attack by gunmen from Palestinian terrorist group Hamas from the Gaza Strip, in Kibbutz Kfar Aza in southern Israel November 21, 2023. (credit: REUTERS/JAMES OATWAY)

New details indicate in the NYT investigation that it took hours for the IDF and Israeli security forces to grasp the magnitude of the incident. Furthermore, the IDF units that formed the first line of defense in the settlements surrounding Gaza were not trained for the scenario either.

Israeli forces disorganized, relied on impromptu WhatsApp groups and Telegram channels

The report stated that Israeli forces were disorganized, to the extent that soldiers communicated in impromptu WhatsApp groups and relied on social media posts to obtain information. Helicopter pilots were told to rely on media reports and Telegram channels to target the terrorists responsible.

They also stated that beneath the IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv in the Kirya, Israeli commanders were "trying to make sense of reports of Hamas rocket fire in southern Israel," whilst operating from a bunker known as The Pit.

Dozens of officers, soldiers, and eyewitnesses were interviewed in the Times investigation and many spoke on condition of anonymity.

The first units that were deployed were also relatively small, which the NYT implied that even after the invasion there was still no understanding of the size of the attack. It wasn't until 7:43 a.m. that the first order came out to all emergency forces and all available units to head to Israel's south. This was following a message that came from one of the bases along the border of the Strip regarding a terror attack on the base. The commander who warned of the attack did not realize the extreme extent of the attack.

However, by then, "the nation’s military leaders did not yet recognize that an invasion of Israel was already well underway," the Times said.

IDF soldiers inspect the burnt cars of festival-goers at the Nova Festival a week after the massacre on October 7. (credit: AMIR COHEN/REUTERS)

One of the first IDF units that arrived at the scenes of the attack was the Maglan Unit, which was about half an hour's drive away from the Gaza envelope that day. According to the investigation, the unit's main training is to fight in enemy territory, but not to deal with an invasion. According to an officer in the unit who spoke to the Times, "There was no concrete mission that day, soldiers were instructed to take weapons and go out to save people."

The NYT report also claimed that some of the IDF units bordering Gaza were poorly trained and that military reservists were not prepared to quickly mobilize and deploy.

Additionally, when attacks began, soldiers in the area were "fighting for their lives instead of protecting residents nearby or coordinating a response to the invasion," the report said. Soldiers had to abandon a base in Nahal Oz and leave behind the corpses of their fellow soldiers. In Kibbutz Re'im, which is home to the Gaza Division base, was understaffed because of Simchat Torah. One soldier there told the NYT that some soldiers didn't know they were under attack until Hamas was in their sleeping quarters.

After losing contact with a base that was under attack, the Maglan Unit turned to Rafael Hayun, a civilian who was engaged in private intelligence gathering. Refael, a man in his 40s who lives in Netivot, received many WhatsApp messages that Saturday from civilians who were under fire and forwarded them to the Maglan forces. According to the investigation, even hours into the fighting, the unit had no idea that Kibbutz Kfar Aza was under attack, and the information about the invasion reached the unit's personnel only around 11 a.m. A senior officer who fought that day said "There were many heroes that day, but the army only needs heroes when things go horribly wrong."

Actor David Schwimmer, known for his role as Ross Geller on the hit 90’s sitcom ‘Friends,’ slammed organizations and individuals who “refuse to believe” the testimonies of the Jewish survivors of Hamas’s assault on southern Israel on October 7.

Schwimmer’s statements came on his Friday post to his 8.3 million followers on the social media platform, Instagram. His message castigating those who, despite the abundant evidence, continue to doubt the testimonies of Israeli survivors,  captioned a screenshot of the recent New York Times article documenting cases of sexual assault and rape experienced by Israeli women during Hamas’s attacks.

“I served on the Board of Directors for The Rape Foundation for almost 20 years, and have been an advocate for child and adult survivors of sexual violence for almost 30,” Schwimmer wrote. He goes on to share how, during his time doing this work, he has encountered “the most incredible and courageous people” who survived “the most horrific conditions imaginable” and have been able to go on to lead normal lives after receiving proper treatment and care.

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A post shared by David Schwimmer (@_schwim_)

He continued to highlight that, regardless of an individual’s identity, such as their age, race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, nationality, education, or economic status, “One crucial aspect I learned early on about the healing process, and for justice to be served by the criminal offenders, is that the survivor be BELIEVED,” Schwimmer added.

However, he noted, despite his experiences with organizations that work for the benefit of survivors of rape and sexual assault, many yet “refuse to believe” that people in Israel were assaulted by Hamas terrorists.

David Schwimmer (credit: REUTERS)

Schwimmer: "Where is their outrage?"

“Where is their outrage?” Schwimmer wrote. “In the weeks and months that followed, it became clear that their activism, their advocacy, is conditional. They’ll fight like hell for ALL victims of sexual violence — unless they’re Jews.”

He goes on to suggest that denial of Hamas’s crimes against Israelis is a method of “avoiding compassion and personal responsibility,” but stated that he hopes the New York Times article will bring such people to admit their error and confront unconscious biases.

“Because — as they know better than most — their refusal to believe the survivors have RE-TRAUMATIZED them, as well as their families, friends, and those of us who did believe them,” Schwimmer emphasized. “But they can use their voice now. And it would be great to know who the real allies are.”

"Their refusal to believe the survivors have RE-TRAUMATIZED them, as well as their families, friends, and those of us who did believe them.”

David Schwimmer