Israel-Hamas war: What happened on day 92?

IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari revealed a new and up-to-date photo of senior Hamas official Muhammad Deif on Saturday. The photo shows him holding a stack of US dollars and a plastic cup of juice.

Recent Israeli intelligence information was received that Deif's physical condition was functioning, and he is functioning well and suffers only from damage to his eye and a slight limp.

IDF Spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari (credit: IDF)

Hagari also said that "Hamas's military framework in the northern Gaza Strip has been completely dismantled."

This is a developing story.

The French Foreign Minister said on Saturday that she spoke with her Iranian counterpart about the danger of a regional conflict in the Middle East and told him that Iran and the organizations it supports must stop their destabilizing initiatives immediately, Walla reported her as saying.
 

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan commented on the continuation of the war in Gaza and sent a message to Israel on Saturday, saying their "increasing aggression in the Gaza Strip poses a threat to the entire region," Maariv reported him as saying.

This is a developing story.

The Hezbollah terrorist organization published a statement stating that as long as there is a war in Gaza, there will be no negotiations on the ceasefire towards Israel, Walla reported, citing Arab media.

This is a developing story.

Lebanon's Sunni Islamist Jama'a Islamiya faction said in a statement on Saturday it had fired two volleys of rockets at Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel.

The attack comes after Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah group said earlier it had fired at least 62 rockets towards Israel on Saturday morning.

This is a developing story.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell sounded the alarm on Saturday about Lebanon being dragged into a regional conflict in a spillover from Israel's war with Hamas.

Borrell, speaking during a visit to Lebanon, said it was imperative to avoid a regional escalation in the Middle East and warned Israel that "nobody will win from a regional conflict."

He was commenting at a news conference with Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati following talks with top government officials to discuss events in and around Gaza, including the impact of the war and the situation at the Israeli-Lebanese border.

"We are seeing a worrying intensification of exchange of fire across the Blue Line," Borrell said. The current demarcation line between the two countries is known as the Blue Line, a frontier mapped by the United Nations that marks the line to which Israeli forces withdrew when they left south Lebanon in 2000.

In a meeting with the Foreign Minister of the European Union on Friday, the Prime Minister of Lebanon stated that "we are peace-seekers, not fighters, we strive for stability and we are holding talks on this matter."

He added, "Any large-scale bombing in southern Lebanon will lead to a widespread escalation. Resolution 1701 requires stopping violations of sovereignty by Israel and requires [Israel's] withdrawal from our occupied territories."

The IDF’s Egoz Unit, completed a series of missions in the city of Khan Yunis in which they eliminated terrorists in close quarters combat, struck terror infrastructure, and raided weapons production facilities, the IDF said on Saturday.

The Egoz Unit, also known as Sayeret Egoz, is a unit in the IDF’s commando brigade.

During the unit’s operations, the Egoz troops raided terror infrastructure embedded in a school in the Bani Suheila neighborhood, located in the Khan Yunis governorate.

Recovering intelligence on local Hamas terrorists

During the raid, the Israeli forces encountered terrorists and managed to eliminate three who were carrying RPGs, the IDF said. In another raid on local terror infrastructure, the troops recovered extensive intelligence on Hamas’s Khan Yunis Brigade.

The Egoz fighters also located numerous military ordnance, including weapons, grenades, cartridges, and vests used by Hamas stashed inside of a civilian home.

The IDF located weapons in a bedroom along with dolls and games teaching incitement, the IDF said. January 6, 2024. (credit: IDF)

The IDF reported that some of the military items recovered were discovered in a bedroom alongside dolls and children's games, including games that incite against Israel. Among the games were some that taught incitement against Israel, the IDF said.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was expected to meet the leaders of Turkey and Greece on Saturday at the start of a week-long trip aimed at tamping down tensions that have spiked across the Middle East since Israel's war with Hamas began in October.

The Biden administration's top diplomat kicked off his talks by meeting Turkey's Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in Istanbul and was also scheduled later to meet President Tayyip Erdogan, a strong critic of Israel's military actions in Gaza.

The talks in Turkey are also expected to cover Turkey's process to ratify Sweden's membership of NATO, according to a senior State Department official traveling with Blinken.

US officials have been frustrated by the lengthy process but are now confident that Ankara will soon approve Sweden's accession to the alliance after the Turkish parliament's foreign affairs commission backed the bid last month, said the US official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

US lawmakers have held up the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey until it signs off on the addition of Sweden to the alliance. Sweden, which along with Finland, applied to join NATO following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, would become the alliance's 32nd member. Finland joined last year.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, May 25, 2021 (credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)

Blinken will later travel to the island of Crete to meet Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Fellow NATO member Greece is awaiting the approval by the US Congress of a sale of F-35 fighter jets.

Blinken travels across Middle East in diplomatic mission

Blinken will continue in the coming days to Arab states, Israel and the West Bank, where he will deliver a message that Washington does not want a regional escalation of the Gaza conflict.

The war began when Palestinian Hamas terrorists attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking 240 hostages.

Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed 22,600 Palestinians, according to Palestinian officials, and the conflict has spilled into the West Bank, Lebanon and Red Sea shipping lanes.

Blinken also hopes to make progress in talks on how Gaza could be governed if and when Israel achieves its aim of eradicating Hamas.

Washington wants regional countries, including Turkey, to play a role in reconstruction, governance and potentially security in the Gaza Strip, which has been run by Hamas since 2007, the official said.

The IDF discovered Hamas Nukhba military ballistic vests hidden in UNRWA bags stashed in a medical clinic in Gaza, the Israeli military said on Saturday morning.Separately, Israeli forces located and destroyed a weapons storage facility containing dozens of Kalashnikov rifles, the IDF added.

Israeli soldiers recovered the Hamas ballistic vests stored in UNRWA bags during a raid in the area of Gaza City, in the northern portion of the strip, the IDF noted.

The raid was directed by intelligence after Israeli troops came under fire in the area in previous days.

A neighboring building of the raided medical clinic reportedly contained RPGs, AK-47s, and ammunition.

IDF operates in Khan Yunis

In the southern Gazan city of Khan Yunis, IDF soldiers, using both ground and aerial assets, eliminated many terrorists in the area on Friday, the IDF said. A number of tunnel shafts were also reportedly uncovered and demolished.

Hamas weapons discovered by the IDF in Khan Yunis. January 6, 2024. (credit: IDF)

The weapons storage facility containing AK-47s was also located in this area. The facility also contained remotely detonated explosive devices, RPGs, as well as more than 100 ammunition cartridges, the military added.

Additionally, in the northern Gazan city of Beit Lahiya and the neighborhood of Al-Furqan, Israeli troops identified terrorists using drones to target IDF personnel. In response, Israeli forces used UAVs to strike at the terrorists.