Israel-Hamas War: What happened on Day 93?

Despite months of saying that all of the Hamas leaders are in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, some may be in central Gaza, the Jerusalem Post has learned.

Generally before October 7, Hamas’s “civilian” functions leadership, such as Yahya Sinwar’s apparatus for governing the Gaza Strip, was in Gaza City in northern Gaza.

There was also a military quarter in Gaza City where Hamas military chief Muhammad Deif spent time.

However, either in preparation for the October 7 invasion, around the time of the IDF invasion of October 25-27, or at the latest, once they saw that the IDF was invading for real and routing Hamas forces, the Hamas leadership fled in a southern direction from Gaza City.

For months, all top IDF and defense officials said that most or all of the hostages and Hamas high command had fled to southern Gaza, most likely to Khan Yunis.

Incorrect predictions of Hamas leaders hiding places

There were already holes in some of these predictions when it turned out during the ceasefire week that Hamas was holding hostages in Shejaia.

Between December 10-18, the IDF learned that a second set of hostages had also been held in Shejaia, which the IDF mistakenly killed, thinking they were terrorists.

Israeli soldiers operate in the Gaza Strip on December 30, 2023 (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)

In a partial explanation of the mistaken killing incident, top IDF officials said they had not fully trained Shejaia regular soldiers for the possibility of running into hostages. This second incident was the strongest testament to how convinced the IDF was at some point that all the hostages and Hamas leadership were in southern Gaza.

In addition, in early December, the IDF for the first time started to invade portions of central Gaza. However, a more aggressive invasion of central Gaza did not start until weeks later.

The Post can now reveal that portions of Hamas’s top leadership may be in central Gaza with hostages, and not only in southern Gaza in Khan Yunis, which was “the party line” for the defense establishment for a couple of months.

Given that central Gaza was one of the last pieces of the Strip on the IDF’s radar screen, there are now questions about whether the IDF missed the idea that some top Hamas leaders and some hostages might be in central Gaza or whether it was known, but kept under wraps, to focus on northern Gaza and then Khan Yunis.

The theory that the IDF missed central Gaza’s importance would raise questions about whether its other estimates about the Hamas leadership locations are correct.

The theory that the IDF knew, but kept the focus on southern Gaza could have been an attempt to catch any Hamas top leaders with hostages in central Gaza by surprise.

In fact, there was a period of days when IDF sources had told the Post and other media that there were hostages in central Gaza where the Israeli censor temporarily blocked publication.

Israel intends to present part of the October 7 horror film documenting Hamas's atrocities in southern Israel at the International Court of Justice, Israeli media sources reported on Sunday.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also instructed ministers to "choose their words carefully" in order to prevent giving South Africa ammunition against the country in the hearing.

The hearing will take place this Thursday and Friday.

Member of the Hadash-Ta'al party Ofer Cassif announced on Sunday that he would be joining the lawsuit against Israel in the Hague.

In his announcement, he claimed, "My constitutional duty is to Israeli society and all its residents, not to a government whose members and its coalition are calling for ethnic cleansing and even actual genocide."

Immediately afterward, he stated, "Those who hurt the country and the people are the ones who led South Africa to turn to The Hague, not me and my friends."

IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi stated, "The year 2024 will be challenging. We will be at war in Gaza. I don't know if it will be all year long. We will be fighting in Gaza all year, that's for sure."

The statement came as part of a situational assessment in the Judea and Samaria Division on Sunday. 

The statement was joined by discussions of the IDF's role in other arenas, specifically Judea and Samaria.

An Israeli air strike on a car near Rafah in southern Gaza on Sunday killed two Palestinian journalists who were out reporting, according to health officials in Gaza and the journalists' union there.

Hamza Al-Dahdouh and Mustafa Thuraya were both freelancers. Al-Dahdouh had done freelance work for Al Jazeera and was the son of the Qatar-based TV station's chief correspondent in Gaza, Wael Al-Dahdouh. A third freelancer, Hazem Rajab, was wounded.

Al Jazeera Media Network condemned the killing of the two and said it had been a deliberate attack.

"We urge the International Criminal Court, the governments and human rights organizations, and the United Nations to hold Israel accountable for its heinous crimes and demand an end to the targeting and killing of journalists," the network said in a statement.

The response of the IDF to the attack

The Israel Defence Forces did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the strike or on the TV network's allegation that the two journalists had been deliberately targetted.

In a statement on December 16, in response to the death of another Al Jazeera journalist in Gaza, the Israeli army, said, "the IDF has never, and will never, deliberately target journalists".

The Israel-Hamas war that started on October 7 has been deadly for journalists. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an international watchdog, said that as of Saturday, 77 journalists and media workers had been killed - 70 Palestinians, four Israelis and three Lebanese.

Palestinians inspect the site of Israeli strikes on a house in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, October 23, 2023 (credit: REUTERS/IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA)

The Hamas-run Gaza government's media office said the two new deaths raised its own tally of journalists killed by the Israeli offensive to 109.

A video posted on an Al Jazeera-linked YouTube channel showed Wael Al-Dahdouh crying next to his son's body and holding his hand. Later, after his son's burial, he said in televised remarks that journalists in Gaza would keep doing their job.

"All the world needs to see what is happening here," he said.

Wael Al-Dahdouh is particularly well known to viewers across the Middle East after he learned during a live broadcast last month that his wife, another son, daughter, and grandson had been killed in an Israeli air strike.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday's killings were an "unimaginable tragedy" and that he was "deeply deeply sorry" for the Al-Dahdouh family's loss.

"One (journalist killed) is far too many," Blinken said at a press conference in Doha, the Qatari capital.

Another journalist who died covering the conflict was Reuters visuals journalist Issam Abdallah.

A Lebanese citizen, he was killed on October 13 by an Israeli tank crew while filming cross-border shelling in Lebanon, a Reuters investigation found.

 US Secretary of State Antony Blinken assured Arab leaders on Sunday that Washington opposes the forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank as he looked to kickstart talks on Gaza's post-war future.

Jordan's King Abdullah had raised his country's concerns over displacement with Blinken during their meeting in Amman, according to a palace statement, as Israel pushes on with its military campaign that has turned much of Gaza to rubble and left its 2.3 million residents on the verge of starvation, according to aid workers.

"Palestinian civilians must be able to return home as soon as conditions allow. They cannot, they must not, be pressed to leave Gaza," Blinken said at a press conference following a separate meeting with top Qatari officials in Doha.

Most of Gaza's residents have been displaced by the conflict, and violence has also flared in the West Bank, including a deadly clash in the city of Jenin on Sunday.

King Abdullah told Blinken that Washington had a major role to play in pressuring Israel into an immediate ceasefire, and warned of the "catastrophic repercussions" of the continuation of the war in Gaza, which began when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people and taking some 240 hostages.

Israel's subsequent air and ground assault had killed 22,722 Palestinians by Saturday, according to Palestinian health officials.

Blinken visits the region

Blinken is touring the region amid heightened fears that Israel's offensive against Hamas in Gaza will spark a broader regional conflagration.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (L) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu give a joint press conference, on January 30, 2023 (credit: RONALDO SCHEMIDT/POOL VIA REUTERS)

"This is a moment of profound tension for the region. This is a conflict that could easily metastasize, causing even more insecurity and suffering," he told reporters in Doha.

The trip comes after a drone strike in Beirut killed a senior Hamas leader and Israel exchanged fire with Iran-backed militia Hezbollah across its northern border with Lebanon. Washington is also rallying allies to deter attacks on Red Sea shipping by Houthi militants who control most of Yemen.

Blinken arrived in Jordan late on Saturday and met King Abdullah on Sunday before traveling to Qatar for meetings with Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and Prime Minister Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, who also serves as foreign minister.

In Doha, Blinken said discussions included efforts to free the more than 100 hostages still believed to be held by Hamas after an earlier agreement mediated by Qatar broke down.

Qatar's prime minister said the killing of a Hamas leader by an Israeli drone strike has affected Doha's ability to mediate between the Palestinian group and Israel.

Washington wants Israel's Arab neighbors to play a role in reconstruction, governance and security in Gaza in expectation that Israel's assault will eliminate Hamas, which has run the territory since 2007, officials have said.

The US delegation aims to gather Arab states' views on the future of Gaza before taking those positions to Israel, the US official said, acknowledging that stances would be far apart.

Blinken will end the day in the United Arab Emirates.

 A humanitarian crisis?

In a camp for displaced people in Rafah, southern Gaza, some Palestinians called on Blinken to live up to calls for a two-state solution to the conflict.

"We hope that it is a visit for our benefit, for peace's benefit, and for the benefit of establishing a Palestinian state next to a Jewish state, in line with UN resolutions ... and with what America has been calling for," said Moussa al-Atawneh, a 76-year-old displaced man.

In Amman, Blinken visited a World Food Programme (WFP) warehouse storing canned food bound for Gaza.

WFP acting country director for Palestine Laura Turner said ahead of a meeting with Blinken that he should push to halt the conflict and for Israel to open border crossings into northern Gaza.

"That's where the population is that we haven't been able to access for six weeks and we're most concerned about," Turner said, adding that aid sent north from southern Gaza was being seized en route by other Palestinians also in dire need of food.

Blinken said the US was working to keep aid routes into the strip open and to multiply them.

"We are intensely focused on the very difficult and indeed deteriorating food situation for men, women, and children in Gaza, and it's something we're working on 24/7," Blinken said.

The Palestinian Authority's Fatah leaders claimed they are confident that once Israel defeats Hamas's infrastructure, these leaders will unite with the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror organizations to rule the Gaza Strip, according to a Sunday Palestinian Media Watch report. 

The question of who will rule the Gaza Strip when Israel defeats Hamas is a widely discussed topic that has led to much uncertainty and debate.

In a call for unity between Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, Fatah Central Committee Secretary Jibril Rajoub stated on December 17, "We stand before a great turning point… The time has come for us [Fatah and Hamas] to reach a compromise."

“We view political Islam, and foremost among it the Hamas Movement, as part of the fabric of our struggle and our political and social fabric. We must preserve our achievements, we are a liberation project, and we are all potential Martyrs," Rajoub continued. 

In addition to Rajoub's call to unity, Fatah official Muhammad Al-Hourani added, "We believe Hamas is taking action for the freedom of the land. Therefore we, Hamas, and all the Palestinian factions must think deeply and seriously about realizing the unity of the Palestinian arena under the flag of the PLO.”

Jibril Rajoub (credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)

Israel's plans for after the war

In contrast to the PA's Fatah leaders, the IDF has stated that there will be no chance of unification between terrorist organizations once Israel defeats Hamas.

The role of the PA is planned to be minimized once Hamas no longer has a hold over Gaza. However, this does not mean that the IDF intends to hold control over the area.

 “Hamas will not rule Gaza,” said Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in a press briefing last week. However, he added that Israel would not hold a civilian governorship over Gaza instead of the terrorist organizations.

Instead, the plan is to create a transitional stage that would allow the US, European allies, and Arab allies, such as the Saudis, Egypt, the UAE, and others, to assist in the change of governance in the Gaza Strip. 

Netanyahu has avoided public debates on these issues and has mostly affirmed that there will be no involvement by the PA.

Yonah Jeremy Bob and Tovah Lazaroff contributed to this report

The combat fighters of the Yiftah Brigade raided terrorist infrastructures in the Shejaia area with the aim of locating and destroying tunnel shafts belonging to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organization. The raid was done in cooperation with the tanks, intelligence, and combat engineering corps.

During the raid in the eastern part of the Shejaia area, they uncovered a shaft leading to a larger tunnel route and a missile launcher.

Daunting discoveries

In the northern part of Shejaia, the combat team uncovered shafts near the house of Ahmed Samara, the director of the tunnel project of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the northern Gaza Strip.

In the area surrounding Samara's house, the soldiers found numerous weapons, PIJ training booklets, a blueprint of the October 7 attack, and a book by Hitler.

A book by Hitler is discovered in the house of Ahmed Samarah (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON UNIT)

During the operation to destroy the tunnels near this house, terrorists opened fire and set off a bomb inside the tunnel in an attempt to harm the IDF forces and prevent the destruction of the entire route. Luckily, fighters from the combat team noticed suspicious activity from inside the tunnel, retreated before the explosion occurred, returned fire at the terrorists, and stopped the attack.

At the end of their operations, Israeli forces destroyed the underground tunnel route, the missile launchers and the weapons that were located, and twelve buildings above said route that were used as terrorist targets, some of which were even booby-trapped.

About four kilometers from Nir Oz, into the Gaza Strip, lies the Palestinian town of Khirbet Khuza’a in the Khan Yunis governorate.

Gilad, a battalion commander in the Fifth Infantry Brigade, explains that “it is from there that the terrorists set out on October 7. We need to be the ones to go there. We planted the flag of Nir Oz on the municipal building there. Our mission is to create a buffer zone so that the residents can return home.”

Khirbet Khuza’a is the 5th Infantry’s current center of operations. The brigade, a reserve formation, traces its history back to the Givati Brigade in the 1948 war.

Reporting from Gaza

Gilad, a major in the reserves and a corporate lawyer in civilian life, was mobilized on October 7, along with the rest of the brigade.

“We came down to the border area on October 8; it looked like a battlefield. During the first week, we were helping to clear up – whatever was needed, even surreal activities like milking cows. Then, after one and a half weeks, we joined the brigade in defense from Nahal Oz to Re’im. We then went into Beit Hanun, after the ceasefire, for two weeks, to create the buffer zone there, and now we’re doing the same thing in Khuza’a.”

The ride from Nir Oz to Khuza’a on Wednesday was short. The kibbutz was one of the hardest hit on October 7, with 46 of its 400 residents murdered and another 71 taken hostage. People from Khirbet Khuza’a followed the Hamas men on the day of the massacre, took part in the looting, and worse. “We’re closing the circle,” Gilad tells me.

Inside Khirbet Khuza’a, the tempo of operations is notably different from what I witnessed in Shejaia further north just a few weeks ago. When we moved, it was only locked down in APCs. In Khuza’a, the pace is more deliberate. The 5th brigade established its area of control, and is methodically destroying the ‘terror infrastructure,’ both inside the houses and beneath them, infrastructure that is tightly woven into the fabric of civilian life.

THE BRIGADE has found weapons consignments in both schools and homes. The tunnels are the main issue; it is painstaking work to dismantle them – locating the shafts under the ever-present threat of contact with Hamas gunmen.

An IDF soldier secures a tunnel underneath Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, amid the ongoing ground operation of the Israeli army against Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in the northern Gaza Strip, November 22, 2023. (credit: RONEN ZVULUN/REUTERS)

Shai, a company commander in the Brigade, described a reality of constant psychological tension for the infantry soldiers operating in the forward units, across the eerie, ruined urban landscape of southern Gaza: “We see writing on the walls in Hebrew, and body parts strewn about. You see someone 200 meters in front of you, and you don’t know if it’s a civilian or a trap. The danger is all around you, nowhere is safe. So we’ve had to learn to think differently. We’re used to the situation of ‘We’ve been fired on – charge forward’, but here it is different. They study, and learn, and here we can be fired on from 360 degrees around us. It’s a change we need to internalize.

“It’s exhausting work,” he continued. “For the first hour, you are primed and ready; for the second hour, you’re already exhausted. You have to find ways to keep your motivation. You are exhausted, but you understand the importance of the mission. And of course, we know that we could be in uniform again in two or three months, given the situation in the North.”

The 5th Brigade’s commander, Col. Tal Koritzky, explained that in “every second house here, we find weapons, we also come across looted items from the Kibbutz, children’s toys and other personal items.” Koritzky, a moshavnik from western Galilee, is one of the few regular soldiers in this brigade of reservists.

Koritzky spoke from one of the ruined houses of Khirbet Khuza’a; gunfire sounded a few hundred meters away.

One of the battalions engaged in a clash with Hamas fighters in the area, and all under the presence and threat of the tunnels, the main mission.

“Our mission is clear. I’m a fighter, not a politician. We’re here with each other, from all over the country, from all kinds of different backgrounds, ‘Am Yisrael’ at its best,” said Koritzky.

Shai, the company commander, said as we left that it is “worth remembering that if we won’t go in, no one will. There isn’t another IDF to take over.”

On the short journey back to Nir Oz, the southern Gaza mission crystallized for me: through a gaping hole, I could see the border fence from October 7. “We are here from the first second, and we will be here until the last so that life for the residents in the Gaza border communities can return as much as possible to how it was before.”

This is how the war in southern Gaza is: Slow, exhausting, Sisyphean work, gradually clearing out the Hamas structures to create a buffer zone along the border.

Further missions deeper into Khan Yunis lie ahead, but the destruction of Hamas governance in Gaza, as seen from the ground, appears to be proceeding steadily apace. 

A Palestinian toddler around the age of three was accidentally shot and killed during an attempt to neutralize a car-ramming attack on Sunday near the Givat Ze'ev settlement in the West Bank, Israel, Israeli media sources report.

It is unclear at the moment who is specifically responsible for the shooting of the toddler, police report.

Police also added that two people were lightly wounded in the car-ramming attack and that the terrorist was killed.