Israel-Hamas War: What happened on day 99?

The International Court of Justice can’t stop Israel from defeating Hamas in Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a news conference on Saturday night.

“No one will stop us – not The Hague, not the Axis of Evil, and no one else,” Netanyahu said as he referenced the ICJ as well as Iran and its proxies.

He spoke as the ICJ was hearing a request by South Africa to order Israel to halt its war against Hamas in Gaza. 

South Africa had appealed to the ICJ to intervene, claiming Israel violated the 1948 Convention on the Prevention of Genocide. Both South Africa and Israel had argued in front of the court at The Hague in the Netherlands on Thursday and Friday.

Israel has said that Hamas is guilty of genocide for its October 7 attack against the Jewish state in which it massacred over 1,200 people and seized another 250 captive

Netanyahu: ICJ hearing a 'moral low in the history of nations'

Netanyahu lashed out at the “hypocritical attack in The Hague on the Jewish state that rose from the ashes of the Holocaust, by emissaries [of Hamas, a group] who came to perpetrate another Holocaust on the Jews.”

The genocide charge against Israel, Netanyahu said, "is a moral low in the history of nations.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convenes the weekly cabinet meeting, in Tel Aviv (credit: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun/Pool)

In Hamas encampments in Gaza, Netanyahu said, the IDF found copies of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s book Mein Kampf.

“Inside a house in Gaza they found a girl’s tablet, with a picture of Hitler as a screensaver,” Netanyahu said.

There is a reason that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that Hamas terrorists are the new Nazis after watching a film depicting the brutal killings on October 7, Netanyahu continued.

He told reporters he wanted to thank Germany for its decision to argue on Israel’s behalf to the ICJ. Berlin announced on Friday that it had joined the case as a third party and would appear before the judges during the main hearing, which has yet to take place.

“Yesterday I spoke with Chancellor Schulz and thanked him for Germany’s willingness to send a delegation to The Hague to help debunk this despicable lie,” he said.

Those who support Hamas, are standing up for “murderers, rapists, decapitators, [and] baby-burners,” Netanyahu said.

“This international defamation campaign will not loosen our hands or weaken our determination to fight to the end, because something has changed in the history of our people.

“Antisemitism is the same antisemitism, but the status of the Jewish people has changed... because today we have a country,

“Today we have defense forces and we have heroic soldiers who protect our people,” Netanyahu said, as he pledged that “what happened on October 7, will not happen again.”

Three terrorists who tried to infiltrate the Adora settlement, near Hebron, on Friday evening and carried out a shooting attack were killed by Israeli security personnel.

"We were in the middle of Sabbath (Friday night) dinner on base in Hebron and ran as quickly as possible to the incident," Company Commander Representative Sgt. Mulet of the 5060th Battalion told The Jerusalem Post.

He revealed that he and the team of soldiers who were scanning the settlement were scanning the area when they noticed suspicious movement and proceeded to open fire, ultimately eliminating the terrorists.

He reassured the Israeli public, "You have who to trust. We are here to protect you, especially after October 7."

The Gaza Strip buffer zone along the Egyptian border known as the Philadelphi Corridor must be sealed to prevent arms smuggling, but no operational decision has been taken as to the best way to do so, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

“We cannot end the war without sealing this breach,” he said, because otherwise “we will eliminate Hamas, we will demilitarize Gaza” only to have arms flow back in through this southern breach.

He spoke about the corridor during a Saturday night press conference, hours after The Wall Street Journal reported that the IDF was planning a military operation near Egypt’s border with Gaza to seize control of that corridor.

Israel had controlled the small 14-kilometer corridor under terms set out by the 1979 peace treaty with Egypt, but it left that buffer zone area when it withdrew from Gaza in 2005.

Israelis protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the current Israeli government, in Tel Aviv, January 13, 2024 (credit: AVSHALOM SASSONI/FLASH90)

Hamas built tunnels underneath Rafah crossing

Egypt maintains a crossing with Gaza at Rafah, but Hamas has built tunnels underneath that area to smuggle weapons into the Strip.

“There are several options” as to how to seal the breaches in that area, “but no decision has been taken, save for one, it has to be blocked,” he said.

A Hamas official thanked Qatar on Saturday for sending medicine to the Gaza Strip "in light of the many risks that threaten the lives of Palestinians."

"Some medicine will be used to treat Israeli prisoners," Osama Hamdan, a Lebanon-based Hamas leader, told a news conference in Beirut.

Israel announced on Friday that it had made an arrangement with Qatar that will allow the delivery of medicines to hostages held in Gaza by Hamas, the Palestinian group that rules the Strip.

Hamdan said the priority was the citizens of Gaza.

"First, we believe our people are more deserving and in need of medicine, and secondly, there are security issues this presents."

Hezbollah could turn the entirety of Lebanon into a war zone, IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said in a Saturday evening address.

"Southern Lebanon is a war zone and will remain as such as long as Hezbollah continues operating from within it," Halevi said. "Hezbollah may turn all of Lebanon into a war zone, there will be dire consquences for that," he warned.

Israel plans a "huge" addition to its defense budget as part of a build-up designed to cover its needs for years to come, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday, adding that one goal was an independent military manufacturing sector.

Briefing reporters, he said an inter-ministerial panel would in eight weeks present plans for "the huge additional (funding), to create that independence in force build-up and in other things required to ensure our security in the coming years."

The Hostages and Missing Families' Forum called on the Israeli government to hold their cabinet meeting at Tel Aviv's Hostage Square in a special rally held on Saturday evening to mark 100 days of captivity in Gaza after being kidnapped by Hamas on October 7.

The rally included protests against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government. Protesters later blocked the Ayalon Highway in Tel Aviv. 

French President Emmanuel Macron, who sent a recorded message to be screened at the Hostages' Square, was pictured holding a shirt bearing the "Bring Them Home Now" slogan, CRIF shared on X.

Le Président de la République Monsieur @EmmanuelMacron arbore le t-shirt « Bring Them Home Now » pour témoigner son soutien à la libération des 136 otages encore retenus à Gaza. Trois Français sont toujours otages du Hamas.

100 jours que les familles sont sans nouvelle de leurs… pic.twitter.com/uGX3sjLyWa

— CRIF (@Le_CRIF) January 13, 2024

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will speak on the IDF's war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip on Saturday evening, the Prime Minister's Office said.

A press conference was scheduled for 7:30 p.m. local Israel time.

The Israeli military said on Saturday it would consider allowing the return of Palestinian civilians displaced from the northern Gaza Strip when it deems there is no danger to them from fighting with Hamas, which it described as ongoing.

Asked about the fate of hundreds of thousands of evacuees from northern Gaza, armed forces chief Lieutenant-General Herzi Halevi told reporters: "When we know there is no danger to the population, we will be able to consider bringing them back."

Israeli intelligence organizations have been working in collaboration with their European counterparts to counter Hamas in Europe, they announced via the Prime Minister's Office on Saturday evening.

Hamas has been working with criminal elements to procure drones for planned attacks across Europe and the Middle East, as ordered by the senior Hamas leadership.

In December, the security services and police in Denmark and Germany announced the arrest of an extensive network of Hamas operatives in Europe, those arrested have since had legal proceedings opened against them.

Further arrests came earlier this week in Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands.

More information regarding the arrests in Europe is restricted due to the ongoing legal cases in the respective countries.

Terrorists and European street gangs

The assassination of Saleh Arouri earlier this month is linked to the arrests, with the claim being that he was involved in ordering operations across Europe and the Middle East. The two other men killed in the strike that killed Arouri were Samir Fandi and Azzam Akre, both fellow senior Hamas commanders.

Akre had commanded Khalil al-Kharaz the former deputy commander of Hamas forces in Lebanon until his assassination in November.