Israel-Hamas War: What happened on day 108?

Hamas forces on Monday fired a rocket propelled grenade on multiple adjacent structures which, along with landmines which the IDF forces had collected and brought into the buildings, caused a total collapse, which in turn killed 21 soldiers and injured several others.

The incident occurred around 4:00 p.m. in al-Muasi in central Gaza.

In addition, a separate rocket propelled grenade was fired on an IDF tank which killed two IDF soldiers and injured two others.

It was unclear if the soldiers had violated procedures by bringing the landmines into the structures with them and also unclear how much the collapse of the building was caused by the RPG versus the secondary landmines explosions.

The IDF forces who were harmed were mostly reservists assigned to clear certain areas of dangerous items, such as mines.

Rescue activities went on for hours with the brigade commander having been on site from the start of the incident.

It was unclear what happened to the Hamas attackers.

The IDF released the names of 10 soldiers of the 21 that were killed.

Maj.-Gen. (res.) Matan Lazar, 32, from Haifa, a soldier from the IDF's 6261 Battalion, 261's Brigade.

Maj.-Gen. (res.) Hadar Kapeluk, 23, from Moshav Mevo Beitar, and was a Class Commander in the IDF's 8208 Battalion, 261st Brigade.

Sgt.-Maj. (res.) Sergey Gontmaher, 37, from Ramat Gan, who was a soldier in the IDF's 8208 Battalion, 261st Brigade.

Maj. (res.) Elkana Yehuda Sfez, 25, from Kiryat Arba, was a soldier in the 8208 Battalion, 261st Brigade.

St.-Sgt. (res.) Yoval Lopez, 27, from the settlement Alon Shvut in the West Bank, a soldier in the 9206 Battalion, 205th Brigade.

Maj. (res.) Yoav Levi, 29, from the city Yehud-Monoson in central Israel, who was a soldier in Battalion 8208, 261st Brigade.

Maj. (res.) Nicholas Berger, 22, from Jerusalem, who was a soldier in the 8208 Battalion, 261st Brigade.

Maj. (res.) Cydrick Garin, 23, from Tel Aviv-Yafo, who was a soldier in the 8208 Battalion, 261st Brigade.

St.-Sgt. (res.) Rafael Elias Mosheyoff, 33, from the town Pardes Hanna-Karkur near Haifa, who was a soldier in the 6261 Battalion, 261st Brigade.

St.-Sgt. (res.) Barak Haim Ben Valid, 33, from Rishon Lezion, class commander in Battalion 6261, Brigade 261.

Yemen's Houthi movement said on Monday its forces had carried out an attack against American military cargo ship Ocean Jazz in the Gulf of Aden.

"The Yemeni armed forces continue to retaliate to any American or British aggression against our country by targeting all sources of threat in the Red and Arab Sea," the Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Sarea said in a statement.

Hamas has published a 16-page document presenting a justification for its actions on October 7. The document denies that the terror group committed atrocities against civilians, and calls for an international investigation into the events of the day, branding Hamas a “national liberation” group, battling “colonialism.” 

On its front and back covers, the document features pictures of Gazans on an Israeli tank, as well as images of paragliders reminiscent of the early phases of the assault. 

The document, titled “Our Narrative: Operation Al-Aqsa Flood,” is addressed to “Arab and Islamic nations” and “free peoples worldwide.” It is divided into five parts: a narrative of the Arab-Israeli conflict; an account of October 7; a call for an “international investigation” of what happened; a presentation of the terror group itself; and a set of demands and calls to action.

The first section of the document presents the conflict as a 105-year battle by Palestinians against “colonialism.” It makes reference to the Balfour Declaration and the British Mandate, and recounts the formation of Israel by “Zionist gangs” while “the Palestinians were denied from [sic] the right to self-determination.” 

The document levies accusations against Israel related to the Six Day War, West Bank settlements, and the supposed “Judaization” of the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem; it also makes reference to the issues of Palestinian prisoners, the blockade of Gaza, and the denial of a Palestinian right of return— maintaining, all the while, that the United States is complicit in Israel’s actions.

Taken from the cover of Hamas's 16-page document released Monday, presenting a justification for its actions on October 7. (credit: N/A)

Denying atrocities on October 7, blaming Israel for civilian deaths

Hamas’s account of the October 7 attacks alleges that the “operation…targeted the Israeli military sites… and sought to arrest the enemy’s soldiers.” It avoids any mention of the bloody raids on Israeli towns and Kibbutzim.

It also avoids any mention of the approximately 240 people that Hamas took captive on October 7 as hostages, only implying their captivity in a claim that Israeli operations in Gaza were responsible for their deaths.  

The document boasts of the Hamas terrorists’ “religious and moral commitment,” claiming that the “Al-Qassam Brigades fighters…avoid[ed] harm to civilians, especially children, women, and elderly people.” It adds that “if there was any case of targeting civilians; [sic] it happened accidentally and in the course of this confrontation,” and “maybe some faults happened during… implementation due to the rapid collapse of the Israeli security and military system.”

The terrorist group claims that “testimonies by Israelis” show that Hamas “did not target civilians,” invoking the “lie of the 40 beheaded babies”— a ‘debunked’ claim that was never in fact made by any Israeli press or spokespeople— and a report by the anti-Israel outlet Mondoweiss that reported a “lack of any evidence of mass rape.” The group blames Israeli helicopters for killing “many” of the 364 civilians massacred at the Nova music festival, saying that Hamas “had no prior knowledge of it.”

Additionally, the document says, “it must be known that conscription applies to all Israelis above the age of 18,” and that “all can carry and use arms.” The document calls Israel “an army with a country attached,” insinuating that all Israelis can be considered legitimate targets. Finally, the document alleges hypocrisy on the part of those who would accept civilian casualties as collateral damage in Gaza while condemning Hamas’s actions during its massacres on October 7.

Calls for an investigation in The Hague

The document calls for an “independent investigation,” insisting that such a probe would prove “the truth of our narrative and… the scale of lies and misleading information in [sic] the Israeli side.” This leads into the document’s  third chapter, calling for an investigation by the International Criminal Court to look at “the broader context” of the October 7 attack as part of the “struggle against colonialism.” 

The fourth section of the document, titled “A reminder to the world, who is Hamas,” seeks to rebrand the organization, designated as a terrorist group by the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and the EU— as a “national liberation and resistance movement.” The document refers to several clauses in Hamas’s updated charter from 2017, alleging that the conflict is not with the Jews, but rather with Zionism. The section condemns “what the Jews were exposed to by Nazi Germany,” despite Hamas officials’ repeated denials of the Holocaust and their use of antisemitic rhetoric, and praises Muslim nations for having provided Jews a “safe haven” for centuries.

The document says that Hamas receives their legitimacy from the “Palestinian right to self-defense, liberation and self-determination,” claiming that according to “all norms, divine religions and international laws,” as well as the Geneva convention, parties are granted the right to resist by any means necessary, including armed resistance— especially, the group says, when facing “the longest and brutalist [sic] colonial occupation,” as well as “massacres” and “oppression.” 

Finally, Hamas says that “Occupation is occupation no matter how it describes or names itself” and calls on all countries around the world to back “Palestinian resistance” and support the Palestinians’ “struggle for liberation.” The terrorist group calls on its allies to “support… the Palestinian resistance,” to charge Israel with crimes, to mobilize against “Israeli aggression” on Gaza, and to stop governments from providing further aid or arms to Israel.

Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.

The UK and Australia have announced new financial sanctions on Hamas, Maariv reported on Monday. 

The sanctions were issued on some of Hamas's financial networks and its virtual currencies.

In addition, the UK said it has imposed new sanctions on Hamas leaders and all those associated with the terrorist organization.

Sanctions have also been imposed on the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, according to Maariv.

The IDF has launched a major division-level new push in western Khan Yunis, ushering in likely the most intense fighting since early December when the military first entered other parts of Hamas’s southern capital.

Division 98 has unleashed serious forces from its seven brigades, artillery, tanks, and air support, and surrounded western Khan Yunis which until now the IDF had mostly steered clear of.

The IDF’s message earlier in the morning about large amounts of airstrikes was in preparation to give the ground forces an easier time moving into the new areas.

For the last seven weeks, IDF attacks on Khan Yunis had focused on the northern and eastern portions of the city.

A hotspot for Hamas terrorists

The IDF called western Khan Yunis the heart of Hamas’s operations there, including areas where its top two leaders, Yahya Sinwar and Muhammad Deif, grew up.

Smoke rises at the site of a house destroyed in an Israeli strike, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, December 4, 2023. (credit: REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa)

Further, the IDF said that it recognizes that this part of Khan Yunis is the most dense area in the city in terms of having less room to maneuver and a larger number of civilians and sensitive sites, including hospitals.

Around 50 Hamas terrorists have already been killed, including a company commander.

The IDF hopes this new push will break the ability of the Khan Yunis Brigade to continue to fight as an organized force.

There are still no immediate plans, though, to enter Rafah or take control of the Philadelphi Corridor.

Also, the IDF did not say anything specific about a lead toward Hamas’s leadership or the hostages, though the operation seemed, at the very least, designed to increase pressure on the terror group.

October 7 saw the largest number of Jews killed in a single day since the Holocaust, and much like the Holocaust, online conspiracy theorists are denying or revising facts relating to the tragedy, according to The Washington Post and previous articles by The Jerusalem Post.

Mirela Monte, a US-based real estate agent, told the Post that she had been "appalled" when news first broke about Hamas's massive terror attack, which stole the lives of over 1200 people. However, Monte later discovered a Telegram group known as 'Uncensored Truths,' which led her to believe that the tragedy had been carried out by Israel, not Hamas. 

The group, which has nearly 3000 members, shared content and conspiracies relating to foreign policy and the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Monte told the Post that Israel had carried out the "false flag" attack to justify a war with Gaza, claiming that the state is "Pure evil" and "Israel is like a mad dog off a leash."

Protests during the conflict between Israel and Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, in London (credit: REUTERS/Anna Gordon)

Despite extensive video evidence, witness testimony and confessions from Hamas terrorists, Monte and her Telegram group are just a small number of many who believe that the October 7 massacre never happened. 

The Jerusalem Post reported in November that Piers Corbyn, the brother of the former leader of the UK's Labour Party, claimed that Israeli children killed on October 7 were "actors." 

Corbyn claimed that October 7 was a "lie" to "justify an invasion and genocide to take the oil, to destroy Palestine and to make an Israeli superstate."

This is @jeremycorbyn brother Piers Corbyn saying no Jews died on Oct 7 and it was actors. This is no different from holocaust denial, he should be arrested @antisemitism @CST_UK pic.twitter.com/bp9FF1DxQc

— NFE 🇮🇱🇬🇧 〓〓 (@NFESpur) October 28, 2023

The Network Contagion Research Institute found that TikTok, Reddit, and 4chan hashtags accusing Israel of staging, or misleading narratives, about October 7 were tripled in the weeks after the attack.

“There’s a built-in audience that wants to deny that Jews are the victims of atrocity and furthers the notion that Jews are secretly behind everything,” said Joel Finkelstein, chief science officer at NCRI, according to The Post.

While Holocaust denial is usually associated with the far right,  October 7 denial is not limited to any political affiliation. The Post found that in the left-wing Reddit group r/LateStageCapitalism October 7 denial was rampant.  

“So basically the Hamas attack was a false flag for Israel to occupy Gaza and kill Palestinians,” read one of the posts discovered by The Post. “Expected behaviour from nazi wannabes.”

Distorting fact into fiction

Information about the tragedy has also been taken out of context and distorted, the investigation found. Some Israeli citizens made claims, which the IDF confirmed it would investigate, that some October 7 victims had been caught in the crossfire while the IDF was attempting to eliminate the Hamas threat. In response to these claims, sites like Electronic Intifada and Grayzone claimed that most Israeli deaths were caused by Israel and not Hamas - a claim entirely unsubstantiated and contrary to expansive evidence.

 Emerson Brooking, author of Likewar: The Weaponization of Social Media, told The Post "It’s generally indisputable that Hamas did something — the pro-Hamas camp can’t erase that entirely. But they can keep chipping away at it, and over time, you’re seeing a rewriting of history.”

Old antisemitism finds new face

The Post's investigation also found that the influx of October 7 denial had created the opportunity for Holocaust deniers to create new allies and spread their antisemitic ideology. Neo-Nazis have reportedly been showing up to pro-Palestinian rallies, tailoring their conspiracies to ones palitable to the protesters. 

The Jerusalem Post has been shown examples of this in the past, with one activist sharing photos of such content being displayed in a December pro-Palestinian march in London. 

Jewish activist captures hate at London pro-Palestinian march, December 9, 2023. (credit: @_Jacker_)

The sign reads "This isn't 2001 nobody believes you" which is a reference to the September 11 attacks. A common antisemitic conspiracy claims that it had been Israel and the Jews, not al-Qaeada, behind the 9/11 attacks in New York. This conspiracy gained new traction with Gen Z, as Osama Bin Laden's 2002 letter blaming Israel for the terrorist attack went viral on TikTok. 

The new 'social justice' brand of antisemitism has taken off with Gen Z. In December, The Jerusalem Post shared a survey that found that 67% of young Americans between the ages of 18-24 believe that Jews as a class are oppressors and should be treated as oppressors. 

The poll also found that 2 out of 3 Americans aged between 18-24 supported an unconditional ceasefire which would leave hostages kidnapped by Hamas in Gaza and allow Hamas to continue governing the Strip.

Israel has initiated a proposal for a hostage deal but there isn’t a genuine Hamas proposal for their release, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told representatives of the captives’ families when he met with them on Monday.
“There is an initiative of ours, and I will not elaborate,” Netanyahu said.

He spoke in the aftermath of a Wall Street Journal report that mediating countries of Egypt and Qatar have put forward a proposal for a three-phased 90-day process to secure the release of all the hostages that would involve an Israeli agreement to free Palestinian security prisoners and to largely withdraw IDF forces from Gaza.

The proposal stoked the largely extinguished hopes that some kind of a proposal might be in the offing.

In a special video message on Sunday night, Netanyahu described Hamas's terms to free some 132 hostages in Gaza as those of “capitulation,” adding that he “utterly” rejected them.

In his meeting with the hostage families, Netanyahu dismissed the possibility that a relevant Hamas proposal was on the table.

Gaza hostage families protest on Ayalon highway on January 18, 2024 (credit: LIOR SEGEV)

"Contrary to what is being said – there is no genuine proposal by Hamas, this is not true. I will say this as clearly as I can because there are so many incorrect items that are certainly causing you pain,” Netanyahu stated.

An Israeli official told The Jerusalem Post that “Netanyahu wants very much to promote the release of hostages.

“He is working to advance this while safeguarding the vital interests of the state, which require the destruction of the organization of sadistic murderers Hamas,” the official stated.

Netanyahu spoke as he is under increased pressure domestic pressure to make a deal, even if it means ending the war to which there is no concluding date in sight or even clear goalposts by which to measure how close or far away the IDF might to be posting Hamas from Gaza.

Labor party leader MK Merav Michaeli told her Knesset faction that “to bring our hostages home we must also be prepared to stop fighting.

“You can't keep muttering "Bringing the hostages home is above all else. You can't keep on lying by stating that "only total victory will ensure the elimination of Hamas and the return of all our hostages."

“It will take a very long time to bring down Hamas, time that we do not have. And time that they don't have. And we don't have time to keep putting them in clear and immediate danger, day after day after day,” Michaeli stated.

Past decisions and where they led

For a decade, Michaeli said, she warned Netanyahu about the dangers of his policies, including his past decisions to hand the terror group “suitcases of dollars to build rocket launchers and tunnels.”

“Where were you for 10 years when we shouted and warned you?

“You can't have it both ways,” Michaeli stated.

“It's either stopping the war now or continuing it and abandoning the hostages.

You can't keep on saying both. These word games mask the obvious decision you must make. The State of Israel must clearly state that the hostages take priority,’ she stressed.

MK Gadi Eisenkot (National Unity) and a former IDF-Chief of Staff, told Channel 12’s Uvda program that the only way to bring those held in Gaza home was through a hostage deal.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich (Religious Zionist Party) told his faction in the Knesset on Monday that the IDF’s military campaign was one of the tools that enabled Israel to press for a deal and that ending the war would eliminate its effectiveness.

It’s not possible to end the war prior to destroying Hamas and to secure a deal for the release of the hostages, Smotrich said.  

“There is no Israeli or Jew in the world who does not feel the heart-wrenching pain and the deep sorrow over [the fate of the] innocent women, adults and children are now held captive by the Nazi murderers in Gaza,” Smotrich stated.

“Israel is obligated to do everything in its power to bring them home,” Smotrich stated.

But a “responsible leadership” must “look these dear people in the eye” and tell them that Hamas’ demands for a deal endangers the state’s nine million residents and opens the door for a repeat of the October 9 massacre.

The idea that it would be possible to halt the war for several months and then “eliminate Hamas is eye-catching science fiction” that underestimates the strength of the enemy, Smotrich said, explaining that it was the type of miscalculation that has already harmed the country’s security.

The IDF must, therefore, continue “courageously” with its campaign “despite pressure from the US and others,” he stated.

The IDF has attacked a series of Hezbollah targets in five different areas in southern Lebanon, the IDF Spokesperson Unit said on Monday. 

Air Force fighter jets attacked a military building in the Maroon al-Ras area earlier today where Hezbollah terrorists were staying. In addition, three Hezbollah observation posts and a military structure were attacked in the areas of Marvin, Shehin, Tayba, and Tir-Kharfa in southern Lebanon. In addition to these, IDF forces attacked several other southern Lebanese areas, the Spokesperson Unit said.

Two individuals who support the Islamic State were arrested in east Jerusalem for intending to carry out a terror attack, Shin Bet, Border Police, and Jerusalem District Police announced on Monday.

The terrorists had reportedly pledged allegiance to ISIS, acquired chemical materials for explosives, and intended to target civilians and security forces in the Jerusalem area.

Planned to detonate car bomb near Knesset

The two had planned to detonate a car bomb full of gas tanks near the Knesset in Jerusalem, as per the indictment.

ISIS flags found at one of the houses of the terrorists. (credit: POLICE SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)

Furthermore, the indictment bill charges the two with conspiracy to a terrorist act of operating with weapons for terrorist purposes, training or instruction in a terrorist act, membership in a terrorist organization, and obstruction of justice. In addition, according to the bill, during the month of October, one of the defendants hung Hamas flags in the neighborhood where he lives.

The police and the Shin Bet uncovered their plans, leading to their arrest before any attacks could be carried out, and today, an indictment will be filed against them by the prosecutor's office.

This event follows two other individuals indicted for supporting the Islamic State and planning an explosive attack in the Jerusalem area a week and a half prior.

IDF estimates published earlier this month claim that Hamas has lost 9,000 terrorists so far in this war. As of January 9, Hamas had also lost two brigade commanders, 19 battalion commanders, and 50 company commanders.

There is a saying that the “devil is in the details,” and when it comes to war, counting the number of people “eliminated” may be less helpful than it seems; there are several reasons for this.

One of the key issues is that Hamas will eventually recruit more terrorists to fill these ranks. It can’t easily recruit top terrorists, like battalion commanders, but it can fill lower ranks easily.

Measuring body counts in war is not unique to this one. Militaries like to measure things, especially in the modern era, where warfare is more complex and opaque. For example, Israel’s Momentum plan for war sought to make it more efficient and to close “sensor to shooter” loops more quickly.

What this means is that the sensor, such as a drone with a camera, sees a terrorist, and then an “effector,” or some kind of munition, is used to eliminate that terrorist. They are eliminated, and the number is recorded – one down. In a war in which artificial intelligence, big data, and “strike cells” play a role, measuring these numbers is a metric of accomplishment.

Hamas terror operatives in Gaza tunnel (credit: REUTERS)

There is also obviously a good amount of controversy that comes with this type of measurement – body counts and declaring high numbers of enemies eliminated as a success – dating back to the Vietnam War, when the US used body counts as a measure of success.

This controversy, though, is not simple. “The humbling lesson we need to learn from the body count is not about picking the right metrics, but about the intrinsic, unavoidable limits of our tools for measuring and managing progress in war,” Jon Askonas, a DC-based fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation, wrote at War on the Rocks, an online platform for debate and analysis on foreign policy and national security through a Realist lens, in 2017.

Askonas notes that America’s top general in Vietnam was not necessarily wrong to use the body count metric, and the numbers weren’t necessarily inaccurate. He argues that the US was searching for a “crossover point” in an attrition strategy at the time: “The crossover point strategy relied on a basic equation: on one side, the number of soldiers the North Vietnamese could (or were willing to) recruit, train, and deploy into South Vietnam, on the other, the number the US military could kill, capture, or deter.” He concludes that “while there is a robust and growing literature on how to use metrics in counter-insurgency, you can’t get around the facts that showing progress in a variety of indicators does not amount to a strategy and that anytime you use an indicator as a target, you will damage its usefulness as an indicator.”

How to measure success?

Israel is fighting a complex war in Gaza. But the question remains, when do you call success and how do you measure it? During the 2012 Operation Pillar of Defense, the IDF claimed to have targeted 1,500 Hamas terrorist sites and eliminated 19 leaders of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. In 2014, the IDF said it eliminated hundreds of terrorists in Gaza during Protective Edge.

Over the years, Hamas has taken losses, but it also continued to expand its arsenal and the number of men it has under arms. For instance, back in 2009, it had an estimated 20,000 armed men; when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, it had around 30,000 armed men, according to estimates, organized into 24 battalions and 140 companies of men.

In essence, a Hamas “company” of men is supposed to have more than 215 men, fairly heavy companies in terms of a military organization. Hamas may have lost half its battalion commanders by December, while half its battalions had been broken down as well. The battalions are named after the areas in which they operate and are quite territorial units in that sense. The “Shati” battalion operated in Shati; it was later destroyed, and cannot be reconstituted in Shati. But, it can probably be reconstituted by recruiting among people who fled Shati to southern Gaza.

This is the question that now must bedevil Israeli policymakers regarding Gaza. With most of Gaza’s population now in the south – including more than a million people who fled the north during the fighting – Hamas now has a concentrated civilian population that can be preyed upon to serve its interests.

All Hamas has to do is recruit a small number of people – less than one percent – to fill up its ranks again. Hamas also has a lot of weapons to hand out to potential recruits, including AK-47s and RPGs.

Hamas may have lost most of its rocket arsenal, its “commando” units have been defeated or eliminated, and it may have lost battalion commanders and company commanders. But Hamas is also going to ground and seeking to fight a new kind of insurgency – so its need for heavy units, like a “company” of 200 men, is less relevant. It wants to use hit-and-run tactics, and it doesn’t need to train up new “battalions.”

If what Hamas wants is to recruit a few thousand more men, it likely has an easy resource in the fact that a million Gazans fled northern Gaza and are now sheltering in southern Gaza, where Hamas uses them as human shields.

The fact that the population that fled is composed mostly of women and children doesn’t prevent Hamas from recruiting from among the teenagers and young men that made up its ranks in the first place. Herein lies an issue with the numbers game, it’s not that the metrics are an issue, but that Hamas recruitment will be an issue as the war drags on into more and more months.