Israel-Hamas War: What happened on Day 115?

Following reports of an upcoming hostage deal, Hamas has rejected the proposal, Israeli media reported on Monday. 

United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict (SRSG-SVC), Pramila Patten met with Israeli President Isaac Herzog and spoke of her visit meeting with October 7 victims, Walla! reported on Monday. 

She was cited in the Israeli news media outlet as saying, "Sexual violence is one of the most heinous crimes with devastating consequences that reverberate across generations. Sexual violence used as a tactic of terror, as a tactic of war, is designed to destabilize, instill fear, humiliate, and dehumanize not only the victims but also the families, companies, the nation, or the enemy.

"I just want to say to the survivors and victims, we owe you much more than solidarity. We really want to ensure that at the end of the day, you get justice and that we put an end to this heinous act," she concluded.

An Israeli security delegation has landed in Cairo amid the ongoing talks to reach a hostage deal, Kan 11 reported on Monday.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview with British TV channel TalkTV that Qatar’s regime has significant clout over Hamas and can influence the terrorist organization to secure the Israeli hostages' freedom.

The Qataris “have considerable leverage over Hamas to achieve the release of the remainder of our hostages,“ Netanyahu said in the interview that was aired on Monday.

British journalist Douglas Murray conducted the TalkTV interview with Netanyahu. Murray noted, “Qatar hosts the leadership of Hamas, it funds Hamas,” and Qatar was “just caught spying on a number of US Senators.”

When Murray asked Netanyahu if Qatar would use its influence to free the hostages, the prime minister answered, “No. I expect them to do it.” He continued, “Well, I think that the entire world is looking at Qatar, and they want to see if they use all the means at their disposal. They have significant means. And again, I expect them to do it. And I expect other countries should as well.” Netanyahu dodged Murray’s questions about what consequences Qatar’s ruling Al-Thani family would face if they didn’t flex their muscles against Hamas to free the hostages. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks on January 27, 2024 (credit: TOMER APPELBAUM HAARETZ/POOL)

The prime minister said he would speak to US President Joe Biden and Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak if Qatar does not deliver. “I expect Qatar to live up to its promise to use its influence and achieve the release of hostages and delivery of medicines right away, “ said Netanyahu.

Netanyahu expects Qatar to use leverage

He then added about the Qataris, “I don't think they are an intermediary that is passive. I think they have enormous leverage over Hamas…I expect them to use their leverage.”

Netanyahu said, “Qatar that hosts Hamas leaders…they fund Hamas. They also operate Al Jazeera, which just distorts the picture, not in English, but in Arabic, it is a major source of incitement in the region.”

Netanyahu has refused to shut down the Qatar state-owned Al Jazeera office in Tel Aviv. The Mossad told public broadcaster Kan in October that it advocates a ban on Al Jazeera because the outlet showed sensitive movements of Israeli forces along the Gaza Strip border.

Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi told Israel’s Army Radio in October about Al Jazeera  "This is a station that incites, this is a station that films troops in assembly areas (outside Gaza) ... that incites against the citizens of Israel - a propaganda mouthpiece.”

"It is unconscionable that Hamas spokespeople's message goes through this station,” he continued. 

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) organization said on Monday a merchant vessel was suspiciously approached by three small craft 44 nautical miles west of Yemen's Al-Mukha.

"Master reports merchant vessel was approached on its starboard bow by 3 small craft, the 3 small craft regrouped astern with a closest point of approach of 1NM," UKMTO said in an advisory note.

The merchant vessel's security team fired warning shots to deter the small craft, and the vessel then proceeded safely to the next port of call, the organization added.

Houthis have been targeting vessels since November

The Iran-aligned Houthi militants have launched waves of exploding drones and missiles at vessels since Nov. 19 in response to Israel's military operations in Gaza.

Houthi military helicopter flies over the Galaxy Leader cargo ship in the Red Sea in this photo released November 20, 2023. (credit: Houthi Military Media/Handout via REUTERS)

US and British warplanes, ships, and submarines have responded to the Houthi attacks with dozens of retaliatory strikes across Yemen against Houthi forces.

At the Paris summit held on Sunday, a consensus was reached on a three-phase plan, intended for presentation to Hamas. Under this plan, in its first phase, 35-40 Israeli hostages, including women, elderly men above 60, and those in critical medical condition, will be released. In return, a six-week ceasefire will be implemented, along with the release of Palestinian prisoners. This information is attributed to senior Israeli and Qatari officials. The war cabinet is set to deliberate on the specifics of this framework on Monday evening.

The plan, as presented, elaborated only on the initial phase, while the subsequent two phases are broadly outlined. The strategy is to engage in separate negotiations on these during the ceasefire's sixth week. "The aim is to commence phase A with indications about phases B and C, without finalizing their details," a senior Israeli official stated.

In the deal's second phase, male soldiers and civilians under 60 will be released. The third stage involves the transfer of bodies of captives currently held by Hamas. Each phase will define a distinct ratio of Palestinian prisoners released per Israeli captive. The ceasefire duration for the second and third stages is not yet determined and will be finalized in the negotiations. However, Israeli officials anticipate an extended period of ceasefire.

A senior Qatari and a senior Israeli official informed Walla that a meeting in Cairo with Hamas leaders is scheduled in the upcoming days to discuss this revised plan. "The real challenge for Qatar now is to persuade Hamas to agree and commence detailed discussions," remarked a senior Israeli official.

A RALLY takes place at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv on Saturday night. According to Jewish law, the freeing of captives is the greatest act one can perform, and yet, Jewish law also prohibits the redemption of captives for ‘more than their value,’ the writer notes. (credit: AVSHALOM SASSONI/FLASH90)

Meanwhile, Qatar's Prime Minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, recently expressed at a Washington event at the Atlantic Council: "There's been significant progress in the negotiations. We're in a better position than we were a few weeks ago. We're hopeful that this agreement will lead to the hostages' release and halt the bombings in Gaza, as well as the civilian casualties."

He further noted, "There was a development yesterday [on Sunday] towards establishing a foundation for ongoing negotiations. We will forward the proposal to Hamas, hoping for their agreement to negotiate constructively."

Al-Thani emphasized, "Punishing Gaza's entire population for the actions of a few is unjustifiable. If this deal doesn't lead to a breakthrough, alternative methods must be explored. We're mediators, not conflict parties. The agreed framework is based on the stances of both Israel and Hamas, and we're striving for consensus."

The Qatari PM also responded to criticism from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: "I choose not to react to such statements. We don't expect Netanyahu's gratitude. We believe our role is significant, demonstrating that we yield tangible results rather than merely talking or using this for political gains."

The new hostage deal includes a first phase of 45 days of pause in the fighting in exchange for 35-40 hostages, N12 reported on Monday. 

In return, Israel will release 100-250 terrorists for each hostage, totaling 4000-5000 terrorists, the Israeli news outlet noted. 

A senior diplomatic source told The Jerusalem Post on Monday that the details are "not accurate" and that there is a "low probability of this happening."

The IDF is close to defeating Hamas in Khan Yunis, with some estimates that the terror group's ability to fight as an effective collective force could be broken within weeks or less.

As matters stand, close to three of the four Khan Yunis battalions (all four battalions originally making up around 4,500 fighters) are already nearly beaten.

The northern and eastern Khan Yunis battalions are already beaten, according to the IDF, while the southern battalion is close to being taken apart.

Even the western Khan Yunis battalion, which was seen as the toughest remaining Hamas force in Gaza until last week, has shown signs in recent days of falling apart.

Division 98 commander Dan Goldfuss in Khan Yunis, January 29, 2024 (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)

Hamas's deficit by numbers 

Of the 4,500 original Hamas fighters, 2,700 have been killed, over 1,000 in close combat, and over 1,700 by tank, artillery, or aerial attacks.

Besides attacks on Hamas's terror forces, the IDF has struck 3,320 targets and 400 tunnel shafts in Khan Yunis, 150 of which it has destroyed.

This means that two-thirds of Hamas's Khan Yunis forces have been killed, as well as many other wounded, leaving Hamas forces in the southern "capital" of Gaza even more dilapidated than the terror group is as a whole for the entire Gaza Strip where the percentage of killed is 20-30% and even the percentage of out of commission forces is 48-60%.

All of this progress is despite the fact that the IDF only started invading Khan Yunis in early December and spent about a month in late December-early January with slower progress.

New progress in Khan Yunis in general, and especially in western Khan Yunis in the last week was made possible partially by a revolutionary change in IDF strategy for confronting the tunnel threat.

When IDF Brig. Gen. Dan Goldfus presented his strategy to a closed group of media outlets earlier in the battle for Khan Yunis, the strategy was to first win the battle above ground, and then to slowly have engineering crews blow up Hamas's underground tunnels as the military found and inspected them.

Often only robots, and at most a small number of soldiers would enter many tunnels.

The original idea was to reduce the dangers to IDF forces of walking into an underground trap.

Later, the IDF shifted to attacking Hamas simultaneously both above and below ground, including sending in full platoons of dozens of IDF forces all at once into the tunnels to combat Hamas terrorists.

Although the IDF fought Hamas in tunnels in northern Gaza and the US has fought adversaries in tunnels in other parts of the world, the concept and implementation of sending large forces into tunnels at the same time as fighting in those areas above ground has not been done before according to the IDF.

These new tactics helped the IDF's 98th Division raid an underground tunnel located under the Bani Suheila cemetery in the heart of Khan Yunis,.

IDF forces not only found explosives, sliding doors, and significant numbers of Hamas terrorists inside, but they also unearthed the office of the eastern Battalion commander from the Khan Yunis Brigade, from where he helped direct the October 7 attacks.

In addition, troops found operation rooms, a battalion combat war room, and bedrooms of senior officials of the Hamas terrorist organization.

The tunnel is part of an underground labyrinth dug by Hamas terrorists, which runs a full kilometer long, some 20 meters deep, and contains several complexes, the IDF noted.

During this operation, the IDF also arrested key Hamas officials who were providing critical new intelligence to the military.

After inspecting the tunnel, IDF engineering forces destroyed it.

Despite all of these achievements, IDF sources are unsure if they will catch Hamas's leadership and the Israeli hostages they are holding within Khan Yunis.

A rising number of IDF officials believe that portions of Hamas's leadership and their hostages may have fled to Rafah where there are close to 1.5 million Palestinian civilians to hide among. 

Additionally, another 105,000 Palestinian civilians recently left Khan Yunis for other safe zones, with around 20,000-30,000 remaining in Khan Yunis.

There are also suspicions that portions of Hamas's leadership may be hiding with hostages in Khan Yunis safe zones or other safe zones. 

Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.

An Israeli intelligence dossier that prompted a cascade of countries to halt funds for a UN Palestinian aid agency includes allegations that some staff took part in abductions and killings during the Oct. 7 raid that sparked the Gaza war.

The six-page dossier, seen by Reuters, alleges that some 190 UNRWA employees, including teachers, have doubled as Hamas or Islamic Jihad militants. It has names and pictures for 11 of them.

The Palestinians have accused Israel of falsifying information to tarnish UNRWA, which says it has fired some staffers and is investigating the allegations.

One of the 11 is a school counselor accused in the Israeli dossier of providing unspecified assistance to his son in the abduction of a woman during the Hamas infiltration in which 1,200 people were killed and 253 kidnapped.

A Palestinian woman takes part in a protest against possible reductions of the services and aid offered by United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), in front of UNRWA headquarters in Gaza City August 16, 2015. (credit: REUTERS/MOHAMMED SALEM)

Another, an UNRWA social worker, is accused of unspecified involvement in the transfer to Gaza of a slain Israeli soldier's corpse and of coordinating the movements of pick-up trucks used by the raiders and of weapons supplies.

A third Palestinian in the dossier is accused of taking part in a rampage in the Israeli border Kibbutz Be'eri, one tenth of whose residents were killed. A fourth is accused of participating in an attack on Reim, a site both of an army base that was overrun and a rave where more than 360 revelers died.

The dossier was shown to Reuters by a source who could not be identified by name or nationality. The source said that it had been compiled by Israeli intelligence and shared with the United States, which on Friday suspended funding for UNRWA.

Asked about the dossier, a spokesperson for UNRWA said she could not comment due to an ongoing probe by the United Nations.

More than 10 countries, including major donors the United States and Germany, have halted their funding to the agency.

AID OPERATION JEOPARDIZED

That is a huge problem for an agency that more than half of Gaza's 2.3 million Palestinians look to for day-to-day assistance and which has already been hard-stretched by Israel's war on Hamas in the enclave.

UNRWA said on Monday it would not be able to continue operations in Gaza and across the region beyond the end of February if funding were not resumed.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency was set up for refugees of the 1948 war at Israel's founding in what had been British-ruled Palestine. It also tends to millions of the original refugees' descendants in Palestinian territories and abroad. UNRWA employs 13,000 people in Gaza.

Israel has long accused UNRWA of perpetuating the conflict by discouraging the resettlement of refugees and has, on occasion, said agency staff took part in armed attacks against it.

UNRWA denies wrongdoing, describing its role as relief only.

"From intelligence information, documents, and identity cards seized during the course of the fighting, it is now possible to flag around 190 Hamas and PIJ terrorist operatives who serve as UNRWA employees," the Hebrew-language dossier says.

It accuses Hamas of "methodically and deliberately deploying its terrorist infrastructure in a wide range of UN facilities and assets," including schools. Hamas denies that.

Two of the alleged Hamas operatives cited in the dossier are described as "eliminated", or killed by Israeli forces. A 12th Palestinian whose name and picture are provided is said to have no factional membership and to have infiltrated Israel on Oct 7.

Also on the list of 12 men are an UNRWA teacher accused of arming himself with an anti-tank rocket, another teacher accused of filming a hostage and the manager of a shop in an UNRWA school accused of opening a war-room for Islamic Jihad.

More than 26,000 people have been killed in Israel's military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, the enclave's health ministry said. With flows of aid like food and medicine just a trickle of pre-conflict levels, deaths from preventable diseases as well as risk of famine are growing, aid workers say.

Most of Gaza's people have become more reliant on UNRWA aid, including about one million who have fled Israeli bombardments to shelter in its facilities.

"The terrrorist organisations are cynically exploiting the residents of the Strip and the international organisations whose mission is to provide aid ... and in doing so are causing de facto harm to residents of the Strip," the dossier said.

At the weekend, UN head Antonio Guterres vowed to hold to account any employee involved in "abhorrent" acts, but implored nations to keep funding UNRWA for humanitarian reasons.

"The tens of thousands of men and women who work for UNRWA, many in some of the most dangerous situations for humanitarian workers, should not be penalized," he said. "The dire needs of the desperate populations they serve must be met."

A framework exists for a deal to release the hostages held in Gaza, US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told MSNBC News on Monday, but he cautioned that nothing had been finalized. 

“A lot of promise here, but again, I want to be very clear, there is still diplomacy ahead of us, a lot of discussions to occur before we can get there,” Kirby said.

He spoke as Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Al-Thani, whose country is mediating the deal along with Egypt, was in Washington for talks with US officials including US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. 

Kirby cautions that nothing has been finalized

Thani arrived from Paris, where he participated in closed-door talks on a deal with CIA Chief William Burns, Mossad Chief David Barnea, Shin Bet Chief Ronen Bar, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Nitzan Alon and the head of the Egyptian Intelligence Services Abbas Kamel. The Prime Minister’s Office called the talks constructive and said that more conversation would be held but did not provide a timeline for those talks.

Kirby also used the word “constructive” to describe the process, noting that US special envoy Brett McGurk had been in Doha last week.

John Kirby, U.S. National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications, listens during the press briefing at the White House in Washington, U.S., January 22, 2024 (credit: EVELYN HOCKSTEIN/POOL/REUTERS)

He clarified, however, that “we don’t have a deal on the table and imminently ready to be announced.”

The US does “think that there is a framework here for another hostage deal that could make a difference in terms of getting more hostages out, getting more aid in and actually getting the violence to calm down and that would reduce civilian casualties,” Kirby stated.

The broad framework under discussion has focused on an exchange of captives for the release of Palestinian security prisoners and or terrorists as well as a pause in the Israel-Hamas war.

It’s presumed that the deal to free the 136 captives would be done in stages, as occurred with the November deal during which time 105 captives were freed during a week-long lull in the fighting.

Hamas had seized some 253 captives during the October 7th attack it led against Israel that sparked the war.

Hamas said on Monday that releasing hostages it is holding would require a guaranteed end to the war and a full IDF withdrawal.

Any release of hostages would likely take place in stages

"The success of the Paris meeting is dependent on the Occupation (Israel) agreeing to end the comprehensive aggression on Gaza Strip," senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters.

Hamas had previously said a full release would require that Israel free all of the thousands of Palestinians held on security grounds in its prisons.

A Palestinian official, close to mediation talks, who requested anonymity, said that for Hamas to sign a follow-up deal to the November truce in which it released dozens of hostages, it wants Israel to agree to end the offensive and withdraw from Gaza - through implementation would not necessarily be immediate.

The agreement would have to be endorsed by Qatar, Egypt and the United States, the official said.

Israel has insisted that it has no plan to end the war until Hamas is defeated or to relinquish security control of Gaza. One compromise position, however, could be that it would temporarily withdraw from selected target areas in Gaza.