Israel-Hamas War: What happened on day 149?

The IDF continues to strike terrorist infrastructure belonging to Hezbollah, the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit announced on Sunday.

IAF fighter jets attacked terrorist infrastructure in the areas of Ayta ash Shab and Kfar Kila in southern Lebanon.

A number of rocket launches from Lebanon were detected entering Israeli territory in the areas of Metula, Ghajar, and Malkia on Sunday.

This is a developing story.

A Hamas terrorist responsible for recruiting others to Hamas was killed in an IDF strike on Sunday, the IDF Spokesperson's Unit announced.

The terrorist, Mahmoud Muhammad Abd Haz was killed in a refugee camp in central Gaza. Haz was responsible for recruiting Hamas operatives, specifically to the Zeytun Brigades. He also raised funds for other Hamas activities, the IDF said. 

Haz was killed by a joint operation by the IDF and Shin Bet.

This is a developing story.

The juxtaposition of two items on the Kan Bet news reel Sunday morning was jarring.

One report dealt with the deaths on Friday of three soldiers and the wounding of 14 others, six of them in serious condition, in a booby-trapped house in Khan Yunis. The other report was that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed the embassy in Washington not to help senior cabinet and war minister member Benny Gantz set up any meetings during his current trip to Washington.

On the one hand, a heart-wrenching reminder that a brutal war is grinding on that is extracting a painful toll in the daily deaths of Israeli soldiers. On the other hand, it is a squirm-worthy reminder that petty politics is once again clouding the vision of the country’s leaders.

Even as IDF soldiers continue to fall in Gaza, Netanyahu and Gantz are sparring over protocol, prestige, and power – definitely not a good look right now. If you are fighting in Gaza, if you have a relative being held hostage in Gaza, if you have relatives fighting in Gaza, to see a return of this type of politics seems very small.

If the country’s top leaders cannot come to an agreement on an issue as straightforward as a trip by a senior minister to Washington, then what does that say about their decision-making ability regarding other aspects of the war?

On October 11, four days after Hamas invaded Israel, Gantz did what a majority of the public wanted him to do and joined a national emergency government, saying that it was a time for unity to fight a barbaric enemy.

Amid tensions with the United States and a political row at home, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief political rival Minister Benny Gantz landed in Washington for meetings with US Vice President Kamala Harris and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

“There is only one Prime Minister that makes decisions, and his name is Benjamin Netanyahu,” Transportation Minister Miri Regev (Likud) told Radio Kol Hai.

A staunch Netanyahu supporter, she said it would have been better for Gantz, to remain in Israel in a display of unity and loyalty in wartime.

“He entered the [war-time] government and said he was in favor of unity, so what happened? We are still in a multi-arena war,” Regev said as she accused him of playing politics at Israel's expense.

“It may be that the Americans hear a weakness in” his positions on the war that would make them believe policy options that were contrary to those of Netanyahu were possible, she said.

NETANYAHU AND Gantz – can they put their animosity aside and serve the public? (credit: CORINNA KERN AMIR COHEN REUTERS)

Benny Gantz lands in US ahead of key meetings on Gaza war, ceasefire

Gantz, who is a former IDF chief-of-staff and former defense minister, is scheduled to meet both Harris, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, and Middle East envoy Brett McGurk on Monday, followed by a conversation with Blinken on Tuesday.

Former US Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk posted on X that “I wager @POTUS will drop by; might even invite Gantz into the Oval Office,” as he emphasized that Gantz was a member of Netanyahu’s small war cabinet.

His presence in that cabinet was enough of a justification for those meetings, Indyk wrote.

Gantz's trip comes as Israel is hoping to finalize a hostage deal that would allow for a pause to the war, which is unpopular among the left-wing flank of the Democratic Party, which increasingly views it as Netanyahu’s war.

His trip could be seen as an avenue to build a bridge between the two governments, which are increasingly at odds over the best path to destroy Hamas, to handle issues relating to the upcoming holy month of Ramadan and plans for the day after the war.

Gantz was careful to notify the media that he had personally notified Netanyahu about the trip on Friday so that it could be a coordinated venture.

It was reported, however, that Netanyahu opposed the visit. The Israeli embassy in Washington was instructed not to do anything to help facilitate Gantz meetings with US officials, even though they would not necessarily have needed to be involved.

The reports, plus the fact that Netanyahu himself has yet to visit Washington, gave Gantz an immediate diplomatic boast, particularly given that his National Unity party is leading in the polls against the Prime Minister’s Likud party by a wide margin.

If elections were held today, he would easily be given the option to form a government.  

Netanyahu’s wartime cabinet, government in disarray

The perceived tensions between Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden, which has been widely reported on in the media, made it seem as if Gantz was able to relate to Washington in a way that Netanyahu could not. ‘

The subtle message was there even though Netanyahu met with Biden in New York in September and Biden came to Israel in October.

It also added weight to the impression that Netanyahu’s wartime cabinet and government were in disarray. 

Yisrael Beytenu head MK Avigdor Liberman said the trip reflected the complete disunity in the government, especially in the war cabinet, of which Gantz is a member.

The time had come, he told Army Radio, for new elections to replace Netanyahu.

Regional Cooperation Minister David Amsalem (Likud) issued a sharp attack against Gantz in a post on X, noting that Biden's administration mistakenly viewed the National Unity Party leader as a more palatable alternative to Netanyahu.

In a post on X blasting the trip, he wrote, “Americans probably see you as the address to lead the process for a Palestinian state and the cessation of fighting in Gaza.”

But just as a reminder, “you entered the emergency [war-time] government to create a consensus during the war, not to stop the IDF from winning the war” and using this as an “opportunity to lead the process of establishing a Palestinian state that will eliminate the State of Israel!”

Leaked audio from the moments when Alon Shamriz tried to get the IDF to rescue him as well as Yotam Haim and Samer Talaka, before they were wrongfully identified as terrorists and accidentally killed by the IDF, was published by Kan news on X on Sunday.

בלעדי: הקלטות הגבורה של אלון שמריז – כך ניסה להציל את עצמו ואת חבריו מהשבי בלב עזה | לכתבה המלאה >>> https://t.co/imzN4qKlSi@carmeldangor pic.twitter.com/NYSy6NniAG

— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) March 3, 2024

In the audio, Alon and Yotam can be heard yelling "save us" and "we're hostages." The audio then has a few shots of gunfire and is abruptly cut.

The audio was obtained from a camera attached to a dog from the Oketz unit. According to reports, the dog was shot upon entrance of the building by the terrorists holding the three hostages, but the camera continued to record.

Alon's brother Yonatan revealed that the audio was leaked before it was presented to the family, on a post on X.

את התחקיר ראינו בגלילות מול חבורת קצינים זחוחים..בקטע של ההקלטות אמא שלי יצאה כי ידעה שלא תעמוד בזה. הקשבתי-הדמעות זלגו והדם קפא במשך כמה דקות.
חשבתי שזה מאחורינו..אף אחד לא צריך לשמוע את זה.
והנה צהל מדליף ועושה לנו טרור פסיכולוגי של החמאס.
עכשיו זה בחוץ..לעולם
תחיי מדינת ישראל

— Shimriz (@shimrizzz) March 3, 2024

The IDF has announced that it will refuse to recognize Alon Shamriz, one of the hostages accidentally killed by the IDF in the Gaza Strip, with the status of a fallen soldier, according to Israeli media on Saturday.

The family of Shamriz had filed an appeal to the IDF and the state to change his status shortly after it was reported that he was killed.

The IDF stated that its reason for denying the appeal, was because Alon Shamriz wasn't in active ore reserve duty at the time of his death.

The IDF has begun taking steps to test the rule of local Gazan clans in the Gaza Strip after Hamas was destroyed, according to a report by London-based Arabic newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat on Saturday.

According to the report, the head of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), Major General Ghassan Alian, was in contact with local leaders who weren't affiliated with Hamas in order to organize the protection of the humanitarian aid convoys by local armed groups.

The report stated that most factions refused, however a large clan reportedly agreed, and another one is considering the proposal.

Sources in Hamas allegedly told Asharq Al-Awsat that the terror group has sufficient information about the communications taking place between Israel and the local clans. They claimed that they are monitoring actions made by local armed men, calling their actions violations and said that their aim is to cause chaos, sabotage and incitement.

The sources also claimed that Hamas leadership has decided to take action against the local groups and that they "will pay for their actions," according to the report.

This report comes following  US airdrop of aid into Gaza, following the aid convoy disaster on Thursday in which over 100 Gazans were killed.

Over 8,000 Israeli citizens have filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the District of Colombia, claiming that the State Department violated anti-terrorism laws by providing billions of US tax dollars to the United Nations Relief and Work Agency For Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). The plaintiffs “demand a complete cessation of all funding to UNRWA in contravention of law. 

The plaintiffs are represented by attorneys Robert J. Tolchin in Brooklyn and Nitsana Darshan-Leitner in Tel Aviv, founder of the Shurat HaDin Law Center. The Shurat HaDin Law Center is an Israeli human rights organization dedicated to combating terrorism and anti-Israel activities, according to its website. The defendants include Antony Blinken, US Secretary of State, who is responsible for coordinating all US federal aid to UNRWA, among other US government employees who share the responsibility of coordinating aid. 

Among those in the lawsuit is Marice Shnaider, whose sister and her husband were murdered in the Hamas attack on Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7. His niece, Shiri Bibas, and her husband Yarden Bibas were taken hostage by Hamas with their two sons, Kfir, nine months old at the time, and Ariel, four years old at the time.

He stated, “The blood of my sister and her husband and the fate of an entire family being held hostage for more than four months is in the hands of the administration that pours millions of taxpayer dollars into the purse of Hamas. Why did they not stop this before? Why did they continue to pay them after it was revealed that a UNRWA teacher held hostages in his home? What else must happen for them to come to their senses? It's enough!”

Accusations against UNRWA

The US is UNRWA’s primary donor, with $4 billion in tax dollars given to the organization over the years. US support for UNRWA reached $422 million in 2023 alone. 

UNRWA has been accused of collaborating with Hamas terrorists on October 7 and since. The information exposed by the IDF, intelligence reports, and non-governmental organizations brought to light evidence that more than 1,000 UNRWA employees are also Hamas terrorists, and more than 6,000 other terrorists are family members of UNRWA employees. 

It was also revealed that UNRWA employees participated in the October 7 massacre and in the kidnapping of Israelis, several of whom were held by UNRWA employees in their homes in Gaza. In addition, many, if not all, UNRWA facilities in Gaza were being used by Hamas. 

Reports published by NGOs, for instance, UN Watch’s report entitled “UNRWA’s Terrorgram: How A Telegram Group Of 3,000 UNRWA Teachers in Gaza Celebrated The October 7th Hamas Massacre,” reveals widespread support for terrorism and the massacre of Israelis by UNRWA’s school teachers and employees. 

Since this information was revealed, the US temporarily suspended its funding of UNRWA “pending an investigation by the United Nations.”

On Sunday, a senior Lebanese official said that US envoy Amos Hochstein is due to visit Beirut on Monday to continue diplomatic efforts aimed at de-escalating the conflict across the Lebanese-Israeli border and bring stability. The Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah and Israel have been locked in hostilities for months in parallel to the Gaza war. It has marked the worst conflict between the heavily armed adversaries since the 2006 war, fueling fears of an even bigger confrontation.

Lebanon's deputy parliament speaker Elias Bou Saab, one of the officials due to meet Hochstein, told Reuters he believed the timing of his visit pointed to progress in efforts to secure a Gaza truce "within the next few hours or days." he also said that "If this happens, I believe that Hochstein's visit this time will be of great importance to follow up on the truce on our southern borders and to discuss what is needed for stability and ending the possibility of the expansion of the war with Lebanon."

The war goes on

Washington has insisted a ceasefire deal in the Gaza war is close and should be in effect by the start of Ramadan, a week away. Israel however boycotted talks in Cairo on Sunday after the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas rejected its demand for a complete list of hostages that are still alive, an Israeli newspaper reported.

Hezbollah has publicly indicated that it would halt its attacks on Israel from Lebanon when the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip stops, but that it was also ready to keep on fighting if Israel continued hostilities. Lebanon's caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati told Reuters on Thursday a halt to fighting in the Gaza Strip as early as this week would trigger indirect talks to end hostilities along Lebanon's southern border with Israel.

Bou Saab said Hochstein had "serious ideas that may provide the beginning of a sustainable solution, stability, and banishing the specter of war that will not be in anyone’s interest." Hochstein, who visited Beirut in January, previously brokered a rare diplomatic deal between Lebanon and Israel in 2022 to delineate their maritime border.

Haim Rubinstein, the spokesperson for the Hostage and Missing Families Forum, announced that he will resign after five months in the role, on a post on X on Sunday.

In his post, he assured the families of the hostages that even though he is leaving the role, he is not "going anywhere."

This announcement comes after the Communications Consultant for the forum, Ronen Tzur, also resigned in the middle of February.

לפני כמעט חמישה חודשים, בבוקר השמונה באוקטובר, הייתה לי הזכות לייסד את מטה משפחות החטופים יחד עם רונן צור, דודי זלמנוביץ׳ ואסף פוזניאק.

היום אני מסתכל לאחור בסיפוק רב - איך בזכות המטה, המשפחות קיבלו מעטפת מלאה לכל אתגר שעמד בפניהם בתקופה הקשה בחייהן. היו שהגדירו את המטה כתחליף…

— Haim Rubinstein (@haim_ru) March 3, 2024