Israel-Hamas War: What happened on day 153?

A Reuters reporter in Lebanon was killed by an Israeli tank in October, according to a report into the incident that was commissioned by Reuters and released on Thursday.

The report claimed the Israeli tank fired two shells at a clearly identified group of journalists and then "likely" opened fire on them with a heavy machine gun in an attack that lasted 1 minute and 45 seconds.

The report by the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) - which was contracted by Reuters to analyze evidence from the October 13 attack that killed visuals journalist Issam Abdallah - found that a tank 1.34 km away in Israel fired two 120 mm rounds at the reporters.

The first shell killed Abdallah, 37, and severely wounded Agence France-Presse (AFP) photographer Christina Assi, 28.

A Reuters investigation in December covered TNO's preliminary finding that a tank in Israel had fired at the journalists. In its final report on Thursday, the institute revealed that audio picked up by an Al Jazeera video camera at the scene showed the reporters also came under fire from 0.50 caliber rounds of the type used by the Browning machine guns that can be mounted on Israel's Merkava tanks.

"It is considered a likely scenario that a Merkava tank, after firing two tank rounds, also used its machine gun against the location of the journalists," TNO's report said. "The latter cannot be concluded with certainty as the direction and exact distance of (the machine gun) fire could not be established."

At least 30,800 Palestinians have been killed and 72,298 have been wounded since October 7 in Israel's military offensive on Gaza, according to a statement on Thursday by the Hamas-governed health ministry there.

The numbers cannot be independently verified and do not distinguish between civilians and terrorists.

Some 83 Palestinians were killed and 142 wounded in the previous 24 hours, the ministry said.

Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.

More than 20 Jewish members of Congress issued a statement condemning Hamas' gender-based violence following the UN's report finding "clear and convincing evidence" it took place, according to a release from Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Shultz's office.

Wasserman-Shultz and North Carolina's Rep. Kathy Manning (D) led the bipartisan effort.
 
“The welcome conclusions of the long-overdue report from the UN's Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, which found ‘clear and convincing’ evidence of Hamas’ sexual violence, should finally end the deafening silence and outright denial, in too many quarters, of Hamas’ use of rape as a weapon of war and its crimes against humanity," the statement said. "It is disgraceful that so many international organizations ostensibly dedicated to the rights of women refused for months to even acknowledge these crimes."

The members of Congress said they are appalled that it took the United Nations nearly five months to believe evidence that includes photo and video evidence immediately after the attack.

A PROTEST is held outside the Office of the UN Special Coordinator, Resident Coordinator, and Humanitarian Coordinator, in Jerusalem's Armon Hanatziv neighborhood, yesterday (credit: Marc Israel Sellem/Jerusalem Post)

This reluctance to acknowledge the truth was deeply disappointing, the statement said.

'We will continue speaking out for Israeli women who have been victimized by Hamas'

“We reject any attempts to justify, rationalize, or ‘place in proper context’ the crimes committed by Hamas against Israeli women and girls," according to the statement. "We will continue speaking out for Israeli women who have been victimized by Hamas and all remaining hostages, including American citizens, who remain threatened by sexual violence."

The IDF struck two sites belonging to the Syrian Army in southern Syria on Wednesday night after two rockets were fired from Syria toward the Golan Heights, according to Syrian reports.

According to the local Daraa 24 news site, the Israeli strikes targeted sites near Jasim, about 10 km from the Israeli-Syrian border.

The United States continued to project optimism as the prospects for a hostage deal by the start of Ramadan on Sunday seemed to dim and talks in Cairo failed to yield any perceivable progress.

“We continue to believe that the obstacles are not insurmountable and that a deal can be reached,” US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters in Washington.

Such a “deal is in the interest of Israel. It’s in the interest of the Palestinian people, and it’s in the interest of the broader region. So we’re going to continue to push for one.”

Miller said that Israel had “put a serious proposal on the table, and it’s for Hamas to accept it. It’s also for Hamas to engage in good faith and show that they actually want to get a deal.

Staff and volunteers of Amnesty International USA, MoveOn, Oxfam America and Win Without War hold a vigil outside the White House calling for a ceasefire in the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Washington, U.S., December 18, 2023. (credit: REUTERS/Leah Millis )

“And we’re going to continue to engage in good faith on our behalf and continue to try to get a deal over the finish line,” Miller said.

The US believes that a deal is “possible, and we’re going to continue to push for it,” he stressed.

In Cairo, Egyptian and Qatari officials mediating the deal met with Hamas, in an attempt to secure a six-week pause to the war in exchange for the release of 40 remaining 134 hostages.

Hamas pledged to continue to take part in the Cairo talks, but officials in the terror group said a ceasefire must be in place before hostages are freed, Israeli forces must leave Gaza and all Gazans must be able to return to homes they have fled.

“We are showing the required flexibility in order to reach a comprehensive cessation of aggression against our people, but the “occupation” is still evading the entitlements of this agreement,” Hamas said in a statement.

Israel reportedly staying away from talks

A source had said earlier that Israel was staying away from the Cairo talks because Hamas refused to provide a list of hostages who are still alive. Hamas says this is impossible without a ceasefire as hostages are scattered across the war zone.

The deal presented to Hamas for Gaza would allow for increased humanitarian assistance and for the release of 400 Palestinian security prisoners and terrorists jailed in Israel.

Hamas says any hostages cannot be released until after a ceasefire. Israel wants a pause in fighting that includes a hostage release. It has agreed to increased assistance, but will not end the conflict before Hamas is “eliminated.”

Senior Hamas official Bassem Naim said the Islamist group presented its own draft deal and was awaiting a response from Israel, and that “the ball now is in the Americans’ court.”

On Wednesday, a source familiar with the matter said that humanitarian aid for Gaza is expected to sail from Cyprus in the coming days.

It was not immediately clear which country was supplying the aid, where it would land, or how it would be distributed. The source said aid was being coordinated with the United Arab Emirates.

"They want the aid to be dispatched before the start of Ramadan" on Sunday, the source told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Limassol, Cyprus (credit: Rich@rd 015 / CC 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en)

Delivering aid to Gaza has become urgent as a humanitarian crisis there deepens. Israel unleashed an offensive following a deadly Hamas raid on Israel on October 7, and Gaza health officials say more than 30,700 people have been killed.

Numbers from the Gaza health ministry

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said two Palestinians, aged 15 and 72, died of dehydration and malnutrition on Wednesday, raising the toll of such deaths to 20. Reuters could not verify the deaths.

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was due in Cyprus late Thursday and was to visit the port of Larnaca on Friday. The port has been identified as a launch point for aid shipments.

Cyprus lies 370 km (230 miles) northwest of Gaza in the Mediterranean and is the closest European Union state to the region.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) must demand that Israel stop the starvation of Palestinians in Gaza by issuing additional provisional measures in the genocide case it is adjudicating, South Africa told the international tribunal on Wednesday.

“Palestinian children are starving to death as the direct result of the deliberate acts and omissions of Israel,” South Africa said in its statement to the court.

The ICJ in January already demanded Israel provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza.

Government spokesperson Eylon Levy had, earlier in the day, rejected all claims that Israel was preventing the entry of aid, and blamed Hamas for stealing it and the United Nations for not properly distributing it.

“Israel’s policy is that we want to see aid enter Gaza to reach the people who need it and make sure that Hamas cannot steal it.

A truck carrying humanitarian aid into Gaza at the Kerem Shalom border crossing, January 2024. (credit: Courtesy of Hananya Naftali )

Government spokesperson rejects the claims 

“That is why the amount of aid going into Gaza has increased, reaching a record 277 trucks just the other day,” Levy said.

Israel has also facilitated “the operation of 20 bakeries inside Gaza… providing two and a half million loaves of bread,” he added.

The trucks entering Gaza have “excess capacity,” he said, and “all nations that want to send food, water, medicine, or shelter equipment should send it.”

The United States and Great Britain, however, in the last days, issued scathing attacks against Israel for not doing enough to prevent Palestinians from starving.

In Washington on Wednesday, US State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters that “the situation on the ground right now in Gaza is unacceptable and unsustainable. It cannot continue this way.”

IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi on Wednesday appeared to issue a veiled rebuke of government officials who consider retaining the haredi sector’s blanket military draft exemption.

Speaking at the navy's captain's graduate course, Halevi said, "we promise at all times that our victims, those who have fallen, will not have been in vain. There is no other way to do this other than to be drafted for substantial service, to adorn the uniform, and to become commanders."

Halevi’s comments came as Defense Minister Yoav Gallant lined up alongside war minister Benny Gantz, opposition head Yair Lapid, and others, against the haredi parties in the coalition.

Halevi and Gallant’s aggressive stances have potentially pitted them against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who in principle is in favor of haredi service, but in practice has been a major enabler of their exemption in favor of the political backing it gave him over the years.

Yoav Gallant (credit: ELAD MALKA)

It remains unclear whether the sides will reach a compromise on the issue or whether Netanyahu  will prioritize haredi demands and lose Gantz, and possibly even Gallant, or will the disagreements eventually cause the government’s collapse?

Halevi also warned, given the ongoing war, joining the IDF’s operational level would look quite different from what the naval graduates might have expected when they started training more than two years ago.

Military announces name of fallen soldier

The military announced on Wednesday night that St.-Sgt. David Sasson, 21, from Ganot Hadar, was killed in battle in the Hamad neighborhood of Khan Yunis. Five other soldiers were seriously wounded in the incident. The IDF has been operating there in force over the last few days.

IDF kills chief Hamas rocket commander 

The IDF and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) announced that troops had killed Hamas’s top rocket commander in central Gaza, Amar Atia Deruyash al-Adini, who was a critical part of Hamas’s rocket firing apparatus since 2008.

A statement said he was intimately involved with directing rocket fire both at central Israel and the South. The two security bodies added that al-Adini was involved in planning and managing aspects of the October 7 attack.

Recently, Hamas’s rocket fire has fallen to single digits, with many days, including Wednesday, with no rocket fire at all.

In northern Gaza in Beit Hanun, an IAF fighter jet eliminated terrorists who tried to escape to a nearby military building.

In Khan Yunis, fighter jets attacked terrorists complicit in the massacre of Nir Yitzhak on October 7 killing two platoon commanders and a squad commander from the Nukhba Force, Hamas’s elite unit.

Troops from the Nahal Brigade operated in the central Gaza Strip and killed approximately 20 terrorists.

IN THE NORTH, the IAF attacked Hezbollah military structures in the Yarun and Kafra regions of Lebanon, in addition to a strike in the Kfar Hamam region.

Earlier on Wednesday, an explosive Hezbollah UAV crossed into Israel in the Metulla area. The military said forces shot it down, and no injuries were reported.

After firing dozens of rockets at Israel on Tuesday, on Wednesday, Hezbollah fired single digits at press time.

The Middle East chief of The International Committee of the Red Cross said that an escalation of fighting on Lebanon’s southern border would further strain hospitals already struggling with a national financial crisis.

Since October 7, more than 50 civilians have been killed in Israeli shelling on Lebanon, along with more than 200 Hezbollah fighters, according to Lebanese medical and security sources.

About a dozen IDF soldiers and half as many civilians have been killed in shelling from Lebanon into Northern Israel.

Doctors in southern Lebanon have sounded the alarm, saying an influx of wounded has pushed the health sector to its limits. 

Israel says about a dozen of its soldiers and half as many civilians have been killed in shelling from Lebanon into the north of the country.

Doctors in southern Lebanon have sounded the alarm, saying an influx of wounded has pushed the health sector to its limits.