Security forces find new Hamas-linked terror group, Biden says Netanyahu hurting Israel

Israel has killed three more Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon, the jihadist group announced on Sunday.

Hezbollah, which has fired rockets, missiles, and drones into Israeli territory since October 7, to which Israel has responded with airstrikes, has announced about 240 fatalities from its ranks since Hamas's attack. 

Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.

The US Army Vessel (USAV) General Frank S. Besson (LSV-1) has departed Joint Base Langley-Eustis en route to the Eastern Mediterranean to provide humanitarian aid to Gaza by sea, the US Central Command said in a statement early on Sunday.

Besson, a logistics support vessel, departed "less than 36 hours after President Biden announced the U.S. would provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza by sea," the statement added.

It is "carrying the first equipment to establish a temporary pier to deliver vital humanitarian supplies."

In the aftermath of a military operation in Rafah, Israel assesses that the Palestinians will attempt an initiative that will signify freezing or suspending Israel's participation in the United Nations General Assembly discussions, as well as its ability to vote in the debates, according to an N12 report on Saturday.

It was also reported that a suspension of membership from the General Assembly is a complicated move that requires a vote by all members of the UN Security Council, along with a two-thirds majority of the assembly. 

Sources at the Foreign Ministry estimate that this is the path the Palestinians will want to take, per the N12 report. 

The fear comes amid leaks from political officials of the Arab League , and following remarks made by Palestinian ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour last week, in which he stated, "Israel cannot continue to sit among us."

The Foreign Ministry’s legal advisers are working on a move that illustrates this to be fundamentally baseless, according to N12. 

Israeli ambassador to the U.N. Gilad Erdan holds the picture of a child, who he says was kidnapped in the October 7 attack by Hamas, on a birthday cake during a plenary meeting on the 'Use of the veto - Item 63: Special report of the Security Council', in the General Assembly Hall at UN headquarter (credit: REUTERS/SHANNON STAPLETON)

Damaging Israel's image

However, whether the move succeeds or not – this is very damaging for Israel’s image.

A similar step occurred solely once since the UN was first established, according to the report. In the 1970s, South Africa's participation in the General Assembly discussions was suspended due to the apartheid regime.

Israel's ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, said: "If they really try to promote the suspension of Israel from the General Assembly, then this would mean crossing a red line and Israel will have to react sharply and take unprecedented steps, such as closing the UN headquarters in Jerusalem, evacuating UNRA compounds, so that any country that considers supporting this move will know that it will only harm the Palestinian cause."

Senior Israeli security officials have told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that his  fraught relationship with the Biden administration may endanger US military aid to Israel, Channel 13 reported on Saturday.

According to the report, during a war cabinet discussion, the officials stated that the worsening situation with the Biden administration could harm future US aid to Israel. The officials emphasized such tensions were only escalating amid the upcoming US elections. 

Vice President Harris's remarks

The report comes amid the ongoing claims of a rift between Netanyahu and the Biden administration.

In remarks made in a CBS interview on Saturday Vice President Kamala Harris clearly signaled the administration's growing rift with Netanyahu's government. 

In the interview,  she distinguished between the Israeli people and their government.

VICE PRESIDENT Kamala Harris speaks during the opening of the Biden for President campaign office in Wilmington, Delaware, this month. She and the president have been met by pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel demonstrations wherever they go, says the writer. (credit: JOSHUA ROBERTS/REUTERS)

Harris stated "It's important to distinguish and to not conflate the Israeli government with the Israeli people. The Israeli people are entitled to security, as are the Palestinians, in equal measure. 

“Our work as the United States is to do what we must, and what we always have, is stand for the security of Israel and its people, and also to do what we have done behind closed doors as in public, forcing a better path forward in terms of what is happening now in Gaza."

Harris also shared the administration's fears regarding the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. "Far too many Palestinian civilians, innocent people have been killed."

She also stated "Israel has to do better on that issue and needs to allow more aid to get in," reiterating US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller's stance last week. 

Harris further noted, "We need a ceasefire over the course of six weeks to be able to facilitate support getting in for these innocent civilians who so desperately need it. It is a humanitarian catastrophe, as I have said, and it must be addressed."

US President Joe Biden said in an MSNBC interview on Saturday that Israel’s threatened invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza would be his “red line” for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but then immediately backtracked, saying there was no red line and "I’m never going to leave Israel."

In a somewhat contradictory exchange with his interviewer, Biden said, "They cannot have 30,000 more Palestinians dead as a consequence of going after" Hamas terrorists.

Biden and his aides have urged Netanyahu in strong terms not to launch a major offensive in Rafah until Israel crafts a plan for mass evacuation of civilians from the last area of Gaza it has not yet invaded with ground forces. More than half of Gaza's 2.3 million people are sheltering in the Rafah area.

“There's other ways to deal, to get to, to deal with ... the trauma caused by Hamas,” Biden said. 

Biden also said he is interested in visiting Israel again to address the Knesset and the people, Maariv reported. 

Maariv contributed to this report.

An alleged Israeli strike killed a family of five and injured nine other people in a village in southern Lebanon near the border with Israel, Lebanese security sources said on Saturday.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

The IDF announced on Saturday the death of Major (res.) Amishar Ben David in combat on Friday in the southern Gaza Strip.

Ben David was 43 years old, from Eli in Samaria, and a commander in the Oz Commando Brigade.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich revealed on Saturday evening that Ben David was his cousin, mourning his loss in an X post.

“My dear cousin, Amishar, a hero of Israel, fell in the battle in Gaza,” the finance minister wrote. “We grew up together. Relatively few cousins with a strong and special bond.”

Smotrich shared a photo of the two from a family barbecue event held last summer, writing: “Who would have dreamed that this would be the last picture? The pain is immense. An indescribable loss.”

בן דודי היקר, עמישר, גיבור ישראל נפל בקרב בעזה.

גדלנו יחד.
מעט יחסית בני דודים עם קשר חזק ומיוחד.
"שנר" קראנו לו.
חופשים, שבתות, טיולים, שמחות.
איזה איש. איזה כאב. אין מילים.

על האש משותף בקיץ האחרון. מי חלם שזו תהיה התמונה האחרונה.

איש משפחה אהוב. pic.twitter.com/yHR2TuElwr

— בצלאל סמוטריץ' (@bezalelsm) March 9, 2024

Additionally, the IDF announced that another officer from the same brigade was seriously injured and was brought to a hospital for treatment.

The military announced that troops fighting in the Khan Yunis area killed more than 20 terrorists in face-to-face combat and air force strikes during fighting over the weekend.

IDF troops also engaged terrorists in the Hamad residential towns north of Khan Yunis and arrested a number of terrorists in the area.

Terrorists in the area of Beit Hanon were eliminated after attacks were launched on Sderot overnight.

Hamas published a video on Saturday evening in which the Gaza terror group claimed that seven hostages had been killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza.

Chaim Gershon Peri, 79, Yoram Itak Metzger, 80, and Amiram Israel Cooper, 85, were again featured after being shown in a similar psychological terror-motivated video sent by Hamas earlier this month.

All three men were kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7.

Hamas claims four more killed by IDF fire

Hamas also claimed that four other hostages, Eliyahu Margalit, Ronen Engel, Alex Danzig, and Itzhak Elgarat, were killed by Israeli fire, without providing evidence.

The IDF had previously informed the families in December of last year that both Engel, 54, and Margalit, 75, had been murdered in Gaza during their captivity by Hamas.

According to a statement published by the Israeli government’s Hostages Directorate, the families of all the hostages mentioned in Hamas’s video were contacted.

The Directorate confirmed that there is no evidence to support Hamas’s claims, and affirmed that the publication of the video was carried out as part of intense psychological warfare.

As plans take shape for the US to play a greater role in supporting humanitarian aid to Gaza, the idea of a floating pier to sit off the coast of Gaza to bring in the aid is the latest initiative.

The US is mobilizing to construct a kind of floating dock that would enable aid to be brought to Cyprus. This follows US airdrops that have also brought in food to Gaza. This is an unprecedented attempt by the US to aid locals on the ground and it brings together many unique capabilities that the US has.

On the one hand, it was unexpected this would happen in Gaza, but it is also a good chance for the US to conduct these operations and work out any problems that may occur.
 
On the other, this illustrates that even though the US wanted to pivot away from the Middle East, the conflict in Gaza has now drawn the US back in.

A satellite image shows the Port of Gaza (credit: PlanetLabs PBC/Handout via REUTERS)

The challenges faced by the United States

Now, some of the challenges will be working with different groups and NGOs to bring in the aid. According to VOA, “a US charity said it was loading aid for Gaza onto a boat in Cyprus, the first shipment to the war-ravaged territory along a maritime corridor the EU Commission hopes will open this weekend. The Spanish-flagged vessel Open Arms docked three weeks ago in the port of Larnaca in Cyprus, the closest European Union country to the Gaza Strip.”

The report notes that "World Central Kitchen teams are in Cyprus loading pallets of humanitarian aid onto a boat headed to northern Gaza," the charity said Friday in a statement. "We have been preparing for weeks alongside our trusted NGO partner Open Arms for the opening of a maritime aid corridor that would allow us to scale our efforts in the region," it said.
 
This is important because it’s essential that different charities, rather than the usual suspects, work in Gaza. It has been shown that aid entering southern Gaza is generally hijacked by Hamas gunmen. Many international organizations in the past partnered with Hamas. It is not known if Hamas keeps the aid or even purposely slows down delivery to create a crisis. An independent way to bring aid to Gaza is important.
 
According to a briefing from the White House, “we continue to work to increase the amount of aid flowing through existing border crossings at Rafah and Kerem Shalom. And over recent days, at our request, the government of Israel has prepared a new land crossing directly into northern Gaza.  This third crossing will allow for aid to flow directly to the population in northern Gaza that is in dire need of assistance.”

The US has already done three airdrops of 192 bundles of aid with 112,896 meals. The partners for this include Jordan, Egypt, France, the Netherlands and Belgium.

Cyprus's crucial role

Now, Cyprus is going to play a potentially critical role in helping facilitate the aid moving to Gaza. Cyprus and Israel have increasingly close ties. According to the White House, the current initiative is called the Amalthea initiative proposed by Cyprus provides for a platform at Larnaca to move the aid to Gaza. The maritime corridor is also backed by other key players such as the European Commission, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, the Republic of Cyprus, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
 
It will take weeks to build the floating pier. How the goods will get from the pier to the land is less clear. It appears Israel would still have to secure that corridor. This proved a challenge on land when a stampede of people trying to reach trucks providing aid in northern Gaza led to the latest decision of the US to airdrop food. Reports say the US 7th Transportation Brigade will build the pier as part of the US Army’s Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore capability, according to Politico’s Lara Seligman.

 The US has practiced this for years in other scenarios.

For instance, back in 2015 US Marines and elements of the 7th Transportation Brigade from Fort Eustis went to Korea where they built a large floating pier. This work also involved the “Combined Joint Logistics Over-The-Shore” capability. The temporary pier is connected to a barge and then connected to the shore. This happened at Amyeon breach. The pier was 560 meters long. It’s not clear how large the one slated for Gaza will be.

Clearly, the operation has risks. If it works, the US may end up having a longer-term role. If the aid can help feed a million or more Gazans, this could end the dependency on southern Gaza as a conduit for aid, making a Rafah operation possible and also making it so Hamas gunmen cannot control all the aid to Gaza.

This could weaken the grip of some NGOs and UN organizations that have historically worked with Hamas and appear to have a symbiotic relationship with the terrorist group. It would appear any effort to defeat Hamas in Gaza requires that it not be able to control the border and decide who gets aid and how much aid enters. Hamas has an incentive to create a humanitarian crisis in Gaza because it wants a ceasefire so that it can return to power in Gaza. 

Hamas is more interested in igniting the Middle East during Ramadan than in pausing the Gaza war, the Mossad warned on Saturday night as it seemed that a hostage deal was not in the offing before the start of the Muslim holy month that begins on Sunday night.

“At this stage, Hamas is holding to its position as if it was uninterested in a deal and is striving to ignite the region during Ramadan at the expense of the Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip,” the Mossad said.

It spoke after Mossad Director David Barnea met Friday with CIA Director William Burns in the framework of the relentless effort to advance a deal for the release of the remaining 134 hostages.

The mediators, Egypt and Qatar, with the help of the United States, had hoped to see a deal in place that would see the release of some 40 hostages in exchange for a six-week pause in the war in time for Ramadan.

Israel, Qatar, Egypt, and the US have all feared that without a deal, Hamas would seek to use the religious fervor of Ramadan to ignite violence, particularly in Jerusalem, that would set back efforts for a deal.

IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said Hamas was preventing a deal and that its leaders were only interested in “their survival and the conditions they will receive” and in continuing the suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza.

Head of Mossad David Barnea attends the state ceremony marking 50 years since the Yom Kippur War, held at the military cemetery at Jerusalem's Mount Herzl, on September 26, 2023 (credit: Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

US President Joe Biden told reporters in Pennsylvania on Friday that the situation was “looking tough.”

A reporter asked him, “Are you concerned about violence in east Jerusalem without a deal?" Biden shot back, “I sure am.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday also blamed Hamas for the absence of a deal, telling reporters that the US was “intensely focused on seeing if we can get a ceasefire with the release of hostages, the expansion of humanitarian assistance, and an environment for working on an enduring resolution.”

He noted, however, that “the ball” was in Hamas’s court.

Blinken on Friday spoke about a hostage deal with his Qatari, Egyptian, and Saudi counterparts.

The Mossad said on Saturday that talks were ongoing. “It should be emphasized that the contacts and cooperation with the mediators are ongoing in an effort to narrow the gaps and advance agreements.”

Hostage talks expected to resume in Cairo next week

A Hamas delegation, which had been in Cairo last week and left for the weekend, was expected to return for further negotiations.

A Hamas source told Reuters the group's delegation was "unlikely" to make another visit to Cairo over the weekend for talks.

Hamas blames Israel for the impasse in negotiations for a longer ceasefire and the release of 134 hostages believed to be still held in Gaza - saying it refuses to give guarantees to end the war or pull its forces from the enclave.

In a statement on Saturday marking Ramadan, Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh vowed the Palestinians will continue to fight Israel "until they regain freedom and independence.”

Among the dividing issues has been Israel’s insistence that it must be allowed to finish its military campaign to destroy Hamas and the terror group’s demand for a permanent ceasefire and a full IDF withdrawal from Gaza.

Israel has also asked for a list of the hostages that will be released and a list of the Palestinian security prisoners and terrorists that will be freed in exchange.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Qatar had threatened to expel senior Hamas officials living in their country unless a deal is reached. It reported that the Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, believes that his organization has the upper hand in the negotiations due to political disunity in Israel and international pressure on Israel over humanitarian assistance.

Five months into Israel's air and ground military operation in Gaza, Hamas has asserted that nearly 31,000 Palestinians have been killed, and thousands more bodies are feared buried under rubble. Israel has said that over 11,000 of the fatalities are combatants.

The war was triggered by the October 7 attack by Hamas on southern Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed and 253 taken hostage.

The Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.