Israel-Hamas War: What happened on day 158?

IDF fighter jets attacked military targets used by the terrorist organization Hezbollah in southern Lebanon on Wednesday. 

Areas attacked include the villages of Meiss Ej Jabal and Ayta ash Shab. 

The IDF also attacked earlier with artillery fire in Wadi Hamol in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah said in a speech on Wednesday that "what is happening to this day, especially in Gaza, is a lesson to all the peoples of the world, and we must emphasize the great achievements of the Al-Aqsa flood and what will come after it.

"All Palestinian factions are unanimous in stopping the aggression, contrary to what is being reported that Hamas is obstructing the negotiations.

"We affirm from our Lebanese front that we stand alongside the people of Gaza," the Hezbollah leader continued. "The screams of settlers in northern occupied Palestine are getting louder as a result of Hezbollah operations."

Calling out Netanyahu and Biden

Nasrallah then had a message directed at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, stating that "Even if you act in Rafah, you have lost the war."

Netanyahu has told AIPAC “To win this war, we must destroy the remaining Hamas battalions in Rafah. If not, Hamas will regroup, rearm, and reconquer Gaza and then we’re back to square one. And that’s an intolerable threat that we cannot accept.”

Hassan Nasrallah (credit: AZIZ TAHER/REUTERS)

Nasrallah also targeted his words towards US President Joe Biden and his administration and criticized him for his inability to stop the war.

"Who believes that Biden can't stop the war in the Gaza Strip?" he continued. "With the wave of a pen, he could stop the war and stop the aggression against the people of Gaza. The US administration is stupid and must stop the war. We in the Lebanese front will stand by the people of Gaza, no matter what the sacrifice or the time it will cost us."

The Hezbollah terror leader also claimed that "The IDf  is exhausted," and that "it's death toll is much higher than what was announced."

Israel must safeguard Palestinian civilians as its “number one priority” even as it defends itself against Hamas, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said as he called for a “flood the zone” approach to humanitarian aid in Gaza.

“Protecting civilians is a priority and not a secondary consideration,” Blinken told reporters in Washington.

“That has to be job number one, even as they do what is necessary to defend the country and to deal with the threat. posed by Hamas.”

He spoke on Wednesday as he worked to place a US-built temporary pier off the coast of Gaza and pressed for a deal for the release of 134 hostages.

Earlier in the day, he met with European Union foreign policy chief Joseph Borrell and held a video conference on the maritime pier project with officials from the EU, the UN, Qatar, Cyprus, and the United Kingdom.

“We are also of course working with Israel on this,” he said.

Born in Gaza in 1997 to a family of six children, Hamza grew up and lived his entire life in the Al-Remal area of Gaza. In 2021 he got his bachelor’s degree in accounting at the Islamic University of Gaza, and then worked as an accountant for two years before escaping Gaza in August of 2023. He speaks to The Jerusalem Post from his place in exile, where he continues to share and create pro-peace and anti-Hamas content.

Hamza participated in the 2019 demonstrations against Hamas rule that were violently quashed by Hamas, and has written since about his experiences in the Hamas prisons, where he went through different types of torture after he was accused of dissent. He also voiced an opposition to Hamas’s tyrannical rule, oppression of different freedoms, and indoctrination.

Can you describe the situation in Gaza right now?

“If there was a single word to describe the main conditions in Gaza it would be anarchy. The destruction of more than 70% of the infrastructure in Gaza resulted in more than 1.2 million people being displaced, most of them live in tents in southern Gaza in disastrous living conditions.

Hamza points to an issue unknown to many in Israel, namely that convicts were released en masse from Gaza’s jails, and that there is a lack of law enforcement in the Gaza Strip. According to Hamza, this paved the way for the establishment of several gangs working with Hamas militants to plunder humanitarian aid.

“Most people spend their days waiting for relief airdrops or in line to get food for their family. In the north (of the strip) humanitarian conditions worsened along with the loss of connection to relatives in the south or out of Gaza.”

When asked about his own family, Hamza mentions that lives in a temporary tent in Rafah, burning wood to heat their food. “When we need to communicate, they must go near Rafah Crossing for an internet connection. I hope they can escape this nightmare and find a safer location soon,” he says.

The six aid trucks that entered the Gaza Strip through a new crossing on Tuesday were looted by local Gazans, KAN News reported on Wednesday night.

The truck entered Gaza as part of a pilot to test new ways to deliver aid without Hamas taking control of it, COGAT said.

Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah said in a speech on Wednesday that "what is happening to this day, especially in Gaza, is a lesson to all the peoples of the world, and we must emphasize the great achievements of the Al-Aqsa flood and what will come after it.

"All Palestinian factions are unanimous in stopping the aggression, contrary to what is being reported that Hamas is obstructing the negotiations.

"We affirm from our Lebanese front that we stand alongside the people of Gaza," the Hezbollah leader continued. "The screams of settlers in northern occupied Palestine are getting louder as a result of Hezbollah operations."

Israel rejected as “false” and “outrageous” European Union High Representative Josep Borrell’s claim it was using starvation as a “weapon of war” in Gaza.

“There is no restriction on the amount of food and water that is allowed to be delivered into the Gaza Strip,” government spokeswoman Tal Heinrich told reporters in Israel. 

“We tried to better the mechanism of aid distribution across the Gaza Strip,” she said, noting that the trucks entering Gaza have excess capacity and that the backlog of aid is on the Gaza side of the border.

“The [distribution] mechanism has not been functioning as it should because they [it] was reliant on Hamas,” she said.

Heinrich spoke after Borrell delivered a blistering attack on Israel for its conduct in Gaza during a speech he delivered to the UN Security Council in New York on Tuesday in which he said that in Gaza, “starvation” was used as a “weapon of war.”

European Union Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell speaks on the tensions between the neighbouring Western Balkan nations in Brussels, Belgium, August 18, 2022. (credit: REUTERS/Johanna Geron)

“We are facing now a population fighting for their own survival,’ Borrell said as he painted a dire picture of the impact of the war in Gaza using Hamas data.

More than 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed since the start of the war, while 1.8 million people have been displaced, and another half a million people are “on the brink of starvation,” Borrell said. Israel has stated that over 13,000 of the Gaza fatalities are combatants.

Israel's allies assert hunger crisis in Gaza, send aid by land and sea

He spoke as the international community, including Israel’s strongest allies, the United States and Great Britain, have asserted that there is a hunger crisis in Gaza. The United States has pushed to open Gaza’s air and sea space for the delivery of aid and has pressured Israelis to open additional land crossings into the enclave.

“Humanitarian assistance needs to reach Gaza, and the European Union is working as hard as it can to make this possible,” Borrell said.

He blamed Israel for the humanitarian crisis, noting that at issue was not “a natural disaster. It is not a flood. It is not an earthquake. It is man-made. 

“And when we look for alternative ways of providing support – by sea or by air – we have to remind that we have to do it because the natural way of providing support through roads is being closed, artificially closed,” Borrell said.

“Let humanitarian support flow into Gaza. Continue asking – and more than asking – Israel not to impede humanitarian to go through the natural way, which is by road,” Borrell stated.

He appeared to compare Israel to Russia when he said, “When we condemn this happening in Ukraine, we have to use the same words for what is happening in Gaza.”

Borrell also spoke in support of the United Nations Relief Works Agency, which is the main service provider for Palestinian refugees. Israel is working to close the agency after finding that at least 12 of its staff members had participated in the Hamas-led October 7 invasion of Israel in which over 1,200 people were killed and another 253 were taken hostage.

Israel has also said that at least 190 of its staff members are connected to Hamas. 

Borrell pushed back at criticism by UNRWA’s opponents that by recognizing as refugees the descendants of those Palestinians who fled from Israel during the 1948 War of Independence, it was creating a permanent and expanding class of refugees.

“Let me remind you something,” Borrell told the UNSC. “UNRWA exists because there are Palestinian refugees. It is not a present to the Palestinians; it is an answer to their needs. UNRWA exists because first, there were Palestinian refugees. We won't make these refugees disappear by making UNRWA disappear. They will still be there.

“In fact, there is only one way to make UNRWA disappear: making those refugees citizens of a Palestinian state that coexists with an Israeli state. Almost everybody agrees on that, but how can we make this solution a reality? 

“There is no magic solution. But maybe there are credible ways to try to achieve it. The two-state solution,” Borrell said.

An IDF aircraft strike, in collaboration with the Shin Bet intelligence, killed Muhammad Abu Hasna, a commander in Hamas’ Operations Unit in Rafah on Wednesday.

Hasna was an operative in Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing, and was involved in stealing humanitarian aid entering Gaza that was meant for Palestinian civilians and instead distributed it to other Hamas terrorists.

Hamas units' actions were also coordinated by Hasna, and communicated with field operatives belonging to the terrorist organization.

Other actions Hasna has taken

The commander of the terror organization also ran an operations room that provided information on IDF positions that would be used in Hamas attacks.

The Jewish community in Lebanon, once a vibrant emblem of the country's rich tapestry of religious diversity, has seen its numbers sharply decline from an estimated 14,000 at its peak to just a few dozen today. As Israel is in the midst of a possible war with the Hezbollah terror organization in Lebanon, we bring you the story of this community, marked by resilience in the face of political turmoil and societal shifts, was poignantly captured in recent reports.

Israel has allegedly told Hezbollah that they have until March 15 to resolve the conflict diplomatically, according to an article by Lebanese media source Al-Akhbar published on Thursday. The article claimed that American envoy Amos Hochstein has been attempting to subdue conflicts "of the southern front" as a preliminary stage to Israel forming a comprehensive agreement with Lebanon.

The article claims that American envoy Amos Hochstein has been attempting to subdue conflicts "of the southern front" as a preliminary stage to Israel forming a comprehensive agreement with Lebanon.

The situation of the Lebanese Jewish community was recently brought to light the death of Isaac Arazi, a key figure in the Jewish community, known for his instrumental role in rehabilitating Beirut’s Magen Avraham synagogue. Arazi's passing in late 2023 marked the end of an era for Lebanon's Jews, encapsulating the community's ongoing struggle to preserve its identity against the backdrop of Lebanon's complex sectarian landscape and a history of conflict.

A Lebanese newspaper, L'Orient-Le Jour, wrote two articles recently that provided a deep dive into the community's historical context, tracing the origins of Lebanon's Jewish population and its integration into the social fabric of the country. The narrative highlighted individuals like Albert Dichy, who in the aftermath of the Six Day War faced growing suspicion and marginalization due to his religious identity, despite having no personal ties to Israel. This period exacerbated the challenges for Lebanese Jews, further isolating them within their own country.

Community's decline was accelerated by civil war

Lebanon's Civil War (1975-1990) significantly accelerated the community's decline, with many Jews fleeing the country to escape the violence and the increasing hostility they faced. By the mid-1980s, the community had dwindled to a few hundred, and by the turn of the century, to a mere handful. The once-thriving Jewish neighborhoods in cities like Beirut were left deserted, their synagogues abandoned or repurposed.

Despite these adversities, figures like Arazi worked tirelessly to maintain what was left of the Jewish heritage in Lebanon. His efforts to restore the Magen Avraham Synagogue, completed in 2010 but damaged again in the 2020 Beirut port explosion, were emblematic of a broader struggle to preserve Jewish cultural and religious life in Lebanon. However, Arazi was realistic about the challenges, acknowledging the difficulties of reviving a vibrant Jewish community in a country still grappling with the echoes of past conflicts and a fragile sectarian balance.

The stories of Lebanon's last Jews, from Arazi's efforts to preserve Jewish landmarks to the individual experiences of people like Dichy, serve as powerful reminders of the impacts of historical grievances, political strife, and sectarianism on minority communities. These narratives underscore the complexities of identity and belonging in the Middle East, highlighting the silent fade of a community that once played a significant role in Lebanon's diverse society.

JTA contributed to this report.

IDF Intelligence Analysis Chief Brig.-Gen. Amit Sa'ar announced on Wednesday at a closed military intelligence conference that he will resign upon publishing the IDF's impending probe of the October 7 failures, which is set for June.

Sa'ar is the most senior Israeli official to date to give an exact timeframe for when he will resign, although IDF sources said he was due to finish his role over the summer.

Previously, a mid-level IDF intelligence major resigned.

At higher levels, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi, IDF Intelligence Chief Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva and Shin Bet Chief Ronen Bar hinted several months ago that they would resign but never gave a timeframe. Since then, some have speculated that one or more of them may try to stay on, given that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is pushing to stay on.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant previously went further than Netanyahu, who denied any responsibility for October 7 by taking some responsibility but not hinting at whether he would resign.

Saar's statement was first leaked by KAN News late Wednesday night, but it was independently confirmed by the Jerusalem Post.