Day 164: What is going on in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria?

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will host Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant next week for a bilateral meeting at the US Defense Department, an American defense official.

The meeting comes after Austin recently invited Gallant for a visit and is separate from Monday's announcement that followed a call between President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who agreed to send a team of senior officials to Washington to discuss developments regarding the war in Gaza, the official added.

Five members of Iranian-backed militias in Syria were killed on Tuesday, according Israeli media citing  Saudi television station al-Hadat on Tuesday night. A further report claimed that one of those killed was a Hezbollah commander. 

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitor, had reported three explosions and the presence of unidentified aircraft that day in the eastern city of Dier-ez-Zor.

Muhammad Salah a-Darvey, the deputy chief justice of the Hamas government's high court in Gaza, was killed by the IDF, according to reports in Palestinian media that have not been independently verified. 

This is a developing story.

Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh worked as a teacher for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in the past, former UNRWA official Ahmad Oueidat revealed in an interview with the London-based Al-Hiwar TV channel last week, according to footage translated by MEMRI.

Former UNRWA Official Ahmad Oueidat: Hamas Leader Ismail Haniyeh Was a Teacher in One of Our Schools, as Was PFLP-GC Leader Talal Naji; The West Tried to Corrupt Our Curricula #Hamas @UNRWA pic.twitter.com/iox8enfmzf

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) March 18, 2024

“First and foremost, we can mention Ismail Haniyeh, who was an UNRWA teacher, and so was Dr. Talal Naji, Secretary-General of the PFLP-GC,” said Oueidat.

The former UNRWA official said that UNRWA has tried “to constitute a national platform and a long arm, which would enable the Palestinian refugees to obtain their rights and first and foremost – the Right of Return.”

"There used to be quality in [UNRWA's] education. The teaching cadres really embraced their profession. However, the Americans and the Zionists did not look at this favorably. This is why they insisted on interfering. We, as UNRWA employees, had to deal with that interference. My final position was head of the Professional Development and Curriculum Unit, so I had to deal with it directly. They forced us to remove pictures and various topics.

A Palestinian man waits outside of the UNRWA headquarters building in Gaza City on April 6, 2013. (credit: Wissam Nassar/Flash90.)

"They planted [in the curricula] topics that have nothing to do with our values and our heritage, under the fancy slogans like neutrality, independence, impartiality, and humanity – as if UNRWA was not humane and neutral before,” added Oueidat. "The Israelis, the Americans, and the Western politicians felt that as long as UNRWA upholds its goals, it constitutes a source of danger. This is why [they decided] to corrupt it."

UNRWA under fire for Hamas links

UNRWA has come under fire in recent months as members of the UN agency were found to be linked to Hamas and some even took part directly in the October 7th massacre. Israeli media has also reported that several UNRWA teachers held some Israelis hostage in Gaza after the attack.

Sixteen countries suspended funding to UNRWA after the allegations came to light. UNRWA fired some of the staff members accused of ties to Hamas, although others remain. The head of the agency, Philippe Lazzarini admitted in an interview with The New York Times in February that UNRWA knew that many of its members were tied to Hamas, but claimed that avoiding having Hamas members in the agency was impossible.

UNRWA has also been accused of helping Hamas’s military efforts, and tunnels and rockets have repeatedly been found in and under UNRWA facilities over the past decade.

In February, the IDF found a large tunnel containing extensive infrastructure for Hamas’s military intelligence wing under UNRWA’s headquarters in Gaza. Weapons were also found in the headquarters itself.

UNRWA’s schools have consistently been found to use material directly inciting students to terrorism and antisemitism.

The IMPACT-SE watchdog noted in its most recent report on the matter in November that UNRWA textbooks are “openly antisemitic and continue to encourage violence, jihad, and martyrdom while peace is not taught as preferable or even possible. Extreme nationalism and Islamist ideologies proliferate throughout the curriculum, including in science and math textbooks.”

Some examples of incendiary and antisemitic educational material include a reading comprehension exercise celebrating a Palestinian firebombing attack on a Jewish bus as a “barbecue party” and material glorifying Dalal Mughrabi, a terrorist who murdered 38 Israeli civilians in the 1978 Coastal Road Massacre, as a role model for children.

Hezbollah and the Shi’ite Amal Movement have been using ambulances for transporting terrorists and weapons in southern Lebanon, the IDF’s spokesperson for Arabic media, Avichay Adraee, said on Tuesday.

According to Adraee, the two terrorist movements use ambulances belonging to the Islamic Health Organization, a Shi’ite healthcare organization closely affiliated with Hezbollah. The organization says on its website that it has always “provided services for the activity of the Hezbollah fighters against the Zionist occupation.”

According to the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, more than 20 of the organization’s operatives have been killed while fighting as part of Hezbollah. Several members of the organization have been killed in the clashes between Israel and Hezbollah since October as well.

Adraee said on Tuesday that the IDF had discovered that Hezbollah and Amal were using a yellow ambulance operated by Sheet Cargo, headed by Hassam Muhammad Sheet, who also runs the local government in Kfarkela.

The IDF noted that the ambulance traveled abnormally between Hezbollah sites after the sites were bombed, even when no people were injured, as well for a long period after the strikes.

The ambulance allegedly used by Hezbollah in Kfarkila in southern Lebanon. (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)

Two individuals who operated the ambulance, Musa and Muhammad Sheet, were claimed as Hezbollah members after they were killed in an Israeli strike in January.

In 2022, Adraee announced that a man named Hatem Sheet, also a resident of Kfarkela, ran drug and weapons smuggling operations from his home for Hezbollah. It is unclear if Sheet is related to the Sheet involved in the latest exposé.

Adraee added on Tuesday that Hussein Khalil, a resident of the town of Baraachit who was killed in Israeli strike in Blida and identified as a member of the Islamic Health Organization, was photographed in the past wearing the badge of Amal.

Hezbollah's use of civilian organizations for terrorism

This isn’t the first time that Hezbollah has been caught using civilian organizations for military purposes.

Hezbollah has repeatedly been accused of using the Green Without Borders environmental organization as a front for terrorist activities near the Lebanese-Israeli border.

In 2017, then head of the IDF's Intelligence Directorate, Herzi Halevi, stated that Hezbollah had established outposts marked with the logo of Green Without Borders along the border. According to the IDF, the organization is partially funded by Hezbollah.

The Green Without Borders organization was sanctioned by the US in August of last year for its ties to Hezbollah’s terrorist activities.

The IDF late Tuesday night admitted for the first time that the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen have penetrated the country's missile air defense.

According to the IDF, reports of an unidentified object landing north of Eilat on Sunday night referred to a cruise missile which came from the direction of the Red Sea.

Although the IDF did not specifically identify the Houthis, the Iranian-backed group in Yemen has tried to strike Israel with ballistic missiles numerous times for months.

Until now, all of its missiles had been shot down, often by the Arrow 1 or 3 missile defense system.

There was one case of a small drone fired from Syria penetrating into Eilat, but it did little damage and had little potential for damage.

Missiles and drone aircrafts are seen on display at an exhibition at an unidentified location in Yemen in this undated handout photo released by the Houthi Media Office (credit: HOUTHI MEDIA OFFICE/HANDOUT VIA REUTERS)

In contrast, the cruise missile in question did not hit any structures and landed in an open area, but could have potentially done far more damage.

IDF probing why the missile wasn't shot down

The IDF said it is probing why the missile was not shot down.

One possibility could be that it was a cruise missile that flies in a more line-drive fashion and which might have caught the air defense operators by surprise.

Israel's David Sling is also made to shoot down such cruise missiles, but it has not been used in Eilat to date.

Canada plans to halt arms sales to Israel, its Foreign Minister Melanie Joly told The Toronto Start after the Canadian Parliament passed a non-binding motion that called on the government to do so.

Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz warned that in doing so, Canada would be undermining Israel’s right to self-defense.

"It is unfortunate that the Canadian government is taking a step that undermines Israel's right to self-defense against the Hamas murderers who have committed terrible crimes against humanity and against innocent Israeli citizens, including the elderly, women and children,” he said.

“History will judge the Canadian government's current move harshly,” Katz stated. Israel will continue to fight until Hamas is destroyed and all abductees are returned home."

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau makes remarks during a pro-Israel rally at the Soloway Jewish Community Centre in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada October 9, 2023. (credit: REUTERS/BLAIR GABLE)

Canada paused non-lethal military exports to Israel in January

Last week, Canada said it had paused non-lethal military exports to Israel since January. Trudeau, while asserting Israel's right to defend itself, has taken an increasingly critical stance over the Israeli military campaign in Hamas-run Gaza after the militant group attacked Israel on Oct. 7.

Canada's parliament passed a non-binding motion late Monday that called for a halt to Israeli arms sales and urged the international community to work toward a two-state solution to resolve the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, in line with government policy.

Reuters contributed to this report

Yemen's Houthis have targeted a fuel tanker, MADO, in the Red Sea with naval missiles and Israel's Eilat port and resort region with winged missiles, the group's military spokesman Yahya Sarea said on Tuesday.

MADO is a Marshall-Islands flagged liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) tanker heading to Singapore from Saudi Arabia, maritime shipping trackers showed. The Houthis described it as American, but Equasis's shipping database indicates that it is owned by Naftomar Shipping & Trading Co Ltd of Greece. Naftomar did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Iran-aligned Houthi militants have repeatedly launched drones and missiles at international commercial shipping in the Red Sea region since mid-November, saying they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians against Israel's military assault in Gaza.

Destroying Hamas in Rafah would require a ground incursion by Israeli forces, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday following a call with the White House to rethink strategy around the Gaza border city packed with displaced Palestinians.

Briefing lawmakers, Netanyahu said he had made "supremely clear" to US President Joe Biden "that we are determined to complete the elimination of these (Hamas) battalions in Rafah, and there's no way to do that except by going in on the ground."

This is a developing story.

A US-based charity said a consignment of almost 200 tons of food aid had reached people in northern Gaza on Tuesday, a week after being dispatched via a maritime route from the Cypriot port of Larnaca.

World Central Kitchen (WCK), working with the United Arab Emirates and Spanish charity Open Arms, sent the food via the 200-mile (322-km) sea route from Larnaca to a makeshift jetty off Gaza. The consignment arrived off Gaza on Friday.

A convoy of eight trucks belonging to the World Food Programme (WFP) ferried the aid - the equivalent of half a million meals - to its final destination on Tuesday.

A UN-backed report said on Monday that famine was "imminent" in the northern Gaza Strip, where some 300,000 people are trapped by fighting. Across the whole Gaza Strip, the number of people facing "catastrophic hunger" has risen to 1.1 million - half the population.