Israel-Hamas War: What happened on day 173?

One of the Gaza hostages, Luis Har, who was rescued by the IDF in mid-February, spoke to the Daily Mail in a report they released on Wednesday regarding his detainment by the Hamas terrorist organization in Gaza.

The rescue occurred at 2 a.m. where the Mail report described it as a "huge explosion which threw the 71-year-old accountant from his mattress and ripped off the door from his tiny cell-like room."

Hamas terrorists opened fire on IDF soldiers from within the emergency room unit of the al-Shifa Hospital, the IDF announced on Thursday.

The firefight occurred amid the ongoing operational activity in the Shifa Hospital and surrounding area.  Soldiers from the 401st Brigade, Nahal Brigade, and Navy Seal Unit Shayetet 13 killed the terrorists while preventing harm to civilians, patients, medical teams, and medical equipment in the hospital, the IDF said.

Amid the firefights, IDF troops evacuated civilians, patients, and medical teams to alternative medical facilities that the IDF set up in the area to enable proper medical treatment to continue.

Approximately 200 terrorists have been eliminated in the area of the hospital, and hundreds more have been arrested since the start of operations in al-Shifa Hospital.

Separately, soldiers from the Commando Brigade struck terrorist infrastructures that contained weapons in the Al-Amal and Al-Qarara areas. The troops also found explosive devices and mortar shells. 

Israeli security officials revealed to The New York Times facial recognition technology used in Gaza by IDF intelligence units, including the cyber-intelligence division Unit 8200, to locate hostages and members of terrorist organizations.

The technology was initially used in Gaza to search for Israeli hostages taken by Hamas during Hamas’s massacre on October 7, The New York Times reported on Wednesday, citing anonymous intelligence officials. 

After Israel began its ground offensive in Gaza, the program was increasingly used to root out anyone with ties to Hamas or other terrorist groups. 

The three security officials who revealed the information to The New York Times told the publication that they did so because they were concerned that it was a misuse of time and resources by Israel, the report said.

The facial recognition program uses technology from Corsight, a private Israeli company, and Google Photos as well. The IDF uploads a database of known persons to Google Photos and then uses the service’s photo search function to identify people. The Corsight technology allows intelligence personnel to identify faces from crowds and grainy drone footage and identify them. However, the technology is not entirely accurate. 

IDF intelligence unit working on uncovering a Hamas honeypot scam. (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON UNIT)

According to Corsight’s website, its technology requires less than 50% of a face to be visible for accurate recognition. The New York Times reported that Corsight’s president posted on LinkedIn that the facial recognition technology could work from “extreme angles, even from drones, darkness, poor quality.”

A report was received regarding a shooting at Route 90 adjacent to the town of Al-Auja, the IDF announced on Thursday morning.

After initial reports, Israeli media reported at least two injuries at the time of the incident

This is a developing story.

Rocket sirens sound in Goren, Gornot HaGalil, near Lebanon.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei posted on X Wednesday morning that read: "War also takes place within the media, whoever has the strongest media in their hands will succeed in achieving the goals they seek."

الشعر وسيلة إعلاميّة، والتحدّيات والصراعات في العالم اليوم هي تحدّيات إعلاميّة. الحرب حربُ الإعلام، فمَن يملك وسيلة إعلاميّة أقوى سيكون الأكثر نجاحاً في تحقيق الأهداف التي ينشدها.

— الإمام الخامنئي (@ar_khamenei) March 25, 2024

Since the October 7 massacre, Israel has received hostile coverage from numerous media outlets, to which Maariv reported that this was due to the failure to present correct information on Operation Swords of Iron, stating that a lot of misinformation published about the Jewish state in recent months.

The US military said on Wednesday it had destroyed four long-range drones launched by Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen.

Nearly half a year since the October 7 Hamas invasion, how it happened remains unfathomable.

Still fighting the war to destroy Hamas, the nation has not yet turned from the battleground to an in-depth look at what went so terribly wrong.

The United States will only support a pause to the Gaza war that includes the release of hostages, Senator Lindsay Graham (R-South Carolina) told reporters in Israel on Wednesday as he warned Hamas not to misunderstand Washington’s abstention on the recent United Nations Security Council resolution.

“Hamas can’t believe for a second that Israel would pause the fighting without the return of the hostages,” Graham said.

Dozens of people protested outside the Beirut office of the United Nations Palestinian Refugee Agency (UNRWA) on Wednesday after it put a staff member on administrative leave over possible violations of staff conduct regulations.

School teacher Fathi al-Sharif was put on leave for three months without pay as the UN agency investigated alleged activities "that are in violation of the Agency's regulatory framework governing staff conduct," the agency told Reuters in a statement.