Israel-Hamas War Day 263: What is happening in Gaza, Lebanon border?

Education Minister Yoav Kisch on Tuesday said at the Herzliya conference that the government must immediately pass a law to draft 3,000 haredim into the IDF as requested by the military.

Responding to the ruling on the issue by the High Court of Justice, he said that the haredi political parties will now need to cut a reasonable compromise along the lines of what Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chair Yuli Edelstein has started to seek.

Rocket sirens sounded in Kerem Shalom, near the border of the Gaza Strip, on Tuesday afternoon.

The IDF later noted that the siren had been a false alarm.

An Israeli Air Force aircraft struck Hamas terrorists who were operating inside the Islamic University in the Sabra area of the Gaza Strip, the IDF reported on Tuesday.

This is a developing story.

Former prime minister Naftali Bennett on Tuesday said that "October 7 was an epic colossal failure of the State of Israel."

Speaking at the Tel Aviv University Cyber Week Conference, he said, "We failed in intelligence, in operations, and for a month after the attacks, institutional Israel, almost all government ministries melted down, education, welfare, finance - nothing worked."

National Security Advisor Tzachi Hanegbi said he was "optimistic" about negotiations at the Herzliya conference at Reichman University, Israeli media reported on Tuesday.

"There is tremendous pressure from the mediators on Hamas," he's said. 

Demonstrators also turned out to express their disappointment with the national security advisor.

"How are you here when there are 120 people in Gaza?" protesters shouted at Hanegbi. "Their voices are not heard, their families are shattered." 

A full, extended nine-judge panel of the High Court of Justice on Tuesday ordered a full draft of haredim into the IDF and the freezing of all funds for institutions that do not comply starting April 1.

The blockbuster ruling could lead to new elections or, if not, a change in the political landscape on the issue of haredim in the IDF.

If the government and Knesset have been working slowly on the issue for months and years, hoping to stall a crisis, the pressure on haredi MKs and the government to arrive at a solution to restore their funding just jumped significantly.

Egypt has rejected Israel's proposal to allow Palestinians in need of medical treatment to exit through the Kerem Shalom crossing, the Hezbollah-affiliated Lebanese news agency, Al-Akhbar reported on Tuesday morning.

Israel announced the proposal on Monday morning. It would require coordination with Egypt on the other side of the crossing and security procedures.

According to Al-Akhbar, the Egyptian refusal was based on Cairo’s belief that Palestinians should control the crossing.

Egypt reportedly said it would instead send necessary aid through the crossing to treat Palestinians in Gaza.

Israel’s enemies are watching the divide between Washington and Jerusalem, so it's important to resolve the disputes between the two countries, Defense Secretary Yoav Gallant told US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

“The eyes of both our enemies and our friends are on the relationship between the US and Israel. We must resolve the differences between us quickly and stand together – this is how we will achieve our goals and weaken our enemies,” Gallant said.

He spoke amid a bitter public dispute between the two countries over the flow of arms to Israel for its wars against the Iranian proxy groups, Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman on Tuesday said that he is reviewing if Iran and other hackers succeeded in penetrating the cyber defenses of the Prime Minister's Office, the IDF's drones, and the IDF home front command.

Speaking at the Tel Aviv University Cyber Week Conference, he said he is also reviewing 30 main public bodies to see how they handled the more intense cyber attacks on Israel during the current war.

Although he hopes the report will be released in the coming months, it could take longer due to broader disputes with the IDF about when it will provide information related to the ongoing war.

Englman said that his report, "first deals with gaps in the level of cyber protection and in the resilience of Israel, and the actions the regulatory bodies took in order to strengthen the resilience. The second examines the preparedness of critical bodies to cyber-attacks and how those attacks were dealt."

The sister of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was reportedly killed in an IDF attack on the Shati refugee camp in Gaza on Tuesday, Israeli media, citing Palestinian sources, reported on Tuesday morning. 

In April, the state attorney's office filed an indictment against 57-year-old Zebah Abdel Salem Haniyeh, another sister of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, who lives in Tel Sheva.

She was arrested on suspicion of having ties to Hamas and engaging in incitement and support for terror and was released to house arrest in May.