Israel-Hamas War day 297: What's happening in Israel, Gaza, Lebanon?

Syrian media, cited by Ynet, reported late on Monday night and early on Tuesday morning that missiles from Israel were being launched at the southern rural area of Daraa.

A later report claimed that Israel was attacking the areas of Tel Jaiba and Tel Umm Khoran.

Israel has not confirmed the reports.

This is a developing story.

Hamas blames PM Netanyahu for the lack of progress in hostage deal talks, claiming that he introduced new conditions to the ceasefire framework.

Opinion | It is 6:18 pm. Exactly 48 hours ago, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, murdered 12 Israeli children playing on the grass in a field near their home. Two days have passed, and nothing has happened.

Analysis | The US response to Hezbollah's attack on Majdal Shams is closely watched, influencing regional perceptions and shaping US-Israel dynamics amid ongoing tensions.

Comment | On July 29, 2024, a mob, which included ministers and members of Knesset, stormed the Sde Teiman detention facility in Israel, mirroring the January 6 US Capitol attack, amid intense controversy.

From Majdal Shams, Prime Minister Netanyahu vowed a strong response to Hezbollah's attack that killed 12 children despite international calls for restraint.

A number of ministers and Members of the Knesset, mainly from the coalition, criticized a raid by the IDF's military police on the Sde Teiman base in the south.

A number of ministers and Members of Knesset, mainly from the coalition, criticized a raid by the IDF's military police on the Sde Teiman base in the south, in which it arrested a number of reservists accused of abusing an imprisoned Hamas terrorist.

Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman MK Yuli Edelstein (Likud) announced that he would convene an "urgent debate" on the "soldiers' arrests and the conduct of the Military Advocate General and the Military Police."

"I will not give a hand to the scenes as they were seen today at the Sde Teiman base," Edelstein said. A situation where masked military police officers conduct a raid on an IDF base is not acceptable to me and I will not allow it to happen again. Our soldiers are not criminals and this disgraceful persecution of our soldiers is unacceptable to me," Edelstein said.

Israeli politicians criticize and cheer on protesters

Likud MK Hanoch Milvetsky left the Knesset Finance Committee in the middle of a voting session in protest of the raid, and the committee was forced to temporarily halt the session since the coalition on longer enjoyed a majority. Milvetsky called on fellow members of the coalition to follow his lead, to which Hadash Ta'al MK Ahmad Tibi said, "Is inserting an explosive into the rectum of a person legitimate?" Milvetsky responded, "If he is a Nukhba (Hamas commando), everything is legitimate."

Palestinians seen detained at the Sde Teiman Military Base in Israel's North (credit: VIA MAARIV/SECTION 27A COPYRIGHT ACT)

Milvetsky later added in a statement, "The progressive legal absurdity that burns everything in the country must stop now! I call on all of my friends in the coalition to do as I did and stop the harassment of IDF soldiers."

Other Likud MKs who also criticized the military police's conduct included MKs Dan Illouz and Nissim Vaturi.

The far-right party Otzma Yehudit announced soon after that its MKs were heading to Sde Teiman, as did Religious Zionist Party (RZP) MK Tzvi Sukkot.

Knesset Constitution Committee MK Simcha Rothman also halted his committee mid-session. Rothman said that "we see over and over again an enormous disconnect between the justice and enforcement agencies, who persecute reservists, heroic fighters, who left everything behind in order to protect us from the Nukhba terrorists, for whom 'animals' is a compliment."

A number of ministers, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich (RZP) and Development of the Negev and Galilee and National Resilience Minister Yitzhak Wasserlauf (Otzma Yehudit) criticized Military Advocate General Maj.-Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, who is responsible for investigating soldiers for alleged crimes. Smotrich demanded that she "take her hands off the IDF soldiers."

The Shas party put out a statement condemning the raid, arguing that the soldiers were arrested like "the lowliest criminals."

Opposition chairman MK Avigdor Liberman also criticized the IDF, arguing that the way to treat the issue was "of course not in a raid on a military base and arresting reservists as if they were terror activists." Liberman added that the IDF was tasked with "monsters" and that the government was at fault for "delaying and not building more jail facilities, and not posting a professional team with proper training to manage the event."

A number of Members of Knesset from the opposition criticized the ministers' conduct.

Opposition leader MK Yair Lapid called the break-in to Sde Teiman "dangerous and disgraceful criminality of MKs who are weakening and dismantling the IDF, weakening and dismantling the state of Israel, and harming the sources of our strength."

Democrats chairman Yair Golan wrote, "Whoever enables Kahanists into the government discovers how severe the phenomenon is when they choose to rebel against the army. If there were criminal offenses committed by soldiers who acted against orders – the IDF and state's duty is to interrogate them. The army cannot enable phenomena of criminal phalanges doing as they wish within the army. As usual the prime minister's silence speaks for itself," Golan wrote.

"[National Security Minister] Itamar Ben-Gvir and Otzma Yehudit are encouraging a rebellion in the army, no less," Democrats MK Gilad Kariv wrote on X. "On the way, they are exposing the soldiers and commanders of the IDF to international [criminal] processes. They are not protecting IDF soldiers – they are doing cheap politics at their expense," Kariv wrote.

Two Hezbollah terrorists were eliminated in Lebanon on Monday, one of whom belonged to the Radwan force, Hezbollah's special operations unit, the Army Radio said.

UAV strikes vehicle, motorcycle 

Earlier on Monday, the Hezbollah-affiliated Al Mayadeen reported that an unmanned aerial vehicle struck a vehicle in southern Lebanon between the localities of Meis el-Jabal and Shaqra.

Al Mayadeen added that a second strike occurred in the same area, targeting a motorcycle. 

על פי דיווחים בלבנון אדם נהרג וארבעה נפצעו בתקיפת הכטב"ם@migansh5 pic.twitter.com/N1u60xsNr4

— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) July 29, 2024

Smoke rises after an Israeli air strike in southern Lebanon, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, May 5, 2024. (credit: AYAL MARGOLIN/FLASH90)

Two people were killed, and three were wounded following the strike, according to Israeli media, citing Lebanese reports. 

The elimination comes amid reports of an Israeli response to the Hezbollah rocket attack that killed 12 children in Majdal Shams on Saturday. 

This is a developing story.  

Since the beginning of the operation in Yemen against the Houthi rebellion movement in 2015, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has sought control over the Socotra Archipelago, which is under Yemeni sovereignty.

The Lebanese Hezbollah-affiliated newspaper Al-Akhbar reported on Monday morning that this is part of a long-term project within an alliance founded between Israel and several Arab countries, particularly in the Gulf, under an American umbrella.

The archipelago, along with other islands and ports in Yemen, is a central point of this project.

Urgency to establish an alliance increased after October 7

This accelerated the pace of its development, with an Israeli military base being built on Abd al Kuri Island, the second largest in the archipelago. As part of this project, Israeli Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi met with US Central Command Commander Michael Kurilla and military commanders from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, the UAE, and Jordan in Bahrain in June.

An article published in 2020 by a French-speaking Jewish community site claimed that the UAE and Israel were planning to establish a base on Socotra Island. 

Protesters, mainly Houthi supporters, rally to show solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, in Sanaa, Yemen July 19, 2024. (credit: REUTERS/KHALED ABDULLAH)

On September 9, 2020, the French intelligence site Intelligence Online confirmed the arrival of UAE and Israeli intelligence officers on the island at the end of August 2020.

It explained that the Southern Transitional Council was under pressure from the UAE to agree to the establishment of a joint Emirati-Israeli intelligence base.

According to a report published by the Italian Institute for International Political Studies in November 2023, Socotra Island includes an Emirati intelligence base where Israeli-made sensors can be deployed to locate Iranian missiles and drones.

The military base project on Abd al Kuri Island may be part of a military intelligence integration that includes Emirati and Western bases overlooking the Gulf of Aden and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

Satellite images documented new construction at the port, which was often used to store UAE weapons and equipment under their direct supervision from 2017 to 2022. The forces also use the Mokha port in Yemen to transfer military supplies to militias they support on Yemen's western coast.

The Socotra Archipelago is one of Yemen's 22 provinces, located about 350 kilometers south of Yemen and about 250 kilometers east of Somalia. The islands are under Yemeni sovereignty. The main island's area is 3,650 square kilometers, and the other islands are small, with some uninhabited.

In 2018, as part of the Yemeni civil war, UAE military forces landed on the island and took control of key points. Today, the island is de facto controlled by the Southern Transitional Council, supported by the UAE.

The UAE has done everything to achieve control over the archipelago.

It has recruited 900 young people from the island and transferred them to the Emirates. As for Israel, it has no direct presence in the Socotra Archipelago, but everything happening there aims to serve its security through its ally, the UAE, while providing most of the intelligence information.