Israel-Hamas War: What happened on Day 341?

IDF, Shin Bet, and Border Police forces continued heavy operations in Tulkarm as part of an extensive effort to dismantle terrorist infrastructure in West Bank city, the IDF announced Tuesday afternoon.

This is a developing story.

Gil Dickmann's worst nightmare came true when he was told his cousin Carmel Gat, who had survived 11 months in Hamas captivity, had been killed in a tunnel in Gaza just before Israeli forces arrived.

"She was so close to hugging her father," Dickmann, 32, told Reuters outside the Israeli Knesset, where he was lobbying lawmakers to push for a deal to secure the hostages' release.

"We failed as a country; we failed as a community."

Gat's body and those of five fellow hostages were recovered by Israeli troops on September 1, triggering an outpouring of grief and mass protests among Israelis demanding a hostage deal.

The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry stated on Tuesday that the death toll in Gaza has reached 41,020 since the war started on October 7 of last year.

A further 94,925 have thus far been wounded in the conflict, the Gazan ministry added.

The number has not been independently verified, and the ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its toll.

The Hamas-run ministry has also been repeatedly criticized for distorting casualty figures.

In May, departing from Hamas’s reported figures, the UN halved the number of women and children it had previously reported had been killed thus far in the war.

The IDF confirmed publicly on Tuesday that it mistakenly killed three Israeli hostages along with Hamas Gaza City Brigade Chief Admed An-Dur in December, which, until now, officials had only hinted to.

Back in December, the IDF revealed finding five hostage bodies, three of which related to the incident in question.

Unlike the IDF's usual briefing, it did not blame Hamas for their deaths and dropped hints that its air strike might have killed the three hostages but said it would not confirm anything until after a forensics probe.

Overnight between Monday and Tuesday, the IDF finally confirmed that it had killed the three when Channel 12 reported the military had passed on the information to the hostage families but was withholding an announcement from the public.

The IDF announced on Tuesday that overnight, it had mapped out the West Bank home of the terrorist responsible for the failed terror attack carried out in Tel Aviv in August.

The mapping of the home was conducted to ascertain whether the home could be demolished.

Separately, the IDF arrested 16 suspects throughout the West Bank and confiscated weapons, among which was an M16 rifle. 

The Israel Air Force killed a Hezbollah Radwan Force commander Mohammad Qassem Al-Sha'a in an airstrike in Qaraoun in the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon, the military said on Tuesday. 

The IDF noted that Al-Sha'a had advanced many terror activities against Israel.

The military further added that its artillery had fired at the Souaneh and Ayta ash Shab areas in Lebanon. 

Reports of a strike

Earlier, Israeli media, citing Arabic reports, said a Hezbollah operative had been killed in a targeted strike in the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon.

Yemen's Houthis terrorist organization downed a US MQ-9 drone in Saada province, the Iran-aligned group's military spokesperson Yahya Saree said on Tuesday.

South Africa is attempting to postpone the deadline for which it would have to submit its evidence at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague due to a lack of evidence pointing to genocide in Gaza, according to KAN news on Tuesday. 

South Africa is required to submit its evidence by October 28. However, the report noted that it is now attempting to add a few more months to the timeline. 

On Monday, Walla reported, citing a classified memo from the Foreign Ministry, that Israel was seeking the help of US Congress in applying pressure on South Africa to halt proceedings against it.  

The Israel Air Force (IAF) struck Hamas terrorists Samer Ismail Khadr Abu Daqqa, Ayman Mabhouh, and Osama Tabesh in a strike in Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip, the military said on Tuesday.