Israel at war: What happened on day 393?

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei stated that the ongoing conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon have killed 50,000 people over the last year in a Saturday post to X/Twitter.

Ongoing events in #Lebanon & #Gaza have resulted in the martyrdom of 50,000 ppl in the last year, mostly women & children. Is this a small matter? The US that claims to be an advocate of human rights, supports & is complicit in those crimes. Plans & weapons used are from the US.

— Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) November 2, 2024

The Iranian autocrat added that the majority of those killed have been women and children.

"Is this a small matter?" Khamenei wrote. "The US that claims to be an advocate of human rights, supports & is complicit in those crimes. Plans & weapons used are from the US."
 
 
 

Benny Sabati, an Iran researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, said that an Iranian military response to the Israeli strikes in Iran was guaranteed in a recent interview with Maariv.

“If two or three weeks after our attack we heard public responses such as ‘nothing happened, minimal damage,’ it seems now the Iranians are assessing the damage and realizing there was indeed something significant,” Sabati said.

“The level of the threats Israel has been receiving in recent days is rising,” he explained. “Initially, it started with low-level parliament members, but now it has reached the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps generals. The level of threats is rising very fast. In Iran, they are saying they will prepare a response that Israel can't withstand, that Israel will be defeated. The discourse of destruction is returning, and they are speaking as if the state is on the brink of collapse.”

“In terms of a response,” Sabati assured, “there is no doubt there will be a response. There is no way the Iranians will allow themselves not to respond.

"Iran is trying to create a new dynamic where others might come to restrain Israel. It’s like taking someone hostage: they are threatening Europe so that Europe will pressure us.”

Mere seconds after Brigadier General Guy Levy, Commander of the 98th Division, gave the final approval, a Yahalom officer pressed the button, and the ground in northern Israel trembled. 

The Home Front Command app reported an earthquake measuring 4.5 on the Richter scale. In reality, it was the detonation of 400 tons of explosives that collapsed Hezbollah's tunnel system in a Lebanese village close to the Israeli border, opposite Kibbutz Misgav Am.

Intelligence officials clearly identified Hezbollah's complex tunnel system built 800 meters from the border, which, at the peak of the fighting, housed around 1,000 Hezbollah terrorists, most of them from the Radwan Force, awaiting orders for a raid into Israel.

In preliminary discussions between Levy and the Paratroopers Brigade Commander, Col. Ami Biton, it was evident that the mission's challenges were multi-staged: maneuvering into the heart of the village amid anti-tank and sniper squads, explosive devices, rockets, and mortar shells being fired at them. Once advancing to the village center, the objectives were to kill terrorists, locate the tunnel system and its branches, and ultimately destroy it.

The IDF eliminated Jaafar Khader Faour, the commander of the missile and rocket array of Hezbollah's "Nasser" Unit in southern Lebanon, the military announced on Saturday evening. 

An Israel Air Force fighter jet, in cooperation with Northern Command, killed Faour in the Jouaiyya area in southern Lebanon. 

An additional commander of the drone unit was also eliminated along with Faour, the IDF noted. 

Faour was responsible for firing rockets and drones at northern Israel from eastern Lebanon, and his unit was the first to fire at Israel on October 8, 2023, giving the order to begin the conflict along Israel's northern border. 

He was also responsible for firing rockets at the Golan Heights, which killed Israeli civilians, including Noa and Nir Baranes from Kibbutz Ortal, and the attack on Majdal Shams that killed 12 children, the military stated. 

Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report. 

Cairo is hosting meetings between Fatah and Hamas to discuss forming a committee to run Gaza as part of post-war plans, a senior Egyptian security source has told Egypt's state-affiliated Al Qahera News TV.

The move is part of Egypt's mediation efforts involving Palestinian and Israeli parties to reach a ceasefire and expand humanitarian aid access.

The source also said that Hamas insists that talks should lead to a comprehensive agreement that secures an end to the war, and also achieves a hostages-for-prisoners swap deal.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however, has said war can only end once Hamas is eradicated.

Soldiers from the 5th Brigade located an underground tunnel route within the civilian population near Zeitoun containing a Hamas weapons manufacturing facility, the military announced on Saturday evening. 

The troops operated under the direction of the 252nd Division.

The situation in the northern Gaza Strip is "apocalyptic" as Israel pursues a military offensive against Hamas terrorists in the area, top United Nations officials warned on Friday.

"The entire Palestinian population in North Gaza is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine and violence," they said in a statement signed by the acting UN aid chief Joyce Msuya, heads of UN agencies, including UN children's agency UNICEF and the World Food Program, and other aid groups.

Israel began a wide military push in northern Gaza last month. The United States has said it was watching to ensure that its ally's actions on the ground show it does not have a "policy of starvation" in the north.

On Monday, the Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said around 100,000 people were marooned in Jabalya, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza without medical or food supplies. Reuters could not verify the number independently.

The United States told Israel in a letter on October 13 that it must take steps within 30 days.