Israel at war: What happened on days 28-29?

Israeli forces will reach Hamas terror leader Yahya Sinwar and will kill him, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant vowed on Saturday evening briefing on developments in Operation Swords of Iron.

Further, Gallant said that "by the end of the war, there will be no Hamas in Gaza. There will be no threat to Israeli civilians from the Strip."

Israel intensified its ground operation in Gaza over the weekend, successfully targeting and dismantling vital Hamas elements, including their critical infrastructure and personnel.

WASHINGTON (JTA) — As Joe Biden was speaking a political fundraiser in Minneapolis this week, a rabbi and activist with an anti-Zionist Jewish group stood up and shouted, “Mr. President, if you care about Jewish people, as a rabbi, I need you to call for a ceasefire right now.”

Biden’s response: “Well, I understand her emotion. I really do.” The president went on to enumerate the steps he’s taken to ease Palestinian civilian suffering in Gaza: urging Israel to pause the fighting so hostages can be released and pushing Egypt to let people exit Gaza into the Sinai Peninsula.

The next day, another expression of concern for Palestinian civilians came from Biden’s chief diplomat, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, before he boarded a flight to Israel.

“When I see a Palestinian child – a boy, a girl – pulled from the rubble of a collapsed building, that hits me in the gut as much as seeing a child from Israel or anywhere else,” he said. “So this is something that we have an obligation to respond to, and we will.”

Biden and Blinken’s statements are two of several signals that a shift of sorts is happening in the White House and among Democrats in D.C. Alongside the unabashed support Biden has shown Israel since Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7 killed and wounded thousands, the president and other leaders in his party are now placing increasing emphasis on protecting Palestinian civilians and pausing the fighting as the war marks its first month with thousands of Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken attends a press conference, during his visit to Israel, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Tel Aviv, Israel November 3, 2023 (credit: REUTERS/JONATHAN ERNST)

One sign of a change came on Thursday, when Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the chamber’s number-two Democrat, called for a ceasefire — the first senator to at least partially endorse the central demand of pro-Palestinian and other progressive groups. Durbin said a ceasefire could happen only when Hamas releases the more than 200 hostages it kidnapped on Oct. 7.

“I think it is,” Durbin said when CNN anchor Poppy Harlow asked him if a ceasefire is needed now. “At least in the context of both sides agreeing. For example, the release of those who have been kidnapped should be a part of this. Immediate release. That should be the beginning of it. An effort should be made to engage in conversation between the Israelis and the Palestinians.”

On Friday, he joined a dozen other Democratic senators in signing a statement endorsing Biden’s call for “a short-term cessation of hostilities that pose high risk to civilians” and other noncombatants. The statement endorsed a pause in the fighting, rather than a full ceasefire advocated by progressive and pro-Palestinian activists.

Calls for a ceasefire

The calls for a ceasefire, which began almost as soon as the war started, have been endorsed by more than a dozen Democratic members of Congress — but rejected by Israel as a non-starter. Israel has vowed to depose Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, and a ceasefire would leave the terror group in power. Biden administration officials say they still oppose a permanent ceasefire, and back Israel’s ultimate aim of destroying Hamas.

On Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he told Blinken that he would reject a “temporary ceasefire” until Hamas released all of the hostages — a blow to the Biden administration’s push for humanitarian pauses in the fighting.

“We will not accept a temporary ceasefire that does not return our hostages,” Netanyahu said in a televised address to the nation after meeting in Israel on Friday with Blinken, who is in the region to seek relief for Palestinians while showing support for Israel. “We will not allow fuel into Gaza, and we object to the transfer of money into Gaza.”

Blinken went into his Israel trip determined to make the case for increasing the entry of aid into Gaza. At first, Israel fully barred aid from Gaza, but the daily inflow now stands at 50-60 trucks a day. “We need that and want that to increase, and I expect you’ll see that in the coming days,” Blinken said Thursday on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington, just before leaving.

The same day, John Kirby, the National Security Council spokesman, said the Biden Administration would seek a series of humanitarian pauses to facilitate relief.

“We’re really not just talking about, like, one pause,” Kirby said at the daily White House press breifing. “What we’re trying to do is explore the idea of as many pauses that might be necessary to continue to get aid out and to continue to work to get people out safely, including hostages.”

Speaking to media after meeting Netanyahu, Blinken did not back down from his quest for pauses in the fighting, but recognized that they would not happen immediately.

“Each of these efforts would be facilitated by humanitarian pauses — arrangements on the ground that increase security for civilians and permit more effective and sustained delivery of humanitarian assistance,” he said referring to bringing in relief, releasing hostages and allowing more Palestinians to cross into Egypt.

“How when and where these can be implemented, what work needs to happen and what understandings need to be reached — we recognize this would take time to prepare and coordinate with international partners,” he said. “A number of legitimate questions were raised today — how to use any period of pause to maximize the flow of aid, how to connect the pause to hostage release, how to ensure Hamas doesn’t use the pause to own advantage. We believe they can be solved.”

In his televised address, Netanyahu, his voice at times choked, said he showed Blinken a video of children wailing while watching terrorists murder their father.

Blinken also teared up at his own press conference, describing the video.

“I saw, for example, a family on a kibbutz, a father of two young boys — maybe 10, 11 years old — grabbing them, pulling them out of their living room, going through their very small backyard and into a shelter, followed seconds later by a terrorist who throws a grenade into that small shelter,” he said.

Netanyahu concluded his speech by describing the heroism of some Israeli troops who have fallen in the ground incursion into Gaza, which started last week.

“We will do everything that is needed to defeat our enemies, with the help of God, and with the help of you citizens of Israel,” he said in remarks screened just before the onset of Shabbat. “We will do it and we will be victorious.”

A video made the rounds on social media on Thursday showing several dead Palestinians lying in the road, belongings strewn where they fell. A man, on a bicycle, rides through the chaotic scene shouting "God, a child. God, women. God, the girl. Please God protect our people. Please look."

The video is the latest in a series of videos from Gaza that show what pro-Palestine voices described as "Israeli war crimes." Pro-Israel voices have claimed conversely that the video shows evidence of a Hamas massacre of civilians fleeing south.

+18..Horrific scenes now on Al-Rashid Street, west of Gaza, after the occupation bombed the displaced people 🇵🇸 pic.twitter.com/p1MSPmmSki

— Gaza Now in English (@EnglishGaza) November 3, 2023

The video claims to show the Al Rashid Coastal Road which is the only major road on the coast to run from the border with Egypt until reaching the Gaza marina. In the video, the man on the bike is indeed cycling north along the road, this can be confirmed when the man turns his head to the left and we see the coastal sand dunes. 

Reuters, and multiple other sources, confirmed that the location was the Al Rashid Coastal Road specifically the section between Wadi Gaza and Gaza City. Reuters was unable to confirm anything else about the video, such as the identity of the person filming, those seen in the video, or what killed them.

In case you don't believe me... pic.twitter.com/otELmVktyR

— Elliot Cohen 🌹 (@labenal1) November 3, 2023

The BBC interviewed a man about the clip who claimed he had been shot at by Israeli snipers along a 1.5 km. stretch of road in the same place as the video. The man claimed that a donkey had been "cut to pieces, along with the cart and everyone in it."

It seems unlikely that the man was referring to the same event as in the video for a few reasons. First, there doesn't appear to be a dead donkey in the video. Second, the people in the video do not have anything that could be described as a cart, making it unlikely what the man was describing is the same event. 

An Israeli airstrike?

In the immediate few hours after the release of the video, several Arab sources claimed that the civilians had been killed by an Israeli airstrike. Jordan News claimed that "Israeli strike claims 14 lives on Gaza’s coastal road," which was then echoed by social media users. This is extremely unlikely because there is no crater in the video whatsoever, and neither do the bodies seem impacted by the force of an explosion.

From what we see of the bodies and debris, the people killed were heading south. This can be understood from the skid marks on the road.

Near the beginning of the video, we see the bloody body of a child with a pool of blood near its head. Behind the child along the road, is a bloody skid mark running from the child's body heading north. The skid mark ends near where more bodies are seen, meaning the child's body was thrown at great speed along the road. A second body can be seen slightly further from the child's body with similar skid marks behind it leading to the same location.

This leads us to the conclusion that whoever killed these people killed the others first which then launched the two bodies down the road causing the skid marks. This combined with the destroyed vehicle seen at the very beginning is clear evidence that someone shot at civilians fleeing to the south. 

This photograph taken with a drone shows Palestinian houses and buildings at the Beach refugee camp in Gaza City on April 7, 2021. (credit: MOHAMMED SALEM/ REUTERS)

There are unconfirmed claims on social media that they were carrying white flags, by IDF specifications for those wishing to flee.

Breaking News: Just now, #Hamas snipers have reportedly killed dozens of children and women on the streets, targeting those attempting to travel from north to south #Gaza and those displaying white flags as a sign of peace. Similar acts have previously been attributed to…

— Amjad Taha أمجد طه (@amjadt25) November 3, 2023

Amjad Taha, an Arab journalist, claims that targeting civilians waving white flags was a common tactic for Hezbollah and Palestinian terror groups in Syria, and concludes that it is likely that they were targeted by Hamas snipers for attempting to flee.

"Hamas terrorists in Gaza will, as usual, blame #Israel because it is easy and there is media that accepts this propaganda," he said.

The Pentagon has requested from the IDF an explanation regarding the Israeli strike on the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza that occurred on Tuesday, according to a Friday report from Politico, citing US and Israeli officials.

Israel was asked to "detail the thinking and process behind the recent strike," the report said citing a US official, and that Biden administration officials urged Israel to "conduct 'precision targeting' in order to avoid harming civilians," the report cited the official as saying.

The airstrike killed dozens of people the report said, though the Hamas-run government media office said that the death toll of the attack was 195. 

The UN human rights office said that the attack could amount to war crimes.

The official told Politico that the explanation was requested from Israel in the context for the country to avoid more Gazan civilian casualties.

Palestinians gather at the site of Israeli strikes on houses in Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, November 1, 2023 (credit: REUTERS/Fadi Whadi)

IDF says there was a Hamas military stronghold in the area

The IDF stated that the Givati Brigade took over a Hamas military stronghold in the area and that 50 terrorists were killed by Israeli forces in the process. The stronghold also held many weapons used by the Hamas terrorists.

The attack in the area also eliminated Ibrahim Biari, the commander of Hamas's Jabaliya battalion, and one of the leaders of the October 7 massacre. 

Reuters contributed to this report.

A senior White House official said on Saturday in a press briefing that the evacuation of the wounded and foreign citizens from Gaza was delayed because Hamas had tried to take some of its wounded fighters through the Rafah crossing to Egypt for treatment, Hebrew media sourced the official as saying.

"A third of the people who were on the list that Hamas submitted turned out to be Hamas fighters," said the official.

The senior official added that the administration is talking about a "humanitarian truce" and not a ceasefire, and claimed that it is impossible to talk about it "when a terrorist organization murders 1,400 people, kidnaps civilians, and hides in tunnels."

President Biden's visit to Israel and a conversation with Egyptian President El-Sisi led to the beginning of the arrival of humanitarian aid, about 100 trucks a day, N12 reported, and he says that "they are working on it to increase."

The conversation with the Egyptian president acknowledged that there are still foreign citizens in Gaza who have difficulty leaving the region. "Yesterday foreign nationals were allowed to leave Gaza but Hamas didn't allow them. There are approximately 6,000 foreign nationals and 1,000 Americans and their families who cannot leave because of Hamas," N12 reported him as saying.

Military personnel stand guard on the day of Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly's visit to the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Rafah, Egypt, October 31, 2023. (credit: REUTERS/MOHAMED ABD EL GHANY)

"Not the time to withhold funds from Palestinian Authority"

The White House official also said that "this is not the time to withhold funds from the Palestinian Authority - the opposite should be done." The Biden administration opposes the cabinet's decision from Thursday to offset part of the tax money that Israel transfers to the Palestinian Authority.

The senior official in the White House stated that steps must be taken to increase stability in the West Bank. "Hamas is the enemy of the Palestinian Authority - that is our opinion," said the official in the White House.

The senior Biden administration official also said that the United States is making intense efforts to gain the release of hostages from Hamas control in Gaza.

The official admitted, however, that there is no guarantee of success or a timeframe.

The official, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity, said there is "indirect engagement" aimed at finding a framework to get hostages out of Gaza, but that the work is extremely difficult.

Barak Ravid/Walla and Reuters contributed to this report.

US officials are making intense efforts to gain the release of hostages held by Hamas militants in Gaza, but there is no guarantee of success or a timeframe, a senior Biden administration official said on Friday.

The official, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity, said there was "indirect engagement" aimed at finding a way to get the hostages out but that the work was extremely difficult.

Hamas, which rules the Palestinian Gaza Strip, killed 1,400 people and took more than 240 others hostage in an Oct. 7 assault in southern Israel.

Many of the hostages are still being held in Gaza, where the Israeli military has launched air strikes and a ground assault and imposed a siege. Gaza health officials say more than 9,250 Palestinians have been killed.

The official said it would require a "very significant pause in the conflict" to get the hostages out.

Families of Israelis held hostage by Hamas terrorists in Gaza hold up photographs of their abducted family members, outside the Egyptian embassy in Tel Aviv, October 26, 2023. (credit: TOMER NEUBERG/FLASH90)

"It is something that is under a very serious and active discussion... There is no agreement as of yet to actually get this done, but it's something we're working on extremely hard," he said.

"We're hopeful and doing everything we possibly can to get the hostages out, but there's absolutely no guarantee a) that it is going to happen or b) when it's going to happen," the official added.

"We are going to do all we possibly can to make sure that all the hostages of all nationalities come out of Gaza. So there's an active process going on here with multiple lines of effort, including indirect engagement to try to find a framework to get the hostages out of Gaza," the official said.

US administration negotiating with Hamas

The official said the administration was also negotiating with Hamas over allowing foreign nationals trapped in the tiny enclave safe passage out of Gaza.

Explaining why it took "so long" to get foreign nationals out, the official said Hamas conditioned the release of foreigners on wounded Palestinians being able to exit as well.

"But the list that was provided, once it was vetted, (about) a third of the wounded Palestinians on the list were members of Hamas... That was just unacceptable to Egypt, to us, to Israel," the official said.

"And so this went on for some time. Eventually, what was worked out was that the wounded Palestinian civilians leaving with the foreign nationals were not Hamas fighters," the official added.

Brazil's ruling Workers Party criticized the Israeli government on Friday for not allowing 34 Brazilians to leave Gaza, saying Israel is playing favorites when deciding who should be allowed to evacuate the besieged Palestinian territory.

In three days since the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt opened to allow nationals of other countries to leave Gaza, Brazilians waiting to leave were not on the list approved by Israel, despite diplomatic efforts to include them.

"For the third time, the Israeli government denied the departure of Brazilian citizens threatened by the massacre against the civilian population in the Gaza strip," Workers Party president Gleisi Hoffmann said in a social media post.

She said the Israeli government has not provided any explanation for what she said was discrimination. Brazil tried to find a negotiated solution to the conflict when it presided over the UN Security Council in October, Hoffmann said.

"Unfortunately, the Israeli government signals that it has established a political hierarchy for the release of civilians, favoring some countries over others," Hoffmann said.

"We cannot allow that Brazilian civilians remain threatened in a region under military massacre," she added.

Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva attends a ceremony at the Planalto Palace in Brasilia, Brazil August 30, 2023. (credit: REUTERS/ADRIANO MACHADO/FILE PHOTO)

Worker's Party blames Israel

Hundreds of foreign passport holders and gravely injured Palestinians have been evacuated from Gaza via the Rafah crossing to Egypt since Wednesday in a deal brokered by Qatar between Egypt, Israel, and Hamas, in coordination with the US.

Israel has vowed to wipe out Hamas, which rules Gaza, after the militant group killed 1,400 people and took more than 240 hostages in an Oct. 7 assault in southern Israel. Israel's retaliation by air and ground assault has killed more than 9,250 Palestinians, Gaza health officials say.

A diplomatic source briefed on Egyptian plans said some 7,500 foreign passport holders would be evacuated over two weeks.

Brazilian officials said they have no explanation for the failure to let their citizens out of Gaza. Some local media have speculated it is due to positions taken by Brazil at the United Nations and comments by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Lula has criticized the "terrorism" of Hamas that started the war, but he has also criticized Israel for its "insane" bombardment of Gaza that has killed hundreds of children.

A senior official in the White House said on Saturday in a press briefing that "this is not the time to withhold funds from the Palestinian Authority - the opposite should be done."

The senior official in the White House stated that steps must be taken to increase stability in the West Bank. "Hamas is the enemy of the Palestinian Authority - that is our opinion," said the official in the White House.

The IDF carried out strikes on a terror cell that tried to launch anti-tank missiles from Lebanon towards Israel on Friday night.

Additionally, an IAF aircraft eliminated a terrorist who attempted to approach the border to Israel near the northern town of Shlomi.

In a plea for the return of the abducted and missing, families of the captives have vowed to not return to their homes until the hostages are returned safely, Israeli media said Friday.

Families of the 241 confirmed hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip have vowed to remain at the headquarters for the Hostages and Missing Families Forum until their family members have returned.

In order to do so, they prepared supplies including tents, sleeping bags, and mattresses to camp out at Hostage Square.

At the Sha'ar Shaul at the Kirya in Tel Aviv, families vowed support for those still missing. "From the evening until all the abductees return - no one is going home," according to the forum. They plan to remain there 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

"They are barricading themselves until they return; the families of the abductees are moving to sleep in front of the cabinet," leaders of the movement said.