Israel at War: What happened on Day 62?

Israel's Knesset rallied in support of Minister Gadi Eisenkot from National Unity after his son Gal was killed in action in Gaza on Thursday.

National Unity leader Minister Benny Gantz sent his condolences to Eisenkot and his family, saying that everyone was committed to continue fighting for the cause for which Gal had died.

Two months into a war with Hamas, the faces of Israelis taken hostage to Gaza still appear on individual posters plastered across Jerusalem bus stops and flashed across buildings.

The somber mood was all-consuming on Thursday at the start of Hanukkah, the first Jewish festival since Oct. 7 when Hamas massacred 1,200 people.

It was a solemn moment for all of Israel and not only for families of the 138 Israelis still held hostage.

For some Israelis, the feeling is of a country shrinking.

Some 200,000 Israelis have been uprooted from both the south of Israel where Hamas infiltrated and the north of Israel where Hezbollah attacked from Lebanon. Absent tourists because of the war, hotels have accommodated many of the evacuees.

"Oct. 7 was a day that changed the course of history in Israel," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lior Haiat said, calling it "the worst day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust."

Aghast at the Hamas killings, Israelis have bought up guns with the government's blessing.

The nation is largely self-absorbed. Israeli television channels, dominated by war news, rarely broadcast scenes from Gaza except to show soldiers in action.

Israelis must look to channels abroad to view the landscape of buildings destroyed or vacated during an Israeli bombardment and ground offensive in which Gaza health officials say more than 16,000 people have been killed.

Gone are weekly demonstrations that for months drew hundreds of thousands of Israelis into the streets to protest against a government plan to limit the judiciary they assailed as anti-democratic.

The country seems less polarized, at least for now, as it readies to celebrate Hanukkah.

Commemorating an ancient Jewish victory, Hanukkah is a family festival lasting eight nights and featuring candle lighting and frying of foods in oil because, tradition says, of a miracle that oil found to fuel a ceremonial lamp was only enough for one day, but it burned for eight.

JOE BIDEN AN ISRAELI HERO

Although affected emotionally, many Israelis say the war hasn't broken them. Psychologist Danny Brom said, though, he had been receiving more patients since Oct. 7.

People struggling not to feel helpless have found purpose in baking cookies and braided challot bread for soldiers, he said, while one woman offered swimming lessons to evacuees at a hotel.

Public opinion is generally with the soldiers and for the continuation of the war.

Israelis take pride in the Iron Dome missile defense system developed in Israel with US backing to counter the rockets fired from Gaza and Lebanon.

Perhaps the biggest hero of the moment is US President Joe Biden who, in the face of global criticism, has consistently supported Israel's military action.

A billboard shows Biden smiling in front of Israeli and US flags on Jerusalem's Emek Refaim Street with the word "Thanks" in English across the top.

A depiction of US President Joe Biden smiling on a billboard with the word ''Thanks!'' emblazoned across it, is seen amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, Jerusalem, November 28, 2023 (credit: REUTERS/Howard Goller)

Israeli families have publicly thanked Biden, along with Egypt and Qatar, for helping to free the hostages.

Center stage on the activist front are relatives and supporters of the hostages who have set up camp at a Tel Aviv square outside the Defence Ministry where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convenes his war cabinet.

They have renamed the square "Hostages Plaza" and joined in increasingly impatient chants that insist on bringing back their loved ones "Now. Now. Now" with each "Now" louder than the last.

Fighting for his political survival, Netanyahu cites as priorities wiping out Hamas and the return of the hostages.

A commission of inquiry is expected into the military and political failures that led to the Oct. 7 attack but its work is likely months away with the country focused on the war itself.

PEACE ACTIVISTS EYE THE DAY AFTER

Opinion polls show little backing for a decades-old vision of peacemaking with the Palestinians. That, many Israelis say, was blown apart by the actions of an Iranian-backed Hamas committed to Israel's destruction.

Israeli support for negotiations with the Palestinian Authority dropped 23% in two months, based on a Peace Index survey in late October for the Tel Aviv University International Program in Conflict Resolution and Mediation.

"We are talking about the lowest point for negotiation and the biggest drop in support from one poll to the next that we've ever witnessed" in three decades of polling, said Nimrod Rosler, academic head of the program.

Activists for peace with Palestinians and campaigners who before the war assailed the Netanyahu government's judicial overhaul are focused on the war but eyeing the day after.

"You cannot just overthrow this sort of semi-state and not say what is going to happen after that," said Yael Drier Shilo, a founding member of the Israeli-Palestinian peace group Standing Together.

"We are willing to say we want a moderate Palestinian state and we are willing to negotiate and give them the possibility to dismantle Hamas," she said.

Meredith Rothbart, CEO of a nonprofit committed to facilitating peace-building, said that with interest growing in its Israeli-Palestinian leadership institute, it has expanded to two tracks - one for CEOs and another for mid-level leaders.

"This moment does not tell me that we have failed. It tells me that maybe other people see what's needed," said Rothbart, whose Amal-Tikva organization is a combination of the Arabic and Hebrew words for hope.

Her goal is to engage the two peoples in peacemaking from within their societies - rather than through a diplomatic solution - so that each sees peace as best for its own people.

'IT'S NOT THE TIME NOW,' SAYS PROTEST LEADER

Ron Scherf is a founder of the Brothers in Arms coalition that mobilized protests against the judicial overhaul. After the Oct. 7 Hamas attack it pivoted to organize aid to victims, survivors and soldiers before the government did.

Scherf said it was too early to talk about resuming the anti-government protests.

"I hope they (the government) will be able to take responsibility and understand the guilt and go away. And if not, we will return to the streets when it will be the time for that. It's not the time now," he said.

Israeli forces continued operations across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, clashing with Hamas terrorists in raids on the Jabaliya refugee camp and the southern city of Khan Yunis, the IDF said.

Forces from the IDF's 98th Division, accompanied by Air Force aircraft, struck and downed dozens of terrorists and terror targets in Khan Yunis. A Duvdevan special force destroyed a tunnel shaft in the city after encountering a terror cell seen exiting the tunnel.

In Jabaliya, the 460th Brigade raided Hamas's Beisan military outpost located inside the refugee camp. Israeli forces located a network of underground tunnels leading in and out of the post, as well as a hidden military training complex and a warehouse used for storing weaponry.

In addition, Israeli Navy forces struck Hamas terror bases using precision-guided munitions and mortar fire.

Hamas provided Israel with intelligence on fellow Gaza-based terror group Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in the months leading up to the former's October 7 massacre in southern Israel, the Washington Post reported on Thursday morning.

The terror group passed on information on the PIJ to Israel with the hopes of maintaining an Israeli belief that Hamas was interested in the Strip's stability, rather than entering a conflict with Israel, the report, which cited an unnamed Israeli official, noted.

As per the official, Hamas had for years attempted to strengthen the Israeli misconception of the terror group's true intentions through attempts to focus on civilian issues, such as working with Israel to raise the number of work permits given to Gazans.

Before October 7, Israel had issued close to 20,000 active work permits for Palestinians in Gaza, who have been unable to work since Hamas launched its mass infiltration and attacks on Israelis.

Hamas lulled Israel into false sense of complacency

In addition, Hamas sought to "lull Israel into complacency" by holding large demonstrations at the Gaza border in the months leading up to the attack, "to get the IDF used to the sight of crowds at the border," the Washington Post cited senior IDF intelligence officer Miri Eisin as saying.

Palestinians protest against Israeli army raid in Jenin, along Israel-Gaza border fence east of Gaza City July 3, 2023 (credit: REUTERS/MOHAMMED SALEM)

Hamas refrained from attacking Israel in previous Gaza operation

The report continued, noting that Hamas made an effort to refrain from entering into a direct conflict with the IDF since Operation Guardian of the Walls in 2021, fought primarily between Israel and the Islamic Jihad, in preparation for its long-planned October 7 attack.

At the time, Hamas was criticized by Palestinian factions for failing to join Islamic Jihad in firing rockets at Israel. Over the past few years, reports in several Palestinian and Arab media outlets have referred to rising tension between the two terror groups.

Khaled Abu Toameh contributed to this report.

St.-Sgt. Amit Bonzel, 22, from Shoham, fell on Sunday in a battle in central Gaza.

St.-Sgt. Alemnew Emanuel Feleke, 22, from Kiryat Gat, died yesterday due to wounds inflicted in battle on December 5 in the southern Gaza Strip.

IDF Southern Command Chief Maj.-Gen. Yaron Finkleman on Wednesday said in a meeting in southern Gaza with his field commanders that the IDF is continuing to press forward with its invasion of Khan Yunis in southern Gaza.

On Tuesday, the IDF revealed that its invasion of southern Gaza and Khan Yunis had started Sunday night.

According to the IDF, the top field commanders handling the Khan Yunis invasion, including Division 98, the Duvdevan special forces, and various related commando and Givati units, presented Finkleman the status of IDF and enemy forces within the city, the attacks already undertaken, and their future attack plans.

Netanyahu: Israeli forces are surrounding Sinwar's home

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that Israeli forces were surrounding the home of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar on Wednesday, just a few hours after reports by Arabic media claimed the same.

"Yesterday I said that our forces can reach anywhere in the Gaza Strip. Now they are surrounding Sinwar's house. So his house is not his fortress, and he can escape, but it's only a matter of time before we get him," said Netanyahu.

The prime minister additionally called on the Red Cross to visit Israeli hostages being held by Hamas, saying he had spoken with the president of the Red Cross and asked her to speak to Qatar and have them pressure Hamas to let the Red Cross in.

To date, the IDF has already broken the main defense lines of Hamas's brigade-level forces in Khan Yunis, and having successfully penetrated the center of the city, is now making pincer moves outwards to different parts of the city to eliminate Hamas forces and take control of territory.

Simultaneously, other IDF forces from Division 98 have surrounded the whole city from the outside.

People walk at the site of an Israeli strike in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on November 18, 2023 (credit: REUTERS/IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA)

Some of Hamas's top command posts have been overrun and already 30 tunnel shafts have been destroyed, though Hamas still has a vast additional tunnel network that has not yet been cleaned out.

Already, IDF forces have also destroyed terror items hidden in a mosque in Khan Yunis, as often has occurred in the last month in northern Gaza.

The IDF noted that Khan Yunis is the home of Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Muhammad Sinwar and Muhammad Deif.

"The battle for Khan Yunis is a central priority. I am impressed that it is being carried out well: that we have a handle on all the details and that we are pressing forward," said Finkleman.

Finkleman stated, "There are centerpieces of the mission and we will go forward with this. Continue to take this forward. We will send to here anything that is needed [in terms of reinforcements and joint air attacks] and push forward at all times."

The fight for Khan Yunis is considered the most crucial remaining battle over the Gaza Strip given that the IDF has already controlled most of Gaza City in northern Gaza for the last few weeks, and that Hamas's high command and many of the hostages are believed to be there.

The takeover of Khan Yunis

A massive force of multiple brigades, including from Division 162, was thrown into the onslaught to take over Hamas's most crucial city in southern Gaza on Monday night.

The air force accompanied the ground forces thrust into Khan Yunis with significant attacks to eliminate Hamas command and control capabilities.

Civilians from Khan Yunis had been directed to evacuate further south to Rafah as well as to a safe area toward the west of Khan Yunis.  

At the same time as the attacks on Khan Yunis, the IDF sent a large and hard-hitting force, including Divisions 162 and 36, into Shejaia, known as Hamas's greatest remaining stronghold in northern Gaza.

The United States is opposed to the creation of any buffer zone in Gaza, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters in Washington on Wednesday.

“There must be no reduction in the size of Gaza and that remains our position and it will remain our position,” Miller said.

Reuters reported last week that Israel had conveyed plans for the buffer zone to several Arab states and Turkey.

Miller clarified that “Any proposed buffer zone that was inside Gaza, that would be a violation of that principle and its something that we oppose,” he said.

He spoke with reporters about the Biden administration’s vision concerning Gaza’s future once Israel’s military campaign to oust Hamas from that enclave is complete.

An Israeli soldier gestures towards a tank crew member as it crosses a road, as part of the convoy, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, near Israel's border with southern Gaza, in Israel, December 4, 2023 (credit: AMIR COHEN/REUTERS)

“We understand that there will have to be some kind of transition period” to prevent a security vacuum, but in the end, control of the territory must be in the hands of the Palestinians, he said.

But for that to happen, there “would need to be an increase in the capability of the Palestinian Authority security forces,” he said.

He clarified that Israel would have to withdraw from Gaza once an appropriate security and governmental architecture was in place in the enclave. In the future, Gaza and the West Bank must be part of an independent Palestinian state, Miller said.

“There can be no re-occupation of Gaza,” he stated.

Netanyahu stresses opposition to PA control of Gaza

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday in a post on X that the PA and its President Mahmoud Abbas will never rule Gaza.

“Those who educate their children for terror, finance terror and support terrorists’ families, will not be able to rule Gaza after we eliminate Hamas,” Netanyahu stated.

He spoke out in response to a post on X by Sky News Arabia that according to Palestinian sources, Abbas was ready to assume power in Gaza as well as in the West Bank.

“As long as I’m the prime minister of Israel – this will never happen,” he stated.

Netanyahu spoke out amid an intense international debate concerning the day after Israel completes its military campaign to oust Hamas from Gaza, sparked by the rampage that killed 1,200 people and seized some 240 hostages on October 7.

Netanyahu has insisted that the PA cannot govern Gaza and that an alternative entity must be created, particularly given that the PA continues to provide monthly financial stipends to terrorists and their families.

At a press conference in Tel Aviv on Tuesday night, Netanyahu rejected the idea of an international force, starting that “Gaza must be demilitarized” and that the only military charged with its security should be the IDF.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) seized two oil tankers carrying about 4.5 million liters of fuel on Wednesday, claiming that the tankers were smuggling fuel, according to Iranian media.

One of the two ships was carrying 2.28 million liters of fuel and had a crew of 13 foreign citizens, Ali Ozmaee, the commander of the Fifth Naval Region of the IRGC, told the IRGC-affiliated Tasnim News Agency. The second ship was carrying 2.3 million liters of fuel and had a crew of 21 foreign citizens.

The report did not state what countries the vessels or the crew were from.

The two vessels were seized south of Abu Musa Island, located between Iran and the United Arab Emirates. The island is administered by Iran, but is claimed by the UAE as a territory of the emirate of Sharjah.

Oil tanker seized by the IRGC, October 31, 2022 (credit: FARS NEWS AGENCY)

Maritime tensions rise in region amid Houthi attacks

The incident comes amid heightened maritime tensions in the region as the Iran-backed Houthi militia intensifies its attacks on maritime traffic in the southern Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

On Wednesday, the US Navy shot down a drone that was launched from Houthi-controlled territory in Yemen. Earlier, the United Kingdom Marine Trade Operations reported an incident involving a UAV west of the port of Hodeidah in Yemen.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Wednesday met with local northern authorities from evacuated communities and told them that Hezbollah would need to choose between a negotiated process where it backs its forces off of Israel’s border, or the IDF would take action to ensure that.

He said, “there is one possibility that we will reach a different deal…with international negotiators that they will respect our presence here…the second possibility is that we will be forced to do it by force.”

Moreover, he said that Israel does not want a larger conflict with Hezbollah, but that if it is necessary, “we will not hesitate, as we did not hesitate in the South,” with Hamas.

“When we finish the process of fighting in Gaza, we will be in a different reality where the military efforts will shift to the North because the different level of power comparing Hezbollah to Hamas is well-known to us,” added Gallant.

The defense minister continued, “Wherever before there was a battalion [guarding the northern communities] there will be [an entire] brigade. There will be a different level of defense and there will be other security components.”

Smoke rises during an exchange of fire between the IDF and terrorists from the Hezbollah organization on the border between Israel and Lebanon, December 3, 2023. (credit: AYAL MARGOLIN/FLASH90)

Hezbollah lost over 100 fighters, substantial weaponry

Gallant continued citing that Hezbollah has lost over 100 of its terrorist fighters and substantial weapons stores and command facilities.

Further, he said, “it will be clear that in the area where the borders come into contact, there will be no threats, no gunfire, no anti-tank missiles, no forces, and for sure no forces which could invade the territory of the State of Israel from close by.”

Despite Gallant’s promises, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu overruled the defense minister at the start of the war about confronting Hezbollah at the time.

Also, key war ministers Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot opposed a larger confrontation with Hezbollah, and have not given any hint of a change in that position, even as all political officials have made vague promises about returning northern residents to their homes with security.

Though there is a hope among Israeli officials that Hezbollah will comply with some kind of voluntary demilitarized security zone in southern Lebanon, it is far from clear what they are willing to do against the terror group’s 150,000 rockets and better trained (than Hamas) forces if there is no such deal.

There were two rounds of exchanges of fire between Hezbollah shooting rockets and the IDF using air strike sand artillery throughout Wednesday afternoon.

Also, on Wednesday, Lebanon complained against Israel over an incident in which Israel has acknowledged it accidentally killed Lebanese forces while attacking Hezbollah.

The IDF is investigating what went wrong but has declined to share details to date.