Israel at war: What happened on days 42-43?

Rocket sirens sounded across northern Israeli border towns on Saturday morning after a barrage of at least 25 rockets was fired from Lebanon, the IDF confirmed.

The Israeli military said it was striking the source of the fire, as well as several Hezbollah terror positions across the border. 

Sirens also sounded in the northern city of Kiryat Shmona later on Saturday. The IDF said it responded to the rocket fire.

The IDF strikes Hezbollah terror targets in southern Lebanon on November 18, 2023 (credit: REUTERS/ALAA AL-MARJANI)

Hezbollah says it shot down Israeli drone

The Iran-backed Hezbollah said it shot down an Israeli drone near the border in the early hours of Saturday.

Lebanese officials said an Israeli airstrike hit a building in an industrial area near the town of Nabatieh, one of the deepest Israeli strikes inside Lebanese territory since fighting resumed last month. The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the incident.

Thousands of Iranians took part in state-sponsored marches on Saturday to protest against the deaths of children and other civilians in the Gaza war, and a top military commander said Israel was going towards its doom in a war of attrition.

"Palestine stands on the path of a war of attrition...Israel will face a definitive defeat and end up in the dustbin of history," Revolutionary Guards Commander Hossein Salami told a rally in the capital Tehran, which was aired live on state TV.

"The battle is not over, the Islamic world will do whatever it has to do. There are still great (unused) capacities left," Salami said, without referring to any possible moves by Iran to join the conflict.

The emotive position of children in war

State television showed some protesters carrying bundled white shrouds symbolizing the children killed in Gaza, during the nationwide marches, held ahead of World Children's Day on Monday.

Symbolic shrouds of Gaza children's dead bodies are seen during a gesture in a street in Tehran, Iran November 13, 2023. (credit: Majid Asgaripour/West Asia News Agency/Reuters)

Tensions in the region have flared since a deadly attack by Iran-backed Hamas terrorists who burst through the border from Gaza into Israel on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people and taking around 240 hostages, including children.

Hamas health authorities raised their death toll on Friday to more than 12,000, including 5,000 children, after Israeli attacks there. The United Nations deems those figures credible, though they are now updated infrequently due to the difficulty of collecting information.

Iran's Foreign Ministry on Saturday called on the international community to help stop the "killing machine and organized terrorism of the Zionist regime against the Palestinian people and hold Zionist criminals accountable to justice and international law."

The names of 38 children kidnapped by Hamas were read out at the Western Wall, next to 38 empty chairs and the Israeli flag, on the morning of November 16. The symbolic act was accompanied by a prayer for the children’s safe return.

The prayer was led by the rabbi of the Western Wall, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz.

The event was organized by the Forum for the Release of Kidnapped Children. The organization explained that they hoped the event would raise national and international awareness of the suffering of the child hostages. 

Praying for the hostages

The names of the children, and of all the kidnapped, were read aloud next to the stones of the Western Wall during a Psalm recitation near the Holy of Holies in the Western Wall Tunnels.

On the same day as the event, Sarah Netanyahu’s letter to the wives of world leaders revealed that a pregnant hostage had given birth in Gaza. The baby’s name remains unknown, as does their health status and the health status of their mother. 

After Israel intercepted a missile targeting an Israeli aircraft by a Hezbollah surface-to-air missile system, the IDF targeted and destroyed the system, the IDF spokesperson said on Saturday.

The IDF also struck several additional terror targets in Lebanon, including Hezbollah compounds and military positions.

At least 15 people were killed on Saturday following an airstrike that hit a house west of Khan Younis, health officials from Gaza's Nasser Hospital said.

Gaza health authorities, which is an authority run by Hamas, raised their death toll on Friday to more than 12,000 with 5,000 of them children. The United Nations deems those figures credible, though they are now updated infrequently due to the difficulty of collecting information.

 Germany's Foreign Ministry has scrutinized humanitarian aid payments for the Palestinian territories and has not detected any misuse, the ministry said on Saturday.

"The review of humanitarian aid for the Palestinians has been completed and there have been no anomalies regarding possible indirect aid for terrorist organizations," the ministry said.

Germany has provided humanitarian aid totaling around 161 million euros ($175.6 million) for people in Palestinian territories.

($1 = 0.9168 euros)

A residential building in Sderot has been damaged after a rocket barrage from Gaza targeted the southern Israeli city on Saturday afternoon, the Sderot municipality spokesperson said.

No injuries have been reported.

Turkey will make efforts to rebuild damaged infrastructure, hospitals and schools in Gaza if a ceasefire is achieved there, Turkish media on Saturday reported President Tayyip Erdogan as saying.

"If a ceasefire is reached, we will do whatever is necessary to compensate for the destruction caused by Israel," Erdogan told reporters on his plane returning from a trip to Berlin, where he held talks with German leaders.

"We will make efforts to rebuild the damaged infrastructure in Gaza and rebuild the destroyed schools, hospitals, water and energy facilities," he was cited as saying by broadcaster A Haber on its website.

Erdogan's turn on Israel

Earlier this week Erdogan called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to announce whether Israel had nuclear weapons and he returned to the issue in his comments to reporters, calling for nuclear weapons inspections there.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a rally in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Istanbul, Turkey October 28, 2023. (credit: REUTERS/DILARA SENKAYA)

"As Turkey, we are making this call. Israel's nuclear weapons must be inspected beyond doubt before it is too late. We will follow up on this," he said.

Erdogan also said the families of Israelis held hostage by the terrorist group Hamas had sent him a letter requesting that he intervene to secure their release, and he said Turkey's intelligence agency had been activated to look into the issue.

The IDF allowed the evacuation of Gazans at Al-Shifa Hospital in the Gaza Strip on Saturday following a request by the director, denying reports by Qatari-owned Al Jazeera that it had ordered the full evacuation of the hospital within an hour.

"At no point did the IDF ask to evacuate patients or medical teams," the Israeli military said, stressing the evacuation is being carried out under the hospital director's request. "[The IDF] has further offered to cooperate with any request for a medical evacuation."

Israeli forces responded to the director of Al-Shifa's request, allowing time for evacuations for those sheltering in the hospital through a secure humanitarian crossing in the Gaza Strip.

The IDF also emphasized that whenever a request is made to coordinate an evacuation of patients and medical teams, they will work to facilitate it and transfer the patients to other hospitals.

Medical teams will remain in the Al-Shifa for the benefit of patients who are unwilling or unable to evacuate. 

The IDF delivered during the night over 6,000 liters of water and over 2,300 kilograms of food rations including fish, canned goods, bread, spreads and dates to the Al-Shifa Hospital.

The hotel lobby of the Yam Suf Hotel in Eilat looks like any innocent hotel lobby – white with plenty of sunlight, large leafy plants, and summery rattan furniture.

But when night falls and the long hours stretch endlessly into the dark as they can’t sleep, this is where the 160 kibbutz members of Nir Oz who were evacuated here following the October 7 Hamas massacre gather. For now, this place has had to replace their beloved dining hall, which they reached through the tree-lined Jacaranda Boulevard path. Nestled within a spectacular botanical garden, the kibbutz boasted more than 900 varieties of trees, plants, and flowers, before Hamas terrorists burned half of it to the ground.

“We sit and cry. It is really hard to go to sleep,” said kibbutz member Irit Lahav, who survived the attack locked into her safe room together with her daughter and dog for 11 hours, using an oar and a vacuum cleaner to fashion a makeshift wedge to prevent the terrorists from opening the door which can’t be locked. “We sit here till 2-2:30 in the morning and talk about what we are going through; it is very emotional.”

At first the hotel tried to provide them with entertainment to distract them, with clowns and singers, but it wasn’t the right thing for the kibbutz members, she told The Jerusalem Post.