Israel-Hamas War: What happened on day 80?

Hamas terrorist leader Yahya Sinwar broke his silence on Monday, putting out a message which was reported by several outlets, including the Houthi media’s Al-Masirah. According to the report, Sinwar sent the message to members of the Hamas political bureau. Sinwar claimed that his Al-Qassam Brigades in Gaza had destroyed Israeli forces and waged a tough battle against Israel. He also claimed Israel had suffered heavy losses.

The report at Al-Masirah claimed that Sinwar had said Israel suffered 5,000 casualties and lost 750 vehicles. None of this has any basis in reality. It is an attempt by Hamas to try to create some kind of parity with Israel’s claims that around 7,800 terrorists have been killed in Gaza.

Roads and towns near the Lebanese-Israeli border were closed to civilian traffic on Monday morning until further notice, due to escalating tensions between Israel and Hezbollah.

The affected cities and towns include Kiryat Shmona, Snir, Dan, Dafna, Maayan Baruch, Kfar Yuval, Sha'ar Yishuv, Kfar Giladi, Hagoshrim, Metula, Beit Hillel, Misgav, Margaliot, Manara, Yiftah, Ramot Naftali, Dishon, Malkia, Avivim, Yir'on, Baram, and Dovev. Several roads in the area were also closed to civilian traffic until further notice, according to the Upper Galilee Regional Council.

Israel's navy and air force struck targets belonging to the Hamas terrorist organization throughout the Gaza Strip over the past day, assisting forces operating on the ground as well, the IDF Spokesperson's Unit said Monday morning.

In Khan Yunis, an air force fighter pilot eliminated a Hamas commander under the direction of the 98th Division. Later, the Air Force eliminated terrorists carrying a rocket near Israeli forces on the ground.

The IDF published the names of two more soldiers who fell in combat in the Gaza Strip. The names were published on Saturday morning.

Staff-Sergeant-Major (Res.) Nitai Meisels, 30 years old, from Rehovot, was a soldier in the 14th Armored Brigade. Meisels was killed in battle in northern Gaza.

Sergeant Rani Tamir, 20 years old, from Ganei Am, was a soldier in the 50th Battalion of the Nahal Brigade. Tamir also fell in battle in northern Gaza.

A senior IDF officer told the Wall Street Journal that it could take months before the IDF takes control of southern Gaza, longer than expected, according to a WSJ article published on Sunday. Hamas’s use of guerrilla tactics is causing casualties to mount among Israeli troops, with 154 Israeli soldiers killed since the ground invasion began in Gaza. 

At least 16 soldiers were killed across Gaza in the last three days. The military is currently focused on killing Hamas leaders, as well as destroying Hamas infrastructure, including its extensive tunnel networks.

The mounting death toll has led to some internal criticism that Israel is endangering soldiers by not using as much force in response to US demands to reduce civilian casualties. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied reducing force as a result of American pressure. 

Over the weekend, eight Israeli soldiers were killed in total by explosive devices as well as by an antitank missile fired at an armored vehicle. Five were killed on Friday in battles throughout Gaza, and two more were also killed on Saturday.

This high death toll highlights the challenges of ridding Gaza of Hamas, who stage guerrilla attacks and launch rockets from populated areas. 

Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli strike on a house in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, December 15, 2023 (credit: IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA/REUTERS)

The IDF told the Wall Street Journal that it is finding more military infrastructure than expected in southern Gaza. A senior Israeli officer said, “Their modus operandi is now to harass our soldiers and then go back into the tunnels.” 

Hamas' strategy in the war

The officer also said that Hamas is using women and children to gather intelligence and move weapons around. Hamas is also storing weapons in hundreds or thousands of empty homes.

Its fighters move around freely, dressed as civilians, retrieve weapons at the last moment from these houses, and then attack. In spite of its broken core command infrastructure, a result of three months of airstrikes and two months of ground operations, it's still able to mount effective guerrilla attacks.   

Michael Milshtein, a former senior Israeli military intelligence officer, said in reference to Hamas, “We’re speaking about half a guerrilla and half an army.” 

Some in Israel believe that by increasing airstrikes, it would be possible to reduce the number of Israeli soldier deaths by removing the danger to advancing troops, such as booby-trapped buildings, but also likely lead to more civilian deaths among Gazans. The Israeli military says that ground troops in Gaza are fully covered by air support and ground-based firepower. 

Israel has more boots on the ground in Khan Younis than they had in northern Gaza, so there are less widespread airstrikes to avoid harming Israeli troops, a senior Israeli officer commanding forces in Khan Younis said. He says that Israel has four bridges operating in the center of Khan Younis and an additional two forming a defensive perimeter around the Israeli positions as well as bolstering logistical support. 

He also said that the army sometimes sends troops into a building before it is destroyed to gather intelligence. 

Israeli officials say they are getting ready to transition to the third phase of the war, where Israel will redeploy many of its troops along the border with Gaza and rely on targeted raids to finish the goals of the war, including destroying Hamas’s ability to attack Israel from Gaza and free the hostages. Israel believes Hamas is holding hostages within its tunnel network.

Many experts disagree with this move's timing, saying it is premature. Retired Israeli general and former National Security Council head Uzi Dayan says that if Israel withdraws its ground forces from Hamas strongholds, eliminating tunnels “won’t be difficult, it would be impossible.” He continued, “Without full control over territory above ground, we can’t control what happens below ground.”

Dayan said that Israel’s public, however, which initially gave unprecedented support to the campaign to eliminate Hamas, is growing weary of war losses and that they want to see the end of this soon. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to pursue victory over Hamas as the war cabinet prepared to examine on Monday an Egyptian proposal for a new hostage deal and Islamic Jihad representatives visited Cairo.

"Citizens of Israel, we are intensifying the war in the Gaza Strip. We will continue to fight until absolute victory over Hamas,” Netanyahu said in a public statement he issued on video.

“This will take time, but we are united – the soldiers, the people and the Government. We are united and determined to fight until the end,” Netanyahu said.

He told the government at its weekly meeting on Sunday, that he repeated this message to US President Joe Biden when the two men spoke the night before.

According to the White House, the two leaders discussed the “importance of securing the release of all remaining hostages” as well as the “objectives and phasing of the war.”

Palestinian security forces loyal to Hamas guard at the Rafah border crossing to Egypt in the southern Gaza Strip (credit: ABED RAHIM KHATIB/FLASH90)

The US has sought to sway Israel to transition to a lower-intensity campaign, particularly in light of the high fatality rate. Hamas has asserted that over 20,000 Palestinians have been killed by war-related violence. Israel has maintained that some 8,000 of those fatalities are Hamas terrorists.

'The war has a price'

Netanyahu paid homage in his remarks to the rising IDF death toll after 14 soldiers were killed over the weekend.

“The war has a price, a very heavy price in the lives of our heroic soldiers, and we will do everything to safeguard the lives of our soldiers,” he said.

The military campaign, he said, was the only way to safeguard Israel and secure the return of the hostages. “This is the only way to return our hostages, eliminate Hamas and ensure that Gaza will no longer be a threat to Israel.”

According to the Saudi news website Asharq, Cairo has proposed a three-phase deal which the Hamas leadership in debating in Doha. Egypt and Qatar have both been working on mediating a second hostage deal.

A Hamas delegation was in Cairo last week and representatives of the Islamic Jihad, a group that is also holding hostages in Gaza, is there this week.

According to the Egyptian proposal outlined in Asharq, some 40 Israeli hostages, including remaining women and children as well as elderly men would be freed. Israel in exchange would allow for a two-week pause to the war, which could be extended upon agreement. Humanitarian aid, including fuel, would continue to enter the enclave during that period.

It would also agree to release some 120 Palestinians held in Israeli jails on security charges, likely based on the previous deal, by which three prisoners were freed for every Israeli hostage that was released. The category of prisoners, women, minors and elderly is expected to match the category of hostages that would be freed.

Egyptian-held talks to reunify Hamas, Fatah

The second phase would involve Egyptian-held talks to reunify Hamas and Fatah. The two factions have been divided since the Hamas forcibly ousted Fatah from Gaza in a bloody coup in 2007. The talks would also involve the creation of a technocrat Palestinian government for Gaza that would supervise humanitarian aid and reconstruction efforts. It would also plan for Palestinian general and presidential elections.

The third phase would include a deal for all the remaining hostages in exchange for an end to the war and the release of Palestinian prisoners jailed for their involvement in killing Israelis, according to Ashraq.

Israel has insisted that it would not end the war until Hamas is destroyed, irrespective of any hostage release but the first part of the deal is in line with proposals Israel has made.

An Islamic Jihad official said that its talks in Cairo would center on "ways to end the Israeli aggression on our people.”

The delegation will reaffirm the group's position that any exchange of hostages will have to secure the release of all Palestinians jailed in Israel, "after a ceasefire is achieved," the official said.

There are some 129 hostages in Gaza, out of the some 250 that Hamas seized when it infiltrated southern Israel on October 7, killing over 1,200 people. Some 110 have already been released.

In a special address on Sunday night, President Isaac Herzog said the obligation to return the “hostages in anyway possible is an indelible commandment burned deep in our consciousness. We will not rest until they are home.”

In this difficult time, he urged Israelis to put aside their political differences, 

“The enemy is just waiting to see the cracks within us, for us to start fighting one another. They also see the conflicts, the arguments, the struggles between egos, the political conflicts – both in the days before, and in the days after. They celebrate when they see the cracks between us,” Herzog said.

It is important that Israelis "End the internal struggles and division.”

Herzog said he understood that  “arguments and debates are part of our DNA. It is perfectly allowed – even necessary – to dispute and criticize, even in wartime, but there is a way to argue.”

It is important, however, he said,  that Israel not return to the kind of divisions that existed prior to the October 7 attack.

“We must not return to the poison online. We must not return to the discourse of “us and them”. In particular, I want to caution that anyone who seeks to bring us back to the discourse of October 6, is harming the war effort and the security the citizens of the country.”

“This moment is a test: We will not break, nor blink, nor fall apart, and we certainly will not tear ourselves apart from the inside. We shed a tear - and we shoulder on together,” Herzog said.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Hamas on Sunday evening claimed to have arrested a group of Palestinians who "collaborated" with Israel to collect intelligence in the Gaza Strip in the immediate aftermath of Hamas's October 7 massacre, Palestinian media reported, citing a source in Hamas's al-Majd internal security forces, part of the Qassam Brigades.

Per Palestinian media outlet Shehab, one of the "collaborators" admitted to being assigned by the Shin Bet to monitor the homes of Hamas leaders across the Strip. In addition, it was claimed that they were ordered to report on any movement observed by Hamas terrorists in the area.

Another supposed spy admitted to searching for the whereabouts of Hamas leaders with the aim of assassinating them, the unconfirmed report added.

The suspects were arrested by Hamas after the terrorist group "received data and documents described as dangerous, which included the names of all" Gazans who are "collaborating" with Israeli forces.

Israeli forces operate in the Gaza Strip on December 24, 2023 (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)

Hamas claims to have found 'strategic treasure' following arrests

According to Shehab, Hamas claimed that following the suspects' arrest, it had successfully obtained a "strategic treasure" of Israeli intelligence information.

This "strategic treasure" included information about Shin Bet's use of technology and how its operatives communicate and work with agents inside the Gaza Strip, the report claimed. In addition, Hamas claims to have learned about "the method of the agents' work."

Hamas claimed that these findings "constituted a great difficulty for the work of the occupation intelligence services" during the IDF's war on the terrorist group in Gaza.

Hamas's al-Majd forces said in a statement following the report that the "resistance security leadership in the Gaza Strip will take all legal and revolutionary measures against the agents and strike with an iron fist anyone who dares to deal with the enemy."

Israel is considering the possibility of requesting the expulsion of Hamas leaders in exchange for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, KAN News reported on Sunday evening, citing an Israeli security source.

This possibility had been discussed among the political and military echelon, the source told KAN, adding that no concrete proposal to do so is currently on the table.

"The expulsion of Hamas's leadership is not contradictory to Israel's war goals," the source was cited by KAN as saying.

"There are many countries that can accept them, such as Qatar."

Ex-defense chiefs called for expulsion-for-hostages deal with Hamas

The Jerusalem Post reported earlier in December that Commanders for Israel’s Security (CIS) proposed to the government war cabinet to offer Hamas’s leadership expulsion, along with Palestinian security prisoners, in exchange for a return of their Israeli hostages.

CIS, which includes over 500 top former defense and intelligence officials, told The Post that the government would still need to iron out significant details of the offer.

Yonah Jeremy Bob contributed to this report.

The IDF on Sunday night disclosed the full background behind the finding of five bodies of hostages held by Hamas in a huge underground tunnel near Jabalya in northern Gaza.

Around two weeks ago, the IDF found two bodies. A few days later, it found three more nearby. At the time, the military announced finding only the first two.

The tunnel was vast, including a large elevator and large rooms, and split into side rooms, like command centers, medical stations, prayer rooms, and rooms for manufacturing weapons.

An IDF source has said that finding the bodies required a mix of preexisting intelligence along with intelligence collected in real time in the field, including through forensic methods.

The tunnel was so large, that although the bodies were all within one general area, they were all in different parts of it.

The five were Eden Zechariah and Ziv Dado, whose bodies were found on December 12, as well as Elia Toledano, Nik Beizer, and Ron Sherman.

Israeli hostages Nik Beizer, Ron Sherman, Elia Toledano, whose bodies were brought back to Israel, December 15, 2023 (credit: JERUSALEM POST)

Last Thursday, Hamas released a video of the other three hostages killed in Hamas captivity, whose bodies the IDF had recovered.

In the video, the three hostages – Toledano, Beizer, and Sherman, are seen holding up pieces of paper with their names and personal information. All three were kidnapped on October 7.

In a statement posted alongside the video, Hamas claimed that “they tried to keep them alive, but Netanyahu insisted on killing them.”

The video then adds visual effects of shots and animated blood. They are shown in captivity smiling and speaking to each other.

IDF concerned over endangering forces on field

The IDF said it delayed mentioning the other three bodies until troops in the area completed their operations. Until then, there was real concern that announcing more details would endanger the forces in the field, who eventually used 13 tons of explosives to blow up the whole tunnel, something that took more time.

In addition, whereas the IDF had said that Zechariah was killed back on October 7 and merely her body was taken to Gaza, the IDF did not give a clear conclusion about the timing of the deaths of the other hostages. Rather, IDF sources said forensic probes into that issue are still continuing.

Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this story.

Israeli forces from the 401st Brigade and the elite naval commando unit Shayetet 13 completed a raid of schools in Gaza City's Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, uncovering hundreds of weapons hidden by Hamas inside the schools.

During the raid, several terrorists hiding in the schools were killed by Israeli forces. 

Dozens of terrorists were also detained by the forces and taken into Israel for interrogation following an initial probe by the Military Intelligence Directorate's Unit 504.

Some of the weaponry found in the schools included grenades, rifles, rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), explosive devices, and technology used for communication.

IDF troops, including Air Force and Navy units, attacked 200 targets in the Gaza Strip over the course of Saturday, according to the IDF Spokespersons Unit.

IDF soldiers operate in Gaza City's Sheikh Radwan neighborhood on December 24, 2023 (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)

IDF killed nearly 8,000 Palestinian terrorists in Gaza war

IDF forces remained in the Gaza Strip, continuing their attack. The IDF has killed close to 8,000 Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza Strip since October 7, and the subsequent launch of Operation Swords of Iron, Gen. Eliezer Toledano told the cabinet, which convened in Jerusalem on Sunday.

According to Toledano, 7,842 terrorists have been killed in fighting since October 7. He said this figure was drawn based on accounts of targeted strikes and battlefield tallies.