Israel-Hamas War: What happened on day 123?

There has been "some movement" on a deal to secure the release of hostages by Hamas, US President Joe Biden said on Tuesday, adding that there had been a response from the militant group that he described as "a little over the top."

"Hamas has responded to the initial hostage deal proposal, but the details of that cannot be made public at this time," Qatari Prime Minister Mohammad Al-Thani said Tuesday during a public press conference in Doha with visiting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

“I would like to inform the media that we have received a reply from Hamas about the general framework of the agreement for hostages," he continued,  "The reply includes some comments, but in general, it is positive." 

Without expanding further, he said, “However, given the sensitivity of the circumstances, we will not tackle details."

“We are optimistic, and we have delivered the response to the Israeli party,” he said.

War cabinet Minister Benny Gantz announced on Sunday evening he will move to the Gaza border town of Yad Mordechai, four months after southern Israel was ravaged by thousands of infiltrating Hamas terrorists on October 7.

Israel lost valuable time in dismnatling Hamas's rule over Gaza through "feet dragging," Gantz further said.

This is a developing story.

Canada on Tuesday imposed sanctions on top Hamas officials, including Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif, over the Palestinian Islamist group's attack on Israel on October 7.

Canada's sanctions target 11 individuals, also including Palestinian Islamic Jihad leaders, for the attack and "the threat that Hamas and its affiliates pose to regional security," the Canadian foreign ministry said in a statement.

Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Al Thani and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken were set to hold a press conference live from Doha on Sunday evening as Gaza hostage and ceasefire talks stalled.

The conference can be watched live below.

IDF fighter jets struck a Hezbollah observation post in the southern Lebanon areas of Labbouneh, Jabal Blat, and Houla, the Israeli military stated on Tuesday evening.

Earlier, numerous rocket launches were identified crossing into Israeli territory from Lebanon, the IDF added. No injuries were reported in Israel in the wake of the launches, and the IDF responded by striking the sources of fire.

Other alarms that sounded in northern Israel indicating the possible occurrence of a hostile aircraft infiltration were found to have been a false identification, the IDF reported.

The military went on to note that Hezbollah’s ongoing activities and attacks against Israel are in contradiction to UN Security Council Resolution 1701 and that the IDF would continue to take the necessary steps to safeguard Israel’s borders.

The Biden administration has received positive feedback that Saudi Arabia and Israel are willing to continue to have normalization discussions, White House National Security spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Tuesday.

The Home Front Command updated its civilian policies for the Gaza border area, the IDF stated on Tuesday evening. As part of the updated policy set, gatherings of up to 30,000 people, up from 15,000, are allowed in this area, with the exception of Ashkelon and Netivot.

Further, restrictions on workplace and educational activities have been lifted.

Home Front Command infographic. (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)

Major Jewish organizations in the US, including liberal and democratic-leaning ones, are receptive to the claim that the outcome of the current war between Israel and Hamas should not be a two-state solution, Religious Zionist Party MK and Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee (FADC) Ohad Tal said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.

Tal spoke to the Post from the US, where he has spent over a week meeting with US officials, including National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications Adm. John Kirby and Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson, leaders of Jewish and Christian organizations, and others.

Tal says that his core message in all of his meetings was that awarding the Palestinians a state as a result of the monstrous Hamas terror attack on October 7 indicates that terror pays off – and the entire world, not just Israel, will pay a heavy price and suffer a rise in global terrorism as a result.

This message is diametrically opposed to the US administration's policy to end the war by creating a regional agreement, that will include normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia and concrete steps towards the formation of a Palestinian state. But Tal is adamant that Palestinian statehood at this time would have disastrous consequences.

"After October 7, even talking about a Palestinian State sends a very strong message in the Middle East that terror is the way to go … and tells radical Islam all over the world that if you want something, get it by terror," Tal says.

The Palestinian Authority said on Tuesday it will pay public sector workers 60% of their December salaries this week as it grapples with the longrunning fallout of Israel's refusal to transfer tax funds earmarked for Gaza.

Funding to the Palestinian Authority, the body that exercises limited governance in the occupied West Bank, has been severely restricted by the months-long dispute over transferring tax revenues Israel collects on behalf of the Palestinians.

Funding from international donors has also been squeezed, falling from 30% of the $6 billion annual budget to around 1%, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said.

"The funding situation of the Authority is very difficult," he said, following a meeting of the cabinet.

The funding dispute has been a source of friction between Israel and the Palestinians since the start of the war in Gaza in October, when Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich refused to release all the funds, accusing the PA of supporting the Oct. 7 attack in Israel led by the Islamist movement Hamas.

Under interim peace accords signed in the early 1990s, Israel collects taxes on the Palestinians' behalf and typically transfers them to the PA monthly on the approval of the finance minister.

However, transfers have been stalled since October, when Smotrich withheld around 600 million shekels ($164.51 million) of the total 1 billion shekels due for transfer, prompting the Palestinian Authority, which says Gaza is an integral part of Palestinian territory, to refuse to accept any funds.

"We cannot accept conditions on our money. We will remain committed to the prisoners and martyrs and to our people in the Gaza Strip, not out of favor, but by virtue of our national, religious, and moral responsibility," Shtayyeh said.

Although Gaza is controlled by Hamas, the Palestinian Authority continues to fund essential areas of the blockaded enclave's budget, including paying the salaries of health workers.

Former Shin Bet director Yoram Cohen on Tuesday slammed consecutive Israeli governments run by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with facilitating Qatari funding of Hamas as being a deep strategic source of the October 7 failure to stop Hamas's southern invasion.

Speaking at Reichman University, while Cohen agreed that the IDF and the Shin Bet failed their operational missions to anticipate the invasion in advance and to thwart it, he said that the larger problems were strategic and came from the government.

According to Cohen, the government directly or indirectly (not mentioning Netanyahu by name, but referring to his governments) propped up Qatar and Hamas as alternatives to the Palestinian Authority when both were being boycotted by much of the rest of the Arab world.

The former Shin Bet chief said that anyone today would say that helping a third country fund Hezbollah because of the economic crisis in Lebanon would be a colossal error and that the same was true of allowing Qatar to fund Hamas, even if the strategy was well-intentioned to avoid the economic crisis which partially led to the 2014 Gaza conflict.

Shin Bet chief Yoram Cohen (credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)

Netanyahu-led governments failed to kill top Hamas leaders

Cohen said that the Netanyahu-led governments also failed to take any initiative to eliminate top Hamas leaders, only attacking such leaders in response to moves by Hamas.

Regarding "The Day After" the IDF withdraws from Gaza, Cohen said that it should be a mix of local Palestinian officials, Arab state-allied countries, Western countries, and also the Palestinian Authority.

His validating integration of the PA was highly significant because Cohen is a major critic of the PA and has said it cannot be granted security powers over its territory.

However, he still said it could be necessary to have the PA involved, something which Netanyahu has consistently rejected.