Israel at war: What happened on days 56-57?

The IDF 551st Brigade combat team completed a mission in Jabalya, in the Gaza Strip, on Saturday, having killed Hamas terrorists and destroyed terror infrastructure, the IDF said.

The neutralized infrastructure included tunnels and subterranean structures.

During the operation, which had began before the initiation of the now-ended cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, IDF troops identified and destroyed a Hamas terror tunnel which extended tens of meters below the surface of the earth.

A Hamas tunnel in a school

The tunnel had been located in the courtyard of a school compound.

Another tunnel was located and destroyed in the home of a Hamas naval force activist, the IDF stated.

Soldiers of the 551st Brigade, along with Israeli special forces, also worked to eliminate subterranean infrastructure north of Jabalya, where Israeli troops subsequently Isolated and secured a an area to facilitate further IDF activity.

Also, along with the air force and artillery units, IDF troops destroyed numerous pieces of Hamas combat equipment, including weapons, explosives, launchers, and ammunition.

Two Islamic Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) were killed in a reported Israeli airstrike in Syria, Iran announced through its state-run media on Saturday afternoon.

Syrian air defenses responded to a strike against targets in the vicinity of Damascus earlier on Saturday, Syrian state media reported, adding defenses shot down most of the missiles.

"The Israeli enemy carried out an air aggression from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan, targeting some points in the vicinity of the city of Damascus," the Syrian state news agency said, citing a military source.

There were only material damages, it added.

A team from Israel's Mossad intelligence service was in Doha Saturday for discussions with Qatari mediators on restarting the Gaza truce, a source briefed on the visit told Reuters.

The Qatar-mediated talks focused on the potential release of new categories of Israeli hostages other than women and children and the parameters of a truce, which the source said differed from the truce agreement that collapsed on Friday.

Israel and Hamas have been considering new parameters for the release of hostages and the truce since before it collapsed.

Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan said that the chance for peace in Gaza after the humanitarian pause was lost for now due to Israel's uncompromising approach, broadcaster NTV reported on Saturday.

"We have always emphasized that we are in favor of a permanent ceasefire rather than a humanitarian break...There was an opportunity for peace here, and unfortunately, we have lost this opportunity for now due to Israel's uncompromising approach," Erdogan was quoted as saying by NTV and other Turkish media.

The truce that started on Nov. 24 had been extended twice. But after seven days during which women, children and foreign hostages were freed as well as several Palestinian prisoners, mediators failed to find a formula to release more.

Since then Israeli airstrikes and artillery bombardments have hit southern Gaza, extending the nearly two-month-old war in which thousands of people died.

The first aid trucks since the collapse of the Gaza truce have entered through the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing on Saturday, on their way to Awja crossing for inspection before continuing the journey to the Gaza Strip, Egyptian security, and Red Crescent sources told Reuters.

Two fuel trucks and 50 aid trucks wen

 A team from Israel's Mossad intelligence service was in Doha Saturday for discussions with Qatari mediators on restarting the Gaza truce, a source briefed on the visit told Reuters.

Qatar-mediated Mossad talks focused on the potential release of new categories of Israeli hostages and new truce parameters, the source added.

Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan said that the chance for peace in Gaza after the humanitarian pause was lost for now due to Israel's uncompromising approach, broadcaster NTV reported on Saturday.

Speaking to reporters on his way back from the United Arab Emirates, Erdogan also said that he is not losing hope for a lasting peace in the conflict adding that Hamas cannot be excluded from its potential solution, according to NTV.

Libya on Friday released four terrorists belonging to the Palestinian terror group Hamas at the request and mediation of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, local media reported.

The four terrorists, detained in Libya since 2016, were imprisoned after being found guilty of trafficking arms to the Gaza Strip, as per the reports.

The four were named Nasib Choubeir, Mouayad Abed, Marwan Al-Ashqar, and his son Baraa Al-Ashqar. They were released from the Mitiga detention center, located at a Libyan airbase east of the capital Tripoli, at the order of the Libyan prosecutor's office. 

Following the four's release, they reportedly took off to Turkey ahead of reaching their destination of Qatar, which hosts Hamas officials on its soil.

Lebanon's heavily armed Hezbollah said in a statement that one of its fighters was killed in south Lebanon on Saturday, the day after the collapse of a truce between Israel and the Palestinian terror group Hamas led hostilities to flare at the frontier.

In its 75 years of existence, Israel and Israelis have gone through much.

They’ve experienced war and peace, hostages captured and hostages released, and wicked, wicked acts of terrorism. They’ve never experienced a week like this.

This was a week where, night after night, the nation sat glued to its television sets, watching to see if the day’s planned tranche of hostages would indeed be released.

It was a week of watching, day after day, videos of daughters running into the arms of fathers, and mothers gently stroking the faces of sons not seen for more than 50 days.

Yet it was also a week of listening to grandparents’ heartbreaking pleas that their grandchildren be on the next day’s list of people to be let go, and grandchildren begging that their grandfathers be released or at least be provided with medication.

It was a week of reading about the cruel ordeals the hostages faced in Hamas captivity; a week of listening to soul-crushing interviews of children returning whose parents were murdered; a week wondering whether the war would resume tomorrow, once again sending the country’s soldiers and reservists – sons and daughters, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters – back into harm’s way.