Israel-Hamas War - What happened on day 66?

Many of the Hamas terrorists surrendering to the IDF were involved in the October 7 massacre, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant stated on Monday evening during a televised address. 

"Hamas is on the verge of dissolution, the IDF is taking over its last strongholds," Gallant said.

He added that Israel has no intention to maintain a permanent presence in the Gaza Strip. 

Rocket sirens were heard in Netiv HaAssara.

Call it a sign of the times.

On December 8, two days after the presidents of three prestigious East Coast US universities were unable to tell a Congressional committee that calling for the genocide of Jews on campus violates their schools’ codes of conduct, Stanford University — another elite US school, but this one on the West Coast — issued this statement:

“In the context of the national discourse, Stanford unequivocally condemns calls for the genocide of Jews or any peoples. That statement would clearly violate Stanford’s Fundamental Standard, the code of conduct for all students at the university."

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) Chief Ronen Bar met in Hamas’s southern Gaza capital of Khan Yunis on Monday night to demonstrate IDF progress.

“We are deepening our gains in northern Gaza, the South, and underground,” Halevi said.

Bar stated, “There is no force which can stand up to the combined force” of the IDF soldiers and the Shin Bet combat forces.

Palestinians from the West Bank will not be allowed back into Israel for work after the Security Cabinet voted against it on Sunday night in accordance with a recommendation from the Socio-economic Cabinet.

Israel stalled the entry of Palestinian workers following Hamas's massacre on October 7. The decision was made for security reasons, especially following reports that Gazan workers supplied Hamas with key information for its attack.

IDF aircraft struck Hezbollah targets that were responsible for several launches into northern Israel on Monday, the IDF said.

Shortly thereafter, the air force destroyed a position from which the firing had originated, the military added.

Additionally, the IDF said it identified a mortar shell fired into northern Israel on Monday evening that fell into an open area.

"Hamas is on the verge of dissolution, the IDF is taking over its last strongholds," Defense Minister Yoav Gallant stated on Monday evening during a televised address. 

He added that Israel has no intention to maintain a permanent presence in the Gaza Strip. 

When Nasser Haduba, 50, a resident of the unrecognized Bedouin village of Abu Talul, approached his doctor at the local health clinic in the Neve Midbar Regional Council, to consult about his 10-year-old daughter regressing into bed wetting after the outbreak of the war, the Jewish doctor suggested he reach out to his village’s social worker.

“We don’t have a social worker,” Haduba later recalled. “(Bed wetting regression) is an issue that can happen to other families here, but nobody wants to talk about it. When it comes to mental health and trauma services, here there are no services.”

The European Union will propose to EU governments that they impose sanctions on extremist settlers committing acts of violence against Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, said the EU's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.

"We will work on proposing sanctions on extremist settlers in the West Bank," Borrell told a news conference on Monday after a EU foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels.

Violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank has increased since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

 The United States is concerned about reports Israel has used white phosphorus and will be seeking more information, White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Air Force One on Monday.