Hamas resumes rocket fire from Gaza on southern Israel

An anti-tank missile was fired at the northern Israeli moshav Shtula, near the Lebanese border, the IDF said.

Hezbollah took responsibility for the launch. IDF said artillery forces targeted the source of the fire.

The IDF was also striking targets in southern Lebanon after another anti-tank missile was fired at an Israeli military position in the North, it said.

At least four civilians were reportedly wounded in the incident, with one man in his 40s murdered following failed resuscitation attempts, Magen David Adom said. MDA added it rushed the other wounded civilians to the Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya for further treatment.

Two more men in their 40s are considered in moderate condition, MDA added.

Israel to evacuate northern border towns

The IDF announced the evacuation of towns four kilometers or less away from the northern border on Sunday morning, saying that entry to this area is strictly forbidden.

Residents of the northern moshav were told to seek shelter immediately. Later, the Kiryat Shmona municipality also told the border city's residents to seek shelter following exchanges of fire on the border

Residents of the nearby kibbutzim of Yiftach, Menara, Maayan Baruch, Misgav Am, Yeron, Bar'am, Tzivon, Dan, Daphna, Snir and Kfar HaGiladi were all told to seek shelter later on Sunday morning. 

This is a developing story.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with his Israeli counterpart on Saturday, underscoring Washington's support for Israel's security and discussing the importance of adhering to the law of war, the Pentagon said.

"During the call, he discussed the importance of adhering to the law of war, including civilian protection obligations, and addressing the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza while Israel continues its operations to restore security," the Pentagon said in a statement.

Israel experienced one of its most challenging hours in history last Saturday, undoubtedly more challenging than the founding of the state. This is a time for unity and mutual strengthening; the time for soul-searching will come after the war. We shouldn't prevent quick lessons from being drawn without assigning blame at this stage, to improve the conduct of the war and restore the people's trust. The Unity Government was formed by the will of the people, and those politicians who understood the gravity of the situation came together under their leadership.

As I have written before, I have no doubt that Hamas's barbaric attack on Israeli civilians is part of Iran's aspiration to destroy Israel, initially by drawing it into a multi-front conflict through its proxies in the north, south, and the Gaza Strip, while simultaneously reducing pressure on its nuclear program. Hamas executed its unjustifiable attack using advanced military means, some of which come from Iran, funded with Iranian money, and relying on Iranian knowledge, planning, and training, with support from Hezbollah and others.

Some have compared the power outage during Shabbat to the Yom Kippur War of 1973, but that's a mistake. There was a significant power outage during Yom Kippur, but the attack was primarily against soldiers. The war crimes committed by Hamas are comparable to Pearl Harbor (in terms of surprise), 9/11 (in terms of surprise and civilian casualties), and Nazi war crimes (in terms of brutality against the elderly, women, and children). Therefore, just as the United States pursued Japan for Pearl Harbor, just as it declared bin Laden and al-Qaeda as enemies of the state, no matter where they were hiding or how long it took, just as Israel pursued the Munich terrorists as enemies of the state without a time limit, Israel will act against Hamas, its leaders, and all those involved in the campaign of terror, no matter how long it takes. The database of the criminals is being built now.

Hamas leaders, Dahlan, Nayef, Sinwar, al-Arouri, Mashal, and others are not immune from harm to their heads and property, even if they are in Beirut, Doha, Istanbul, or hiding in any other hole in the world. It was very important to express this message to all corners of the globe. After them, those who encouraged them to commit these heinous war crimes will be pursued vigorously.

The central question is what the next steps in Gaza (including the issue of prisoners) should be, what will happen in the north, and what Iran and the United States, our great friend, will do?

Rockets are fired from Gaza towards Israel, in Gaza, October 13, 2023 (credit: MOHAMMED SALEM/REUTERS)

I have always argued regarding Gaza, both as the former head of the NSC in practice and as someone who writes on the subject in the context of my role at FDD, that the approach should be: "The end of an action in thought should be at the beginning." This was correct then, but it is no longer correct now. The solution in Gaza, after we complete what is required there, is very important, but it must not serve as a barrier to achieving the mission after Hamas terrorists have changed all the rules of the game.

The war goal

In order to achieve the full goals of the war defined by the cabinet, the IDF will need to enter Gaza with all the dangers and difficulties, especially since the world will not allow Israel to do what the United States and the international coalition did in Iraq at the time, and more recently in Mosul and Raqqa. A prolonged and complete siege (months) that includes a lack of electricity, water, food, and medicine in Gaza, with millions of citizens, will not be possible in the long term, both because of the growing international pressure and because of the prisoners. The directive to the population to move to the southern strip and pressure on Egypt to allow those who wish to do so to cross into Egypt will be part of the ground entry solution.

During the entry, the IDF will not wear gloves, both to achieve the elimination of Hamas and the total degradation of its capabilities, especially if we receive intelligence that the massacre in the south was planned in advance by an Iranian leader to draw Israel into Gaza and then activate Hezbollah and to make it difficult to manage another front in the north simultaneously. The cabinet, in consultation with the military echelon, will need to consider options and make the right decision based on the intelligence available. Apparently, the surprise that Israel could have carried out in the north a few weeks and months ago no longer exists; both sides are prepared and tense.

The significant arrival of American forces in the region and Biden's unprecedented speech were intended to send a deterrent message, primarily to Iran and through it to Hezbollah, but also directly to Nasrallah and Assad, not to interfere.

The IDF can deal with more than one front in the south, especially if the United States takes responsibility for dealing with Iran, whether directly or by directly instructing Nasrallah to intervene. On the other hand, a comprehensive ground entry into Gaza, without the evacuation of civilians in bulk, will make it difficult for them to continue to remain positive or at least not negative, alongside Egypt and Jordan.

We are not in a Gaza cycle; we are in an ALL-OUT war, and that is how we win without restraints. With a very strong Israel and now with a unity government, the diplomatic front has also strengthened. We have a very strong army that has completely failed in its mission last Saturday, as the Chief of Staff honestly declared, and it is determined to do everything to make amends for the failure, to deal with Hamas and Gaza once and for all, to return the captives safe and sound to their families, to restore the deterrence against our enemies encircling us, and above all, to restore the people's trust. Let the IDF win; it won't be short or easy, but we have no other choice.

Brigadier General (Res.) Professor Jacob Nagel is a senior fellow at FDD and a visiting professor at the Technion Aerospace Engineering Faculty. He was a career Israeli civil servant official serving in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Defense Ministry and Prime Minister’s office for more than 40 years.

Sanctions must be imposed on countries that harbor Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said as he told world leaders that Israel was battling the ISIS-like terror group on behalf of the civilized world.

“This is the front line between civilization and barbarism and we have to ensure that nobody meets with the barbarians,” Netanyahu said during a meeting he held with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

As Israel prepared for a ground operation in Gaza to eliminate Hamas, Netanyahu visited soldiers along the Gaza border and toured a number of the communities – Kibbutz Be’eri and Kfar Aza – hard hit by Hamas’s October 7 assault on southern Israel in which over 1,300 civilians and soldiers were killed and more than 150 were taken hostage.  

“Prepare for what is coming,” he said.

Israeli and American officials held a flurry of high-level diplomatic conversations over the weekend in an attempt to contain regional violence, free the hostages, and provide a humanitarian corridor for Palestinians in Gaza to flee to Egypt.

IDF Reserves Division 36 exercise (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)

National Security Adviser Tsahi Hanegbi stressed that Israel is not looking to fight a war on two fronts and has no intention of attacking Hezbollah. "However, as we know, there are regular Hezbollah attacks from Lebanon."

The IDF called up hundreds of thousands of reservists, most to support the war in the South but some have been sent up North.  “Our eyes are open on both fronts,” he said.

Netanyahu spoke on Saturday with US President Joe Biden, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. On Friday, he held meetings with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Von der Leyen.

Foreign Ministers from Canada, Italy and Germany also visited Israel on Friday and the Spanish Foreign Minister is due on Sunday.

Netanyahu focused on the atrocities Hamas committed against Israelis during its October 7 attack.  

"Today we’re all Israelis"

“Today we’re all Israelis, “ German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said during her visit.

Netanyahu told Von der Leyen “If Hamas could have its way, it would do to us exactly what the Nazis did to the Jews, they would kill every last one of us, they would mutilate our bodies, they would behead us and that’s what they did.”

“Therefore, it’s important to understand that Hamas perpetrated the worst war crimes since World War II.

“Hamas is ISIS in some respects. As President [Joe] Biden said, they’re worse than ISIS. And so they have to be treated the way ISIS was treated. The international community, banded together, to eradicate this horrible scourge,” he said.

“And I appreciate the fact that the international community and Europe is standing behind Israel so that we can eradicate this scourge.

Austin assured Netanyahu that the US had Israel’s back. “As you know, I was the guy that initially put the ISIS campaign together. And I know a lot about ISIS, and this is worse than what I saw with ISIS. We do stand with you, Mr. Prime Minister.”

Hanegbi told reporters that Israel intended to eliminate Hamas as a military and governmental force in Gaza.

The government is determined that Hamas can no longer pose a threat to Israel, he said. It would not be possible for any Israelis to live in southern Israel if they thought that this could happen again, he said.

Hanegbi appears to confirm that the number of those taken hostage could be upwards of 150 and said there is no negotiating with Hamas for the hostages nor will there be. “How can you negotiate with someone you are trying to wipe off the map?”

Still, he said, there was diplomatic activity on the issue, such as with Qatar.

Hanegbi said that right now, they are still trying to get the basic data points on our own people: “Where are the kids? The sons, daughters, parents? That is what we plan to find out when we go in and fight.” He noted that all the while, Hamas is engaging in psychological warfare, which Israel is used to.

Both Netanyahu in Israel and Biden in the United States held conversations over the weekend with families of the hostages.

The international community continued to show solidarity for the Jewish state, but increasingly turned its focus to the fate of Palestinians in Gaza in danger both from the Israeli aerial bombings and Israel’s decision to cut electricity, fuel, water and food shipments to Gaza.

Earlier on Saturday, Baerbock said Berlin was discussing with the United Nations and other partners how to deploy humanitarian aid to Gaza via the Rafah crossing with Egypt, and Berlin is working with Egypt and Israel to find solutions for German citizens stranded there.

Baerbock, who arrived on Saturday morning in Cairo for discussion with her Turkish and Egyptian counterparts, said “the fight against Hamas must be carried out with the greatest possible consideration for the humanitarian situation ... This is a huge dilemma that is difficult to resolve,” she said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin cautioned Israel on Friday against laying siege to Gaza in the same way that Nazi Germany besieged Leningrad, saying a ground offensive there would lead to an “absolutely unacceptable” number of civilian casualties.

Putin said Israel had been subjected to “an attack unprecedented in its cruelty” by Hamas militants, but was responding with cruel methods of its own.

He said there had been calls even in the United States for a blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip on a par with “the siege of Leningrad during World War Two.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled through the region over the weekend, meeting with Saudi  Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan in Riyadh and Qatari Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al Thani in Doha.

He met with Bahraini Crown Prince-Prime Minister Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa in Manama. In Jordan, he spoke with King Abdullah and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, following his visit to Israel on Thursday.

Farhan told Blinken on Saturday that the priority for Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia was to stop any further harm to civilians, particularly in Gaza.

“The humanitarian situation in Gaza is very, very difficult, and we need to work together to make sure that access to humanitarian relief and humanitarian goods is allowed.  This is something that is critical and is of course enshrined in international law.”

“A concerted effort” must be made “to end this constant return to violence, it will always be the civilians that suffer first and always be civilians on both sides that end up paying the price.”

“I hope that we can find a way to deescalate the current situation, and then hopefully move forward to a more permanent solution,” he said.

Blinken said that “no country can or should be expected to tolerate what Israel has just been on the receiving end of, which is an attack that almost defies description and words, in which more than 1,300 of its people were slaughtered along with the nationals of more than 30 other countries, by Hamas.”

He reiterated what he had said in Israel, that “Hamas is not representative of the Palestinian people or their legitimate aspirations for the future.  Hamas is a terrorist group.  Its only agenda is to destroy the state of Israel and to murder Jews.  And it’s important that the entire world see it as such.  This is, I think, an important moment for moral clarity when it comes to Hamas.’

“It is vitally important that all of us look out for civilians.  And we’re working together to do exactly that, in particular working on establishing safe areas in Gaza, working on establishing corridors so that humanitarian assistance can reach people who need it,” Blinken said.

“None of us want to see suffering by civilians on any side, whether it’s in Israel, whether it’s in Gaza, whether it’s anywhere else.  And we’re working together to do our best to protect them,’” Blinken said.

“It’s vitally important – and I know that our countries agree – that we work together to make sure that, to the best of our ability, this conflict does not spread to other places and other fronts.  And so I look forward to discussing that,” Blinken said.

Al-Thani said, “Qatar has sought to deescalate the situation towards achieving a complete cessation of hostilities, stop the bloodshed, and spare the region from the risk of slipping into an expansion of violence. The people of this region are exhausted by ongoing wars and conflicts, and suffer the consequences of such events.”

Reuters and Maayan Hoffman contributed to this report.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with US President Joe Biden on Saturday for the fifth time since the war between Israel and Hamas began.

Netanyahu thanked Biden for the US's support in the war, including defense and intelligence assistance. The two discussed the ongoing situation.

Netanyahu also shared with Biden what he saw during his visit on Saturday to the communities near the Gaza Strip. The two agreed to keep in constant contact.

In his call with Biden, Abbas' office said Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told Biden he completely rejects the displacement of Palestinians from Gaza, as Israel retaliates for a deadly Hamas attack on its territory.

The Home Front Command published new guidelines for where schools will be allowed to open and under what conditions they will be allowed to open on Saturday evening.

In communities near the Gaza border, in the West Negev, Ashkelon, Ashdod, the Lachish region, the Dan region, the Shfela, the Golan Heights, and communities near the Lebanese border, schools will be prohibited from opening.

In the West Bank, the Sharon, the Yarkon region, the Judean lowlands, Jerusalem, some of the towns near the Dead Sea and in the Jordan Valley, the Beit Shean area, Ha'Amakim, the Wadi Ara region, the Menashe region, Haifa and nearby areas, the parts of the Galilee not next to the border, and parts of the southern Golan Heights, schools will be allowed to operate as long as a shelter is accessible nearby.

In Eilat, the Arava region, the southern Negev, and some of the communities near the Dead Sea, schools will be able to operate without any restrictions.

Exact restrictions and regulations are accessible in both Hebrew and English on the website of the Home Front Command: https://www.oref.org.il/en

The US government on Saturday advised its citizens in Gaza to move south toward the Rafah border crossing with Egypt to be ready for its possible reopening amid the humanitarian crisis in the coastal enclave after a Hamas attack in Israel drew Israeli military retaliation.

Washington worked with Egypt, Israel, and Qatar to try to open the Rafah crossing for limited hours on Saturday afternoon to allow Palestinian-Americans to leave, a senior State Department official told reporters traveling with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

But it was unclear whether the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which controls Gaza, would allow access to the crossing, or whether any US citizens were able to exit, the official said later. It was not immediately known whether the US would make another attempt to get Rafah opened on Sunday.

"We have informed US citizens in Gaza with whom we are in contact that if they assess it to be safe, they may wish to move closer to the Rafah border crossing," a US State Department spokesperson said. "There may be very little notice if the crossing opens and it may only open for a limited time."

The US government estimates the number of dual-citizen Palestinian-Americans in Gaza at 500 to 600 among the strip's population of 2.3 million, and Washington hopes to get many of its nationals out of harm's way.

Rocket sirens sounded in the Galilee and Golan Heights on Saturday evening, hours after Hezbollah and the IDF exchanged fire along the Lebanese border as the conflict between Israel and Hamas continued to escalate.

At least one rocket was intercepted after being fired from Syria toward the Golan Heights on Saturday evening, according to initial reports.

On Saturday morning, the IDF thwarted an attempt by a Palestinian terrorist cell directed by Hezbollah to infiltrate into Israeli territory.

The IDF Spokesperson's Unit stated that an IDF drone struck the terrorist cell, killing a number of terrorists.

In the afternoon, Hezbollah fired about 30 mortars at IDF sites in the Har Dov (Shebaa Farms) area, with the IDF responding with artillery fire toward the source of the fire and additional sites. Simultaneously, the IDF struck a terrorist cell that attempted to fire an anti-tank missile at Israeli territory.

Rockets fired from Lebanon at Mt Dov in northern Israel. October 14, 2023. (credit: AYAL MARGOLIN/FLASH90)

Hezbollah stated that it fired toward an additional IDF site in the Shebaa Farms area later in the afternoon as the exchange of fire between the IDF and the terrorist movement continued.

During the clashes, a Hezbollah terrorist identified as Ali Youssef Alaa Al-Din "Jawad Ali" was killed, Hezbollah announced on Saturday.

IDF intercepts 'unidentified objects' over northern Israel

On Friday night, the IDF said that it had intercepted two "unidentified targets" over Haifa. The nature of the targeted objects was unclear as of Saturday night. A third unidentified object was intercepted over Shefaram in northern Israel on Friday night.

After the interceptions, the IDF targeted a site belonging to Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, saying the strike was conducted in response to the infiltration of the unidentified objects and fire which targeted an IDF drone.

Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Wray said the bureau has seen a sharp uptick in threats since last weekend's attacks in Israel, according to a New York Times reporter.

Wray, who was speaking to a gathering of police chiefs in San Diego, urged locals to be vigilant and share intel to stop "lone actors" inspired by Palestinian militant group Hamas and others, the reporters posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa pledged the solidarity of his country with "the people of Palestine," in a video the South African leader posted to X (formerly Twitter) on Saturday.

"We pledge solidarity with the people of Palestine," the caption on the video reads.

"All of us standing here, [are] pledging our solidarity with the people of Palestine," Ramaphosa said. "We stand here because we are deeply concerned about the atrocities that unfolding in the Middle East, and we have passed our condolences to the people of Israel as we are passing out condolences to the people of Palestine."

The South African president goes on to lay blame for the current war on the Israeli government for perpetrating a system that has left Palestinians living "under occupation for almost 75 years," describing the Palestinians as a "people under occupation who have been waging a struggle against an oppressive government that is occupying their land."

Additionally, Ramaphosa details that the Israeli government has charged with apartheid, and says that as South Africans are a people who have struggled against apartheid, they pledge solidarity with the Palestinians.

He additionally called for a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders as a solution to the conflict.