Israel at war - what happened on Day 33?

The Israeli army is likely to remain in Gaza in the immediate aftermath of the war until such time as a security architecture is drawn up for the enclave, US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Wednesday.

“In the immediate aftermath of conflict, it’s certainly plausible that at least some period of time, Israeli defense forces are still going to be in Gaza to manage the immediate aftermath [of the war] and the security situation,” Kirby said.

“But it shouldn’t be the long-term solution. It should not be about the IDF reoccupation of Gaza as a long term governance solution.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told ABC earlier this week that “Israel will, for an indefinite period, have the overall security responsibly, because we have seen what happens when we do not have it.” 

The White House and the State Department have clarified, however, that the territory must eventually be controlled by Palestinians, possibly the Palestinian Authority, in a situation where both Gaza and the West Bank are unified under one government.

The US struck a facility used by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Iran-backed militias in the Deir Ezzor region of eastern Syria on Wednesday night in response to repeated recent rocket and drone attacks against US forces in Syria and Iraq.

"Following a series of attacks against US persons in Iraq and Syria, US Central Command (USCENTCOM) forces conducted an airstrike against a facility in Syria used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and affiliated groups," said CENTCOM. "We will take all necessary measures to defend our people against those who are responsible for the attacks and will respond at a time and place of our choosing."

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said that the strike was conducted by two US F-15s and targeted a weapons storage facility.

"This precision self-defense strike is a response to a series of attacks against US personnel in Iraq and Syria by IRGC-Quds Force affiliates. The president has no higher priority than the safety of US personnel, and he directed today's action to make clear that the United States will defend itself, its personnel, and its interests," said Austin.

"The United States is fully prepared to take further necessary measures to protect our people and our facilities. We urge against any escalation. US personnel will continue to conduct counter-ISIS missions in Iraq and Syria."

Palestinians should govern Gaza once Israel ends its war against Hamas, the United States said on Wednesday, pushing back against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's idea that Israel would be responsible for security indefinitely.

Hamas gunmen from Gaza burst through the border to Israel on Oct. 7 and killed 1,400 people, Israel says. Now a month later, Washington has begun discussing with Israeli and Arab leaders a future for the Gaza Strip without Hamas rule.

While a plan has yet to emerge, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday outlined in the most comprehensive comments on the issue to date Washington's red lines and expectations for the besieged coastal territory.

"No reoccupation of Gaza after the conflict ends. No attempt to blockade or besiege Gaza. No reduction in the territory of Gaza," Blinken said at a press conference in Tokyo.

Blinken said there may be a need for "some transition period" at the end of the conflict, but that post-crisis governance in Gaza must include Palestinian voices.

Israeli soldiers stand amid rubble, during the ongoing ground invasion against Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in the northern Gaza Strip, November 8, 2023. (credit: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun)

"It must include Palestinian-led governance and Gaza unified with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority."

On Monday, Netanyahu told ABC News that Israel will "for an indefinite period" have security responsibility of the enclave after the war. His comments appeared at odds with US officials who say Israel does not want to administer Gaza post-Hamas.

"I think Israel will, for an indefinite period, will have the overall security responsibility because we've seen what happens when we don't have that security responsibility," Netanyahu said.

Israeli officials have since tried to clarify they do not intend to occupy Gaza after the war, but they have yet to articulate how they might ensure security without maintaining a military presence. Israel withdrew its forces from Gaza in 2005.

The Palestinian Authority (PA), which exercises limited self-rule in parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, says Gaza, where Hamas has ruled since 2007, is an integral part of what it envisions for a future Palestinian state.

'Not going to go to Gaza on an Israeli military tank'

But top officials including Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas say a PA return to Gaza must be accompanied by a political solution that ends Israel's occupation of territory it captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

"(We) are not going to go to Gaza on an Israeli military tank," PA Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh told PBS this week. "We are going to go to Gaza as part of a solution that deals with the question of Palestine, that deals with occupation."

Hamas took over Gaza after a brief civil war in 2007 with Abbas' Fatah party. Years of reconciliation talks between the rivals failed to reach a breakthrough for resuming PA administration of Gaza. The PA still pays for electricity, water and some civil servant salaries in Gaza.

Since Oct. 7, more than 10,000 Palestinians have been killed in a relentless bombardment of the Gaza Strip - home to 2.3 million - by Israeli forces, say Palestinian health officials in Gaza. About 40% of those killed are children, they say.

Arab states, which provide the PA with financial aid, have advocated for an immediate ceasefire but have shown reluctance to discuss a post-war status for Gaza. They say the focus should remain on stopping hostilities.

But Blinken said the conversation about the future should take place now.

"Because identifying the longer-term objectives and a pathway to get there will help shape our approach to addressing immediate needs," he said.

Since conflict broke out, the Biden administration has reasserted its support for a solution based on Israeli and Palestinian states side by side but has yet to outline a path to reviving long-stalled peace talks, the last round of which broke down in 2014.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday said "best-case scenario" would be a "hopefully re-invigorated" Palestinian Authority assuming some political control over Gaza.

White House spokesperson John Kirby said Washington and its partners were still discussing what a Gaza governance structure might look like.

"We believe that the Palestinians should be in charge of their future and they should be the determining voice and factor in their future," he said.

British foreign minister James Cleverly and has traveled to Saudi Arabia after the G7 Foreign Ministers' meeting in Tokyo, the UK's Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office said in a statement on Thursday.

Cleverly will meet with foreign ministers from the Middle East, who are gathering in Saudi Arabia ahead of a League of Arab States emergency meeting about Gaza on Saturday.

It has been a month since the October 7 massacre.

The weeks came and went in a blur. Israel launched its ground offensive and surrounded Gaza City. Yet no matter the progress of war on the front lines, the landscape of Israel remains forever changed.

In the past month, during which I have spent time on the Gaza border, in northern Israel, in Jerusalem, and in Tel Aviv, I was also in the sun-drenched fields near Gaza, in the communities destroyed and in those evacuated.

The trauma across Israel is difficult to describe. The most noticeable difference is not the sight of funerals or similar gatherings; rather, in many cases, it is the absence of people.

Streets are quiet. Drivers don’t use their horns the way they used to. Parking lots in Tel Aviv near the beach are deserted. The city’s HaYarkon park, usually full of activities, feels abandoned, as if it has returned to nature. The beaches are almost empty. Bars and restaurants have lost their usual clamor.

Posters of the hostages and missing near the Kirya. (credit: SETH J. FRANTZMAN)

Posters for the hostages are everywhere. Outside Tel Aviv’s Habima Theater, a display of empty beds has been left outside, symbolizing the empty beds of the hostages. Some people adorn their bags and bikes with yellow ribbons. People walk quietly among the posters, like ghosts.

At Tel Aviv’s Azrieli Center, the giant flashing billboard that usually displays ads for chocolate or fashion accessories now shows the kidnapped children and adults held in Gaza. A construction site is adorned with a poster of a giant lion emblazoned with the Israeli flag.

There is a juxtaposition here of mourning, demands for the return of the hostages, and patriotism, and they do not necessarily go hand-in-hand. People have been flocking to support our soldiers. The whole country seems to be either under arms or in support of the war effort.

On the other hand, it is also quiet and somber; there is no cheering for this war. There is hope that the soldiers will return, but not yet a sense of victory.

Evacuees from the South and North 

In both the South and the North, communities have been evacuated – around 100 border communities and two cities – totaling at least 200,000 people who have left their homes; some because their communities were destroyed by Hamas, and any others because they were provided a place to go and encouraged to leave. They have moved to hundreds of guest houses and hotels across Israel.

Eilat is swelled by an additional 60,000 people. This means that the closer one gets to the borders, the more empty they appear. People still work the fields, thanks to volunteers who have come to help the communities.

The locals have been replaced by the army, as tanks replace tractors, APCs replace SUVs, and Humvees replace cars. And all manner of this menagerie of vehicles is on the roads; from fuel trucks to Humvees that are decades old to the ancient M113 APCs that date from the Vietnam era. These vehicles seem more fitting for a movie set as they drive around fields like armadillos plodding along.

And the army keeps moving. At Urim Junction, where several weeks ago the air was filled with the smell of meat being grilled for soldiers, the soldiers have moved on, like a nomadic tribe that has picked up their tents and migrated.

IN WAR, everything is temporary. A bivouac here, a few tanks there, some training to be done in this field and then in that field. And they leave things behind. A tank that was unloaded in the early days of the war near Yad Mordechai left tracks on the road. Tanks aren’t supposed to drive on civilian roads because they chew up the concrete. But war is war, and roads must suffer. Fields must also suffer; it isn’t melon season near the Gaza border this time, so the tanks have had the good luck of not churning up fields full of crops. Instead, perhaps, they have helped prepare the soil for the next planting.

The sounds of war are changing as well. A month into it, the rocket attacks from Gaza appear to be reduced. Some 10,000 have been fired, but half of those were fired in the first days. Today, the enemy can fire a barrage a day from Gaza. But there are other threats – from Hezbollah and other Iran-backed groups in Syria and Yemen.

The landscape is not the same. In the South, many communities now have security checks at their entrances. The security threat seems to be ever-present. In the North, they have had to add shelters to places because some communities don’t have enough. Tel Aviv is full of posters of the missing hostages. Jerusalem is quiet, but somewhat lacks the posters that are so common in Tel Aviv. Perhaps this is a reminder that behind the unity and calls for victory, the cities and towns are not all the same. The country is unified for now. But the differences are here beneath the surface.

The United States said that it welcomes Germany’s decision to ban activities supporting Hamas, which builds on the EU’s designation to fully restrict and criminalize support of the terrorist group, US state department spokesperson, Matthew Miller stated on Wednesday.

"We urge other governments around the world to take action under their own authorities to hold Hamas accountable as it seeks to sustain its terrorist activities," Miller said.

IDF fighter jets hit Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure in Lebanon on Wednesday evening, the IDF spokesperson said.

The strike came in response to rocket launches from the Lebanon-based terror organization fire toward Israel over the past day.

Among the targets hit by the Israeli jets were military posts and technological assets used by Hezbollah to facilitate attacks on Israel, the IDF said. 

The operation was conducted across the northern border, opposite of the area of Biranit.

Blackened windows, shattered bedrooms, pockmarked walls. Wherever you look in northern Gaza, you see destruction and desolation a month into Israel's military campaign to oust Hamas from the enclave.

Israeli forces gave a small group of foreign reporters a rare view of their advance into the Palestinian territory on Wednesday, driving them along sandy routes, churned by tank tracks, to the fringes of Gaza City.

Stopping at a cluster of apartment blocks, every building within sight is scarred by battle. Walls have been blown away, bullet holes and shrapnel dot the facades, the palm trees are shredded and broken.

"It's been a long two weeks of fighting. It is not an operation, it is a war," said Lieutenant Colonel Ido, deputy commander of the 401st brigade. He did not give his last name. "It is going to last a long time, until Hamas no longer exists."

Invasion of Gaza

Israeli forces entered Gaza on Oct. 27 after days of heavy bombardment in response to a surprise Hamas attack through the border fence on Oct. 7, which killed 1,400 people.

Israeli military vehicles manoeuvre amid the ongoing ground operation of the Israeli army against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, in the Gaza Strip, in this handout image released by the Israel Defense Forces on November 8, 2023. (credit: Israel Defense Forces/Handout via REUTERS)

Over the past 12 days, thousands of Israeli troops have encircled Gaza City, effectively cutting the densely populated coastal enclave into two, as they look to hunt down and eliminate Hamas terrorists.

Very few details have emerged about the invasion. Reuters footage shot during the 1-1/2-hour tour on Wednesday was reviewed by the Israeli army as a condition for having a journalist embedded. No material was removed.

The military has repeatedly told civilians to leave the north and head to the southern end of the enclave. Ido said that by the time they had reached this cluster of buildings, all the families had packed and left.

Hunting down Hamas

"So we know that everyone here is our enemy. We have not seen any civilians here. Only Hamas," he said, standing in a badly damaged children's bedroom that was painted pink.

The mirror behind him was smashed and bags, toys and a doll lay discarded on the floor.

The soldiers said that beneath the family apartment there were two floors of workshops that had been used to make weapons, including drones that were discovered in five wooden boxes.

The workrooms contained metal lathes, hand tools and grey casings, but it was not possible to verify what had been made there.

The reporters were driven to the site in a heavily armored, hi-tech vehicle known as a Tiger, which has no windows. Instead screens connected to cameras on the outside show the occupants where they are going.

Piles of earth have been banked up to give protection to army vehicles parked outside the wrecked buildings. Idling tanks have sturdy metal grills on top to protect them from possible drone attack from the air.

A lone chicken ran around under the tanks.

According to latest figures released on Wednesday, 31 Israeli soldiers have been killed during the Gaza ground offensive, and more than 260 injured. Palestinian officials say 10,569 people have been killed by Israeli forces since Oct. 7, 40% of them children.

Booms and explosions could be heard in the distance as Israel pressed further into the Gaza Strip. Soldiers suggested they were moving cautiously.

"We are getting to know the enemy a little bit more and more. Every house we get into we try and be careful," said one soldier, who did not give his name.

Of all the talents bestowed upon men, none is so precious as the gift of oratory,” wrote Winston Churchill. “He who enjoys it wields a power more durable than that of a great king.”

Churchill, considered one of the greatest English orators of all time,  wrote those words when he was but 22, long before he delivered speeches as prime minister that contributed enormously to Britain’s victory over Hitler in World War II.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who over his long career has taken much inspiration from Churchill – critics say he has often fashioned himself as the British wartime leader’s modern-day Israeli incarnation – is also considered a great orator in both English and Hebrew.

He understands the potency of a well-crafted speech and, like Churchill, often dedicates himself to meticulous speech-writing, even making handwritten annotations until the last minute. Netanyahu understands not only the importance of using crisp language with powerful imagery but also the power of dramatic pauses and rhythm in his oratory.

For political leaders, there are no times more crucial to muster their rhetorical prowess than during periods of war. This is when words have the power to fortify resolve, unite the nation, and inspire the troops.

The terrorist organization Hamas has been using hospitals, ambulances, clinics, mosques, and schools for purposes of terrorism, a Hamas terrorist admitted in a video of an interrogation of a Hamas terrorist released by the IDF and Shin Bet on Wednesday evening.

The terrorist admitted that Hamas uses ambulances to transport weapons and terrorists throughout the Gaza Strip.

"I can leave with any ambulance I want," the terrorist admitted during the interrogation.

"Al-Qassam has its own ambulances, some of which are also at the military base," the terrorist said. The terrorist was from the Nukhba Force and took part in the massacre on October 7. "The appearance of ambulances is similar to civilian ambulances so that they do not arouse suspicion or be bombed by Israel."