Israel at War: What happened on Day 64?

Hamas terrorists fired rockets toward Israel from the designated humanitarian zone on Friday evening around 6:00 p.m. IST, the IDF said on Saturday afternoon.

The IDF added that the terror organization had also launched a sum of four other rockets in the preceding hours from the humanitarian zone.

These earlier rockets reportedly landed within the Gaza Strip.

In recent days, the IDF has made numerous discoveries of weapons and infrastructure in civilian areas and items that it points to as evidence that Hamas uses civilian areas to conduct its activities.

Earlier on Saturday, the IDF reported that it had found a teddy bear packed with ammunition and a hidden sniper rifle.

Hamas rocket launches from the humanitarian zone of the Gaza Strip. December 8, 2023. (credit: IDF)

Nahal Brigade kills Hamas fighters in Jabalya

Soldiers of the Nahal Brigade’s 931st Battalion engaged Hamas terrorists in the northern Gazan city of Jabalya, the IDF stated on Sunday.

During operations in the area, the Nahal Brigade soldiers received intelligence indicating Hamas fighters and weapons were present in structures nearby, the IDF said.

The IDF troops subsequently initiated a precision strike on those locations.

The Israeli military added that Hamas terrorists had attempted to stage an ambush on the Israeli troops located in the vicinity, but were foiled by an IDF flanking maneuver through an alley, catching the terrorists unprepared.

Hamas fighters reportedly returned fire and threw grenades at the Israeli forces, and the ensuing firefight continued until the Hamas forces were eliminated. 

In recent days, engagements between IDF troops and Hamas terrorists have occurred within the same vicinity, the IDF noted, with more Hamas fighters being eliminated by the 931st Battalion who managed to locate Hamas weaponry and infrastructure in the area. 

Other terrorists in the area have also been recently killed by IDF tank fire and IAF UAVs, the army said.

The IDF killed a terrorist on Saturday after the attacker opened fire on a military post in Samaria, near the village of Kharas, Ynet reported.

The terrorists attacked IDF soldiers with a knife, which left one soldier wounded.

During the operation in the Yehuda Brigade, soldiers of the 7018th Battalion arrived to arrest the terrorist.

During the arrest, the terrorist attempted to stab the soldiers with a knife, moderately injuring one soldier in his hand. The soldier is currently receiving medical treatment. 

The Israel Defense Forces reported that during the operation the forces confiscated "terror funds" worth tens of thousands of shekels.

A new process for inspecting aid for Gaza at the Kerem Shalom crossing is being tested, but efforts to get permission for trucks to enter through the crossing and ramp up relief are still ongoing, a senior UN official told Reuters on Saturday.

Under the new system, trucks would come to the Kerem Shalom crossing on the border between Israel, Gaza and Egypt for the first time from Jordan, before entering Gaza from Rafah, about 3 km (1.86 miles) away.

But the trucks would need to be allowed to enter Gaza directly through Kerem Shalom to alleviate an increasingly desperate situation in the coastal enclave, said Carl Skau, deputy executive director of the UN World Food Programme.

Israel has so far rebuffed pleas from the United Nations and others to open Kerem Shalom, but they both signaled on Thursday that Kerem Shalom could soon help process delivery of humanitarian supplies into Gaza.

Until now, limited quantities of aid have been delivered from Egypt through the Rafah crossing, which is ill-equipped to process large numbers of trucks.

Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the situation in Gaza in a phone call on Saturday with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the Kremlin said, on the eve of an election in which Sisi is set to win six more years in power.

The Kremlin said Putin, who announced on Friday that he too would seek a new term in March, briefed Sisi on his talks this week with leaders from Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

It said Putin thanked Sisi for his help in evacuating Russian citizens from Gaza and getting Russian humanitarian aid into the war zone there, and wished him well in the election.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said the United States' veto of a UN Security Council resolution demanding a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza made it complicit in what he described as war crimes against Palestinians.

Abbas also said he held the US responsible for the bloodshed of Palestinian children, women and the elderly in the Gaza Strip, a statement released by the presidency said.

Israeli forces on Saturday found a teddy bear packed with ammunition and a hidden sniper rifle, the IDF said.

As part of the 551st Brigade's operations across the Gaza Strip, the teddy bear packed with weaponry was discovered during a raid of a school used by Hamas for terror purposes. In addition, more weaponry hidden in classrooms was found in UNRWA bags in an adjacent school.

Eight wanted terrorists in the West Bank were arrested on Saturday in a joint operation between the IDF, the Shin Bet, and Border police.

Soldiers in the Yehuda Brigade's 7,018th Battalion, under the direction of the Shin Bet, arrested a terrorist who tried attacking a military post at Kfar Horsa Thursday. He tried to resist arrest by attacking authorities with a knife. Security forces shot and killed him as a result.

A soldier was injured in the process and was transferred to a hospital for medical treatment.

Tens of thousands of shekels were confiscated from the terrorists as well. So far, since the beginning of the war, approximately 2,200 wanted persons have been arrested throughout the Judea and Samaria Division and the Bekaa and Valleys Division, approximately 1,180 of whom are associated with the terrorist organization Hamas.

The IDF on Saturday struck the source of rocket fire from Lebanon into northern Israeli border towns, the military said.

Antisemitism is the only rational explanation for the UN secretary-general's use of Article 99 on Israel's war on Hamas in Gaza, former prime minister Yair Lapid charged on Saturday.

"The UN secretary-genreal hasn't invoked Article 99 for decades. Not...in Syria...Congo...or Ukraine," Lapid wrote on X.

"How do we know its antisemitism? Because there is no other rational explanation."

The United States believes that Iran is involved in the planning and execution of drone and missile attacks by Yemen's Houthi group on Israel and ships in the Red Sea, a senior aide to US President Joe Biden said on Thursday.

The comments by deputy White House national security adviser Jon Finer are among the most explicit to date by a US official alleging Iranian involvement in the Houthi attacks.

Finer spoke hours after the United States imposed new sanctions aimed at throttling what US officials say is Iranian financial support for the Houthi strikes.

The Houthis "would not have the weaponry, would not have the intelligence, would not have the motivation to do this, were it not for the role of the IRGC," Finer told an Aspen Security Forum conference in Washington, using the acronym for Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

"They're involved in the conduct of these attacks, the planning of them, the execution of them, the authorization of them, and ultimately, they support them," he continued.