"What happened to our revenge?" written on the image showing various senior officers from the Revolutionary Guards who were assassinated in recent years, with the desired revenge yet to materialize.
Hamas has told negotiators it does not have 40 Israeli hostages that it can release as part of a temporary cease-fire deal with Israel, a source familiar with the talks confirmed to The Hill.
The admission raises questions over how many of the remaining hostages kidnapped Oct. 7 are alive and who is holding them. Israel says 133 hostages out of more than 240 abducted that day — mostly Israelis and dual nationals — have yet to be released.
The Biden administration is pushing a plan to have Israel and Hamas agree to a six to eight week cease-fire that is contingent on Hamas releasing hostages, a group that includes older men, civilians and both male and female Israeli soldiers who have been held for 187 days.
CNN reported on Hamas’s update to negotiators earlier Wednesday. The Israeli prime minister’s office told CNN that of the 129 hostages from Oct. 7, at least 33 are dead.
CIA Director Bill Burns had reportedly proposed that Hamas agree to release 40 hostages in exchange for Israel releasing Palestinian prisoners from Israel jails during a first phase of a three-phase deal.
President Biden, expressing rising frustration with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip, has told the Israeli leader to “empower” his negotiators to reach a deal.
Talks are ongoing in Cairo, with Egypt and Qatar serving as mediators with Hamas’s leadership, who are hiding out in the Gaza Strip.
Bassem Naeem, Hamas’s director of international relations, told The Hill that he had no information on the number of hostages that Hamas is holding, but said that “the movement is preparing its response to the new proposal.”
Yahya Sinwar, head of Hamas in Gaza, is passed the proposals through secret channels and then sends back a response, a procedure that is time-consuming and tedious. The timing for a response is believed to take a few days, Naeem said.
The U.S. wants to see a deal to secure the release of hostages, but to also allow for a scale up of humanitarian aid delivery in the Gaza Strip. Biden has stood by Israel’s right to target Hamas to eliminate the threat it would repeat its Oct. 7 attack.
But the administration, while placing blame on Hamas for triggering Israel’s military response in Gaza, has nonetheless increased its public criticism of Israel for failing to do enough to protect civilian life and the lives of humanitarian workers.
An Israeli strike killing seven aid workers with the nongovernmental organization World Central Kitchen has dramatically shifted Biden’s tone against Netanyahu.
But it’s unclear how Hamas’s inability to release the hostages it kidnapped — whether they are alive or dead — will impact the negotiations. Hamas has claimed that Israeli airstrikes have killed some of the hostages. Other military groups in Gaza, such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and even Palestinian civilians are thought to be holding, or have held, hostages.
Hamas has not provided Israel with a comprehensive list of the people it kidnapped on Oct 7 during its surprise assault on Israel, where about 1,200 people were killed.
Hamas also has the bodies of two Israeli soldiers it captured during a war with Israel in 2014 and two Israeli civilians who crossed into Gaza during that time.
A week-long cease-fire deal reached in November saw the release of more than 100 people held by Hamas, including Israeli women and children and foreign nationals.
Updated at 11:57 a.m.
One of Hamas political bureau chairman Ismail Haniyeh's sons who was eliminated in an Israeli airstrike on a vehicle on Wednesday in the Shati Refugee Camp in Gaza was involved in holding Israeli hostages.
The IDF updated that the strike was not approved by Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi nor by Southern Command commanding officer Yaron Finkleman since the strike was in "real-time" against terrorists who were on their way to commit an act of terror.
The strike was approved by a colonel in the Southern Command Fire Center.
In addition, the IDF explained that the political echelon was indeed not notified ahead of time about the elimination since it followed breaking intelligence, in which case, according to the general staff protocol, a strike is executed without the approval of the political echelon.
The IDF confirmed on Wednesday that IAF aircraft, directed by IDF and ISA intelligence, struck three Hamas military operatives that conducted terrorist activity in the central Gaza Strip.
The three operatives that were struck are Amir Haniyeh, a cell commander in the Hamas military wing, Mohammad Haniyeh, a military operative in the Hamas terrorist organization, and Hazem Haniyeh, also a military operative in the Hamas terror organization, the sons of Ismail Haniyeh, chairman of Hamas's political bureau.
The IDF could not confirm that Haniyeh's grandchildren were also killed in the strike.
Haniyeh reacted to the deaths, telling Al Jazeera that they died "on the way to the liberation of Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque" and that he was thankful "for the honor that my children and grandchildren are martyrs."
A group of thirteen young Hasidic Jews were indicted yesterday (Wednesday) for building the tunnel discovered under the historic 770 synagogue in Crown Heights.
The defendants pleaded not guilty to the charges, which include obstruction of a government administration and criminal mischief, a federal felony.
The judge ordered the defendants to turn over their passports so they could not leave the country but refused the prosecution's request to bar them from the synagogue they vandalized.
Several of the defendants are currently in Israel. Their lawyer stated that they are also prepared to respond to the charges.
In December, it was discovered that a group of 18-21-year-old men had illegally dug a tunnel underneath the synagogue which serves as the Chabad headquarters in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
The tunnel stretched for 60 feet and was eight feet wide, five feet tall, and threatened the structural stability of two nearby buildings.
The diggers used simple tools and bare hands only, and put the dirt into their pockets to avoid other members of the congregation noticing the tunnel.
Drama surrounding the tunnel drew international attention after bedlam broke out at the complex’s synagogue upon the discovery of the tunnel. Videos posted online showed Hasidim clashing with police at the synagogue and rising out of the sewers to escape.
Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel, on Wednesday night spoke to thousands of yeshiva students about their role while Israel is at war.
"We must not forget our brothers who are hostages held captive in Gaza by accursed murderers, the families of the murdered and fallen," he said at a conference for yeshiva students held at the International Convention Center (ICC). "May G-d bring them out of suffering, to comfort, and from darkness - to light."
"We must not, in any way, behave rowdily or wander around the streets or places of entertainment during a time when the People of Israel are suffering. 'I am with him in suffering' (Psalms 91:15). We need to feel this - each and every one of us, truly, within himself, and may G-d's Name be sanctified by us."
Rabbi Yosef added, "We are now only a short time before the Seder night (the first night of Passover - ed.). 'In [the Jewish month of] Nissan, the Children of Israel were redeemed, and in Nissan they will be redeemed in the future' - we have a special obligation to use the lofty days of the holiday to pass the Torah traditions on to the next generations, to draw [others] closer and arouse everyone regarding whom there is a concern that they do not find joy in learning, to help them taste the sweetness of the Torah."
"This is our responsibility as Torah learners, and this is the Torah learners' obligation of 'and you shall teach it to your sons' (Exodus 13:8) - to pay attention to those around them, and strengthen all who need support," he concluded.
A major attack by Iran on Israel is believed to be imminent and could happen in the coming days, according to US and Israeli intelligence assessments. While it is unclear whether the attack will come directly from Iran or through its proxies in the region, Tehran is thought to be planning to use high-precision missiles or drones in the assault.
The warning comes after Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called for Israel to be “punished” for the recent attack on an Iranian consular building in Damascus, which killed two generals and several members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Iran on Wednesday shut its airspace above the capital city Tehran, claiming that it is due to “military exercises.”
In response to the heightened tensions, the US has pledged to support Israel’s security and has placed its military forces in the region on high alert.
The situation has also led to disruption in air travel, with German airline Lufthansa suspending flights to and from Tehran due to “the current situation in the Middle East.”
The attack, if carried out, would mark a major escalation in tensions between Iran and Israel, which have been building for months.
Dozens of protestors swarmed the halls of Jerusalem’s Hadassah Mount Scopus Medical Center on Wednesday morning after news got out that the hospital was treating a member of Hamas’s “Nukhba force.”
The Nukhba terrorists were one of the leading participants in the terror group’s Oct. 7 attack on the western Negev, during which some 1,200 people were murdered, thousands were wounded and 253 were taken as hostages.
Following calls on social media for people to mobilize in protest, Hadassah closed the entrance to its intensive care unit, covering the glass door with an Israeli flag in an attempt to prevent protesters from locating the terrorist.
“I am on my way to Hadassah Mount Scopus Hospital, which is committing a heinous act and has forgotten the horrible massacre and what these despicable terrorists have done to our daughters and the Israeli people,” tweeted Herzl Hajaj, whose daughter was killed in a 2017 terrorist attack.
“We will not forget and not be silent,” wrote Hajaj, who represents Choosing Life, a forum of Israeli terror victims and bereaved families.
In video footage of the incident, Hajaj can be seen arguing with medical staff and security outside a hospital room, which is guarded by at least two armed soldiers, before being escorted off the premises.
“Is this where the terrorist son of a bitch is hospitalized? Is the terrorist hospitalized here?” he shouts, asking security guards to “take the terrorist out of here, not us.”
Hadassah, in a statement shared with Hebrew media on Wednesday afternoon, noted that “every security prisoner treated in Israeli hospitals is brought [there] under the responsibility and according to a decision of the Ministry of Health, the security forces or the army.
Carlson accused Israel of persecuting Christians during a friendly interview with a Palestinian pastor that sparked outrage from conservatives.
After an extensive monologue in which Carlson said that “a consistent but almost never noted theme of American foreign policy is that it is always the Christians who suffer,” Carlson hosted Reverend Munther Isaac, a pastor from Bethlehem — which is controlled by the PLO — to discuss the Israeli government’s treatment of Christians.
The interview focused on Christian casualties in the war in Gaza, as well as Israel’s treatment of Christians generally. “It would be pretty easy for Republicans in the U.S. Congress to say we support the government of Israel. But if you touch a single Christian, harm a single church, or prevent any Christian from practicing his religion, you’re done. Not a single dollar will come from the U.S. Congress for you,” suggested Carlson. He did not say whether he thought a similar standard should be applied to other conflicts in which “a single Christian” was harmed.
“If you wake up in the morning and decide that your Christian faith requires you to support a foreign government, blowing up churches and killing Christians. I think you’ve lost the thread,” added Carlson.
