Intense fighting continued over the weekend between Israeli troops and Paleostinian terror operatives throughout the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about
oppressionand
disproportionate response...
Strip, including Khan Younis in the south, Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighborhood in the north, and in the center of the Strip.
The Israel Defense Forces said many Hamas
...always the voice of sweet reason...button men had been killed over the past day in all three theaters of operations.
And on Saturday evening, the military announced the death of an officer killed during fighting in northern Gaza over the weekend, bringing the toll of slain troops in the ground offensive against Hamas to 238. He was named as Maj. Eyal Shuminov, 24, a company commander in the Givati Brigade’s Shaked Battalion, from Karmiel.
During a visit to northern Gaza, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said military pressure on Hamas was "the most effective" action to bring about a potential hostage deal with the terror group, as talks were held in Gay Paree on the latest proposals for an agreement.
"There is a connection between these things," he said during an assessment with officers. "Your achievements — another battalion dismantled, more underground infrastructure [demolished], another neighborhood where [Hamas] infrastructure is destroyed and the population is evacuated to safety — all these things are pushing us, I very much hope, toward achieving the release of hostages."
"This is a goal of war. We intend to do a great deal to realize it, and the fighting effort is the most effective action that helps those who are negotiating for the release of the hostages," Halevi added.
The IDF also released footage showing
...
KABOOM!...
s and tank shelling of Hamas operatives during operations in the Strip.
In western Khan Younis, the IDF said, paratroopers located a Hamas weapons depot with a large number of bombs, mines, grenades, ammunition, rockets and other military equipment.
Troops of the IDF’s 7th Armored Brigade raided the home of a senior Hamas intelligence officer in Khan Younis, locating a tunnel shaft and weapons nearby, the military said. The tunnel was later destroyed. In the same area, the IDF said troops located a cache of mortars in repurposed bags from UN agency UNRWA, and other weapons and military equipment.
Amid the 7th Brigade’s operations in Khan Younis, the IDF said troops spotted eight Hamas operatives approaching them, before eliminating them with an Iron Sting guided mortar. It published footage of the strike.
Meanwhile,
...back at the desert island, Bert was realizing to his horror that he'd had only one bottle for one message, and he'd forgotten to include a return address...
food is running out, with aid agencies saying they are unable to get into the area because of Israeli strikes, while the trucks that do try to get through face frenzied looting. Israel has defended its track record on allowing aid into Gaza, saying that nearly 14,000 trucks carrying relief supplies had entered the territory since the start of the war. Israel has also alleged that humanitarian organizations operating inside Gaza are failing to keep up with the pace, saying hundreds of trucks filled with aid sit idle on the Paleostinian side of the Kerem Shalom Crossing.
The UN, in turn, said it can’t always reach the trucks at the crossing because it is at times too dangerous.
Additionally, Israel has long accused Hamas of appropriating and stealing aid from an increasingly desperate civilian population.
According to an Axios report Saturday, the US has asked Israel to stop targeting Hamas coppers who are escorting aid convoys in Gaza. The report, citing three US and Israeli officials, comes after aid groups suspended deliveries to northern Gaza this week saying that the convoys were being overrun by hungry crowds. According to Axios, the Biden administration asked Israel to stop targeting members of the Hamas-run civilian police force, warning that a "total breakdown of law and order" is significantly exacerbating the humanitarian crisis in the enclave. US officials say at least 11 Hamas coppers have been killed in Israeli strikes in recent weeks.
The report said Israel rebuffed the American request, telling the administration that a clear goal of the war was to end all Hamas control in Gaza and that Israel was working on alternative plans to ensure law and order.
Separate reports in Israel on Saturday indicated cautious optimism on the prospects of reaching a temporary truce and hostage release deal with Hamas that would see a pause in the fighting more than three months after the previous halt in late November in which over 100 hostages were freed. Channel 12 reported that war cabinet ministers were to vote by phone later on whether to endorse an outline proposed by international mediators in Gay Paree for a hostages-for-truce outline. It said the deal apparently provides, in a first phase, for the release of some 40 hostages in return for the release of hundreds of Paleostinian security prisoners and a truce of some 6 weeks. These would be mostly female, elderly and ill hostages.
The Hamas-run health ministry says nearly 30,000 Paleostinians have been killed in Gaza since October 7. These figures cannot be independently verified and do not differentiate between civilians and terror operatives, or those killed by Hamas’s own rockets that went
kaboom!in the Strip. The IDF says it has killed some 12,000 terror operatives in Gaza, in addition to some 1,000 snuffies inside Israel on October 7.