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Some 250 reservists from the IDF’s elite 8200 intelligence unit have thrown their support behind the Israeli Air Force pilots who recently called for an immediate shift in the government’s war policy, drawing the ire of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who accused them of “encouraging” Israel’s enemies.

The intelligence unit reservists said in a letter published Friday that they were joining “the call of the aircrews in demanding the immediate return of the hostages, even at the cost of an immediate change in the conduct of the war.”

The declaration was the latest in a growing wave of criticism from within Israel’s reserve forces over the continued war in Gaza and the failure to return the remaining 59 hostages.

The calls began with a group of roughly 1,000 Israeli Air Force veterans, the vast majority of whom are in retirement, who published a letter Thursday demanding as much.

The letter did not call for a general refusal to serve but instead urged the government to prioritize the release of hostages over the continuation of the war in Gaza, which the signatories argued now serves “political and personal interests” rather than national security.

Some 60 of the 1,000 IAF veterans are still active reservists, and the IAF has said that they will be dismissed.

The Air Force veterans were then joined by a group of some 150 ex-Navy officers and dozens of reservist doctors who signed their names to letters demanding an immediate end to the war for the sake of the remaining hostages.

Voicing many of the same concerns as those before them, the intelligence unit reservists also warned that high rates of reservists were experiencing “burnout” after multiple rounds of being called up, many of them to the front lines.

They said that they had “noticed the ever-increasing rates of non-reporting for the reserves,” and as such were “concerned about the future effects of this trend.”

Furthermore, it argued, the war in the Palestinian enclave was not bringing Israel any closer to its oft-touted goals of returning the hostages, defeating the Hamas terror group, and ensuring that Gaza could no longer pose a threat to Israel.

“The continuation of the war does not contribute to any of its stated goals, and will lead to the deaths of hostages, IDF soldiers, and innocents,” they wrote, adding lower down: “We see Hamas controlling the Strip and recruiting new operatives to its ranks, while the government has not presented a convincing plan to overthrow it.”

None of the letters published over the last few days have included calls for refusals to serve.

Nevertheless, IAF chief Maj. Gen. Tomer Bar slammed the letter written by Air Force veterans in a missive issued Friday, in which he said that the “manifesto that was published weakens the solidarity and leads to generalizations that affect servicemembers who are not partners to these views, as well as the entire [IAF].

“It is not appropriate for active reservists to call to stop the war, which they themselves take part in. We cannot allow this in any unit that participates in the war, including the Air Force,” he said.

He said that he had been “forced to act and declare that active reservists who signed the manifesto cannot continue to serve in the IDF.”

“This is a policy designed to maintain a strong, cohesive, and functioning [IAF],” he said, calling it a “painful, but necessary process.”

“Over the past week, we have had conversations with those involved. This message was delivered directly and indirectly, with the aim of separating the military from politics,” he said, adding that the IAF “will continue to operate like this in the future as well.”

In a scathing response to the letters on Friday, Netanyahu accused the reservists of representing a small minority funded by organizations he claimed wanted to overthrow his government.

“It is a small, noisy, anarchistic, and disconnected group of pensioners, a large group of whom have not served for years,” he said, referring to the discovery that just 60 of the Air Force veterans who signed the original letter were active reservists, and within that number only a handful were competent pilots.

“The weeds are trying to weaken the State of Israel and the IDF and are encouraging our enemy to harm us,” Netanyahu continued. “They already broadcast a message of weakness to our enemies once. We won’t allow them to do it again.”

It was the second time in recent days that Netanyahu attributed the mass protests against his government that took place for most of 2023 as being a key factor in Hamas’s decision to launch its invasion and massacre in southern Israel on October 7.

Civilians back reservists’ demands
Also, on Friday, Ynet reported that some 1,840 academics signed a petition in support of the Air Force veterans and reservists and their call to end the war.

“We, faculty members at institutes of higher education, join the call of the Air Force personnel and demand the hostages return home without delay, even at the cost of immediately ending the war,” they wrote.

They similarly declared that they found the war in Gaza to have shifted from its stated goals to instead serving “political and personal interests.”

“As has been proven in the past, only an agreement has returned the hostages safely, while military pressure mainly leads to the killing of hostages and the endangerment of our soldiers.”

The signatories were said by Ynet to include Avishay Braverman, who served as the president of Ben-Gurion University from 1990-2006, and until 2015 as a member of Knesset for the Labor Party.

It was also signed by Joseph Klafter, president of Tel Aviv University from 2009-2019, and the former president of Ariel University, Yehuda Danon.

A group of more than 250 Mossad veterans and nearly 200 reserve medical officers have signed letters calling for the end of the war, Israeli media reported on Sunday.

The two new letters add to the two already existing letters signed by veteran pilots and Unit 8200 veterans published on Tuesday and Friday, respectively.

The Mossad veteran's letter included three former Mossad heads, Danny Yotam, Ephraim Halevi, and Tamir Pardo; a former deputy head of the Mossad; and dozens of department heads and deputy department heads. The initiative is reportedly led by David Midan and Gail Shoresh.

"We, the Mossad intelligence and special services veterans, who have dedicated many years to safeguarding the country's security, will not continue to stand by. We express our full support for the pilots' letter, which also reflects our deep concern for the future of the country, and we join the call to act immediately to reach an agreement to return all 59 abductees home, without delay, even at the cost of ceasing fighting."

They concluded the letter saying, "The sanctity of life, Mr. Prime Minister, takes precedence over 'God of Revenge.'"

The letter was organized through a Mossad veterans society, which Ynet confirmed also exists in the security services.

Medical officers join the call
Around 200 reserve medical officers signed a similar letter on Sunday, calling for an end to the war and the return of the hostages.

"We will return [to service] and stand firm whenever necessary. We feel with pain that the continued fighting in Gaza is intended primarily to serve political and personal interests without a security purpose. The continued fighting does not advance the achievement of the goals of the war declared from the beginning and only endangers IDF soldiers and the lives of our citizens being held hostage."

"As medical officers, we serve in the reserve force out of a commitment to the sanctity of life, to the spirit of the IDF and the doctor's oath, and as an expression of mutual guarantee in Israeli society. We warn that the continued fighting and abandonment of the kidnapped is contrary to these values ​​and to the Medical Corps' commitment not to leave any of our people behind."

"The continued fighting and abandonment of the kidnapped, as wounded people abandoned on the battlefield, irreversibly erodes the values ​​of the sanctity of life and the commitment to the security of the state and its residents. We call on the Israeli leadership to come to its senses and act in accordance with the values ​​of the State of Israel and the spirit of the IDF."

The IDF renewed invasion that started with a bang on March 18 has been reduced to a crawl.
While the IDF killed 5,000 Hamas fighters in a few weeks when the war opened in October-November 2023, all messaging on Monday and in recent days has indicated progress that was comparatively tiny in relative terms, with some days the military only taking out single digit numbers of Hamas operatives.

On March 25, the IDF reported that it had killed 150 Hamas fighters since renewing hostilities, though most of them were killed in the first 10 minutes by a massive air barrage on March 18

IDF operating more slowly than in recent Gaza operations
As of April 3, the IDF had only killed around 250 Hamas terrorists, meaning only an additional 100 over more than a week.

On April 9, the number of Gazan terrorists killed by the military was still only up to 300, meaning about only another 50 in another week.

Approaching the one-month point of renewed hostilities that will be marked on Friday, the number of Hamas fighters killed will likely remain below 400, less than 15 per day on average.
In comparison, during the initial invasion of northern Gaza in 2023, the IDF killed around 5,000 Hamas fighters in only 20 days, or an average of 250 per day.

Not only are the numbers of Hamas fighters killed by the IDF increasing at a snail’s pace, but Hamas’s total number of fighters has continued to jump or at least solidified at an estimated 20,000-25,000.

In contrast, on Monday, the IDF only mentioned single digit kills of Hamas fighters and as such focused its update on dismantling Hamas “terror targets” across the Gaza Strip, including terror tunnels and weapons storage facilities.

In southern Gaza, IDF troops dismantled yet another underground tunnel route, stretching 20 meters deep and several hundred meters long, in the Shabura area of Rafah.

While the army noted that this tunnel was used as a meeting point for Hamas operatives and connected several other tunnel routes in the region, there have been countless such tunnels found in the past and it is estimated that the military may only have uncovered 25% of Hamas’s tunnels so far.

Tactical victories for the IDF in Gaza?
Additionally, during a separate operation, the IDF announced that its soldiers discovered a Hamas weapons cache hidden within a structure that had once served as a school. The cache contained various weapons, including mortars, hand grenades, explosives, and other military supplies.
Once again, this is a tactical victory for the IDF, but the military has no indication that it is coming anywhere near confiscating enough weapons to reduce Hamas’s ability to fight.

In northern Gaza, soldiers identified a terrorist ambush several hundred meters away. With coordination from the IAF, the ambush was neutralized, and the terrorists were killed.

This operation helped with force protection, but was more of going slightly on offense to achieve better defense than it was breaking new ground.

IDF troops also located additional weapons caches and several tunnel shafts used by terrorist groups in the Rafah and Morag Corridor areas.

In the past 24 hours, the IAF carried out airstrikes targeting approximately 35 sites throughout the Gaza Strip.

These strikes included a weapons manufacturing facility in southern Gaza, which was responsible for supplying weapons to terrorist organizations, as well as a launch site containing multiple rocket launchers aimed at Israeli territory.

However, on April 9, the IDF updated that it has targeted 1,000 “terror targets” since March 18, meaning both that 35 is a drop in the bucket and that even those 1,000 targets have not had any strategic impact on Hamas to date.

In fact, on April 9, IDF sources told The Jerusalem Post that at the current slow pace of the invasion, eliminating Hamas could take years.

The IDF divisions operating in Gaza are the 252th, 143rd, and 36th, but they are all operating at heavily reduced levels compared to their troop complement at the start of the war.

The overwhelming assumption is that the government is holding the IDF back to give the hostage negotiations a chance to lead to a deal, worried about accidentally harming the hostages, and concerned about initiating a larger invasion that would require a controversial large reservist call-up and likely also lead to more IDF soldier and Palestinian civilian casualties.

The gaps in indirect talks between Hamas and Israel over a potential hostage deal in Gaza "are still significant," an Israeli official told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.

Hamas appeared to have shifted from its initial position in talks by voicing its willingness to release nine Israeli hostages as part of a deal. Previously, the terror group was only prepared to release a single hostage.

Israel attributes the change in Hamas’s stance to the IDF's operations and continued military pressure, which have led to the capture of approximately 30–40% of Gazan territory.

Summing up the situation in a conversation with The Post, an Israeli official said: “Despite some progress, it is currently very difficult to move forward with a deal.

"Hamas is expected to respond again in the coming days, but if they remain firm on the issue of guarantees, it’s hard to see the agreement happening.”

Point of contention
The main point of contention between Israel and Hamas centers around the terror group's demand for guarantees to end the war.

Hamas is insisting on assurances from Qatar, Egypt, and the United States that, in the context of a future deal, Israel will commit to ending the war. Israel is refusing to give such guarantees.

Al Jazeera reported on Monday that Egypt has made it clear to Hamas that ending the war would involve Hamas being disarmed, a condition a senior Hamas official reportedly rejected. According to Al Jazeera, the proposed deal would include a 45-day ceasefire.

An order extending Israel’s time to respond to South Africa’s genocide claims against it for its conduct in Gaza by six months – from the original July 28 deadline to January 12, 2026, of this year instead – was published by the International Court of Justice on Thursday.

The order was issued on Monday, and its existence was subsequently first reported on by i24News, but the actual order only came out Thursday.

According to the order, Israel requested an extension for three main reasons: 1) Procedural and substantive problems relating to the timing and manner of South Africa presenting its evidence, with many of those issues still open for the court to decide; 2) The parallel new ICJ proceeding Israel will soon need to contend with to respond to claims of starvation and cutting off humanitarian aid; and 3) The voluminous number of additional claims by other states, like Ireland, against Israel, who Israel must now also respond to, along with South Africa.

The Jerusalem Post understands that South Africa has and is in the process of producing thousands of documents to try to prove its genocide case against Israel.

Many of these documents and processes will likely be challenged by Israel before the process even gets to what issues Jerusalem must respond to in more detail.

The Israeli Defense Forces faulted a series of "professional failures" and "breaches of order" in the incident last month when Israeli soldiers killed 15 Palestinian aid workers in Gaza, an event that sparked widespread condemnation and calls for an independent investigation.

In the summary of an internal report on the killings and a briefing to foreign media Sunday, the IDF said it “regrets the harm caused to uninvolved civilians” and announced that it had discharged the field commander leading the implicated unit and formally reprimanded a senior officer.

The report and the IDF’s rare acceptance of blame were the culmination of a weekslong scandal that had heaped further criticism on Israel’s military just days after it broke a two-month ceasefire agreement with Hamas and restarted its offensive in the Gaza Strip.

The controversy around the killings worsened after United Nations personnel recovered the bodies from a shallow mass grave near the scene of the incident on March 23, and cellphone video found on one of the corpses revealed serious inconsistencies in the IDF’s original version of events.

“It’s like a chain of professional mistakes but with no ethical gaps,” Brig. Gen. Ephraim Defrin, said the newly appointed IDF spokesperson, in a presentation to reporters Sunday evening. “There was never any intention to deceive the public.”

Some initial reports from Palestinian examiners claimed that some of the medics had been found with their arms bound. However, other Palestinian medics said there was no evidence that the medics had been restrained before they were shot execution-style, a claim the IDF also denied.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said in a statement after the bodies were found that the targeting of the medics “can only be considered a war crime punishable under international humanitarian law, which the occupation continues to violate before the eyes of the entire world.”

The investigation revealed “several professional failures, breaches of orders, and a failure to fully report the incident,” the IDF said.

But the public report and the presentation, which retired Maj. Gen. Yoav Har-Even, who led the presentation, said were conducted “outside the chain of command,” did not answer all of the questions surrounding the shootings. It did not provide evidence to back up the Israeli military’s contention that six of the 15 slain emergency workers were actually Hamas operatives, nor did it explain why the number of slain medics whom the IDF considered terrorists had changed.

The report and the presentation also left it unclear why one of the surviving medics, Asaad al-Nassasra, was detained by the IDF and still remains in its custody.

Alongside the report summary, Har-Even showed a video presentation that featured aerial surveillance of the early-morning shootings, including night-vision reconnaissance video.

The probe found that troops were hampered by poor visibility and that they misidentified ambulances and rescue vehicles as threats during a mission targeting Hamas operatives, according to Sunday's report. Har-Even laid partial blame on the soldiers’ night vision goggles for leading to what he called the “tragic and undesirable result of a complex combat situation.” The goggles’ limited peripheral perspective, among other factors, made it difficult for the soldiers to recognize the trucks as civilian emergency vehicles despite their flashing emergency lights, he said.

Another strike on a U.N. vehicle resulted from a breach of operational rules, the IDF’s report says.

The field commander in charge of the operation on the ground, whom the report did not name but whom IDF public relations officers identified as a major, was dismissed in part for “providing an incomplete and inaccurate report during the debrief.”

The commanding officer of the 14th Brigade received a formal reprimand that will appear in his personnel file, the report summary said, both because of his “overall responsibility” for the shooting and his “management of the scene afterward.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke via phone on Tuesday with US President Donald Trump, the American leader said, declaring that the pair “are on the same side of every issue.”

The call covered “numerous subjects including Trade, Iran, etc.,” Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social, adding that the conversation went “very well.”

Notably, Trump did not include Gaza or the 59 hostages being held there in his list of topics discussed amid the ongoing impasse in ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas. However, according to a report in Axios, the pair did talk about efforts to reach a hostage release deal, with the Trump administration pushing for a breakthrough and Israel wary of any agreement that would end the war.

There was no immediate readout of the call from the Israeli side, but Netanyahu reposted Trump’s post, commenting, “Thank you, President Trump!”

An Israeli source told The Times of Israel that the call was short and that the two discussed Iran’s nuclear program, among other issues.

Last week, The New York Times reported that Trump blocked an Israeli plan for a series of joint strikes next month on Iranian nuclear facilities to instead pursue diplomatic means.

Asked about the report at the time, Trump said that “I wouldn’t say ‘waved off’” a joint attack on Iran, but then he added, “I’m not in a rush“

The Israeli army unit that killed aid workers in Gaza's Rafah last month had received a report about increased ambulance traffic on the route shortly before the incident. The soldiers fired at the vehicles continuously for three and a half minutes – even from point-blank range – reloading their ammunition multiple times, despite attempts by the aid workers to identify themselves.

These are the findings from materials collected after the incident, some of which were submitted to the IDF operational investigative teams and the IDF General Staff investigative team.

These materials, made public here for the first time, indicate a lack of operational discipline among the IDF Sayeret Golani unit, as well as a lack of credibility in the versions of events provided to commanders and investigators. The materials also suggest that the force's conduct endangered both the soldiers themselves and other nearby units.

The investigation conducted by the IDF General Staff investigative forum, a summary of which was made public last week, was intended to address the harsh international criticism following the incident in which 15 aid workers were killed.

However, it did not present the full picture. Haaretz now presents additional details that shed more light on the unit's conduct during the incident.

This information was provided to Chief Military Prosecutor Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, who is reviewing the testimonies and evidence collected in the investigation to determine whether there is a basis for opening an investigation by the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division.

The General Staff investigation, headed by Maj. Gen. (res.) Yoav Har-Even, found that in three separate incidents, the force mistakenly fired on ambulances and a UN vehicle, frequently deviating from orders. The public summary of the investigation rejected claims that the workers were bound and executed and stated that "the forces did not fire indiscriminately."

However, some of the materials indicate that in one incident, indiscriminate fire toward a convoy of aid vehicles did occur and lasted for three and a half minutes.

On the night of March 23–24, when the incident occurred, the IDF was preparing for a surprise assault on the Tel al-Sultan district of Rafah, planned for March 24. In the days leading up to it, forces from the 36th Division and the Gaza Division had deployed in the area.

During the cease-fire, the army observed that a significant number of Hamas fighters from the Rafah Brigade had returned from the humanitarian zones in al-Mawasi, where they had been hiding, and were attempting to reorganize the brigade, which had been severely weakened during the war. An evacuation notice for Tel al-Sultan was scheduled to be issued to local residents at 8:00 A.M., and the surprise offensive was intended to cause the militants to flee.

The Sayeret Golani unit, operating as part of the 14th Brigade, was tasked with setting up an ambush without being detected before the evacuation order was issued. Their mission was to ambush a location where the army believed Hamas militants would attempt to flee under the cover of the civilian population and to strike them.

The force set out around 2:00 A.M. and positioned itself along a route expected to be used by civilians evacuating toward Khan Yunis and al-Mawasi. The IDF has a mechanism to allow aid organizations operating in Gaza to travel safely on otherwise restricted routes.

However, the route where the Israeli force positioned itself that night was one where travel was permitted for rescue personnel and civilians at the time. Therefore, the aid and medical workers using it were not required to request special permission – contrary to the IDF's initial statement following the incident. That statement was later found to be based on incorrect information provided by the forces in the field.

At around 3:30 A.M., another IDF unit under the command of a deputy company commander from the same brigade reported over the battalion's radio about increased ambulance movement on the route. The report did not mention any suspicion regarding the ambulances. The Sayeret Golani unit, which heard the report, was positioned 30 meters (roughly 100 feet) from the route.

At 3:57 A.M., an ambulance with flashing lights passed through the area on a routine trip. The occupants could not see the hidden troops. Positioned on higher ground, the troops were not under threat of a ramming attack and had been ordered not to reveal themselves before the main offensive on Tel al-Sultan.

The entire area was dark during the incident, and it was impossible not to notice the ambulance's flashing lights – this is evident from footage of the incident held by the IDF, which was captured by drones accompanying the force.

The deputy commander of the Sayeret Golani force, a reservist officer who was commanding the force, decided on his own initiative to alter the mission assigned to him and instructed the entire force to prepare to fire on the ambulance that was approaching the ambush site.

As the ambulance was about to pass near the force, the soldiers opened fire on it. The force charged toward the vehicle while shooting, killing two aid workers and detaining another person.

One of the Israeli soldiers, who does not speak Arabic, attempted to extract information from the detainee about the identity of the deceased, and concluded from the detainee's statements that they were Hamas members. The deputy battalion commander reported the shooting and the casualties to the brigade commander, who was stationed at the forward command post.

The commander of the 14th Brigade, Colonel Tal Alkobi, tried to assess during a conversation with the force whether the incident had exposed them and could jeopardize the broader offensive plan – and whether the element of surprise had been compromised. In the conversation between the two, the deputy battalion commander said he believed the force had not been exposed.

The soldiers turned off the rescue vehicle and its lights, concealed the bodies, and returned to the same position in the ambush. In his testimony, the deputy battalion commander claimed that from his position it was not possible to see the ambulance's lights and that he believed it was a Hamas police vehicle, which is why he decided to open fire – even though that was not his mission.

The IDF General Staff investigation team was not convinced by the deputy battalion commander's account and decided to conduct a reconstruction with him at a base in central Israel to test his version.

Even after the reconstruction, the deputy battalion commander failed to convince the investigators, though they accepted his assertion that this was a combat zone and that the force had been on high alert ahead of a major assault.

Therefore, they focused primarily on the broader decision-making process rather than the misidentification of the first ambulance.

After the initial shooting, the force returned to its ambush position as instructed by the 14th Brigade commander, who believed the force had not been exposed and that the element of surprise remained intact. At 5:06 A.M., a convoy of rescue vehicles, including ambulances and fire trucks, traveled along the route. All the vehicles had their lights on and flashing – it would have been impossible not to see them in the dark area.

In his testimony, the deputy battalion commander claimed that, once he believed the people killed in the first vehicle were Hamas operatives, he concluded that the rescue convoy approaching the scene was actually a group of Hamas operatives who had heard about the incident and arrived to retrieve the bodies of their comrades and attack the Sayeret Golani Unit.

A scenario in which Hamas operatives travel in marked rescue vehicles to a location where they know IDF troops are present is one that the army had not encountered during the fighting in Gaza.

As such, neither the investigation team nor the brigade command accepted the deputy battalion commander's version.

The convoy of rescue vehicles slowly approached the ambush site, heading towards the location where the bodies of the first ambulance's occupants were found. Contrary to claims that the convoy posed a threat to the force, the incident's documentation raises doubts about whether they were aware of the soldiers' presence.

The convoy stopped near the attacked vehicle, and medical teams disembarked to move towards the bodies, on the opposite side of the route, effectively distancing themselves from the IDF ambush site. The medical personnel wore fluorescent vests and kept their identification lights on, along with the sirens, to make their presence clear, fearing they might be targeted by the IDF.

As the convoy stopped, the deputy battalion commander ordered the force to open fire on the vehicles. Those equipped with machine guns were instructed to fire from the ambush position, and the rest of the force was ordered to charge toward the convoy.

The distance between the convoy and the soldiers was between 20 and 30 meters, meaning that the entire force could clearly see, even through night vision equipment, that the people were not armed militants but medical personnel.

The soldiers who charged reached the aid team within seconds and fired continuously for approximately three and a half minutes. The soldiers reloaded their magazines and kept shooting even after it was clear that no return fire was coming from the other side – and despite the cries of the aid workers who tried to identify themselves.

Some of the aid workers attempted to flee into open terrain, but by the end of the three and a half minutes of close-range gunfire, 12 of them had been killed.

The commanders' operational debrief concluded that the force's conduct on the ground had been negligent. The soldiers failed to advance in a coordinated line during the charge, crossed each other's lines of fire, did not maintain designated firing zones, and the incident could easily have resulted in friendly fire casualties. These conclusions also arose in the IDF General Staff investigation.

The deputy battalion commander reported the incident to the brigade but initially stated that the convoy was unidentified, without flashing lights, and claimed that the decision to open fire was made due to a perceived threat to the force, although footage held by the army contradicts his account.

The brigade commander again spoke with the deputy battalion commander to assess whether the force had been exposed and if the element of surprise for the assault on Tel a-Sultan, for which all 36th Division forces were already positioned, had been compromised.

The brigade commander instructed the deputy battalion commander to hide the bodies in the ground and to bury and crush the ambulances so that anyone traveling the route would not uncover the attack plan that was about to be carried out.

At no point did the brigade commander suggest transporting the bodies to Israel or transferring them to international aid organizations.

During discussions about how to proceed – about 12 minutes after the IDF's assault ended, while the forces were still at the scene and the ambulances remained on the road – a UN vehicle arrived, carrying a UNRWA worker. In footage held by the army, the UN vehicle is seen arriving slowly, apparently aware of what was happening and likely having received reports of the shooting at the aid workers.

The vehicle approached with its lights on, seemingly attempting to signal its presence to the IDF force at the scene. The UN worker did not leave the vehicle or approach the soldiers, but the deputy battalion commander decided to fire at the vehicle, joined by one of the soldiers – they killed the UN worker.

At this point, the IDF realized that the force had been exposed, and that both those in Gaza and international organizations were aware of the IDF's shooting – although not of the broader offensive plan planned for later in the morning.

The brigade commander ordered the force to finish burying the vehicles and bodies and to mark the location, but the senior division and brigade leadership preparing for the assault understood that the conduct of the deputy battalion commander and the brigade commander was problematic and, above all, jeopardized the operation and the soldiers involved, which was scheduled to begin around 10:00 A.M.

The IDF's Southern Command and the Gaza Division believed the force's actions had exposed it, and fearing damage to the element of surprise, decided to move the assault on Tel a-Sultan up by two hours. At 6:00 A.M., local residents were given notice to evacuate the area.

In the morning hours, the IDF provided international organizations with the location where the bodies had been hidden so they could retrieve them. Although attempts were made to locate the bodies, they were not found, and the organizations were ordered to leave the area.

The following day, the commander of the 14th Brigade returned to the scene of the incident, unearthed the buried bodies using engineering equipment and covered them with sand, marking the location with camouflage-colored netting so it could be identified. By the time aid workers asked to retrieve the bodies and take them to Gaza, the assault in Rafah had already begun, and due to the risk to IDF forces in the field, the IDF only announced their location five days later.

Following the incident, IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir dismissed the deputy battalion commander "due to his responsibility as the force commander on the ground and for his incomplete and inaccurate reporting during the debrief." It was also determined that Col. Tal Alkobi, commander of the 14th Brigade, had been negligent in preparing for the operation, and he received a formal reprimand in his personal file.

The Red Crescent and the Civil Defense organization stated that the aid workers killed in the incident were Mustafa Khafaja, Izz al-Din Sha'at, Salah Ma'amar, Rifaat Radwan, Muhammad Bahloul, Ashraf Abu Labda, Muhammad al-Hila, Raed al-Sharif, Yusuf Khalifa, Fuad al-Jamal, Zuhair al-Farra, Anwar al-Attar, Samir al-Bahabtza, Ibrahim al-Maghari, and Kamal Muhammad Shakhtut.

The IDF's General Staff investigation determined that six of them were Hamas members, identified retroactively. The IDF did not specify which of the 15 were identified as Hamas operatives or what their roles were. Sources familiar with the details said that even if they were indeed Hamas operatives, they were not part of the organization's military wing.

Israel’s focus remains firmly on its campaign in Gaza and the twin imperatives to “increase the pressure on Hamas to release the hostages, and end Hamas’s power to govern, both politically and militarily,” as IDF Spokesman Brig.-Gen. Effie Defrin told journalists during a visit to Gaza this week.

The IDF still has work to do, but, as an IDF source told The Jerusalem Post, there has been a “decline in Hamas’s capacities, though they can still surprise.”

Regarding Hamas’s Rafah Brigade, against which the IDF is currently engaged in combat along the Morag Corridor between Khan Yunis and Rafah City, “We assume that the missile issue is largely behind us,” the source continued. What remains is close combat to root out the remaining fighters of the brigade, numbering probably 100-150 men.

But while the once formidable missile threat from Gaza has substantially diminished, residents of Haifa and the western Galilee were reminded Wednesday morning that Gaza is not the only active front in the current conflict, when a ballistic missile launched from Yemen set off warning sirens. There were no injuries, and the missile appears to have been destroyed by air defenses. Ansar Allah (Houthis) organization, which controls the Yemeni capital and a large swath of the country, claimed responsibility for the launch.

The Yemen arena is currently the most active of all the fronts opened up in the wake of Hamas’s October 7 massacres by Iran-aligned elements. Iran’s bruised proxy militias in Lebanon and Iraq have chosen for now to leave the fray. The Assad regime in Syria has been destroyed. Iran itself has yet to respond to Israel’s extensive counterstrikes following Iran’s launch of missiles and drones against Israel last October. Hamas in Gaza clings on, with its capacities severely degraded.

Only the Houthis, once dismissed as a barely relevant sideshow, remain fully engaged, with high capacities, and determined to continue the fight. They are the only Iran-aligned force not to have suffered serious setbacks since launching their campaign. They are also the sole member of the pro-Iran axis to have directed its attacks not at Israel alone but also at Western targets.
Since the ending of the Gaza ceasefire on March 18, the organization has launched around 20 ballistic missiles at Israel. But the Houthis’ targeting of Israel is largely symbolic in nature. The more substantive part of their effort, since it commenced in November 2023, has been directed not at Israeli targets but, rather, at international shipping along the Red Sea/Gulf of Aden route to the Suez Canal. Fifteen percent of global seaborne trade prior to the war passed through this route. The Houthis’ attacks have now virtually shut it down.

It has been a year since a US-flagged ship has passed through the Suez Canal. The Trump administration, contrary to its preference for deals to end acts of aggression elsewhere, appears determined to force the Houthis to end their campaign, and appears willing to back up threats with force. At the commencement of the offensive in March, Trump warned the Yemeni Shia Islamists that if the attacks on shipping did not stop, “hell will rain down upon you like nothing you have ever seen before.”

Last Thursday, 80 people were killed in a series of US airstrikes on the Houthi-controlled, strategic port at Ras Isa, Hodeidah province, and the Yemeni capital, Sanaa. The strikes were the most intense yet in the US’s monthlong campaign against Houthi targets.

The US are uneasy over the Houthis' growing influence.
US concerns regarding the Houthis go beyond the immediate Yemeni context. Over the last six months, evidence has emerged of a growing connection between Ansar Allah and the al-Shabaab organization in Somalia. A February UN report noted that personnel of the two movements met in Somalia in July and September 2024.

During these meetings, according to the report, the Houthis committed to supplying al-Shabaab with weaponry and technical assistance, including drones and surface-to-air missiles. The prospect of the Houthis using the al-Shabaab connection to proliferate chaos and Iranian influence across the Red Sea and into the Horn of Africa is apparently helping to concentrate minds in Washington.

The US air campaign has hit the Houthis hard. It remains questionable, however, whether the volume of damage until now will be sufficient to persuade the Yemeni Shia Islamist movement to cease its attacks on Western shipping and on Israel.

Here, the US faces a dilemma similar to that which Israel faced vis-à-vis Hamas in Gaza. In both cases, the Islamist enemy is largely indifferent to losses of life among its own people, and unlikely to even be inclined to change direction as a result of losses among its own personnel or of its own equipment.

At this point, the US faces options regarding the Houthis similar to those that Israel faced regarding Gaza – namely, escalate or effectively concede. Either a decision must be taken to destroy or severely degrade the enemy, or it must be accepted that the Houthis, while they can be engaged in a tit-for-tat exchange of fire in which they pay the higher cost, cannot at present be defeated.

It is against this background that the recent reports of a possible ground offensive against the Houthis by Yemeni government and allied troops should be understood.

Reports suggesting that such an offensive may be imminent have surfaced in major US and regional media over the last two weeks. An article in The Wall Street Journal on April 15 noted that the idea of the ground action came because of a perception among elements of the official Yemeni government that the US bombing campaign had severely damaged the Houthis’ capacities, creating a window of opportunity.

Such an offensive, if it comes, is likely to be directed against Yemen’s western coastal zone. The Hodeidah port and the surrounding area is a crucial location for receiving imports for the Houthis. The coast is also essential for the prosecution of the Houthis’ campaign against shipping.

US air support would be vital for any such campaign. In the past, specifically in 2015, Saudi- and UAE-backed forces performed poorly and without great success against the Houthis. At that time, however, the US was ambivalent regarding the offensive and unconvinced at the danger of Iranian expansion represented by Houthi advances. This time around, the situation would be different, with the US likely to play an active role supporting any such offensive.

It may well be that the forces associated with the official Yemeni government observed the rapid success of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham in Syria, which derived largely from Israel’s prior weakening of the Lebanese Hezbollah organization. Without this, Hezbollah would almost certainly have intervened to save the Assad regime, very possibly stopping the advance of HTS before Homs or Hama.

Still, weakened by US bombing or not, the Houthis are a force very different from the hollow army of the Assad regime. Such an offensive, like actions of its type, would be something of a gamble.

For the US and its local allies in Yemen, the choice now is to increase the stakes, or to fold.

US President Donald Trump said on Friday that he pushed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to allow food and medicine into the devastated Gaza Strip.

No aid has been delivered into the strip since March 2. Israel has said it would not allow the entry of goods and supplies into Gaza until the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas releases all remaining hostages.

Earlier on Friday, the UN World Food Programme said it had run out of food stocks in Gaza.

Humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump was asked whether concerns about humanitarian aid access came up in his phone call with Netanyahu earlier this week.

"Gaza came up and I said, 'We've got to be good to Gaza ... Those people are suffering,'" Trump said.

When asked whether he raised the issue of opening up access points for aid into Gaza, Trump replied, "We are."

"We're going to take care of that. There's a very big need for medicine, food, and medicine, and we're taking care of it," he said.Asked how Netanyahu responded, Trump said: "Felt well about it."

"Hunger is spreading in Gaza, malnutrition is deepening in Gaza, injured people and other patients remain untreated in Gaza, and – as we have said before – people are dying," UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Friday.

Israeli ministers on aid in Gaza
A heated debate unfolded during a security cabinet meeting on Wednesday over the distribution of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, as ministers voiced conflicting views on how to prevent Hamas from benefiting from aid.

Defense Minister Israel Katz took a firm stance against traditional aid methods, arguing that sending aid through established channels would only strengthen Hamas. "This only strengthens Hamas. Aid will be distributed by IDF soldiers or American companies instead," Katz asserted.
He also stated that there was no immediate need for additional aid, claiming that sufficient supplies currently exist in Gaza. Katz expressed his opposition to any aid that might inadvertently support Hamas or be used to further its terrorist activities.

IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir disagreed with Katz’s proposal, telling ministers that the IDF would not be responsible for distributing humanitarian aid. "We will not starve the Gaza Strip," Zamir emphasized. His position raised tensions, with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich accusing him of failing to follow government policy. "If you are saying you are incapable of appointing someone to do this, then you can be replaced," Smotrich remarked sharply.

Ministers within the cabinet, including Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Innovation Minister Gila Gamliel, expressed concerns that any aid reaching Gaza could fall into Hamas's hands. They demanded that aid be distributed only in areas under full IDF control, ensuring that it would not empower the terrorist group. "The principle must be that Hamas cannot get its hands on the aid," said one cabinet member. Some ministers even suggested that Gaza's civilians should relocate to areas under IDF control to access the aid.

The United States has hit more than 800 targets in Yemen since mid-March, killing hundreds of Houthi rebel fighters, including members of the group’s leadership, the US military says.

Washington’s forces have hammered the Iran-backed Houthi rebels with near-daily air strikes since March 15 in an operation dubbed “Rough Rider,” seeking to end the threat they pose to vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden and reestablish US regional “deterrence.”

“Since the start of Operation Rough Rider, USCENTCOM has struck over 800 targets. These strikes have killed hundreds of Huthi fighters and numerous Houthi leaders,” the military command responsible for the Middle East says in a statement.

“The strikes have destroyed multiple command-and-control facilities, air defense systems, advanced weapons manufacturing facilities, and advanced weapons storage locations,” CENTCOM says.

Despite the strikes, the Houthis — who control large swaths of Yemen and have been at war with a Saudi-led coalition backing the internationally recognized government since 2015 — have continued to claim attacks against both US vessels and Israel.

CENTCOM says that “while the Houthis have continued to attack our vessels, our operations have degraded the pace and effectiveness of their attacks. Ballistic missile launches have dropped by 69 percent. Additionally, attacks from one-way attack drones have decreased by 55 percent.”

“Iran undoubtedly continues to provide support to the Houthis. The Houthis can only continue to attack our forces with the backing of the Iranian regime,” the military command says.

“We will continue to ratchet up the pressure until the objective is met, which remains the restoration of freedom of navigation and American deterrence in the region,” it adds.

The Israeli military struck what it said was a Hezbollah precision missiles warehouse in Beirut’s southern suburbs on Sunday, after killing one of the Iran-backed terror group’s operatives in a drone strike in southern Lebanon earlier in the day.

There were no immediate reports of casualties in the Beirut-area strike, which came after after the military warned residents to evacuate.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a joint statement that missiles stored in the Lebanese capital “posed a significant threat to Israel.”

“Israel will not allow Hezbollah to grow stronger and pose any threat to it – anywhere in Lebanon,” the two men said.

They stressed that Israel will not allow Beirut’s southern suburbs — historically a Hezbollah stronghold — to serve as a sanctuary for the terror group.

The Lebanese government bears direct responsibility for preventing these threats,” they warned.

He called on “the United States and France, as guarantors of the ceasefire agreement, to assume their responsibilities and compel Israel to halt its attacks immediately.”

He also alleged that Israel was attempting to destabilize his country and warned that it would intensify tensions in the region.