Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday that the IDF will control the Gaza Strip after the end of the war against Hamas.
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Meeting with mayors of Gaza border communities in the IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv, Netanyahu said "IDF forces will maintain control in the Strip; we will not hand it over to external forces."
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Netanyahu meets with mayors of Gaza border communities in the IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv
(Photo: GPO)
According to a statement from Netanyahu’s office, he told the mayors that "There is a very strong determination from both you and the government to restore more than what was before. First and foremost to bring back security, but also to ensure a stronger life thereafter."
"There will be Israeli security control over the Gaza Strip, including complete disarmament, to ensure that there is no longer a threat from Gaza to the citizens of Israel," the statement added.
Air raid alarm sirens sounded across central Israel and the southern city of Ashdod on Friday. Several rockets were intercepted by air defenses. Rocket impacts were reported in Tel Aviv and Rishon Lezion.
According to Eli Bin, the director-general of Magen David Adom ambulance service, two people were injured in separate incidents in Tel Aviv as a result of shrapnel. A woman suffering moderate injuries and another woman suffering minor injuries to his lower limbs were transported to Sourasky Medical Center in the city.
Israeli special forces on Friday were engaging in close-quarters combat with terrorists near the Shifa Hospital in western Gaza City, Hamas's command center in the northern Gaza Strip.
The hospital’s director said that medical staff “won’t leave the hospital, and we will not abandon the patients inside."
Meanwhile, tanks and infantry units aboard Namer armored personnel carriers are advancing toward Shifa and other hospitals, as part of the intense combat in the heart of the city.
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said on Friday that the PA is ready to assume responsibilities in the Gaza Strip as part of a comprehensive political solution for the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza,
The IDF said on Friday that terrorists launched a number of anti-tank missiles from Lebanon toward an IDF outpost near the border community of Manara in northern Israel. Israeli forces responded with artillery fire toward the source of the shooting.
The IDF said on Friday that Israeli forces killed "numerous" terrorists of Hamas's elite Nukhba force who participated in the October 7 massacre, including Ahmed Musa, a company commander and Omar Al-Hindi, a platoon commander, both were located in western Jabalya.
Ahmed Musa was involved in the invasion of the Zikim Base and the Yiftach Post located in Kibbutz Zikim. In the past day, he orchestrated attacks targeting IDF troops in the western Jabalya area.
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IDF strikes container loaded with rocket launcher in Gaza
(Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)
Additionally, Mohammed Kahlout, commander of the sniper unit for Hamas’s Northern Brigade, was killed. Based on Shin Bet intelligence, IDF troops struck overnight 19 Hamas terrorists who planned to attack IDF troops.
Additionally, IDF forces targeted a shipping container situated on a beach that held around 20 rocket launchers. In an operation in Sheikh Ijlin, troops searched the southern part of the front and discovered a rocket launcher near residential buildings. All identified weapons were either destroyed or seized by the IDF.
An expansion of the scope of the war in Gaza is inevitable due to the heightened Israeli "aggression", Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told his Qatari counterpart Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, Press TV reported on Friday.
Several dozen pro-Palestinian journalists and media personnel stormed the entrance lobby of the New York Times offices and took control for about an hour.
According to the protesters, the newspaper was complicit in "whitewashing genocide" against Palestinians.
They demanded that the newspaper publicly support a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip and shouted toward the building, "Shame" and "Shut it down".
Additionally, the protesters read the names of journalists who have been killed in the war so far. After being removed from the lobby, some of the protesters threw objects at a police van with the words "IDF" and "Free Palestine" inscribed on it.
The Biden administration has received stark warnings from U.S. diplomats in the Arab world that its strong support for Israel’s military campaign in Gaza “is losing us Arab publics for a generation,” CNN reported on Friday, citing a diplomatic cable.
“We are losing badly on the messaging battlespace,” reads a Wednesday cable from the U.S. Embassy in Oman, citing conversations with “a wide range of trusted and sober-minded contacts.”
The robust U.S. support for Israel’s actions is being seen, the cable warns, “as material and moral culpability in what they consider to be possible war crimes.”
The IDF confirmed that Staff Sergeant Gilad Rozenblit, 21, from Kibbutz Ginergar, a 401st Brigade combat medic, was killed in action in the northern Gaza Strip.
The IDF said early Friday that it struck a terrorist group in Syria that launched a drone toward Eilat, which hit a school in the city, causing material damage but no injuries.
The army did not identify those responsible for the attack, in which a UAV traveled all the way to the Red Sea resort town some 400 km (250 miles) away from the nearest point in Syrian territory. The army said it holds the Syrian government responsible for any attack originating from its territory.
"The Syrian regime is fully responsible for every terror activity emanating from its territory," officials added. "The IDF will respond severely to every aggression against Israeli territory."
Skirmishes on the northern front persist
On Friday evening, news has been released that three soldiers were gravely injured by an anti-tank missile launched earlier today at a military post in the Menara region, bordering Lebanon. The injured soldiers have been evacuated for medical treatment, and their families have been notified.
IDF engaging with Hezbollah targets
(Video: Ynet )
Additionally, it's been disclosed that an attacking drone that infiltrated from Lebanon today caused an explosion, critically injuring one soldier and moderately injuring another. Of the three drones that breached the border during this midday incident, only one was successfully intercepted. The wounded soldiers from this incident have also been evacuated for medical treatment, and their families have been informed.
First published: 09:14, 11.10.23