Israel Briefing Day 516: Israelis lines the streets for Ohad Yahalomi

Elsewhere, Shin Bet has identified failures from October 7, 2023 in an internal probe, which indicates that different actions by intelligence chiefs could have avoided or at least significantly lessened the impact of the attack. Here are the key findings:

1. Hamas operatives activated 45 Israeli SIM cards, which should have alerted intelligence analysts to the fact they were mobilising. But Shin Bet took no major action.

2. Shin Bet’s preparations for possible Hamas actions did not account for the possibility of Hamas operating like an efficient military.

3. Years of defensive government policy allowed Hamas to grow stronger.

4. Hamas’s plan for a wide scale invasion was known but was never treated as a credible, actionable threat.

5. Intelligence gaps between the IDF and Shin Bet harmed the Israeli response.

The parallel IDF probes into October 7, which are being released battle by battle, have also analysed another terror site – the moshav of Netiv Ha’asara, where terrorists infiltrated and murdered 17 residents. It found that, at this moshav, there was a military drone above as the battle raged, but there was no way to tell who was a terrorist and who was a victim, so it did not fire. Another finding was that the remote weapon system that could have given some defence by firing at terrorists on the border had been disabled by Hamas.

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said yesterday that Israel is open to entering Phase Two of the ceasefire, but Hamas must agree to free more hostages first. He said: “We are ready to continue to phase two… but in order to extend the time of the framework, we need an agreement to release more hostages. ‘No free meals’ is a very known principle.”

And the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, has endorsed an Egyptian-led plan for the future of Gaza. The plan is a rival to Donald Trump’s proposal for American control and would allow Palestinians to remain in Gaza under a temporary administration of non-Hamas technocrats. The plan does not address long-term de-radicalisation of Gaza, which is a reported dealbreaker for America and Israel.

However, the fate of Israeli hostages and the Gaza ceasefire was surprisingly absent from Donald Trump’s address to Congress yesterday, aside from a brief mention.

There were widespread expectations that the US President would discuss the situation facing Israel, especially after having his team invite several former hostages to the address. But in the end, his comments were largely limited to a factual observation about hostages returning home and a statement about the importance of the Abraham Accords, which in his last term brought peace to Israel and some Arab states, including the United Arab Emirates.

He said: “In the Middle East, we’re bringing back our hostages from Gaza… In my first term, we achieved one of the most groundbreaking peace agreements in generations, the Abraham Accords. And now we’re going to build on that foundation to create a more peaceful and prosperous future for the entire region.”

But there is speculation that the US administration is poised to make an announcement in support of some form of Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank. Trump hinted last month that he would make an announcement on annexation in four weeks, and the far-right Israeli politician Bezalel Smotrich, Minister of Finance, flew yesterday to America, fuelling speculation that an announcement is in the offing now.

And the Iranian-backed Houthis are to be designated as a foreign terrorist organisation by Washington, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said yesterday. The Houthis, who have been attacking Israel and international shipping, are expected to face severe restrictions as a result of the designation.

The move is expected to put a stranglehold on funding and arms supplies to the group. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said: “The United States will not tolerate any country engaging with terrorist organizations like the Houthis in the name of practising legitimate international business.”

Finally, in Lebanon, Israel has killed Hezbollah naval unit commander Khodr Said Hashem in a targeted drone attack. The IDF said in a statement that his “activities posed a threat to the State of Israel and its citizens and constituted a blatant violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon.” In Jenin in the West Bank, Israel killed Hamas commander Isser Saadi.

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