Day 105: Iran Closer to Nukes, Main Hamas Weapons Factory Destroyed

War Summary, Day One Hundred and Five: The IDF demolished Hamas’ main rocket and weapon manufacturing industrial zone. IAEA says that Iran has sufficient enriched uranium to build several nuclear warheads.

By Bruria Efune

War Summary, Day One Hundred and Five

136 held captive in Gaza.
110 hostages freed.
11 hostage bodies rescued.
33 hostages confirmed murdered in Gaza.
1,300+ Israelis murdered.
193 fallen soldiers in the battle in Gaza.
5 fallen soldiers in Northern Israel.
3 fallen soldiers in Judea & Samaria.
8,000 injured.
12,900 rockets fired at Israel.
187,533 Israelis displaced from their homes.
1 Jewish nation united in prayer, charity, and good deeds.

Hostage Updates:

Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari said in an interview with CNN: “We believe that the drugs reached the Israeli abductees.”

Israel has no way of verifying if this is true or not.

Gaza Front Updates:

Hamas fired two barrages of rockets onto the communities the Gaza Envelope today. No injuries were reported.

Thank G-d, the IDF did not announce any fallen soldiers today.

Defense Minister Yoav Galant says that Hamas is becoming increasingly weak by the day, “It doesn’t have supplies, it doesn’t have personnel reserves, it doesn’t have the organizational ability to initiate moves, and it doesn’t have the ability to really control what happens,” he says.

Galant said the significant de-escalation in rockets fired by Hamas is a sign of Hamas’s disintegration, although every rocket fired is problematic and the IDF will continue until there are none more at all—but it will take time.

In Gaza, IDF troops continue to operate in the north and central regions. Although these areas are under IDF control, and the Hamas brigades are no longer operational as a unit, the troops are still finding groups of 2-5 terrorist holdouts, and eliminating them. They also continue to find hidden caches of weapons and many rocket launchers hidden throughout the cities. Hamas terrorists hide their weapons in many places rather than carry them on their person, so that they can walk around unarmed and pose as civilians. This makes it impossible for the IDF to identify who is innocent, and therefore no civilian will be able to return until every house and inch of land is inspected.

In Central Gaza, the IDF completed the demolishment of Hamas’s main rocket and weapon manufacturing industrial zone, and a huge tunnel network underneath it, in which some of the facilities were housed. More tunnels and weapons manufacturing sites were found in the area recently. The tunnels in the area were extensive beyond expectations, and connected the homes of Hamas commanders with the weapons factories and tunnels that lead to both north and Southern Gaza.

In Khan Younis, intensive battles continue, together with the search for the hostages and senior Hamas command underground. Elite units gather intelligence that may lead to the hostages, both alive and not.

Troops today raided the “Shuhada Outpost,” a main Hamas stronghold belonging to the South Khan Younis Battalion which the IDF captured over the last days. In the outpost and surrounding offices, the IDF soldiers recovered intelligence documents and many firearms.

The IDF did not yet clear for publication, but NBC Network reported that the IDF operated in a cemetery in Gaza to locate the bodies of Israeli hostages, based on reports from intelligence gatherings.

Gaza Humanitarian Efforts Updates:

240 humanitarian aid trucks were inspected and transferred to Gaza today.

Northern Front Updates:

Missiles and rockets were fired into Israel’s far north from both Lebanon and Syria today.

The IDF responding to Syria with shelling of the launch sites, and to Lebanon’s Hezbollah with more extensive strikes on terror targets in southern Lebanon.

Defense Minister Gallant again hinted at plans for entering a war with Lebanon soon, if Hezbollah is not forced to halt via diplomatic means. Gallant says he doesn’t talk about a deadline or method, although it’s assumed that the IDF has both, and simply won’t be sharing it publicly.

In a grim statement, Gallant says, “If this happens, we will exact a heavy price from Hezbollah and Lebanon, but there will be casualties here as well.”

Houthi and Iran War Front Updates

An air raid siren went off in Eilat, and an interception of sorts was seen. The IDF says it was a false alarm, due to a false identification, and the siren was triggered only because of the interceptor missile.

The Houthis attacked an American vessel in the Gulf of Aden. The US attacked Houthi targets in several districts, including Hodeidah and Saada. According to them, the attack destroyed 14 Iranian-funded missile launchers that were prepared for firing.

Raphael Grossi, head of the Atomic Energy Agency reported that “Inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency estimate that Iran has sufficient quantities of highly enriched uranium to build several nuclear warheads.”

The senior director of the White House’s National Security Council, Franei Wadi, told the Reuters news agency that “the United States hopes that when the crisis in the Middle East is over, it will be able to have a more fruitful conversation about the Iranian nuclear program.”

In response to questions at press conference, Netanyahu responded: “Who said we are not attacking Iran? We are attacking.”

Judea and Samaria Updates:

The IDF is continuing a counter-terror operation in Tulkarem, which has been ongoing for over 48 hours.

So far, the IDF engineering vehicles have found dozens of explosives hidden under the roads, searched hundreds of buildings, and arrested 15 wanted Palestinians. The troops also seized many illegal weapons during the raids, and destroyed an explosives lab and a building used by local terrorists to observe Israeli forces with surveillance cameras.

Eight Palestinian terrorists were so far eliminated after opening fire on IDF troops in Tulkarm, including those yesterday who were eliminated by drone strike.

In other areas Judea and Samaria, the IDF troops arrested 21 wanted Palestinians in overnight raids.

Since October 7, troops have arrested more than 2,700 wanted Palestinians across Judea and Samaria, including more than 1,300 affiliated with Hamas, and the rest affiliated with other local terror groups.

International Updates:

NBC news network reported that US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken received a commitment from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and four other Arab leaders to help restore the Gaza Strip after the war.

Furthermore, bin Salman proposed normalizing relations with Israel as part of the Gaza Strip reconstruction package. However, he made this conditional on Israeli agreement to provide the Palestinians with a path to their own state.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Muhammad Mustafa, chairman of the Palestinian Investment Fund, estimated that it would cost at least 15 billion dollars to restore and rebuild the houses that have been destroyed in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the war. He estimated that at least 350 thousand units were damaged or destroyed.

After the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said yesterday that “Israel is standing at a crossroads – and must make difficult decisions,” President Herzog replied at the World Economic Conference in Davos: “When you withdraw, you welcome terrorism. Have the withdrawals proven themselves worthwhile? Is the paradigm only withdrawals? They see that when we withdrew from Gaza we received terrorism. This is a clear paradigm. These are legitimate questions.”