War Day 597: Armored Brigades Maneuvering at Full Strength, Syria Seizes Hezbollah Weapons

War Summary, Day 597: All regular IDF infantry and armored brigades are now maneuvering in Gaza, reports say 42% of Gaza is under full IDF control, two more Houthi missiles were fired, E3 countries warn Trump that Iran is stalling negotiations, a warning was issued to Israelis in Canada, Syria expels Palestinian terrorists, and a joint IDF exercise with Morocco.

By Mrs. Bruria Efune

58 held captive in Gaza.
35 hostages confirmed murdered held in Gaza.
148 living hostages rescued.
49 hostage bodies rescued.
1,844 Israelis killed.
424 fallen soldiers and police in the battle in Gaza.
88 fallen soldiers in Northern Israel.
18 fallen soldiers and police in Judea & Samaria.
30,730 estimated projectiles fired at Israel.
10,000 Israelis estimated remain displaced from their homes.
1 Jewish nation united in prayer, charity, and good deeds.

Top Headlines:

– Reports of another hostage deal in discussion
– All regular IDF infantry and armored brigades are now maneuvering
– 100 daily airstrikes in Gaza
– Key differences between IDF operations now, compared to earlier
– Gaza to be flattened
– 42% of Gaza under full IDF control
– Hamas failing to pay salaries
– Chief of Staff: this isn’t an endless war, complete victory in sight
– Humanitarian aid delivered to Gaza, while new setup delayed a day
– Media spreads false stories of starvation in Gaza
– Two more Houthi missiles
– E3 countries warn Trump that Iran is stalling negotiations, give August deadline
– Iran issues threats, claims that they are just days from a nuclear weapon
– Syria expels Palestinian terrorists
– US asks UN to remove antisemitic Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese
– Warning issued to Israelis in Canada
– Joint IDF exercise with Morocco
– UK a top 3 financial supporter of Hamas

Hostages:

Saudi media reports that an Israeli delegation is expected in Cairo on Monday, to complete hostage negotiations for a new deal. Other reports claim that the Trump administration is pushing Israel to delay the war, for the sake of negotiations and a possible deal.

Gaza:

Hamas fired one rocket to Israeli border communities. The IDF then destroy the launcher with an airstrike.

Thank G-d, the IDF did not announce any fallen soldiers. One soldier was seriously injured the even after Shabbat in Northern Gaza.

**

Over the weekend, the Paratroopers brigade entered Gaza to operate in Khan Younis under Division 98. This means that now all nine regular infantry and armored brigades are maneuvering at full strength, plus several reserve brigades.

Division 162 is operating in Northern Gaza, with Division 252 pushing towards Central Gaza. Division 36 is continuing to clear and expand the Morag Corridor, and pour over into souther Khan Younis. Division 98 is pushing into Khan Younis from the east side. The Gaza Division (143) is holding the Rafah area and buffer zone, while continuing to clear and expand the areas.

The Navy is also taking part in the combat, striking targets near Gaza’s coast. In a cooperative operation with the Air Force, IDF intelligence, and Shin Bet, the Navy eliminated terrorist Ahmed Osama Hassan Allahwani. Allahwani served as a terror operative in Hamas’s naval commando unit, and raided Kerem Shalom in the October 7th massacre.

The IDF averaged around 100 airstrikes per day in Gaza, targeting terror infrastructure, including tunnels, terrorist squads, Hamas command centers, and rocket launchers. Since the end of the ceasefire in March, the IDF struck around 3,000 targets, and eliminated at least 800 terrorists (counting only those confirmed, and visually identified as registered Hamas terrorists). Amongst the terrorists eliminated were around 50 senior Hamas officials and mid-level commanders, and more than a dozen terrorists who participated in the October 7th massacre.

Despite heavy airstrikes, there is no change in the IDF’s collateral damage policy, and the combatant-to-civilian death ratio remains extremely low, at around two civilians per recognized Hamas terrorist eliminated.

The IDF has full control over approximately 42% of the Gaza Strip.

**

The first stage of the ongoing maneuver is expected to take two months, and will end with the IDF in full control of 75% of Gaza. This includes all of Northern Gaza—up to parts of Gaza City, and all of Southern Gaza—including Rafah and Khan Younis. The population will be relocated to humanitarian zones in the Mawasi area on the southern coast; Deir al-Balah and Nuseirat in the center of Gaza; and the center of Gaza City.

Currently, 700,000 Gazans are in Mawasi, up to 350,000 are in Central Gaza, and around one million are in Gaza City. Most civilians have evacuated Khan Younis, and Northernmost Gaza.

Gaza will be divided with three main corridors: Netzarim, Kissufim, and Morag. Today, the Kissufim Corridor, which divides Khan Younis from Central Gaza, was reopened for the first time since Israel’s withdrawal in 2005. Separately, the IDF also holds the Philadelphi Corridor (on Gaza’s border with Egypt), which is now far from Gazan reach, with the destroyed city of Rafah alongside it.

**
The IDF’s method of operation in Gaza now has several significant differences from the method in the early months of the war. Here are four of them:

1. Safety: IDF troops on ground are moving with more caution than in the early days of the war. In the early days, there was a rush to reduce Hamas’s capabilities to attack Israeli civilians. In the rush, many soldiers were killed in ambushes, booby-traps, and friendly fire incidents. Troops are now instructed to move more cautiously. They use drones and other methods to search every area before advancing, to minimize the risk of falling into traps. They also minimize instances of separate IDF units operating within close proximity, to prevent accidental “friendly” crossfire.
2. Depth over speed: At the beginning of the war, territory was taken quickly—but when troops moved on, Hamas easily returned. Now the troops spend more time in each area, and carry out extremely thorough searches, to fully remove the Hamas presence. The infrastructure is then fully destroyed, so that Hamas cannot return. Engineering units will be flattening every area just like they did in Rafah.
   Gaza has an estimated 900 kilometers (559 miles) of tunnels. Only around a quarter of them were destroyed. The remainder were either not found during the first time around, or not destroyed, since the resources had to be focused don the major tunnels only. This time, the IDF is closing off all the more simple tunnels, which are used by Hamas to get from place to place unseen. This takes far more time.
3. Infrastructure over bodies: Earlier, the IDF focused on the number of terrorists eliminated, and considered each battle won, and the local battalion “defeated,” when a majority of local terrorists were eliminated. Hamas no longer has an organized command structure of brigades and battalions—instead they have many little squads spread in each area, and continuously recruit young new terrorists with little training. The IDF is now focusing on destroying Hamas’s infrastructure, to remove the remaining control and abilities that they have. This means also eliminating Hamas’s civil infrastructure (government and finances), and cutting off their ability to profit by taxing civilians and humanitarian aid sales. Terrorists can still run away from the IDF, but will then be concentrated in small areas, while the rest of Gaza becomes cleared of them. This will then allow the IDF to establish civilian zones free of Hamas.
4. Maximum silence to create fog of war: For the first year of the war, the IDF gave daily operational updates, outlining the battles and locations of (almost) every IDF unit in Gaza. Now the IDF is limiting information, in order to keep Hamas in the fog.

**

Hamas is suffering financially. Budgets for Hamas civil offices have almost completely run out, severely limiting their operational abilities. Salaries are also out for terrorists in Hamas’s military wing—or those responsible for organizing the payment, and who know where the cash is hidden, have been eliminated. Families of killed Hamas terrorists aren’t either getting the compensation salaries promised to them.

The IDF assesses that Hamas wants a ceasefire so that they can rebuild, and carry out another attack on Israel.

During a visit to the Gaza Strip this morning, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said that Hamas is under tremendous pressure, having lost most of their assets and command ad control capabilities.

“This is not an endless war,” Zamir stated, “we will act to shorten it per the fulfillment of its objectives. We seek to achieve a decisive victory, and we will do so with determination, thoroughness, and while ensuring the safety of our forces.”

IDF intelligence estimates that Hamas has a few thousand short-range rockets, and several hundred long-range rockets. Hamas is either incapable of firing them all now, or saving them for later, when they plan another attack on Israel.

**

The IDF is investigating claims that an IDF drone strike on Friday evening killed nine siblings under the age of 12, in Khan Younis. The claims state that both parents are doctors at the Nasser Hospital, and were on duty at the time of the strike, with their children home alone.

The IDF points out that the area of the strike was under a mandatory evacuation warning, where locals had more than sufficient time to leave, with warnings of heavy strikes to come. Internet sleuths pointed out that all photos of the alleged family are either AI generated, or actually stolen photos of a different family, which can be found on the internet in earlier posts. There does not appear to be solid or consistent evidence that this family even existed.

Humanitarian Aid:

The IDF let hundreds of trucks carrying humanitarian aid into Gaza over the weekend. Almost all of them were either looted, or hijacked by Hamas. In one incident, the IDF spotted armed terrorists next to humanitarian aid trucks in Central Gaza. The IDF targeted and eliminated them. Hamas later claimed that these were just armed guards, protecting the aid from looters. (The IDF says this is nonsense.)

The opening of the new humanitarian aid mechanism was delayed until Monday, due to logistic challenges. The new system, run in cooperation with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), is expected to open four hubs to deliver humanitarian aid.

The foundation is facing backlash from international organizations and the UN, who don’t want to lose their jobs when they are cut out of the aid delivery process.

Misinformation about food in Gaza continues to be spread. While there is still enough food in Gaza, and the IDF is delivering food to everyone, reports to the opposite are spreading rapidly.

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy quoted from a BBC story in the British Parliament. The story falsely claims that Prime Minister Netanyahu said that Israel will let in “just enough to prevent hunger.”

The quote is taken from a video in which Netanyahu addresses Israelis, and says that Israel will let in aid through the current mechanism “so that there will not be hunger.”

Yemen:

The Houthis in Yemen fried two ballistic missiles at Israel recently. Both were successfully intercepted, thank G-d.

One was fired on early Friday morning, at 4 a.m., activated sirens the extended Tel Aviv area.

On Sunday at 11 a.m. (Israeli students have school on Sundays), sirens were activated in the Jerusalem and Hebron areas, and even as far as Arad and the Dead Sea area. A missile fragment landed in a Jewish community in the Southern Hebron Hills, no one was hurt.

The new advanced siren warning gives people a full 5 minutes to run to shelter. Although in most instances, the advanced warning alerts a wider area than the actual siren—so those who are fine with the two minutes that the siren gives, often wait until the siren before going to shelter.

Iran:

Negotiations for a nuclear deal between the U.S. and Iran seem to have stalled, except that U.S. President Trump today claimed that talks showed real progress.

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Senior officials from the E3 countries (UK, France, and Germany) warned the Trump administration that Iran is deliberately stalling nuclear negotiations to avoid the possibility of new sanctions. Under the 2015 JCPOA agreement, member states can reimpose broad UN sanctions on Iran using a snapback mechanism, but this option expires in October.

The European countries told Iran that if a new and meaningful deal isn’t reached by August, they will trigger the snapback process. They also warned the U.S. that without a clear negotiation timeline, Iran could exploit delays to create a rift between the U.S. and Europe and block the use of sanctions.

In response, Iran’s foreign minister warned that if the Europeans activate the snapback, Iran will respond forcefully.

Ebrahim Rechaei, a spokesman for the Foreign Affairs and Security Committee in the Iranian Parliament said: “I feel disappointed and don’t have much hope that the negotiations with the US will lead to an agreement. We are preparing for Plan B.”

Feridun Abbasi, the former chairman of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said in an interview on SNN TV yesterday: “We have all the knowledge and ability to develop a nuclear bomb. We just need to make a decision. So far, we have not been instructed to build a bomb. It could take two hours or a few months. When we start, we will know.”

Judea & Samaria:

On Shabbat, a terrorist attempted to stab soldiers at a checkpoint in Hebron. He was quickly neutralized, and no troops were harmed.

In response to western countries threatening that they will recognize a Palestinian State, Israel’s Foreign Minister, Gideon Saar, warned that “unilateral moves against Israel will be met with unilateral moves by Israel,” and Israel would apply sovereignty to Judea and Samaria in response.

Lebanon:

Naim Qassem, Secretary General of Hezbollah, gave a speech on the occasion of “Resistance Day.” In his speech, he claimed that “the war is not over yet,” and if Lebanon doesn’t “implement the ceasefire” (i.e., stop Israeli airstrikes), Hezbollah would not remain silent.

Meanwhile, the IDF sees the border as quiet and stable, and will be reducing responsibility from two divisions down to just the Galilee Division. The 146th Division’s posts will be given to the Galilee Division, while they go for training.

Syria:

Syrian President al-Julani’s border guard forces seized a large shipment of Grad rockets, which Hezbollah was attempting to smuggle into Lebanon via Syria.

Palestinian leaders of pro-Iranian terror groups have left Syria under pressure from al-Julani’s regime, while remaining terror group members handed in their weapons.

This comes after U.S. President Trump met with al-Julani, and said that he’d lift sanctions on Syria, if efforts were made to remove local terror groups, keep ISIS at bay, and join the Abraham Accords peace agreement with Israel.

An Israeli official told Maariv that “Al-Julani is making a gesture of goodwill towards us, and we will respond in return.”

There have been no Israeli airstrikes in Syria for a few weeks already.

Other:

The U.S. Justice Department formally requested of the UN to immediately remove Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, following her systematic bias and antisemitism, and after revelations that she accepted payments from Hamas-linked groups.

**
Spain’s foreign minister called on the International community to look into applying sanctions on Israel “to do everything to stop the war.” The comment comes ahead of a Madrid meeting of European and Arab nations on Sunday. (For some reason the “everything” doesn’t include returning the hostages and disarming Hamas.)

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Israel’s National Security Council has advised Israelis in Canada to exercise heightened caution amid a rising threat from terrorist elements. The warning follows intelligence received by the Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, indicating that leaders of the violent protests in Amsterdam traveled intentionally to Canada to take part in demonstrations there.

**
Last week the Golani Brigade conducted a joint military training exercise with the Moroccan army, which included tunnel combat training. Arab social media raged about Morocco abandoning the Gazans. The Golan Brigade is already back in Israel, operating in Gaza.

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An investigative report from Israel’s News 12 revealed that one quarter of Hamas’s non-state funding comes from the UK, making the UK one of the top three state sponsors of Hamas. This is money that directly financed the October 7th attack.

The funds come from two sources. One is Hamas-run foundations in the UK, which operate with complete freedom. The other is tens of millions of pounds of UK Aid government funding which is given to UNICEF, who in turn directly finance Hamas’s Ministry of Social Development (MoSD). Hamas’s MoSD is free to use the funds at their own discretion, and puts it straight to work funding terrorism.

After October 7th, the UK only increased their funding to UNICEF, who in turn only strengthened cooperation with Hamas’s MoSD, funding even more terrorism.