The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) killed a Hamas commander in the West Bank city of Jenin on Tuesday as it pushed ahead with a weekslong operation against militant groups in the area that has sent tens of thousands of Palestinians fleeing their homes.
Israel’s top security agency ignored signs Hamas would attack in October 2023 and was fooled into believing the militant group did not want all-out war, the agency reported in its inquiry into one of Israel’s most devastating security failures.
The US State Department on Tuesday said it was implementing the designation of Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement as a “foreign terrorist organisation” after President Donald Trump’s call for the move earlier this year.
Israeli forces kill West Bank Hamas commander
Israeli forces killed a Hamas commander in the West Bank city of Jenin on Tuesday as they pushed ahead with a weekslong operation against militant groups in the area that has sent tens of thousands of Palestinians fleeing their homes.
The military said it had mounted a raid to arrest Aysar al-Saadi, the head of the Hamas network in the area and killed him in a gunfight in which another Hamas operative was also killed. Three other Hamas members were arrested, it said.
The Gaza-based militant group, which has also built up a powerful presence in the occupied West Bank, confirmed the death of al-Saadi but said it would not affect its commitment to fight Israel.
The West Bank operation, which began in January as fighting was halted in Gaza following a ceasefire agreement brokered by Qatar and Egypt, has been one of the biggest mounted in the area in years and followed a surge in violence since the start of the war in Gaza in 2023.
Thousands of Israeli troops have swept through refugee camps in Jenin and other cities in the northern part of the West Bank, including Tulkarm and Tubas, demolishing houses and infrastructure and forcing tens of thousands to leave, taking only what they could carry with them.
On Tuesday, the military pushed out of the now-deserted Jenin refugee camp and into eastern areas of the city of Jenin itself, cutting off power supplies and digging up roads.
The military says it does not forcibly evacuate Palestinians but has allowed residents who want to leave combat areas to go out through designated crossings.
Palestinians say the Israeli operations, which have cut water and electricity supplies and demolished dozens of houses, leave them no choice but to leave.
Israel’s top security agency admits failures over 7 October Hamas attack
Israel’s top security agency ignored signs Hamas would attack in October 2023 and was fooled into believing the militant group did not want all-out war, the agency reported in its inquiry into one of Israel’s most devastating security failures.
The Shin Bet’s report was published on Tuesday, five days after the military released the result of an investigation saying it had drastically underestimated Hamas’ capabilities and “failed in its mission to protect Israeli civilians”.
Hamas fighters from Gaza stormed into southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
More than 48,000 people have been killed in Israel’s war on Gaza since then, according to Palestinian health officials, with the small enclave largely demolished and most of its 2.3 million people displaced, humanitarian agencies say. Around 400 Israeli soldiers have also been killed.
A fragile ceasefire has held in Gaza since 19 January.
A published summary of Shin Bet’s investigation said that if it “had acted differently in the years preceding the [Hamas] attack and on the night of the attack … the massacre would have been prevented”.
“This is not the standard that we expected from ourselves and the public from us,” said the report.
Both investigations were published as calls grow from within the Israeli opposition and civil society for a national inquiry into the government’s failures on the deadliest single day in modern Israeli history.
Soon after the start of the war, Israel’s military and its main intelligence agencies admitted they had failed to foresee the lightning attack by thousands of Hamas-led gunmen.
The Israeli military’s findings focused on tactical, battle and intelligence failures before, during and in the days after 7 October. The armed forces chief of staff, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, announced his resignation in January, taking responsibility for the army’s failure.
But the political establishment has so far avoided a reckoning despite repeated calls on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to hold a full national inquiry.
In a fiery parliamentary debate on Monday, Netanyahu said an inquiry would be held eventually but it must be “objective ..., balanced and not dependent” on predetermined findings.
Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar has said he will step down and has taken responsibility for failures to protect Israeli civilians.
Some Israeli media outlets said the Shin Bet’s findings had been submitted to Netanyahu’s office, which did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters.
US implements designation of Houthis as ‘terrorist organisation’
The US State Department on Tuesday said it was implementing the designation of Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement as a “foreign terrorist organisation” after President Donald Trump’s call for the move earlier this year.
“The Houthis’ activities threaten the security of American civilians and personnel in the Middle East, the safety of our closest regional partners, and the stability of global maritime trade,” said Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“The United States will not tolerate any country engaging with terrorist organisations like the Houthis in the name of practicing legitimate international business,” he added.
The move, however, triggered concerns it could affect regional security and worsen Yemen’s humanitarian crisis because importers fear being hit with US sanctions if supplies fall into Houthi hands.
“A designation like this must be coupled with appropriate safeguards and reassurances, both humanitarian assistance and the ability of civilians to commercially access central goods and services,” said UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric.
“For humanitarian goods, a lot of it comes in through the private sector. If this is not possible, it will have a devastating humanitarian impact,” added Dujarric, pointing out that some 19 million Yemenis required life-saving assistance.
In January, Trump re-designated the Houthi movement as a foreign terrorist organisation, aiming to impose harsher economic penalties in response to its attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea and against US warships defending the critical maritime area.
The Houthis, who control most of Yemen, have staged more than 100 such attacks since November 2023, saying they were in solidarity with Palestinians over Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. They have sunk two vessels, seized another and killed at least four seafarers.
They also targeted Israel with missile and drone strikes.
In January, the Houthis’ leader said the militants would monitor implementation of an Israel-Hamas ceasefire and resume strikes on commercial vessels or Israel if the deal was breached.
The attacks have disrupted global shipping, forcing firms to re-route to longer and more expensive journeys around southern Africa.
Larsen said those traffic patterns “are largely unchanged” and that given the Gaza ceasefire’s uncertain future and the potential for US or Israeli strikes on the Houthis “the security threat is increasing”.
At the start of his term in 2021, former President Joe Biden dropped Trump’s terrorist designations to address the humanitarian concerns in Yemen.
Israel says it needs deal on freeing hostages to extend Gaza ceasefire
Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Tuesday Israel was ready to proceed to the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal, as long as Hamas was ready to release more of the 59 hostages it is still holding.
Fighting in Gaza has been halted since 19 January under a truce arranged with US support and Qatari and Egyptian mediators, and Hamas has exchanged 33 Israeli hostages and five Thais for some 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
But the initial 42-day stage of the truce has expired and Hamas and Israel, which has blocked the entry of aid trucks into Gaza, remain far apart on broader issues including the postwar governance of Gaza and the future of Hamas itself.
“We are ready to continue to phase two,” Saar told reporters in Jerusalem as Arab leaders prepared to meet in Cairo to discuss a plan for ending the war permanently.
“But in order to extend the time or the framework, we need an agreement to release more hostages.”
Hamas says it wants to proceed to second-phase negotiations that could open the way to a permanent end to the war with the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from the devastated Palestinian enclave and a return of the remaining 59 hostages taken in the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
But Israel says more of its hostages must be handed over for the truce to be extended. It backs a plan it says was proposed by Trump’s special Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff to extend the ceasefire through the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which began on Saturday, until after the Jewish Passover holiday in April.
Israeli government spokesperson Omer Dostri told Army Radio that Israel was allocating “a few days” for Hamas to agree to the Witkoff proposal. “If not, the Cabinet will convene and decide on the next step.”
Witkoff was due to visit the region in the next few days to discuss extending the ceasefire or moving ahead to phase two, the State Department said on Monday.
Saar denied Israel had breached the pact by not advancing to stage two talks. He said there was “no automaticity” between the stages and Hamas had itself violated the agreement to allow aid into Gaza by seizing most of the supplies itself.
“It is a means to continue the war against Israel. It’s today the major part of Hamas’ income in Gaza,” he said.
Aid groups have said that looting and wrongful seizure of aid trucks into Gaza has been a major problem, but Hamas denies seizing aid for its members.
Saar declined to comment on an Israeli media report that Israel had set a 10-day deadline to reach an agreement or resume fighting, but said: “If we want to do it, we will do it.”
Arab states adopt Egyptian alternative to Trump’s ‘Gaza Riviera’
Arab leaders adopted an Egyptian reconstruction plan for Gaza on Tuesday that would cost $53-billion and avoid resettling Palestinians, in contrast to Trump’s “Middle East Riviera” vision, according to a copy of the plan.
Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said that the proposal had been accepted at the closing of a summit in Cairo.
Sisi said at the summit he was certain that Trump would be able to achieve peace in the conflict that has devastated the Gaza Strip.
The major questions that need to be answered about Gaza’s future are who will run the enclave and which countries will provide the billions of dollars needed for reconstruction.
Sisi said Egypt had worked in cooperation with Palestinians on creating an administrative committee of independent, professional Palestinian technocrats entrusted with the governance of Gaza.
The committee would be responsible for the oversight of humanitarian aid and managing the Gaza Strip’s affairs for a temporary period, in preparation for the return of the Palestinian Authority (PA), he said.
The other critical issue is the fate of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, the PA’s rival.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who heads the PA, said he welcomed the Egyptian idea and urged Trump to support such a plan that would not involve displacing Palestinian residents.
Abbas, in power since 2005, also said he was ready to hold presidential and parliamentary elections if circumstances allowed, adding his PA was the only legitimate governing and military force in the Palestinian Territories.
An architect of the 1993 Oslo peace accords with Israel that raised hopes of Palestinian statehood, Abbas has seen his legitimacy steadily undermined by Israeli settlement building in the occupied West Bank, which he oversees. Many Palestinians now regard his administration as corrupt, undemocratic and out of touch.
Any reconstruction funding would require heavy buy-in from oil-rich Gulf Arab states such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, which have the billions of dollars needed.
The UAE, which sees Hamas and other Islamists as an existential threat, wants an immediate and complete disarmament of the group, while other Arab countries advocate a gradual approach, said a source close to the matter.
A source close to Saudi Arabia’s royal court says the continued armed presence of Hamas in Gaza was a stumbling block because of strong objections from the US and Israel, who would need to sign off on any plan.
In a speech at the summit, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said international guarantees were needed that the current temporary ceasefire would remain in place, and supported the PA’s role in governing the strip.
Leaders of the UAE and Qatar did not speak during open sessions of the summit.
Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri on Tuesday rejected Israeli and US calls for the group to disarm, saying its right to resist was not negotiable.
Abu Zuhri told Reuters the group would not accept any attempt to impose projects, or any form of non-Palestinian administration or the presence of foreign forces.
Since Hamas drove the Palestinian Authority out of Gaza after a brief civil war in 2007, it has crushed all opposition there.
Hamas moves to control prices in Gaza after Israel suspends deliveries
Israel’s block on deliveries into the war-stricken Gaza Strip has led to price increases and fears of food shortages, prompting punitive measures from the Hamas-run authorities against merchants, according to Hamas sources and witnesses.
Members of the Hamas-run police force were deployed in local markets across Gaza, asserting their presence on the ground despite a 15-month Israeli aerial and ground offensive against the Palestinian militant group.
They questioned and detained merchants, ordering them not to raise prices during a standoff over a ceasefire deal, and seized supplies that were later resold at lower prices, said the four sources and witnesses.
Local authorities also urged residents to report misconduct by merchants, saying that food supplies in Gaza would last just two weeks.
“Punishing junior sellers in markets is good, but Hamas must act against the big merchants who control what we eat,” said one witness, asking not to be named for fear of retribution.
Israel announced on Sunday that it was stopping the entry of goods into Gaza, citing a dispute with Hamas over how to proceed with the phased, US-backed ceasefire that brought a halt to heavy fighting in January.
Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UN Palestinian relief agency Unrwa, said Israel’s suspension of deliveries threatened lives among Gaza’s 2.3 million population, exhausted by war.
“Aid and these basic services are nonnegotiable. They must never be used as weapons of war,” said Lazzarini in a post on X.
At a soup kitchen in Gaza’s Khan Younis, where dozens of children holding pots lined up to receive soup, organizers said the suspension of deliveries would hit their provision of free meals for 20,000 people.
The meals were meant to cover the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which began on Saturday. But merchants had raised meat prices, meaning the menu had to change. DM
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