Paris summit: Negotiators representing the US, Israel, Qatar, and Egypt held a summit meeting in Paris over the weekend.

• The process is being led by CIA director Burns, alongside director of Egyptian Intelligence Kamel and the Qatari Prime Minister Al Thani.
• Israel’s delegation is led by the Mossad director Barnea, the head of the Shin Bet Bar, and Maj. Gen (res.) Nitzan Alon.
• The Prime Minister’s Office defined the talks as “constructive,” adding, “there are still significant gaps which the sides will continue to discuss at additional mutual meetings to be held this week.”
• According to Israeli media reports, they discussed two draft proposals, from Egypt and Qatar respectively, and are looking to potentially merge the two plans.
• Both plans look to release the hostages in stages, in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned for committing attacks.
• Similarly, both plans call for a pause in the fighting.
• Hamas is demanding international guarantees that the war will be ended, whereas Israel has refused this option. They are currently only willing to pause the fighting for up to a couple of month.
• Furthermore, Hamas is calling for a complete withdrawal of all Israeli troops from Gaza and guarantees that Hamas will remain in power in Gaza.
• Israel is prepared to withdraw a significant number of its troops, but has insisted that it will maintain a military presence inside the Gaza Strip
• To move the deal forward, the negotiators will need to agree a ratio for the price of each hostage vs each prisoner. In the first deal, the formula was three prisoners per child or female hostage. This time it is understood Hamas is demanding 200-300 prisoners per hostage.

Context : Intense fighting continues, particularly in the southern city of Khan Yunis

• The Hamas brigades that remain fighting in Khan Yunis have direct affinity with Hamas leaders Sinwar and Deif.
• Israel estimates that in the last week more than 400 Hamas combatants were killed in western Khan Yunis and the surrounding area.
• In that time, the IDF have also exposed a large weapons depot containing a significant amount of explosive devices intended for use against tanks and armoured vehicles.
• This has been one of the most intense theatres of battle. Hamas had prepared in advance by planting explosives and preparing ambushes.
• The complexity of the combat is compounded due to the anticipated presence of hostages.
• In the northern Gaza Strip, around 200,000 Gazans remain there, including Hamas figures who are embedded within the civilian population.
• Israel is facing pressure to allow others from the north to return home. However, it maintains that this is part of the condition in return for the release of hostages.
• Despite progress above ground, the task of decommissioning the huge tunnels complex is much slower.

UNRWA: The UK along with the US, Australia, Canada and several other European countries announced that they were suspending funding for UNRWA following revelations that some of its employees took part in the October 7 massacre.

• On Friday, UNRWA announced that it was launching an investigation.
• On Sunday, the New York Times released more details, claiming 12 Palestinian UNRWA workers took part in the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7, including a staffer who abducted a woman, a social worker who distributed ammunition, and a third who participated in the massacre in Kibbutz Be’eri where 97 people were murdered.
• The report was based on Israeli and US intelligence, and included the tracking of their mobile phone locations, as well as intercepted phone conversations where they discussed their involvement in the massacre.
• In addition three more UNRWA staffers were also members of the Hamas military wing and received instructions in text messages to report to specific locations. One was instructed to bring with him anti-tank missiles stored in his home.
• It was also revealed that seven of the UNRWA workers were employed as maths and Arabic teachers at UN schools. Three others were a clerk, a social worker and the manager of the school’s storeroom.
• Israel’s Foreign Minister Katz said, “We have been warning for years: UNRWA perpetuates the refugee issue, obstructs peace, and serves as a civilian arm of Hamas in Gaza.”

Looking ahead: The talks in Paris are set to continue later this week.

• In parallel, Israel has accepted the US demand to allow a UN delegation to visit the northern Gaza Strip to study the situation there and assess public needs so as to eventually facilitate a return of residents to the area.
• Israeli officials continue to insist that some form of operation will be needed in the Rafah and southern edge of the Strip to prevent Hamas with the capacity to continue smuggling and rearm. Due to proximity and sensitivity, this will require reaching an understanding with the Egyptians.

What’s happened:  In London, Eli Albag, father of 18-year-old Liri; Ziv Abud, girlfriend of 26-year-old hostage Eliya Cohen; and Liran Berman, brother of 26-year-old twins Ziv and Gali Berman met with Prime Minister Sunak and Foreign Secretary Cameron.

• Albag told Israeli media, “we received a warm embrace from the prime minister and from David Cameron, and the understanding and action that they intend to take. Our message is to put pressure on everyone, on our own prime minister to reach a deal willingly and, on the other hand, we asked them to pressure the Qataris.”
• Separately, the UK government announced that along with the US and Australia they have imposed “coordinated sanctions” on five key Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) figures to target their financial networks.
• Foreign Secretary Cameron said, “These sanctions send a clear message to Hamas – the UK and our partners are committed to ensuring there is no hiding place for those financing terrorist activities. To reach a sustainable ceasefire in Gaza, Hamas can no longer be in power and able to threaten Israel. By disrupting the financial networks which sustain Hamas’ operation, including from Iran, these sanctions support that crucial aim.”
• In Gaza, following manoeuvres over the last few weeks across Khan Yunis, the IDF advanced its operations in the western part of the city and completed its encirclement.
• IDF Spokesperson Hagari described the combat in “very complex terrain, densely populated with many Hamas terrorists concealed in the area, including in sensitive facilities, trying to surprise our forces.”
• He confirmed that over recent days the IDF “destroyed a tunnel network spanning a kilometre and a half as well as a rocket production facility. We eliminated over 100 terrorists in western Khan Yunis in the last day.”
• The underground rocket manufacturing site was the largest one found in southern Gaza.

Context: In December 2023, alongside new sanctions on Iran, the UK imposed sanctions on seven Hamas-linked individuals – “key figures in the network that has financed Hamas, including individuals in Lebanon and Algeria. These stringent measures,” the government said, “show that individuals linked to Hamas will not be able to escape accountability, even if they are operating from outside of Gaza.”

• The disaster on Monday where 21 IDF reservists were killed occurred as part of the operation to create a one-kilometre-deep “buffer zone” along the length of the Gaza Strip.
• The attack took place just 600 metres inside the Strip, adjacent to Kibbutz Kissufim, one of the areas from which the terrorists entered Israel on October 7^th.
• The buffer zone aims to create a sterile zone without any buildings that could serve as a base from which to launch future attacks, and is seen as a vital component to reassure residents of the Gaza periphery to eventually return to their homes.
• According to the IDF, there were 2,850 buildings in proximity to the fence, of which the IDF has already destroyed around 1,100.
• Overall, the latest IDF assessment is that 17 of the original 24 Hamas battalions have been critically damaged and their command and control disrupted.
• The remaining battalions are the focus of the fighting in Khan Yunis, plus in the areas of Rafah and in the southern edge close to the Egyptian border.
• Despite losing their fighting formation, Hamas fighters have returned to their founding principles and remain able to operate as small cells, taking advantage of their remaining access to the tunnel shafts to attack IDF soldiers with anti-tank missiles and improvised explosive devices.
• According to the latest IDF assessment, around 10,000 Hamas fighters have been killed. Hamas figures cite over 25,000 Gazans killed, without making a distinction between combatants and civilians.
• IDF efforts to destroy Hamas’s overall control of the Strip are ongoing, with most senior Hamas leaders remaining at large.
• There are reports in the international media that Israel and Hamas are close to reaching a new deal to release the hostages, again in stages in return for a pause in fighting and a higher ratio of Palestinian prisoners in return. There has been no official Israeli response to these reports.

Looking ahead: Foreign Secretary Cameron will visit Israel and the Palestinian Authority again this week. His trip will also include stops in Qatar and Turkey.

• According to the FCDO, his focus will be to “get more aid into Gaza, hostages out and reach a sustainable, permanent ceasefire.”
• The statement adds, “the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary have set out the necessary elements for progress – Hamas must agree to the release of all hostages, they can no longer be in charge of Gaza and the threat from their terror and rocket attacks must end. An agreement must also be put in place for the Palestinian Authority to return to Gaza in order to provide governance and services and, increasingly, security.”

Medication deal: Trucks transporting medication have now entered the Gaza Strip, with some of it earmarked for the hostages.

• The consignment was flown into Egypt by the Qataris yesterday, before proceeding to Kerem Shalom for security screening by Israel.
• It is thought to include three months’ worth of medication for those 45 of the hostages with pre-existing medical conditions.
• According to Hamas officials, the terms of the Qatari-French brokered deal include 1,000 boxes of medication for Gazans for every one provided for the hostages.
• The question of who will deliver the medication to the hostages, or whether or not the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) will have access to them, is unclear.
• There is further scepticism on the Israeli side as to whether the medication will actually be provided to the hostages. Israel has proposed three possible methods of verification:
  • Supervision by the ICRC.
  • Verified video footage of hostages being administered medication, which would also serve as proof of life.
  • Qatari envoys personally delivering the medication.
• News of the arrival of the medication has become subsumed into the wider story of disfunction and miscommunication at the political level, after it appeared that Prime Minister Netanyahu had not kept Defence Minister Gallant and IDF Chief of Staff Halevi up to speed, prompting confusion and conflicting statements about the inspection mechanism.

Gaza Strip: The IDF continues to operate across the Strip while the most intense fighting remains in the Khan Yunis area.

• Relating to fighting in Khan Yunis, the IDF said they “eliminated more than thirty terrorists in the area, just in the last day.” They also continue to operate underground in Khan Yunis, “scanning, locating, and destroying… the underground maze.”
• IDF Spokesperson Hagari added, “the fighting in the tunnels and their destruction is challenging, combining new combat methods, some of which did not previously exist in the IDF, and even, If I can modestly say, not in other places in the world.”
• In the central area, troops returned to the area they had previously vacated, from where Hamas launched a large barrage of rockets towards Netivot earlier in the week. Yesterday, troops located and destroyed thirty rocket launcher barrels that were hidden underground, loaded with additional rockets for further launch and ready to be fired.
• According to the IDF, they also “completed the destruction of the weapon production infrastructure of Hamas’s Central Camps Brigade, a brigade that controlled the centre of the Gaza Strip. The infrastructure included workshops and factories above and below ground. These were central to Hamas’s empowerment capability, and from there, they transported the weapons and rockets to all areas of the Strip.”
• “In the northern Gaza Strip, IDF troops killed two armed terrorists who planned to ambush IDF troops. Furthermore, a number of aerial strikes on armed terrorists that posed a threat to IDF troops were carried out, including against terrorists operating adjacent to a school.”

Northern border: The IDF continues to attack Hezbollah targets. On Wednesday, they struck a terrorist cell that fired rockets from Lebanon in the Mount Dov area. The IDF also confirmed they “eliminated a Hamas terrorist cell that carried out shooting from the Qlaileh area in southern Lebanon.”

• Elsewhere too, several launches from Lebanon toward Israel were identified.
• Around 20 rockets were launched towards the coastal Rosh Hanikara area, there were no casualties reported.
• Two rockets were detected in Metula, one caused damage to infrastructure.
• The IDF announced “one of the terrorist cells responsible for firing at Rosh HaNikra in northern Israel was immediately identified, tracked and struck by an IDF aircraft.”

Context: Israeli media is reporting that the impetus for a medication deal at this time came not from the government, nor from the IDF or the Defence Ministry, both of whom had been working on the medication issue for several weeks.

• Instead, it appears that the Hostage and Missing Families Forum held direct talks with the French government, who began brokering the arrangement before Netanyahu then became personally involved and tasked the Mossad with facilitating the arrangement with the Qataris.
• The French and Qataris had insisted on framing the deal as the initiative of a civilian body, and the public introduction of the prime minister to the equation is said to have caused its delay.
• Israeli doctors have raised concerns about the hostages taking their medication without professional supervision and at the same dosage they received prior to their kidnap. “Restarting medications after such a long period of malnutrition, lack of sleep and sunlight could require dosage adjustments that only a qualified medical professional would be knowledgeable about and could guide a patient on,” Prof. Alon Hershko, a chair at Hadassah Medical Centre told the Times of Israel.
• Since their capture on October 7, there has been much Israeli and international criticism of the ICRC for not gaining access to the hostages to assess their well-being.
• The medication deal is not thought, at this stage, to be a precursor to a further hostage release deal. Publicly, Hamas continues to insist that further releases are contingent on a full cease-fire being declared, something Israel rejects.
• The Israeli government continues to reinforce its dual objectives of destroying Hamas’s military capacity and bring about the release of the hostages.
• IDF Spokesperson Hagari related to the hostages in his briefing on Wednesday evening saying, “we are making every effort to produce intelligence about the hostages and adjust the operational activity according to the intelligence available to us. It must be said to the public – there is no complete picture of the hostages. We are in a continuous intelligence effort to complete this picture, to build it, to achieve it all the time.”
• In total over 250 people were kidnapped on October 7. 121 have so far been extricated, while 136 remain in captivity. Of those it is estimated at least 27 are no longer alive.
• Today marks the first birthday of the youngest hostage, Kfir Bibas, taken along with his mother and four-year-old brother. In further torment for their extended family, it is unclear if they are still alive.
• Although meeting the criteria of the women and children released in November, none of the Bibas family members were freed. Instead, Hamas forced the father Yarden Bibas (held separately) to appear in a propaganda video saying his wife and two young children had been killed in an airstrike. There is no evidence to ascertain if this is accurate.
• As per yesterday’s BICOM briefing, the Israeli war cabinet is seemingly divided between those, like Benny Gantz and Gabi Eisenkot, who are prepared to consider ending the fighting if it means the return of the hostages, and others, such as Ron Dermer and Gallant who insist that the fighting must continue.
• Gallant said yesterday, “we are continuing the fighting until victory. Until we pound the Hamas organisation, until we strip it of all its major military capabilities and remove them from power in Gaza. On the issue of hostages too, we have no right to stop the fighting as long as there are hostages in Gaza.”
• Elsewhere, according to reports from US network NBC, US frustrations with Netanyahu have led the Biden Administration to begin to work together with a number of Israeli figures on the implementation of a Palestinian-Saudi plan for the post-Netanyahu era.
• Netanyahu has reportedly rejected a proposal from US Secretary of State Antony Blinken which would see Saudi Arabia normalise relations with Israel in return for Israel’s cooperation with a pathway towards a two-state solution.
• Blinken’s proposal is said to have come after Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and four other Arab leaders confirmed to him that they would also be prepared to fund Gazan reconstruction and support the return of a reformed Palestinian Authority to Gaza.
• Prior to October 7, the Saudi normalisation deal was thought to be at a relatively advanced stage. The process had been a major priority of the Biden administration, and scuppering it a principle strategic goal of Hamas and its Iranian paymaster.

Looking ahead: Chief of Staff Halevi has said that war in the north is now a more likely proposition. “I don’t know when there will be war in the north,” he said. “I do know that I can tell you that the likelihood of this happening in the next few months is much higher than it was in the past. I can tell you that I think that we will be starting it with a lot more advantages, with a lot of experience and a lot of capabilities and with surprises, and when we have to, we will go forward with all our might.”

• It is thought that even in the event of a ceasefire, Hamas would not agree to release all remaining hostages, and that it would keep at least some as an insurance policy against Israeli attempts to assassinate its top leaders.
• This afternoon the extended Bibas family and supporters are gathering at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv  to further highlight the family’s ongoing trauma.

Raanana attacks: Edna Bluestein, a 79-year-old Israeli woman, was killed, and 18 more people wounded in Raanana yesterday, in attacks by two Palestinian cousins from the Hebron area.

• Seven children remain hospitalised with their injuries. Five of the injured are in serious condition and two – a 60-year-old and a 16-year-old boy – in critical condition.
• First, Mahmoud Zidat, 44, and in Israel illegally, arrived in a stolen vehicle at the industrial area on Raanana’s Haroshet Street. He stabbed a woman, wounding her slightly, before stealing her vehicle and embarking out on a rampage, running down two pedestrians. When the vehicle became stuck, he first attempted to commandeer another vehicle, before setting out on foot, stabbing another individual.
• Minutes later, on Ahuza Street, a few kilometers away, Zidat’s cousin Ahmad Zidat, 24, carried out a ramming attack at a bus stop, during which Bluestein was killed and 14 others injured. All of the wounded from both attacks were taken to Meir, Beilinson, Ichilov and Schneider hospitals.
• Both terrorists were captured and handed to the Shin Bet for questioning. According to the Shin Bet, both terrorists had been blacklisted for entering Israel illegally numerous times in the past.
• The Khalil a-Rahman group from Hebron, affiliated with Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, assumed responsibility for the terror attack.

Hostage video: Hamas yesterday released a propaganda video of the hostage Noa Argamani, claiming, under duress, that two other hostages Yossi Sharabi and Itay Svirsky were killed as a result of Israeli strikes.

• A day earlier, Hamas had released a video of all three hostages pleading for their release. It is not clear when either of the videos were recorded. The first video ended with a taunting text, “Tomorrow we will inform you of their fate.”
• In response to the recording, IDF Spokesperson Daniel Hagari denied Hamas’s allegation that Itai Svirsky had been killed by IDF fire. Hagari described that allegation as a lie.
• Hagari added, “We did not know their exact location in real-time. We do not strike where we know there are hostages. In retrospect, we know that we attacked targets close to the location where they were held.”
• The IDF Spokesperson’s office added, “Hamas is weaponizing social media as an instrument of war. Hamas wages psychological warfare to terrorise and torment. This is a new benchmark in barbarism set by Hamas.”
• Itay Svirsky, 38, was kidnapped while he was visiting his mother on Kibbutz Be’eri. Both his parents, Orit and Rafi Svirsky, were murdered. His 96-year-old grandmother Aviva Sela managed to survive.
• Yossi Sharabi, 53, was also taken from Kibbutz Be’eri, along with his brother, Eli Sharabi. Eli’s wife, Lianne and their two daughters, Noiya and Yahel, were killed on October 7.
• Noa Argamani, 26, was abducted from the Supernova music festival. She was seen on video on the morning of October 7, being taken away on the back of a motorbike.

Gaza Strip: The IDF have continued to reduce their presence in northern Gaza Strip, as part of their gradual redeployment into phase three of the war.

• There remains one IDF division, including seven brigades operating in southern Gaza in the Khan Yunis area.
• Another IDF solider was killed in action yesterday, and two others seriously wounded, reflecting the continued fighting in southern Gaza. Since the beginning of the ground operation, 189 soldiers have fallen.
• In Nuseirat, in central Gaza, the IDF announced they “located a compound used for manufacturing mortar shells, a rocket production factory and weapons hidden in the building of a humanitarian organisation.” In addition, forces “encountered 10 Hamas terrorists hiding in the school. The terrorists were apprehended and detained for further investigation.”
• Additional troops remain deployed along the route that bisects the Strip into north and south.
• In the northern Gaza section smaller forces remain focused on pin-point raids against remaining terror targets. For example, yesterday in the area of Beit Lahia, IDF troops located approximately 100 rocket set-installations and 60 ready-to-use rockets. The troops killed dozens of terrorists during the activity.
• Despite the IDF presence, this morning a barrage of 50 rockets were fired towards southern Israel.  There were direct hits reported in Netivot and Moshav Givolim.

Context: Prior to the October 7 attacks, around 150,000 Palestinians from the West Bank held permits to work inside Israel or in Jewish settlements in the West Bank. In addition, 18,000 Gazans also held work permits.

• Despite the fact that both terrorists were in Israel illegally, Defence Secretary Gallant faces political criticism for his plan to increase permits for West Bank Palestinian workers to work in Israel.
• Work permits were cancelled by the government in the wake of October 7, and the tax revenues collected by Israel on behalf of the Palestinian Authority (PA) withheld.
• Gallant has supported the Shin Bet and IDF leadership in pushing for the work permit policy to be reversed, in a bid to calm heightened tensions in the West Bank, and to ease the burden on the Israeli construction industry, which is currently short on manpower.
• On Sunday, Gallant said that he “hope[d] that the government will accept the position of the IDF and the Shin Bet on everything that is connected to labourers and money. I will say this in the clearest way possible: A strong PA is in the best security interests of Israel.”
• Over the weekend, Israeli media reported that the Shin Bet had written to Prime Minister Netanyahu urging him to allow the return of West Bank workers to Israel and the distribution of the funds to the PA.
• The Israeli government faces a dilemma: on one hand it understands that Palestinian workers represent economic stability for the West Bank, bringing in crucial revenue, both for themselves and their families, and in tax revenues for the PA. Greater economic stability is thought to have security benefits, too, with those able to provide for their families generally less susceptible to Hamas’s and other groups’ incitement and recruitment. Palestinian labour is also important to the Israeli economy, especially the construction industry.
• However, after October 7, allowing tens of thousands of Palestinians to enter Israel is regarded as a security risk, even though Palestinians with permits very rarely carry out attacks. Reports that Hamas was aided in its intelligence in planning October 7 by Gazans working in Israel only exacerbates these fears.
• One of the terrorists had worked at a carwash on Haroshet Street. Detectives are now trying to determine whether the terrorists stole the vehicles they used from the carwash.
• The IDF’s assessment is that several hundred Palestinians are currently in Israel illegally working for Israelis.
• Since October 7, Israeli forces have arrested more than 2,650 wanted Palestinians across the West Bank, including more than 1,300 affiliated with Hamas. According to the Palestinian Authority health ministry, some 300 West Bank Palestinians have been killed in that time, the majority thought to have died in clashes with Israeli troops.
• Security Cabinet minister and New Hope Party Chairman Gideon Saar said, “the painful terror attack in Raanana is further proof of the fact that it is impossible to distinguish, certainly in a time of war, when allowing labourers into Israel, between Palestinians from Gaza and Palestinians from Judea and Samaria. Age is no guarantee of anything, either. We must fight relentlessly against the entry of Palestinians: by means of prevention and severe punishment of people who drive, host and hire [them].”
• Yisrael Beiteinu Chairman Avigdor Liberman said, “regrettably, the only uniting thing in this war cabinet is that same mistaken preconception that visited the October 7 disaster upon us. I can’t understand the defence minister, who is talking about how we need to strengthen the PA. Whom exactly do we want to strengthen? Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas], the chronic Holocaust-denier who has refused to condemn the October 7 massacre? The person who is behind South Africa’s case and is inciting against the State of Israel—that’s who we want to strengthen?”

Looking ahead: Following the terror attacks, Israeli forces will be vigilant over the prospect of copycat attacks.

• It is understood that as part of the ongoing talks between senior Israeli and US officials, the US is keen to further empower the PA, including by encouraging Israel to release the tax funds and renew permits for Palestinian workers.
• The security establishment have been exploring a pilot programme to allow a limited return of West Bank Palestinian workers into Israel, with enhanced security provisions.