The IDF's Yiftach reserve brigade, as part of the ground operation in southern Gaza City, fired a decoy on Friday that led to the evacuation of dozens of terrorists into a building that served as a Hamas infrastructure.

After that, the forces directed an IAF fighter jet that attacked the structure and eliminated the terrorists.

In another incident in the same area, the brigade's observation unit identified armed terrorists who tried to attack the forces and were killed by sniper fire.

In a separate incident on the same day, personnel of the 179th Brigade Combat Team located a stockpile of weapons in a kindergarten in the Bakshi neighborhood in the center of the Gaza Strip. They found toy boxes containing dozens of mortar bombs and RPG-type anti-tank missiles.

Egypt proposed a new outline for a hostage release deal on Sunday that would see Hamas release 40 Israelis taken into the Gaza Strip in exchange for a 14-day truce, Israeli and foreign media reported.

As per Cairo's proposal, the IDF would halt all military and intelligence operations in the Strip for two weeks in exchange for the release of 40 hostages.

The Egyptian deal, reported by foreign media citing Palestinian officials to be a "three-stage" plan to end fighting Gaza, also includes the release of 120 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.

The head of the Red Cross defended her organization’s response to the kidnapping of hundreds of people into Gaza, saying it was up to Israel, which has pilloried the aid group for refusing to pressure Hamas for access to the hostages, to work out the issue with the terror group.

Mirjana Spoljaric, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, did express frustration over Hamas’s refusal to allow the organization access to hostages held in the Gaza Strip so their personnel can visit the hostages, ensure their conditions and deliver critical medication.

--snip--

“Now Israel has to negotiate with Hamas with an intermediary which in this case is Qatar. They have to find this agreement so that we are let know where the hostages are because we currently don’t know where they are. We don’t know when and where to go to access them. That’s the simple fact. We cannot enforce this,” she said.

She noted the Red Cross’s role in implementing the release of 109 civilians, most of them as part of a temporary truce agreement between Israel and Hamas. It is believed that 129 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza — not all of them alive. The Israel Defense Forces has confirmed the deaths of 22 of those still held by Hamas, citing new intelligence and findings obtained by troops operating in Gaza.

An Israeli advocacy group said Thursday that it had filed a legal complaint against the Red Cross, accusing the humanitarian organization of inaction and bias over Israeli hostages held by terrorists in Gaza.

The Shurat Hadin nonprofit, which wages legal battles worldwide often on behalf of Israeli victims of terror, filed a complaint in Jerusalem on behalf of the families of 24 hostages, out of the 129 still held in the Strip following the release of some of the over 240 people abducted by Hamas terrorists during the deadly October 7 onslaught in southern Israel.

The group criticized the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) for allegedly “failing to act to fulfill its mandate and moral duty to visit the kidnapped Israelis held in Gaza, assure their wellbeing and fight for their release.”

Contacted by AFP, the ICRC said it had continuously called for the release of the hostages since the Hamas onslaught, with a spokesman adding that “we are pained and frustrated when we do not have access to people who need our help.”

President Isaac Herzog averred Thursday that the United Nations has been failing to keep up with the amount of aid Israel is inspecting, and that the world body is to blame for the little amount of aid entering the Strip even after Israel has opened up its Kerem Shalom crossing to ease the bottleneck.

“Unfortunately, due to the utter failure of the UN in its work with other partners in the region, they have been unable to bring in more than 125 trucks [of aid] a day,” Herzog said in a meeting with visiting French Senate President Gérard Larcher.

“Today it is possible to provide three times the amount of humanitarian aid to Gaza if the UN — instead of complaining all day — would do its job,” Herzog said.

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In recent weeks, multiple videos have circulated on social media of Gazans discovering stockpiles of aid in UNRWA facilities, and expressing anger at the organization for not distributing desperately needed supplies to citizens.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday called out other countries for not demanding Hamas surrender.

“What is striking to me is that even as, again, we hear many countries urging the end to this conflict, which we would all like to see, I hear virtually no one saying – demanding of Hamas that it stop hiding behind civilians, that it lay down its arms, that it surrender. This is over tomorrow if Hamas does that. This would have been over a month ago, six weeks ago, if Hamas had done that,” Blinken said during a press briefing at the State Department Wednesday.

“How can it be that there are no demands made of the aggressor and only demands made of the victim,” Blinken went on to say.

The strong comments from Blinken come as the United Nations Security Council continues to negotiate a resolution calling for a suspension in fighting and encouraging more humanitarian aid into the beleaguered Gaza Strip, and as the United States’ support for the resolution remains unresolved.

In a slight revision of the map of the Middle East, the United Nations seemingly placed Jordan next to Gaza in an embarrassing post on social media.

A humanitarian convoy filled with life-saving food has crossed from Jordan into Gaza for the first time since conflict broke out in the Middle East.@WFP says the delivery is a crucial step for reaching people in need. https://t.co/KptegPpfnJpic.twitter.com/H5IPVIICRd
— United Nations (@UN) December 20, 2023

"A humanitarian convoy filled with life-saving food has crossed from Jordan into Gaza for the first time since the conflict broke out in the Middle East," the organization stated on X (formerly Twitter), seemingly forgetting, or ignoring, that an entire country stands between Jordan and Gaza.

Social media users were quick to point out to the international organization that it is impossible to "cross" from Jordan into Gaza without crossing Israel.

--snip--

From the silence of women's organizations on the sexual violence suffered by Israeli women at the hands of Hamas terrorists during the October 7 massacres to the revelations of the deep connections between Hamas and UNRWA, the UN has lost much public face for its supposed one-sided position during the conflict.

Pro-Palestine activists target ‘genocidal’ Israeli hummus in shops

Pro-Palestinian campaigners are labelling pots of Israeli hummus stocked in British supermarkets as “profiting from genocide”.

The anti-Israel BDS movement – which stands for boycott, divestment and sanctions – calls for activists not to buy Israeli products in order to put economic pressure on companies operating in the country.

It claims on its website that the hummus and dips brand Sabra previously supported the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) with donations.

The campaign’s website states: “Sabra hummus is a joint venture between PepsiCo and the Strauss Group, an Israeli food company that provides financial support to the Israeli army.”

However, The Telegraph understands that BDS’s website refers to a Sabra brand sold in the US.

Hamas has allegedly rejected an Israeli offer for a one-week ceasefire in exchange for the release of hostages, saying they wouldn’t discuss releasing the hostages until a full ceasefire first goes into effect, Egyptian officials said, according to the Wall Street Journal report on December 20.

Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the political wing of the terrorist organization, met with intelligence officials in Cairo earlier today to discuss Israel's offer but allegedly said that he was there to obtain a full ceasefire and more humanitarian aid.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad would have been included in talks for the first time, however, they demanded a ceasefire before any negotiations begin. They also demanded all Palestinian prisoners be released in exchange for 100 hostages.