Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron has warned that the UK will not tolerate Iran’s “thoroughly malign” activities in the Middle East, as the Islamic Republic continues to fund Islamist proxy militia across the region, which he called a crises. The Foreign Secretary added that any role for Hamas in a potential two-state solution is “beyond the pale”.
The interview signals a shift to a tougher stance of Tehran, with Lord Cameron pledging to send an “incredibly clear” message to “develop a really strong set of deterrent measures”.
The UK is set to send warships to join Operation Prosperity Guardian – the U.S.-led international maritime coalition designed to combat the Iran-backed Houthi terror group, which has launched multiple attacks against trading vessels across the Red Sea, disrupting international trade.
Child-sized suicide vest found as Hamas admits to using children to transport explosives, hospitals and schools used by terror group to hide weapons
Hamas uses children to transport explosives, according to a Hamas commander interrogated by the IDF. The terrorists would give the material to “a small boy” in a bucket used for groceries so that the terrorists do not “risk [their] own life”.
The admission was released by Israel’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) and corroborates IDF findings which include “explosive belts adapted for children” discovered in the north of Gaza, near civilian facilities including a school, mosque and hospital. On Monday, the car of an Israeli hostage and a Hamas pickup truck was discovered at Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital. “A host of materials” linking the hospital to Hamas was discovered there, according to the IDF.
COGAT also released an infographic detailing Hamas’ cynical use of Gaza’s Rantisi Children’s Hospital.
The blood of a hostage and weapon parts were found in the hostage’s vehicle. The IDF has said that the medical centre was used as a staging ground for Hamas’ Nukhba force, and contained tunnel shafts linking it directly to the home of the former commander of Hamas’ northern Gaza brigade, Ahmed Ghandour, who was killed recently in an Israeli strike.
On Sunday, IDF soldiers found a cache of weapons in a school in Gaza’s Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood.
Netanyahu issues conditions for peace as war to last many months
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that fighting will end upon achieving three conditions: the destruction of Hamas, demilitarisation of Gaza, and deradicalisation of Palestinian society, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed Monday.
The IDF “will not allow a return to the security reality before October 7, and we will not allow such an event to be repeated”, IDF Chief of Staff Lt Gen Herzi Halevi stated on Tuesday.
Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant warned that “this is a long, tough war” and that the IDF was fighting on “seven fronts” in an address to the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament on Tuesday. Israel has hit back at six of them, he added, vowing to defeat Hamas “whether it takes months or years”.
Halevi said that Israel is close to defeating Hamas in the northern Gaza Strip, on Tuesday – adding that the military is expanding operations in other areas which may take “many more months”. The difficult but “necessary” goals of the IDF, “complex territory” and the “realm of uncertainty” that has developed as the war has progressed, means that “the timescale will be lengthy”.
“We will do everything to bring the hostages home. In this war, we are fighting a just war like no other… and it has a heavy and painful price”, said Halevi, adding that Israel “will guarantee” that the deaths of Israeli personnel will not be “in vain”.
7th October attacks launched in revenge for assassination of IRGC commander
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Tehran’s military organisation tasked with safeguarding and spreading the ideas of the Islamic Revolution, said that Hamas’ brutal 7th October massacre was revenge for the assassination of IRGC chief Qassem Soleimani in a U.S. drone strike in 2020.
Iran has also “increased its production of highly enriched uranium, reversing a previous output reduction from mid-2023”, according to an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report on Tuesday. Tehran had increased its output of 60% enriched uranium to a rate of about nine kilogrammes (20 pounds) a month since the end of November.
The IRGC vowed that it will take “direct” action against Israel after its senior official Brig. Gen. Razi Mousavi, was killed after being allegedly targeted by an Israeli air strike in Damascus, Syria, on Monday.
Iran’s president Ebrahim Raisi said that Israel “will certainly pay for this crime” and Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian wrote that “Tel Aviv faces a tough countdown” on social media. Hezbollah, the Lebanese terror group backed by Tehran, called the strike a “flagrant and shameless violation, which is off limits”.
Mousavi had reportedly lived in Syria for 30 years and had an office within the country’s Defence Ministry, responsible for coordinating the military alliance between Iran and Syria and for supplying regional terror groups such as Hezbollah.
“We will respond accordingly, directly or indirectly through the resistance axis”, threatened IRGC spokesman Ramazan Sharif, referring to the myriad of terror organisations funded by Iran across the region, including the Houthi’s based in Yemen and Islamic Forces of Iraq.
15 Iranian-linked groups reportedly emailed IT officials across Israeli companies with instructions to download malware disguised as an update according to Israel’s Cyber Directorate on Sunday, which said that Tehran had disguised as an American company to steal and wipe sensitive data. The attack follows similar Iranian-led cyber attacks on Ziv Medical Center, Safed, last month.
Tunnel construction heard along Israel-West Bank border
Investigations will be renewed into longstanding reports of “shaking and drilling and excavation noises” at homes bordering the West Bank, including in the towns Kochav Yair-Tzur Yigal of around 9,000 individuals and Bat Hefer of around 5,000.
Yuval Arad, the Regional Council leader of Yair-Tzur Yigal, an Israeli town located only 800 metres from the Palestinian city of Qalqilya, said that if Hamas invade Israel from the town, the terror group threatens “the soft underbelly of Israel. A horror story like what we saw on October 7 would be just the beginning of what we would see here, too”.
“I felt like there was an earthquake far off like the bed I was lying on was moving and sailing”, said Baruch Ben Neria who lives in the town, “I’ve been feeling this for the last two years, and sometimes it lasts for minutes in the middle of the night. There’s quiet outside, and then suddenly, it happens”.
Bet Hefer is located 800 metres from the West Bank city of Tulkarm. A “fairly large” group of people hear the construction noises in “several places” across the town, said local Matan Buchner, who heard “drilling noises” as recently as Thursday night.
UN aid coordinator for Gaza is a historic critic of Israel
The UN has named outgoing Dutch minister Sigrid Kaag as humanitarian coordinator for Gaza on Tuesday after the UN Security Council passed a resolution last week calling for the “safe and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance at scale”.
Kaag is married to a senior PLO official and has been pictured with now-deceased former PLO leader Yasser Arafat and was reported in 2015 to have his portrait hanging in her dining room. She also labelled Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as ‘racist’ in 1996.
Kaag has worked for the United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA), which Israel has accused of Hamas complicity together with other UN bodies. She has acted as the UN’s special coordinator for Lebanon, the United Nations Mission in Syria, and the Joint Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
The UN announced that Kaag will begin on January 8 to “facilitate, coordinate, monitor, and verify humanitarian relief consignments to Gaza”. Aid is being planned through a “mechanism to accelerate humanitarian relief consignments to Gaza through States which are not party to the conflict”, according to a recently released statement.
Kaag reportedly clashed with the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte in 2021 over Rutte’s pro-Israel position. She has served as the Netherlands’ Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister.
Israel’s President Isaac Herzog said that the UN has failed to provide enough aid to the Gaza Strip, despite Israel opening the second of its inspection crossings – Kerem Shalom.
Hezbollah escalates rocket attacks in northern Israel
Sirens across northern Israel blared as a drone was launched from Lebanon and intercepted by the IDF today. A Syrian Kamikaze drone was also launched by Syria into Israel’s Golan Heights yesterday, as Hezbollah fired a salvo of 18 rockets at the Israeli community of Rosh Hanikra in the Western Galilee. Kiryat Shmona was also targeted, with six rockets striking residential buildings and infrastructure, and others landing across open areas. Three were intercepted by the Iron Dome.
Targeted strikes were carried out at Hezbollah posts on Thursday after the terror group launched anti-tank missiles from Lebanon at St. Mary’s Greek Orthodox Church in the village of Iqrit in the Western Galilee, wounding at least 10 Israelis.
“The time for a diplomatic solution is running out. If the world and the Government of Lebanon don’t act to stop the fire toward northern communities and to push Hezbollah away from the border, the IDF will do that”, said Israel’s Cabinet Minister Benny Gantz, in what has been reported as a major escalation in attacks by the Iran-backed terror group.
Operational updates
IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari has said that the IDF has killed over 2,000 Hamas operatives since the temporary truce agreed on 1 December, bringing the total estimation of Hamas terrorists killed to 9,000 – including the 1,000 killed after breaching Israel’s border during the 7th October massacre.
On Wednesday, Israel instructed residents of Gaza’s Bureij and Nusairat to evacuate to the town of Deir al-Balah as operations are set to intensify. The IDF operated in Tuffah, northern Gaza City, eliminating Hamas terrorists on the ground and by air, destroying a building concealing terror infrastructure used to launch attacks. A weapons cache was discovered in a Gazan home after clashes with Hamas terrorists and IDF naval forces have continued to support troops through live rounds.
A tunnel entrance was found in a mosque within Gaza’s Khan Younis neighbourhood, together with others in the immediate area. Entrances connecting to passages linked to a Hamas command centre was reportedly used by the terror group’s elite Nukhba forces. A rocket launcher and observation equipment was also recovered from the mosque.
Hamas and other terror groups in Gaza continue to fire rockets into Israel almost every day. 15 people have been killed and 700 injured in over 12,000 rockets launched against Israel by terror groups since 7t October, according to Israel’s emergency services.
80 bodies have been transferred back to Gaza after Israeli authorities have confirmed that they are not Israeli hostages.
Millions reportedly set aside for the terror group Hamas had been seized from foreign exchange and money transfer agencies in Ramallah and other cities across the West Bank on Thursday. “Terrorist funds were found and tens of millions of shekels, safes, documents, recording systems and telephones were confiscated”, stated the IDF.
21 arrests were made in Ramallah, Tulkarm, Jenin and Hebron according to the report. In central Ramallah, forces clashed with Palestinians after being attacked with explosives, petrol bombs and rocks. An IAF aircraft targeted assailants in Jenin after attacks. The fighting led to one death and 14 injuries, reported the Palestinian health ministry.
