The Times of Israel is liveblogging Wednesday’s events as they unfold.
Dermer holds meetings in Washington to discuss ‘planning for the day after’
Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer meets in Washington with US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, discussing Israel-US cooperation on the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
A spokesperson for the US National Security Council tells The Times of Israel that the meeting centered around a number of topics, including “the transition to a different phase of the war to maximize focus on high-value Hamas targets.”
The meeting also included talks on steps to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza and minimize harm to civilians and efforts to bring home the remaining hostages, as well as “planning for the day after [the war], including governance and security in Gaza, a political horizon for the Palestinian people, and continued work on normalization and integration.”
Dermer, a close Netanyahu confidant who often serves as a quasi-foreign minister, was also slated to meet with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during his trip.
Report: Israel returns bodies of 80 Palestinians killed in Gaza after inspecting them for hostages
Israel reportedly returns the bodies of 80 Palestinians who were killed in Gaza after taking them from morgues and graves to check there were no hostages among them, according to sources in the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry.
The bodies, which had been transported to Israel, were returned through the Red Cross to Hamas authorities who buried them in a mass grave in Gaza, the sources claim.
An AFP photographer saw a digger lowering the blue body bags into a trench in Rafah, on the south end of the territory.
Following inspection of the corpses, they were returned to the Red Cross through the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip. They were then transported in a truck to the mass grave, the sources says.
The IDF did not immediately comment on the report.
Shin Bet chief said to warn of potential far-right threats against top general in West Bank
Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar has reportedly warned that the military’s top commander in the West Bank could be at risk due to threats from the far-right.
According to Channel 12 news, Bar wrote a letter that was sent to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog and all government ministers saying that criticism against Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fox “may create a concrete threat to the general’s life and allow him to be harmed.”
“This is led by a few people, but who are extremist and Kahanist,” Bar is quoted as writing, referring to followers of the late extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane.
Bar attributed the intensified criticism of Fox to actions he has led since the Hamas atrocities in southern Israel on October 7 sparked the war in the Gaza Strip, such as the enforcement of administrative orders and collection of guns that were distributed to communal security squads without oversight.
“The steps that the Central Command chief has led have caused a real escalation in the criticism against him, which is presented as him having Jewish blood on his hands, to the point of deciding on a din rodef against him,” Bar reportedly added, referring to a Jewish religious principle allowing the extrajudicial killing of an individual who intends to kill or harm others.