The Times of Israel is liveblogging Tuesday’s events as they happen.
US says Rubio discussed Gaza ceasefire-hostage deal during call with Omani FM
WASHINGTON — US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Omani Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr Albusaidi discussed the state of the Middle East, including the situation in Gaza, during a call on Monday, according to the US State Department.
“They discussed the state of the region, including the ceasefire agreement in Gaza, the need to secure the release of all hostages, efforts to sustain assistance flows into Gaza, Syria’s political future, and the cessation of hostilities in Lebanon,” State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce says in a statement.
In US, Gallant says Israel needs to prioritize hostages’ return over resumption of war
Former defense minister Yoav Gallant tells an audience in New York that Israel needs to prioritize the release of the hostages in Gaza over resuming combat with Hamas, and that the country needs to carry out a commission of inquiry into the October 7, 2023 invasion.
Gallant says at the ADL’s annual summit in New York City that he has spent hours with former Hamas hostages who told him that “the most important thing for them is to bring back their friends” still held captive.
Resuming the war with Hamas before securing the release of the remaining hostages will mean “you won’t have hostages” left to save, says Gallant, who was defense minister at the time of the attack.
“A bitter truth is even if we don’t want to fight Hamas we will fight them for a long period of time,” Gallant says. “First of all, bring the hostages, and then go and accomplish the job and Hamas will give us enough reason to do that.”
Gallant advocates for a commission inquiry into Israel’s failings in preventing the Hamas onslaught.
“The most important thing now is how to avoid any phenomena similar to what happened on October 7 in the future,” he says. “In order to do it, you have to learn the lessons and in order to learn the lessons you need to rebrief the Israeli actions.”
“I think that our soldiers, our civilians, those who have been in the battlefield, those who were kidnapped and the wounded, people deserve all the answers and the answers have to be clear,” he says. “The only way is this committee that should be a national committee and I am the first one that is willing to step into the room and to give answers.”
Israeli forces reportedly operating some 13 KMs from border in Syria’s Daraa province
Syrian media report that Israeli forces are operating near the Tel al-Mal peak in the Daraa Governorate, where a military post belonging to the former Syrian regime once stood.
The hill is located some 13 kilometers (over 8 miles) from Israel’s border, well outside a buffer zone between the countries, which Israel captured following the fall of the Assad regime.
According to a report by the local Daraa 24 outlet, sounds of bulldozers can be heard in the area, as well as overhead flights of helicopters and drones.
Israeli military vehicles were also reportedly seen in the nearby town of Masharah, and on a road connecting the town to the village of al-Tyha.
There is no immediate comment from the IDF.
Chief of IDF Operations Directorate Maj. Gen. Oded Basiuk to resign from military
The chief of the IDF Operations Directorate, Maj. Gen. Oded Basiuk, will be resigning from the military after four years in the role and some 33 years in the IDF.
Basiuk met today with incoming IDF chief of staff Maj. Gen. Eyal Zamir, and requested to resign.
Zamir, who will become chief of staff on Wednesday, accepted Basiuk’s request, but asked him to stay in the role for the coming months, “in light of the operational challenges,” the military says.
Basiuk in private conversions has taken responsibility for his part in the military’s failures in the lead-up to the October 7 onslaught and during the attack itself. His unit, the Operations Directorate, failed to build an accurate picture of the attack in real-time and deploy troops to the right locations, according to an IDF probe.