Precise US munitions, which reduce casualties, used in Rafah strike
Intro
American officials have been urging Israel to increase use of the GBU-39 bombs in Gaza.
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The precision weapon Israel used in Sunday night's Rafah strike was designed and manufactured in the United States, according to investigations by CNN and The New York Times, the results of which were published on Wednesday.
Two senior Hamas terrorists responsible for Judea and Samaria terror operations were killed in the precision strike on a compound in Tal as-Sultan in northwest Rafah. According to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, dozens of noncombatants were killed and wounded.
Both news outlets analyzed video footage of munition debris from the scene of the attack, determining that the fragments belonged to a GBU-39 bomb, a 250-pound precision-guided glide bomb made by Boeing Integrated Defense Systems, which carries around 37 pounds of AFX-757 high explosive.
According to the Times, U.S. officials have been urging Israel to increase use of the GBU-39 bombs in Gaza because they can reduce civilian casualties, being more precise and better adapted to urban environments than larger bombs such as the 2,000-pound bombs that Israel also uses but that President Joe Biden said earlier this month he was pausing delivery of to the Jewish state.
“The Israelis have said they used 37-pound bombs,” U.S. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said on Tuesday. “If it is in fact what they used, it is certainly indicative of an effort to be discreet and targeted and precise.”
Kirby also said said the press briefing that the Biden administration has made no policy changes in the wake of Rafah strike, noting that the investigation into the incident was ongoing.
“As a result of this strike on Sunday, I have no policy changes to speak to. It just happened,” Kirby told reporters. “The Israelis are going to investigate it. We’re going to be taking great interest in what they find in that investigation. And we’ll see where it goes from there.”
Israeli officials reportedly told the Biden administration that shrapnel may have ignited a fuel tank, starting a fire that engulfed tents housing displaced Gazans.
On Tuesday afternoon, IDF Spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari told reporters that “our munition alone could not have ignited a fire this size. … We used the smallest munition that our jets can use.
“The fire that broke out was unexpected and unintended. This was a devastating incident that we did not expect. We’re investigating what caused this fire,” Hagari said, stressing that the strike targeted a “closed” terrorist structure almost a mile from the Al-Mawasi humanitarian zone.
“There may have been weapons in the area. Our signals intelligence intercepted phone calls reinforcing this possibility that weapons stored in a nearby compound caught fire,” said Hagari.
He assured reporters that the “investigation will be swift, comprehensive and transparent. Our war is against Hamas, not the people of Gaza. This is why we convey deep sorrow over this loss of life.”
The World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO) accused the Belgian government on Monday of evading responsibility and denying its moral obligation in response to an official report rejecting compensation to Holocaust survivors.
The unusually blunt reaction followed the release last week of an official report on the role of the National Railway Company of Belgium (SNCB) during the Holocaust. The report, concluded after years of study and with the number of elderly Holocaust survivors fading fast, argued that the railway organization did not owe compensation to survivors for its part in facilitating deportations.
“To reject compensation from the perpetrator to the victim denies the moral obligation by SNCB to those it wronged; instead it would allow the railroad to dilute and evade the necessity of taking any current action by permitting it to spread the blame widely across Belgian society," the World Jewish Restitution Organization statement said.
Nearly six years ago, the Belgian Parliament unanimously passed a resolution requesting that the federal government open an independent investigation into the role of the National Railway Company of Belgium in deporting over 25,000 Jews and more than 350 Roma on 28 convoys from Mechelen, Belgium, to extermination camps during the Holocaust. Most of the deportees were murdered on arrival.
The Belgian national railway company was paid the equivalent of millions of dollars by the Nazis for its services, according to a 2023 report by a war research center attached to the State Archives of Belgium.
The Jewish restitution organization, which advocates compensation for Holocaust victims, said that the Belgian government report, presented on Jan. 17, “offered an important opportunity to confront the historical injustices suffered by Holocaust survivors and their families,” yet failed to do so. The organization noted that this is in contrast to the acceptance of responsibility for the victims by both France and the Netherlands.
The WJRO criticized the committee that produced the report for failing to consult survivor representatives, adding that it is urgent to take action while the remaining Holocaust survivors are still alive.
“We urge the government to act quickly to ensure that the railway provides compensation to those who suffered and their heirs,” the WJRO statement continued.
There are currently about 200,000 Holocaust survivors around the world, half of them in Israel.
An imam who had been scheduled to deliver a benediction at President Donald Trump's inauguration on Monday did not participate in the ceremony, after reports surfaced regarding his support for Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah.
Husham al-Husainy, 70, from Dearborn, Michigan, was set to be the first Muslim leader to speak at the main inauguration ceremony of an American president. But he did not appear on stage during the ceremony, and neither he nor Trump’s team replied to questions about the no-show by several media outlets.
According to a report by the Middle East Forum, in 2006 al-Husainy spoke at a rally supporting the Lebanese terror organization and “held the picture of Hezbollah leader Nasrallah aloft on the stage.”
A year later, he appeared on the FOX News show “Hannity & Colmes,” where he refused to call Hezbollah a terror organization.
The report also outlined a documented history of antisemitism. At a rally in 2015, hosted at the imam’s Karbalaa Islamic Educational Center in Dearborn, he wished death upon Saudi Arabia and denounced Saudis as “agents of the Jews” whose “Zionist” planes “rain down” death upon the people of Yemen.
Citing al-Husainy’s record, critics were dismayed that he had been invited to participate in the benediction at Trump’s inauguration.
An American Muslim woman, Dr. Debbie Almontaser, read Koran verses at a virtual inaguration prayer service that then President Joe Biden attended on January 21, 2021, a day after the main ceremony.
At Trump’s inauguration, benedictions were given by Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman, Senior Pastor Lorenzo Sewell and Reverend Father Frank Mann.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcRIuLcTkgc
Berman, the president of New York City’s Yeshiva University, prayed on stage for the Israeli hostages in Gaza, peace in the Middle East and for God to “guide our schools and campuses, which have been experiencing such unrest, to inspire the next generation.”
He also prayed for Trump and Vice President JD Vance, that they might “choose the right and the good, unite us around our foundational biblical values of life and liberty, service and sacrifice, and especially of faith and morality.”
A child care center in Sydney, Australia was set ablaze early on Tuesday and antisemitic graffiti was sprayed on the wall, in the latest in a spateof antisemitic attacks inAustralia in the last few months, authorities said.
There were no injuries reported in the 1 a.m attack, although the building was badly damaged.
New South Wales Premier Chris Minns said the perpetrators would be caught and that police had put more resources into investigating hate crimes, amid a groundswell in public anger that the attackers in the series of attacks still remain at large.
“The kind of people who would ... attack a fellow Australian whom they don’t know because of their race or religion, it is completely disgusting and these bastards will be rounded up by the police,” Minns said during a media briefing.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described the latest attack as “a vicious crime.”
The Australian leader, who is facing a national election due by May, has been widely criticized as “weak” by both the opposition Conservatives and the Jewish community for not doing enough to prevent hate crimes against Jews, and for his criticism of Israel during the 15-month war against Hamas in Gaza.
The overnight attack was the latest in a series of incidents targeting the Australian Jewish community in recent months.
Last week, a Sydney home that was previously owned by a senior Jewish community leader was vandalized and two cars were set on fire.
Earlier this month, vandals defaced two Sydney synagogues with Nazi symbols within 24 hours.
Last month, arsonists torched a Melbourne synagogue.
About 117,000 Jews live in Australia, who make up less than half a percent of its' 25 million residents. Sydney and Melbourne are home to 85% of Australia’s Jewish population.
"The Trump administration is the most positive in history, the strongest on Israel that we have ever seen," Canadian-Israeli businessman and philanthropist Sylvan Adams told JNS on Monday.
“I was privileged to receive an invitation to attend [Donald Trump's] inauguration. This is history in the making and it’s very exciting for me to be here,” he said.
Adams, who was also invited to the White House during President Trump's first term, called the three-day event a “whirlwind.”
“Every night there's a big black tie gala. Last night, President Trump spoke to us in a very intimate setting with a number of members of his administration,” he said. “Vice President [J.D.] Vance was there, Elon Musk, I had the privilege of meeting the newly reelected House Representative Speaker Mike Johnson, what a nice man.”
Adams also met the incoming U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee.
“The tradition is to appoint a Jewish person for this role,” he said, but while Huckabee is not Jewish, "I think he loves us more than we love ourselves.”
Over the last decade, Adams has served as an unofficial goodwill ambassador for Israel around the globe.
In the aftermath of the Hamas onslaught on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Adams donated $100 million to Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheva to strengthen the south. He also visited Gaza border communities, where he announced investments to build cycling and sports infrastructure in the region.
As owner of the Israel-Premier Tech UCI professional cycling team, Adams also organized a mass ride to commemorate victims of the Oct. 7 attacks and to call for the release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.
‘Warmth and support’
Despite growing antisemitism around the world, Adams believes a silent majority stands with Israel.
“Everywhere I go here in Washington D.C., when we are attending different events and I mention that I am from Israel, I cannot tell you the outpouring of warmth and support,” he said. “It’s been terrific to know we have great friends here in America and all over the world.”
Adams expressed optimism about Trump's return to office, noting that during the president’s first term he relocated the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Trump has already lifted sanctions former President Joe Biden imposed on Jews accused of creating instability in Judea and Samaria, as well as removing the Biden administration's partial arms embargo on the Jewish state.
“We lost quite a high number of our boys in Gaza over the last two weeks. I heard from soldiers that one of the problems was a lack of bulldozers to go in advance of the troops and take out IEDs, it’s such a harmful policy and Trump said he would remove that immediately,” Adams told JNS.
Strong on Iran
Israel’s biggest threat, Adams said, is no longer Hamas in Gaza or Hezbollah in Lebanon, upon which Israel inflicted tremendous damage, but rather Iran.
“The American administration and several of the cabinet ministers, including Marco Rubio, the incoming secretary of state, said we cannot allow Hamas to rule Gaza. And they’ve also been very strong on Iran, saying we cannot allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon,” he explained. “The difference between the words of this administration and [those of] the previous one is that they actually mean it.”
According to Adams, “When the Iranian [regime] fired missiles at Israel and did not inflict much damage, Biden told [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] to take the win. What win? I don’t think we will see such weakness from Donald Trump, he is a man of moral conviction.”
Adams added that he hopes Israel has “a strategic plan to deal with Iran because we, Israel, and frankly, the Western alliance cannot allow this fanatical regime that aspires to martyrdom, to have nuclear weapons.”
Joy and light
Speaking of Romi Gonen, Emily Damari and Doron Steinbrecher, who were freed from Hamas captivity on Sunday after 471 days in Gaza, Adams said he was thrilled to see them coming home looking so well.
“The release of the hostages is a blessing. I know it’s a very tough deal. I know we are releasing monsters from our prisons with blood on their hands who may try to kill again,” he said.
“Of course, pulling out of Gaza means we are not there to take care of this cancer called Hamas and liberate the Gazans from it, but it was such a joy to see the first hostages released and I hope we will see all of them out. Afterwards, we will go back in if we have to and finish the job.”
Adams expressed added joy at the prospect of witnessing the release of Hamas captive Ofer Kalderon, a cycling enthusiast.
“The cycling community is thinking about Ofer and when he is released and after he takes some time to recover and get back on his bicycle, I will invite him to the Tour de France to enjoy with Israel-Premier Tech and ride with me on the sidelines of the Tour,” he said.
In June, Adams invited amateur cyclists Avida Bachar and Sharon Shevo, both survivors of the Hamas attack on Kibbutz Be’eri, to join the team for the Tour’s Grand Dèpart in Florence. Bachar lost his son, wife and one of his legs during the Hamas invasion, and Shevo was wounded by while riding his bicycle.
From left: Oct. 7 survivors Sharon Shevo and Avida Bachar, IPT founder Ron Baron and co-owner Sylvan Adams at Ben-Gurion Airport, June 26, 2024. Photo by Amelie Botbol.
“Anything we can do to bring some light to Ofer—who has lived in darkness for an obscene 470-plus days—any light we can give to our hostages, is a privilege and hopefully helps put them back on track and resume their normal lives.” Adams said.
Israeli security forces have launched a large-scale operation to destroy terrorist infrastructure in Jenin in northern Samaria, the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement on Tuesday afternoon.
Dubbed "Iron Wall," the operation includes IDF troops, Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) officers and Border Police, according to the military.
The IDF entered Jenin immediately after Palestinian Authority police officers left the area, according to Arab media reports. Earlier this week, it was reported that Ramallah struck a deal with the Iranian-backed Jenin Battalion terror coalition, ending a rare month-long P.A. operation in the city.
Israeli ground forces entered the city with the stated goal of preserving Jerusalem's ability to swiftly act against terrorist groups in Jenin, known among Palestinians as the "Martyrs' Capital" due to the significant number of suicide bombers that have emanated from the area.
Palestinian reports cited the P.A. Health Ministry as claiming that one person was killed in an airstrike shortly after the start of the operation. Arab media also reported wounded in firefights throughout the city.
On Monday, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi ordered the military to prepare for counter-terrorism operations throughout Judea and Samaria amid an uptick in terror following the ceasefire in Gaza.
“In addition to the intense defensive preparations in the Gaza Strip, we must be prepared for significant operations in Judea and Samaria in the coming days in order to get ahead of and catch the terrorists before they reach our citizens,” Halevi stated following a situational assessment.
Halevi’s remarks came hours after one IDF soldier was killed and four others were injured, one seriously, by a roadside bomb in the Arab village of Tammun, northeast of Nablus (Shechem) in Samaria.
Concerns are also growing in Jerusalem that the release of hundreds of Palestinian terrorists as part of the ceasefire deal with Hamas—many of whom will be allowed to return to Judea, Samaria and the eastern part of the country’s capital—has the potential to ignite more terror in the area.
The Israel Hayom daily reported that the counter-terror raid was first planned for December, but postponed at the request of the political echelon after the Palestinian Authority launched its Jenin operation.
"At the direction of the Security Cabinet, the IDF, Shin Bet and Israel Police today launched a large and significant military operation to eradicate terror in Jenin—'Iron Wall,'" Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said in a statement on Tuesday afternoon.
"This is another step towards the goal we have set—strengthening security in Judea and Samaria. We are acting systematically and resolutely against the Iranian axis wherever its arms reach—in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Judea and Samaria."
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the operation would be a "strong and ongoing campaign" aimed at protecting Israeli towns in Judea and Samaria, which he called a "security belt" for the entire Jewish state.
"After Gaza and Lebanon, today, with God's help, we have begun changing the security perception also in Judea and Samaria, in the campaign to eradicate terrorism in the region," Smotrich said.
Hebrew media reported that four IDF battalions were participating in the operation in Jenin, amounting to several hundred ground troops, including elite commando soldiers, in addition to Israel Border Police forces. The military raid is expected to last at least several days.
The U.S. has provided Israel with a written guarantee that Jerusalem can resume its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip if negotiations for the second and third phases of the ceasefire agreement fail, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told JNS on Tuesday.
U.S. President Donald Trump and former President Joe Biden have provided Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with an official missive confirming that "the State of Israel will be able to return to the war on day 43" if talks fail during the 42-day first phase of the agreement, Smotrich said, speaking at a meeting of his Religious Zionism Party in the Knesset in Jerusalem.
This guarantee was also given to Netanyahu during phone calls with Trump and American government officials, the finance minister said, adding, "These two things together create an American guarantee allowing us to return to war."
Commenting on the conditions for the agreement with Hamas to last through the second stage, Smotrich said that "our condition is that there is no Hamas."
If the terrorist organization agrees, "great, we don't want to fight. But if it doesn't agree, we can return to the war," he concluded.
While the Religious Zionism Party voted against the hostage deal with Hamas—which calls for the release of thousands of terrorists and an Israeli withdrawal from strategic areas in the Strip—it decided against leaving Netanyahu's government over the deal to ensure that the war "does not end a moment before complete victory," said Smotrich.
Smotrich had previously demanded that Netanyahu commit to resuming the war to dismantle Hamas terrorist infrastructure and secure the release through military pressure of all hostages following the deal's first phase, which will only see 30 out of the 94 captives still held in Gaza freed.
This commitment was a condition for the party remaining in the coalition.
U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, whom President Donald Trump has credited with getting the deal over the finish line, refused to confirm the existence of formal guarantees in an interview with Israel's Channel 12 News after the inauguration on Monday.
"I don't want to discuss promises that were made; the agreement speaks for itself," the U.S. envoy stated, adding: "I think that everyone is well-motivated to negotiate in a good-faith way and see if we can resolve all of this amicably and in a peaceful way and in a diplomatic way."
On Sunday, three Israeli women taken hostage during the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre and held captive in Gaza for 471 days were freed as part of the first phase of the U.S.- and Qatar-brokered agreement with Hamas.
Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday he’s not confident that the ceasefire deal with Hamas will hold through all three phases.
“It’s not our war. It is their war. I am not confident. But I think they’re very weakened on the other side,” he said in response to a question in the Oval Office while signing orders in the first hours of his presidency.
Asked about the future governance of the Gaza Strip, the president said he believed “you certainly can’t have the people that were there,” in an apparent reference to the Iranian-backed Hamas terror organization.
Talks on the second phase of the deal are scheduled to commence in early February.
Following the collapse of the Bashar Assad regime in Syria, jihadi terror groups in the Middle East are being reconfigured. While evident and significant differences exist between these groups, they do share a single overriding objective. It's not geopolitical advantage or national self-determination, but rather, the idea of “power over death.” Whatever else differentiates jihadi ideologies and tactics from one another, all Islamist groups will still seek personal redemption through “sacred violence.” Moreover, core jihadi goals will be unaffected by the recent Israel-Hamas agreement.
Jihadist terror represents a convenient form of religious sacrifice. The rallying cry, “We love death,” is common to Sunni and Shia insurgents. In exclaiming this perverse cry, no fundamental differences appear between Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in Syria, the Houthi in Yemen, and Hamas or Fatah in Gaza, and in Judea and Samaria. All jihadi forces seek “martyrdom” in order not to die. This is the case even though virtually all terrorist leaders in Hamas, Houthi, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and Fatah prescribe martyrdom for their followers but not for themselves.
Despite easily discoverable commonalities of jihadi terror, the evolution of Palestinian criminal violence against Israel displays a singular historical narrative. The original fraternity of Palestinian terrorist groups contained markedly disparate bedfellows. Israel’s “liquidation” justified all manner of indiscriminate harms, and every Arab enemy of Israel was urged to join the obligatory war against “Zionists.” At that time, even Marxists and similarly flagrant “unbelievers” found welcome under the same operational tent.
Presently, things are different. The jihadi terrorist fight is now openly oriented as a “holy war” or religious sacrifice. This unhidden orientation is relentless, persistent, barbarous and potentially irremediable. The Hamas-led terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, including the rape and murder of noncombatants, is the most obvious case in point.
In explaining such egregious crimes, history deserves pride of place. Speaking on official Palestinian Authority TV on Nov. 7, 2014, a senior Fatah official blessed all Islamic killers of Israelis, saying, “Jerusalem needs blood in order to purify itself of Jews.” Two days later, on Nov. 9, 2014, P.A. television honored these same killers as follows: “Greetings and honor to our heroic martyrs. ... We stand submissive and humbled by what you gave and sacrificed.” A few days later, on Nov. 14, 2014, the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Religious Affairs summarized in Al-Hayat Al-Jadida: “Jerusalem needs sacrifices and blood.”
Who are these prospective “martyrs?” The deepest roots of jihadi terror stem from cultures that embrace religious views of belligerent sacrifice. In these cultures, the purpose of “sacred violence” extends beyond any expectations of civic responsibility. Instead, this purpose goes to the most elemental human fear, the palpable dread of personal death.
With this in mind, jihadi enticements are not difficult to understand as the promised reward for those who sacrifice for jihad is individual salvation. As it says in the Quran, Surah 2:154: “Do not think that those who are killed in the way of Allah are dead, for indeed they are alive, even though you are not aware.”
In the Islamist Middle East, where theological doctrine divides humankind into the dar al-Islam “world of Islam” and the dar al-harb “world of war,” acts of terror against “unbelievers” are defended as expressions of sacredness. For jihadi fighters, individual sacrifice ultimately derives from a feverishly hoped-for conquest of personal disintegration. By adopting atavistic practices, the jihadist expects to achieve an otherwise unattainable immortality.
For jihadists, there are aspects of sacrificial terror that ought never to be overlooked. This two-sided nature of terror/sacrifice, the sacrifice of “the Jew” and the reciprocal sacrifice of “the martyr,” is codified within the Hamas charter and elsewhere as a “religious” problem.
Always, for the Islamist terrorist, the true enemy is “the Jew” not “the Israeli.”
Years ago, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s appointed clergy, preaching on the Temple Mount, affirmed a religious precept that “Palestinians spearhead Allah’s war against the Jews. The dead shall not rise until the Palestinians shall kill all the Jews … .”
Today, when jihadists of any type plan acts of suicide terrorism—that is, when their leaders give orders from Turkey, Qatar, Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq for “believers” to make sacrifices of themselves—they leave nothing about immortality to chance. Because dying in the act of killing the “infidels,” “apostates” and “unbelievers” is assured to buy freedom from the penalty of dying, these jihadists can conquer personal mortality by killing themselves. Although nonsensical ipso facto, it is a grand and incomparable bargain, one that deserves much closer consideration in Jerusalem and Washington. For Palestinian jihadists, homicide suicide offers not only a transient “death” for heroic Muslims but also the required annihilation of a religiously despised Jewish state. Accordingly, the promised bargain represents a “win-win” for all jihadi “warriors.”
Though not widely understood, this is the root terror problem in the Islamic Middle East—the jihadi death fear and the consequent compulsion to sacrifice the despised “others.” This often overriding compulsion stems from a doctrinal belief that killing unbelievers and being killed by unbelievers defines the best available path to personal immortality. To counter such fanatical belief, Israel must ultimately think in terms of desacralizing its relentless Islamist adversary and convincing this enemy that variously ritualistic murders of Jews will lead not to paradise and limitless pleasures, but, per the Quran, to untold “terrors of the grave.”
For jihadi terrorists, the violence-based struggle against Israel and America has never been about land, politics, “settlements” or “self-determination.” Always, it has been about God, sacred expectations and immortality. In this regard, Jerusalem and Washington should finally understand that there can be no greater “political” power in the Mideast than the “power over death.” The names of regional jihadi organizations may change, but they continue to embrace terror as a religious sacrifice.
The three Israeli hostages who returned from captivity in Gaza Sunday recalled in testimonies how they helped each other survive for 471 days amid uncertainty and lacking medical care, Israel's Channel 12 reported Monday.
In statements vetted by the military censor and approved by the hostages for publication, they recalled living in underground facilities with little medical attention, tremendous uncertainty and, at times, despair.
Emily Damari, who has a leg injury and lost two fingers on her left hand during Hamas's Oct. 7, 2023, attacks was treated in captivity by Romi Gonen, another of the hostages freed on Sunday and who is a trained paramedic, according to the report.
One of the hostages, whom Channel 12 did not identify, said: “I didn’t think I’d return, I was certain that I’d die in Gaza.”
The three released hostages—Gonen, Damari and Doron Steinbrecher—were initially held together, but became separated at some point, according to the report. Damari and Gonen were moved dozens of times between different hiding places, both above and below ground.
The hostages rarely saw the light of day and were held in underground facilities most of the time. However, they were temporarily imprisoned in humanitarian compounds originally intended for displaced Gazans, according to the report.
During their captivity, the hostages cooked and cared for each other, and some of them received medication. One hostage underwent a medical procedure without anesthesia.
The women noted that they gained limited access to television and radio broadcasts in captivity.
"We saw your struggle, we heard our families fighting," one of the women told her relatives, who participated in rallies and lobbying for the hostages’ release. "We realized that our families had survived, but we discovered that we had lost a great many friends."
They also said they were "scared to death" during their transfer from Hamas hands to the Red Cross.
Ninety-four hostages remain in captivity, 30 of whom are to return to Israel in the coming weeks during the first phase of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire.
The remaining 64 hostages are to be released in the second and third phases, according to a schedule that has yet to be announced.
Unarmed Palestinians will be allowed to return to the northern Gaza Strip without needing to pass security checkpoints starting next week if Hamas adheres to the ceasefire deal, the Israeli military reiterated on Tuesday.
Jerusalem remains "committed to ensuring all aspects of the agreement are implemented," tweeted Israel Defense Forces Lt. Col. Avichay Adraee, head of the Arab Media Branch in the IDF's Spokesperson's Unit, on Tuesday.
"If Hamas adheres to all the details of the agreement, starting next week, the residents of the Gaza Strip will be able to return to the northern part of the Strip, and directives will be issued in this regard," wrote Adraee.
In the meantime, the spokesman warned Gazans against approaching the Netzarim Corridor, which divides the Strip's south from its north.
"Per the agreement, IDF forces will remain deployed in specific areas of the Gaza Strip. Do not approach IDF forces in the area until further notice. Approaching the forces exposes you to danger," he said.
Adraee also warned against approaching Israeli territory and the buffer zone near the border, calling the latter area "extremely dangerous."
Video footage aired by Israel's Kan News public broadcaster on Tuesday showed armed members of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas's "armed wing," burying terrorists in the Jabaliya area in northern Gaza.
According to the terms of the deal between the Jewish state and the Palestinian terror group, seven days after the Jan. 19 implementation of the agreement, noncombatants will be allowed to return to the northern Strip by foot, without weapons or security checks, via Al-Rashid Street.
Vehicles may also return northward via the Netzarim Corridor on the seventh day, subject to inspection by a private security company designated by the mediators and coordinated with Jerusalem.
On day 22 of the deal, unarmed Palestinians will be allowed to return to the northern Strip on foot via Salah a-Din road, also without inspection.
On Monday evening, Hamas announced it would next free four more hostages on Saturday, backtracking on previous threats to delay their release by a day.
Hamas reversed course following Israeli appeals to the mediators, Ynet reported. An Israeli government source stressed in comments cited by local media that a Sunday release would violate the terms of the deal, which calls for four captives to be returned seven days after Jan. 19.
Hebrew media had previously reported that the government in Jerusalem was trying to determine whether the terror organization's reported threat constituted a legitimate announcement or psychological warfare.
