Palestinians receiving food aid in Khan Younis, southern Gaza.Hatem Khaled/Reuters
A Palestinian woman holding a cloth stained with blood, in a zone for displaced people, between Khan Younis and Rafah.Haitham Imad/EPA, via Shutterstock
Smoke from Israeli strikes rising over Khiam, in southern Lebanon.Rabih Daher/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
An Israeli firefighter and a resident taking cover in Kiryat Shmona, northern Israel, as sirens warn of a rocket attack.Jalaa Marey/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Demonstrators protesting the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in Ashkelon, Israel.Amir Cohen/Reuters
A Palestinian child receiving medical care at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.Bashar Taleb/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Palestinians gather in darkness beside destroyed buildings in Khan Younis.Mohammed Salem/Reuters
Top News
The armed forces’ chief spokesman says that unless the Israeli government advances a postwar plan for ruling Gaza, ‘We will get Hamas again.’
Israel cannot defeat Hamas without installing a new administration in Gaza, the Israeli military’s chief spokesman said on Wednesday, reflecting frustration among the country’s security brass over the Israeli government’s failure to advance a postwar alternative to Hamas’s rule in Gaza.
“The idea that it is possible to destroy Hamas, to make Hamas vanish — that is throwing sand in the eyes of the public,” Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said in a broadcast interview with Israel’s Channel 13. “If we do not bring something else to Gaza, at the end of the day, we will get Hamas.”
His comments seem to signal a rare, open dispute between the military and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Since the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, Mr. Netanyahu has repeatedly promised the Israeli public “absolute victory” over the Palestinian armed group, vowing that the war would not end until Israel destroys Hamas’s military and government.
Mr. Netanyahu’s office said Wednesday following Admiral Hagari’s remarks that the Israeli cabinet had set “the destruction of Hamas’s military and governing capabilities” as one of the war’s aims, and as such the Israeli military is “of course committed to this.”
Admiral Hagari indicated that it might take a long time to replace Hamas, saying that the group was “an idea” as well as a political movement that was “planted in people’s hearts.” But there was no path to weaken Hamas without an alternative, he repeated.
“The political leadership must decide, and the Israel Defense Forces will execute,” he added, referring to the Israeli military.
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Critics have assailed Mr. Netanyahu for allowing chaos to engulf Gaza without advancing a clear plan for stabilizing and governing it. The Biden administration says the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority should take over postwar administration of the territory, but Mr. Netanyahu disagrees.
Mr. Netanyahu’s own far-right coalition partners have called to build new Israeli settlements in the devastated Gaza Strip; Mr. Netanyahu says he rejects that, too.
The apparent rift between the government and military came amid growing dissension within the government over the conduct of the war and unrelated issues. Mr. Netanyahu on Wednesday called on members of his governing coalition to “get a hold of themselves” and “put aside all extraneous interests” to focus on the war.
Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defense minister, said in a speech last month that Mr. Netanyahu’s indecision was leaving the country sliding inexorably toward two bad outcomes: either an Israeli military regime in Gaza, or Hamas remaining in power there.
“Our nation is being put to the test. The people of Israel are watching and expect us to make the right decisions,” Mr. Gallant said at the time.
— Aaron Boxerman reporting from Jerusalem
Key Developments
Israel’s prime minister clashes publicly with his coalition partners, and other news.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded in a statement on Wednesday that his coalition partners “get a hold of themselves” and “put aside all extraneous interests” to focus on the war, as divisions within Israel’s government become sharper and more public. Mr. Netanyahu has clashed with members of his own party and with far-right and religious party leaders in his coalition. The conflicts have involved how far to go in requiring military service by ultra-Orthodox Jews, who controls the assignment of rabbis to communities, leaks to the news media and how much of a voice the far right will have in setting war policy.
Israel’s use of 2,000-pound bombs and other heavy weapons in densely populated areas of Gaza may have consistently violated international law and could constitute war crimes, the United Nations human rights office said on Wednesday. In a report that focused on six attacks last year, the office said Israeli forces “took an expansive approach to targeting” that apparently considered members of Gaza’s civilian administration and Hamas political structures, who were not directly involved in hostilities, as military targets, possibly violating the laws of war. Israel issued a 12-page rebuttal that said the U.N. report was legally unsound and revealed “numerous biases.”
A commercial ship disabled in a Houthi attack last week is believed to have sunk, according to a British maritime agency, which said on Tuesday that oil and debris had been spotted at the vessel’s last location. The ship, a Greek-owned bulk carrier named the Tutor, was at least the second commercial vessel to be lost to attacks in the Red Sea by the Iranian-backed Houthi militia. The U.S. Navy rescued crew members from the Tutor, who gave a dramatic account of the attack.
Hezbollah’s leader says it will fight without ‘constraints, rules or limits’ if Israel attacks.
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After days of intensified clashes between Hezbollah and Israel, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese militia, warned on Wednesday that “there will be no place safe from our missiles and our drones” if all-out war breaks out. He also threatened Cyprus if it allows Israel to use its airports and bases in a full-scale conflict.
“The enemy knows very well that we have prepared ourselves for the most difficult days, and the enemy knows what it will face,” Mr. Nasrallah said. “If war is imposed, the resistance will fight without constraints, rules or limits.”
President Nikos Christodoulides of Cyprus responded to the threat by saying that his country was“absolutely not involved in any way,” according to remarks posted on social media.
In his first public remarks amid the recent flare-up of violence along Lebanon’s border with Israel, Mr. Nasrallah said that Hezbollah, which is tightly allied with Iran, did not want a wider conflict but emphasized that the group was ready for war and had so far used only a fraction of its weapons. If needed, Mr. Nasrallah said, Hezbollah could unleash them on “a bank of targets” in precision strikes.
“The enemy knows it must expect us on land, in the air, and at sea,” he said.
Ever since Hezbollah began trading fire with Israeli forces in the wake of the Hamas-led assault on Israel on Oct. 7, over 100 civilians in Israel and Lebanon have been killed, and more than 150,000 have been displaced from their homes. But the cross-border fighting in recent weeks has been among the fiercest yet, raising fears of another front in the war as Israel presses ahead with its offensive in the Gaza Strip.
Western diplomats have tried to lower the temperature, meeting with Lebanese and Israeli officials to head off a full-fledged war, but on Tuesday the Israeli military said it had approved operational plans for a potential offensive in Lebanon, without specifying when or if the plans would be used. Israel invaded Lebanon in 1978, 1982 and 2006, each time to push back militants who attacked across the border.
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Hezbollah released drone footage on Tuesday that showed surveillance of strategic sites in Israel, including the port of Haifa, a thinly veiled threat. Mr. Nasrallah also threatened Cyprus for the first time on Wednesday, accusing it of allowing Israel to use its airports and bases for military exercises and saying Hezbollah would consider it “a part of the war” if Cyprus permitted the Israeli military to use infrastructure in the country amid a full-scale conflict.
Cyprus and Israel have a bilateral defense agreement that has seen the countries conduct joint exercises in the past.
“Opening Cypriot airports and bases to the Israeli enemy to target Lebanon means that the Cypriot government is part of the war, and the resistance will deal with it as part of the war,” Mr. Nasrallah said.
Israeli officials have increasingly threatened stronger action against Hezbollah, prompting President Biden to dispatch one of his senior aides, Amos Hochstein, to Israel and Lebanon earlier this week to press for a diplomatic settlement.
But Mr. Nasrallah repeated on Wednesday that only a permanent cease-fire in Gaza would bring about peace along the Lebanese-Israeli border. Neither Israeli threats nor warnings by Western mediators, he said, would deter Hezbollah’s will to fight.
“We are ready for anything,” said Mr. Nasrallah, as crowds in Beirut’s southern suburbs watching his speech erupted into applause.
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