IDF pounds Gaza as Israeli death toll tops 1,200 on day 5

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday the EU’s humanitarian support to the Palestinian people is not in question, but the bloc must review its financial assistance.

“Our humanitarian support to the Palestinian people is not in question,” von der Leyen said in a statement.

“Yet it is important that we carefully review our financial assistance for Palestine. EU funding has never and will never go to Hamas or any terrorist entity. So we will now again review the entire portfolio in light of an evolving situation on the ground,” she said.

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The IDF on Wednesday carried out a targeted airstrike at the Islamic University in Gaza City, which it said was an important Hamas operational center, the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said.

Footage of the airstrike was shared by the IDF later in the day.

The military said the university maintained close ties with senior Hamas leadership and was being used to train military intelligence operatives and to develop and produce weapons.

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The IDF launched retaliatory strikes at Lebanon on Wednesday after missiles were fired from Lebanese territory at an Israeli military position on the border, the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said. Hezbollah reportedly took credit for the launches.

The attack took place near the Israeli town of Arab al-Aramshe, opposite the Lebanese village of Dhayra, the statement said. It did not immediately provide details on casualties or who might have been responsible.

A Lebanese security source said the powerful armed group Hezbollah fired two precision missiles into Israel, which the group considers its sworn enemy.

Residents of the southern Lebanese town of Rmeish said Israeli shelling was hitting around their town, and a security source told Reuters that Israeli artillery shells were hitting the rocket launch point around Dhayra.

Local Lebanese television station al-Jadeed broadcast images of plumes of white smoke billowing out of a wooded region near some homes and farmland in Dhayra.

This is a developing story.

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Pope Francis on Wednesday called on the terrorist group Hamas to release all hostages captured during its weekend attack on Israel, while expressing grave concerns about the “total” Israeli siege imposed on Gaza.

“I pray for those families who saw a feast day turn into a day of mourning, and I ask that the hostages be immediately released,” he said during his weekly audience.

Referring to Israel’s response to Hamas, Francis said: “It is the right of those who are attacked to defend themselves, but I am very worried by the total siege in which Palestinians in Gaza live, where there have also been many innocent victims.”

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IDF Air Force chief Brig.-Gen. Omer Tishler on Wednesday said that his forces are dropping thousands of bombs “around the clock” on Gazan terrorists “with no difference between day and night.”

With pictures showing that IDF airstrikes are cutting in half or completely removing various Gaza neighborhoods where Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists were hiding from the map, Tishler said the air force is hunting them everywhere “from invaders to anyone who steps outside in Gaza, to those terrorists’ hiding inside [civilian] residences.”

“We are attacking very aggressively any place which Hamas and its people are using,” he said.

Of course, he said the IDF is not targeting civilians as Hamas did in mass numbers on Saturday and continues to do with rocket fire, “there is always a military target, but we are not being surgical.”

Tactically, he explained that if in past “rounds” of fighting with Gaza, the air force would target one or two Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad targets or high-ranking officers at a time, now it is targeting whole neighborhoods of terrorist targets all at once.

Earlier, another IDF official hinted more senior terrorist officials have been killed than have been announced as the IDF is waiting for Palestinians to announce and confirm certain deaths.

He said, “The [military] machine will work and destroy and uproot the centers of terrorism, and will not let them hide within civilian areas.”

Moreover, he described a massive number of IDF intelligence collection officials working with the military’s artificial intelligence target bank and pilots to constantly update and find new targets.

IDF using AI to better targeting process

In an exclusive interview with the target bank chief, a colonel, earlier in 2023, the officer told The Jerusalem Post that the AI targeting capabilities had for the first time helped the IDF cross the point where they can assemble new targets even faster than the rate of attacks.

Prior to the advent of the new highly advanced AI targeting process, after a period of days or slightly more, the IDF often ran out of quality targets.

Under the new process, the IDF can target terrorists at tiny spots in Gaza as small as a concealed porch.

However, Tishler urged patience, saying taking apart the terror group would take time.

The air force has also handled defending against more than 5,000 rockets from Gaza in a matter of days.

Tishler said that the Iron Dome’s effectiveness was similar to past rounds of conflict with Gaza (which has ranged from around 85-95% effective) and had shot down many thousands of rockets, but that the IDF would not be sharing exact statistics so as not to assist Hamas, Hezbollah, or those firing from Syria in their rocket efforts.

At the same time, he warned that defenses were “not hermetic” and that civilians must continue to rush to safe rooms when sirens go off.

He complimented civilians to date for following these precautions as the main reason that casualties have been low from rockets despite the unprecedented pace of firing.

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National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir on Wednesday predicted possible friction between the country’s Arab minority and Jewish majority in connection with the Gaza war and said he was stepping up the issuing of firearms to licensed citizens.

“I instructed the chief of police to prepare for a ‘Guardian of the Walls 2’ scenario, which I think is looming,” Ben-Gvir told reporters.

Operation Guardian of the Walls was Israel’s name for the 2021 Gaza operation against Hamas, which set off sometimes violent pro-Palestinian protests among Arab citizens.

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Former Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal called for protests across the Muslim world on Friday in support of the Palestinians and for the peoples of neighboring countries to join the fight against Israel.

“[We must] head to the squares and streets of the Arab and Islamic world on Friday,” Mashaal, who currently heads Hamas’s diaspora office, said in a recorded statement sent to Reuters.