Rifts emerge among top Israeli officials about how to handle the war in Gaza

A member of Israel’s war cabinet has cast doubt on the country’s strategy for securing the release of hostages held by Hamas, saying only a cease-fire can free them.

It comes as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the United States’ calls to scale back its offensive.

The comments by former Israeli army chief Gadi Eisenkot late on Thursday (local time) offered the latest sign of disagreement among top Israeli officials about the direction of the war against Hamas, now in its fourth month.

In his first public statements on the course of the war, Mr Eisenkot also said that claims the dozens of hostages could be freed by other means amounted to spreading “illusions”.

Meanwhile, a communications blackout in the territory entered its seventh day Friday, the longest such blackout since the war began. The lack of communications hampered the coordination of aid deliveries and rescue efforts.

Rift among Israel’s war cabinet

Mr Netanyahu’s opponents have accused him of delaying any discussion of postwar scenarios to avoid looming investigations of governmental failures, keep his coalition intact, and put off elections.

Polls have shown the popularity of Mr Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption charges, has plummeted during the war.

Speaking to the investigative program Uvda on Israel’s Channel 12, Mr Eisenkot said the Israeli hostages would “only return alive if there is a deal, linked to a significant pause in fighting.”

He said dramatic rescue operations were unlikely because the hostages were apparently spread out, many of them in underground tunnels.

Claiming hostages can be freed by means other than a deal “is to spread illusions,” said Mr Eisenkot, whose son was killed in December while fighting in Gaza.

In a thinly veiled criticism of Mr Netanyahu, Mr Eisenkot also said strategic decisions about the war’s direction must be made urgently and that a discussion about an endgame should have started immediately after the war began.

He also dismissed suggestions that the military had delivered a decisive blow against Hamas.

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has said troops disabled the Hamas command structure in northern Gaza, from where significant numbers of troops were withdrawn earlier in the week, and the focus was now on the southern half of the territory.

“We haven’t yet reached a strategic achievement, or rather only partially,” Mr Eisenkot said.

The militant group has continued to fight back across Gaza, even in the most devastated areas, and launched rockets into Israel.

In his interview, Mr Eisenkot also confirmed that a pre-emptive strike against Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia was called off at the last minute during the early days of the war. He said he was among those arguing against such a strike in an October 11 cabinet meeting that he said left him hoarse from shouting.

Such an attack would have been a “strategic mistake” and would likely have triggered a regional war, Mr Eisenkot said.

The former army chief said he examined every day whether he should remain in the five-member war cabinet, which includes Mr Netanyahu, Mr Gallant, former defence minister Benny Gantz and Ron Dermer, strategic affairs minister in the Netanyahu government.

Mr Eisenkot is a member of parliament in the opposition National Unity alliance headed by Mr Gantz. Both joined Mr Netanyahu to help lead the war.

Israeli drones attack hospital in southern Gaza 

The Palestinian Red Crescent has accused Israel of firing on Friday at a hospital in Khan Younis, as a major advance in the main city in the southern Gaza Strip threatened the few healthcare facilities still open.

The Red Crescent said displaced people were injured “due to intense gunfire from the Israeli drones targeting citizens at Al-Amal Hospital” as well as the rescue agency’s base.

Nearby, Israeli tanks were also approaching Gaza’s biggest remaining functioning hospital, Nasser, where people reported hearing shellfire from the west. Residents also reported fierce gun battles to the south.

Israel has launched a major new advance in Khan Younis this week to capture the city, which it says is now the primary base of the Hamas fighters who attacked Israeli towns on October 7, precipitating the war.

The Gaza health ministry said 142 Palestinians had been killed and 278 injured in the previous 24 hours, taking the Palestinian death toll from more than three months of war to 24,762.

Around 85 per cent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are now sheltering in the south of the enclave, most penned into the small cities of Rafah just south of Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah just north of it.

Two-thirds of the enclave’s hospitals have ceased functioning altogether, and those that remain are receiving hundreds of wounded a day, crammed into wards and treated on the floors.

Israeli officials have accused Hamas fighters of operating from hospitals, including Nasser, which staff deny.

In the north, where Israel said it has started pulling out troops and shifting to smaller-scale operations, 12 people were killed in Israeli strikes on a residential building near the largely non-functioning Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Palestinian health officials said.

UN rights official says Gaza detainees ill-treated and humiliated

 A UN human rights official accused Israel on Friday of mistreating Palestinian detainees in Gaza, saying he had met men who had described being held for weeks, beaten and blindfolded, with some released in diapers.

Ajith Sunghay, a UN human rights official in Gaza, told reporters it was not clear exactly how many men had been detained by Israel since it began its military operation in the Palestinian enclave in response to the deadly assault by Hamas on October 7, but he said the number ran into the thousands.

“These are men who were detained by the Israeli security forces in unknown locations for between 30 to 55 days,” Mr Sunghay told reporters in Geneva by video link from Gaza.

He said he had just met released detainees in the besieged enclave.

“There are reports of men who are subsequently released, but only in diapers without any adequate clothing in this cold weather,” he added.

Israel’s military said it was detaining and questioning suspects involved in militant activity — without disclosing a number — as part of its operations in combat areas in Gaza.

Detainees were “treated in accordance with international law” and those found not to be involved in the fighting were released, the Israeli military’s Spokesperson’s Unit said.

It said suspects were required to hand over their clothes so that they can be searched “to ensure that they are not concealing explosive vests or other weaponry” and that detainees were given back their clothes when possible.”

Asked to elaborate on why some of the released detainees wore diapers, Mr Sunghay said: “We’re not exactly sure why they were put in diapers and sent out but they were clearly visibly shocked and even shaken when I met them.”

Israeli TV broadcast footage in December of Palestinian men stripped to their underwear in Gaza. The images that also circulated on social media drew condemnation from Palestinian, Arab and Muslim officials.

At the time, Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy said the images showed “military-age men who were discovered in areas that civilians were supposed to have evacuated weeks ago”.

AP/Reuters