Israeli Defense Minister Ben-Ghir: War Crimes, Security and Security in the Light of Israel’s October 7 Operation on Hamas

The military announced on Sunday a humanitarian pause in a social media post, which Mr. Ben-Ghir attacked as a “crazy and delusional approach” and a “evil fool”.

Mr. Ben-Gvir and the finance minister have vowed to topple the government if Mr. Netanyahu agrees to a truce with Hamas.

Mr. Eisenkot said that the influence of one of Mr. Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners, Itamar Ben-Gvir, the minister of national security, was a constant presence over the discussions in the war cabinet, even though Mr. Ben-Gvir is not a member of that decision-making body.

Gadi Eisenkot, a former military chief and centrist politician, accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an interview of putting his political needs ahead of national security.

About 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7 that prompted the war and in all, more than 300 Israeli soldiers have since been killed in combat.

The Israelis are wondering when the war will end. The costs for both sides are going up at the same time. At least 10 Israeli soldiers were killed in combat this weekend and an 11th died of wounds sustained days earlier.

The closure of the Rafah border and fighting around it have forced aid groups and commercial vendors to route more of their convoys through Israel, where trucks enter Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing point. Once the food is inside Gaza, humanitarian organizations transfer it to their own vehicles and distribute it. Some groups argue that Israel does not ensure the safety of those delivering aid, citing attacks on aid convoys and workers.

Mr. Netanyahu and his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, also have the threat of arrest, on accusations of war crimes, from the International Criminal Court in The Hague hanging over them. They have been accused of using starvation as a weapon of war.

The announcement came seemingly out of the blue on Sunday when it was first publicized by the Israeli military via English and Arabic-language channels: The military would stop fighting during daytime hours in southern Gaza until further notice.

The military took action at a time when there was uncertainty over an Israeli proposal for a cease-fire with Hamas and the start of a Muslim holiday. Officials said Hamas had demanded some unworkable changes to the proposal that was backed by the Biden administration and endorsed by the United Nations Security Council.

A spokeswoman for the Cogat, an Israeli agency that oversees policy for the Palestinian territories and that works with international organizations, said that the move was meant to clear a pileup of trucks that were waiting on the Gazan side.

The Israeli Defense Minister Explains the News of the Gaza Strip Invasion and Plans to Reopen the Gate for Aid Reaching a Disorganized Population

“He has a mask for every occasion,” Mr. Harel said in an interview. “For the Americans, he needs to show he is doing more to get aid in. For the Israeli audience he can say ‘I didn’t know’ and go for plausible deniability.”

Amos Harel, the military affairs analyst for the left-leaning Haaretz newspaper, calls Mr. Netanyahu by his nickname. Like other experts, he said the announcement was unlikely to have been a complete surprise to him, even if the military commanders did not update him on the exact timing of what they called a tactical change.

Military officials said that the new policy surrounding the corridor went into effect on Saturday. He claimed that he did not know about the plans until Sunday morning.

The strange choreography of the messaging became stranger still when the government suggested that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu only learned of the military’s plan from news reports and signaled his disapproval.

The Israeli military halted operations during daytime hours in southern Gaza on Monday, as it appeared that a new policy would allow more aid to reach people in the area.

The policy applies only to a seven-mile stretch of road in southern Gaza, and not to areas in central Gaza to which hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have fled since the Rafah invasion began.

Israeli strikes have damaged supply routes in Gaza, hindering the passage of convoys, and crowds of desperate Gazans often intercept trucks in search of food. Commercial convoys bring food into Gaza, however, the cash shortages have prevented many civilians from buying it.

Israel says there are no limits on aid it allows to enter Gaza, and blames disorganized aid groups and theft by Hamas for the failure to move food from Israeli to Palestinian control.

A spokesman for the branch of the Israeli defense ministry that deals with aid groups said they think their main problem is logistical and they aren’t doing enough to overcome it.

“Before Rafah, we had free access to Kerem Shalom basically all day, every day,” said Scott Anderson, the deputy Gaza director for UNRWA, the lead United Nations agency for Palestinians. “Now we still have access, it’s just a little more nuanced and difficult to get there,” he added, citing frequent gunfire and explosions in areas traversed by aid trucks, including three times recently when convoys recently came within roughly 100 yards of fighting.

“What we had asked for was windows to access Kerem Shalom without having to coordinate so closely with the I.D.F. — to be able to come and go, and the trucks to come and go, with more freedom,” said Mr. Anderson, using the initials of the Israel Defense Forces.

Rafah: a need to be more diversifiable and more comprehensive in the government’s control of a city ruled by the military

The military said on Monday that it had killed more than 500 combatants in Rafah, severely reducing the capacity of two of Hamas’s four battalions in the city. The military said of the two remaining battalions that they were operating at a “medium” level.

The place was filled with ready-to- eat food commodities. We need to be morediversifiable and this progress needs to be sustained.