Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Activities

• This week has seen the assassinations of two leaders of terrorist groups that are committed to Israel's destruction. 
• Hamas announced that its political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was assassinated in Tehran early Wednesday morning by a remote control bomb that had been smuggled into his guesthouse two months ago. The group blamed Israel for the attack, though Israel has not commented on Haniyeh's assassination.
• Hezbollah has confirmed the death of its senior commander and chief of staff, Fuad Shukr, in an Israeli attack in southern Beirut on Tuesday. According to the Israeli military, in addition to a long litany of terrorist attacks, Shukr was responsible for the missile strike that killed 12 Druze children in Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights on Saturday. 
• Click here for our leadership message from last weekend on what we are doing, through the Jewish Agency’s Victims of Terror Fund, to help the devastated Druze community. Click here for media coverage of our efforts.
• Haniyeh became Hamas’s political leader in 2017 and a year later was named a “specifically designated global terrorist” by the United States. As the political head of Hamas, Haniyeh was a proponent of "armed struggle," including targeting civilians in terrorist attacks. Since Oct. 7, Haniyeh had played a crucial role in negotiations with international mediators like Egypt and Qatar during hostage and ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas; experts have raised concern about how his death would affect negotiations. 
• The UN Security Council held an emergency meeting on Wednesday to discuss the growing instability in the Middle East. 
• Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has ordered an all-out attack on Israel in retaliation for Haniyeh’s assassination. 
• US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has pledged US support in the event of an attack by Iran upon Israel, although he emphasized that the goal now is de-escalation of the situation.
• The Israel Defense Forces confirmed on Thursday that Mohammed Deif, a top Hamas military leader, had been killed in Israeli strikes in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, in mid-July.

Storming of Military Bases

• Right-wing protesters along with several Knesset lawmakers stormed the military bases of Sde Teiman and Bet Lid to protest the arrest of nine IDF soldiers, who have been accused of physically and sexually abusing a suspected Palestinian terrorist at Sde Teiman, a facility on a military base in the Negev that detains Palestinians who were captured in Gaza
• Israel's top leadership condemned the events. Prime Minister Netanyahu issued a brief statement on Monday condemning the attempts to break into IDF bases. President Isaac Herzog also denounced the riots and emphasized that Israel is a country governed by law. Head of the Opposition Yair Lapid condemned the “invasion” of two military bases. “We are not on the brink of the abyss; we are in the abyss,” he said. An Israeli military court began a preliminary hearing on Tuesday 

Other IDF News

• On Wednesday, the Attorney General’s Office directed the IDF to broaden its mobilization of ultra-Orthodox men to include full-time yeshiva students, not just those in the workforce. This follows a High Court ruling deeming previous service exemptions for Haredim illegal. Earlier this month, the IDF began conscripting 3,000 ultra-Orthodox men aged 18-26, with the first thousand already mobilized on July 21 and the second batch preparing for deployment. Some lawmakers in Netanyahu’s governing coalition have joined the opposition in advocating for the Haredi community to enlist.
• An Israeli man in his 50s was seriously wounded Wednesday morning in a stabbing attack by a Palestinian terrorist at a junction on Route 60 near Beit Einun in the southern West Bank. The attacker, who arrived by car armed with a handgun and knife, fired at the victim’s car before stabbing him when his weapon jammed. IDF soldiers at the scene shot and inured the assailant who managed to escape, leaving behind his weapons and car. The IDF subsequently launched a manhunt and later apprehended the suspect, who was taken for treatment at Shaare Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem.
• Another Israeli man was killed in a Hezbollah rocket strike on a kibbutz in northern Israel on Tuesday afternoon amid escalating tensions following the deadly rocket attack on the Golan Heights. Medics reported that Nir Popko, 28, from Kibbutz HaGoshrim, was fatally wounded when a rocket hit Kibbutz HaGoshrim in the Upper Galilee.

Hostages

• After 300 days, 111 of the 251 hostages seized by Hamas on October 7 remain in captivity in Gaza. This total includes the remains of 39 victims who have been confirmed dead by the IDF as well as two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, and the bodies of two IDF soldiers killed in 2014.
• Hostage families will hold a march and rally in Tel Aviv this evening to mark the 300th day since their loved ones were abducted by terrorists. Under the banner “Deal or Abandonment,” the march will start from Hostages’ Square at 7 p.m., proceed to military headquarters, before returning to the Square.
• Recent military operations in the Gaza Strip to recover the bodies of hostages have led the IDF to conclude that some of those abducted by Hamas on October 7 may never be found. During a raid last week in Khan Younis, the IDF’s 98th Division and Shin Bet recovered the bodies of five hostages who had been killed and then taken to Gaza during the October attack.  The names and stories of these five victims can be found here.
• According to the IDF, 689 soldiers have been killed since October 7, including 329 who have perished since the IDF's ground operation in Gaza began on October 27.
• On Sunday, the IDF announced that Sergeant Yonatan Aharon Greenblatt, a 21-year-old soldier from Beit Shemesh, had died of his wounds caused by anti-tank missile fire in Rafah last week.

International

• Seven airlines have canceled flights to Israel due to escalating tensions with Iran, Channel 12 reports. Delta, United Airlines, Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, and Air India have suspended all upcoming flights to Israel. This follows an incident where a Lufthansa flight from Munich to Tel Aviv diverted to Larnaca, Cyprus, early this morning before returning to Germany; the crew refused to fly to Israel.

Israel at the Summer Olympics

• Israeli athletes competing in Paris may be in greater jeopardy following the two assassinations in the Middle East. Before the Olympics, Israeli athletes received messages threatening a repeat of the terrorist attack at the Summer Games in Munich in 1972 in which 11 Israeli athletes were murdered.
• A number of viral videos of Israelis purportedly showing them at the Summer Games with messages to “Bring Them [the hostages] Home Now” are not authentic, in a sobering reminder of how misinformation can spread to even seemingly innocuous content on the Internet.
• Israel won its first medal, a bronze in judo. A pair of Israeli windsurfers have a good chance of winning medals in the final competition in Marseilles tomorrow.