- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will tell US President Donald Trump during their meeting on Wednesday that the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire “is not moving,” an Israeli source with knowledge of the details told The Times of Israel
- NYT: Witkoff and Kushner plan to allow Hamas to keep some of its light weapons, at least at the beginning of the disarmament plan implementation. The Whitehouse denies the report claiming Trump is committed to the 20 point plan.
-The IDF eliminated a Hamas terrorist involved in the killing of 7 IDF soldiers
- US Secretary of State Rubio will meet at 9 AM with Prime Minister Netanyahu at Blair House ahead of the meeting with President Trum
- The IDF said it killed Basel Himouni, a Hamas operative who orchestrated the 2004 Beersheba double suicide bombing that killed 16 people, in a February 4 airstrike in Gaza. Himouni had been jailed in 2004 but was released in the 2011 Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange deal.
- The United States will host the first meeting of the Gaza-overseeing Board of Peace next week, aiming to secure funding for Gaza’s reconstruction. However, fundraising may be difficult because Hamas controls the eastern half of Gaza, Israel controls the western half, and Israeli airstrikes continue across the territory.
-PM Netanyahu reportedly was warned about Hamas’s ‘Jericho’s Wall’ plan for large-scale attack years before Oct. 7, despite his repeated denials; source says one report was shared with PM directly.
Bereaved families express outrage after the Prime Minister’s Office requested to remove the word “massacre” from the title of a bill to commemorate the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, and instead call it the”Memory and Commemoration of the events of Simhat Torah” bill. A Knesset committee has approved the change, though the matter isn’t final.