Updating the Hostage List and Updates from Under Gaza

Status of three missing persons redefined as hostages...and an operational update

As of yesterday, over 130 hostages are being held in Gaza.

That’s over ninety days in captivity for the 132 abducted on October 7th that have not yet been released yet. They join the four Israelis who have been held in captivity in Gaza since 2014.

The depravity of this is unbearable. The IDF continues to do everything in its power to bring them home - that is one of the core objectives of this war, alongside making sure that Hamas can never pull off a repeat of the October attack. Some of these efforts have been publicized; many have not.

I do want to point out that the number of hostages actually went up yesterday. As the IDF Spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said yesterday:

“Three Israeli citizens, who until now were defined as missing persons, are now recognized as hostages. This decision was made following the completion of search and investigation operations in Israel and after examining all plausible scenarios and the information we have.”

And we’re not stopping our efforts to bring them home. Keep reading for more. But first…

Supporting the soldiers fighting to bring the hostages home

Ground forces have been operating in Gaza Strip for months, fighting in what may be the most complex urban environment in the world. Hamas’s terrorist tactics - exploiting Gaza’s residents as human shields while fighting - has taken a toll.

While on the front lines, the soldiers receive any and all support they may need. One of the most impressive of these is IDF’s Unit 669 , which you may have learned about in our podcast interview.

Unit 669 is the IDF’s emergency search and rescue unit…and together with the soldiers from Unit 5515 and the IAF's Helicopter Rescue Squadron, they have evacuated over 1,000 wounded soldiers during the war, sometimes under the most dangerous conditions.

Dozens of Unit 669 squads operate as an integral part of the infantry brigades.

They are both the rescue force and the initial medical treatment unit, working in tight coordination with ground forces during live combat conditions to evacuate wounded soldiers, extract them from the line of fire, and, when necessary, prepare improvised field helipads so that the unit's airborne teams can evacuate the wounded to hospitals.

The soldiers in 669 train for every situation you could possibly imagine, providing real-time support in every adrenalin-rush movie thriller scenerio you can imagine. And the soldiers are better for it.

Check out what their nighttime operations look like in Gaza:

In support of ongoing operations…

Of course, Unit 669 is just one of the units operating in Gaza.

Last week, the 179th Brigade, Shayetet 13 and the Yahalom Unit, the special combat engineering unit that has played such a prominent role in addressing the underground infrastructure in Gaza, completed a targeted raid on a major Hamas terrorist compound in the central Gaza Strip, right near the coast.

The forces identified a number of tunnel shafts connected to a network of Hamas terror tunnels many hundreds of meters long. The soldiers then identified other shafts connected to a broader underground network…protected by booby-trapped blast doors.

So they went inside.

There, the soldiers found a weapons manufacturing site, complete with tooling, cooling fans, explosives, and other materials used to extend the range of Hamas' rockets - the same rockets that have been fired relentlessly at Israel.

After completing the raid, the tunnel network was destroyed by the engineering forces of the 99th Division and the Yahalom Unit. Again, the pictures and videos really need to be seen to understand the magnitude of these tunnels.

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Quote of the Day

Chief of the General Staff, LTG Herzi Halevi in northern Israel (January 3, 2023):

I know that there is a trained, prepared, ready force, with a lot of spirit. And we are going with that, that's our security, we don't have anything stronger than that.

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Operational update

• In response to ongoing attacks on northern Israel, on Friday IAF fighter jets conducted strikes in the areas of Ayta ash Shab and Majdal Zun in Lebanon. Targets included Hezbollah terror infrastructure, including a military post and a site where Hezbollah terrorists operated.

• Over the past day, IDF air, ground and naval forces targeted over 100 targets in Gaza including operational command centers and military sites, along with launch pads and compounds where terrorist infrastructure and weapons were stored. Forces identified launch pads used for firing rockets at Israeli territory from Khan Yunis and struck the launch pads, killing a number of the operatives during engagements with terrorists in the area

• An armed terrorist cell attempted to attack an IDF tank in Bureij. In response, an IDF drone and IDF troops pursued the terrorists, then directing an IDF fighter jet to strike the compound where the terrorist cell was hiding.

• Yesterday, the Islamic Jihad's Chief of Operational Staff in the Northern Gaza Strip, Mamdouh Lolo, was killed in a targeted strike as part of a joint IDF and ISA operation. I’m attaching a video of the strike below.

Here’s to a quiet weekend for our forces on all fronts.

Richard