Israel News Thurs Dec 4

Day 790

- Anti-Hamas militia leader Yasser Abu Shabab killed in ‘internal clash’ in Gaza, Israeli sources say

- The IDF announces that it has begun a wave of airstrikes on Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, after issuing evacuation warnings for sites in four towns.

-The IDF officially confirms that the commander of Hamas’s East Rafah Battalion, his deputy, and two other terror operatives were killed while trying to escape a tunnel in the southern Gaza Strip on Sunday.

- Israeli officials confirmed Thursday that the body returned from the Gaza Strip a day earlier was Sudthisak Rinthalak, a Thai agricultural worker who came to Israel to financially support his family back home. He was killed on October 7 in kibbutz Beeri.

The body of just one slain hostage remains in Gaza: police officer Ran Gvili, who was killed and abducted while battling terrorists in the border community of Alumim on the morning of October 7.

- Israeli and Lebanese representatives agreed to hold another meeting later this month to continue exploring economic cooperation. The Prime Minister office emphasized that “the disarmament of Hezbollah is mandatory, regardless of progress in economic cooperation.

- Defense Minister Israel Katz visits the soldiers wounded in yesterday’s attack by terror operatives on troops in the southern Gaza Strip.

“We will continue to act forcefully against any violation and against Hamas’s terror infrastructure in Gaza, until the last hostage is returned and until all Hamas capabilities are destroyed,” Katz says in a statement.

- Later on Wednesday, the IDF struck targets across southern Gaza as "a response to the ceasefire violation," the army said. 6 terrorists were killed according to reports.

- Police have arrested an Ashkelon resident on suspicion of spying for Iran over the course of several months,  he earned several thousand dollars as compensation for his alleged espionage activities.

- Netanyahu says he’ll visit New York City despite mayor-elect Mamdani's threat to arrest him. Netanyahu also stated that if Mamdani “changes his mind and says that [Israel] has the right to exist,” he would be willing to have a conversation with him.

- Netanyahu addressed the war crimes accusations and the ICC warrant in a NYT interview “No army has done what Israel has done to try to get civilians out of harm's way, and Hamas has done everything in its power to keep civilians in harm's way,"

"I think Churchill would have been accused of stupendous war crimes," he continued. "We don't carpet bomb, we don't do Dresden, we don't do any of that. We send our soldiers, some of whom die, trying to clear out these booby traps that Hamas has put in."