On December 16, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced that it had mobilized fighter jets to strike a series of Hezbollah locations in Lebanon.
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| Israeli soldiers take part in a military exercise in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, amid the ongoing cross-border conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. (Source: Reuters) |
The statement said Israel's Anti-Aircraft Defense System (AEA) intercepted one drone in the Upper Galilee region; the other crashed in the Margaliot area near the border and caused a fire in a building.
In retaliation, the IDF air force struck a series of Hezbollah rocket launch sites and military positions.
Meanwhile, major Israeli ports, including Haifa and Ashdod, have stopped providing information on port schedules.
Some businesses in Israel said that in recent days, they have been unable to look up information about cargo ships entering and leaving Israel as usual.
The websites of the ports of Haifa and Ashdod - Israel's two largest - have stopped providing this service, and direct queries are also not being responded to.
* Also on December 16, two Egyptian security sources revealed that Israeli officials seemed more ready to accept calls from intermediaries to reach a new ceasefire agreement and release Palestinian prisoners in exchange for hostages held in Gaza.
The comments came as Axios reported that the head of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, David Barnea, met with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani in Europe on December 15 in an effort to revive negotiations.
The event comes 10 weeks after the start of the conflict between Israel and Hamas forces in Gaza.
There was no immediate response from Israel to Egypt's assessment or reports of the meeting.
According to Egyptian sources, Israeli officials appear to have changed their stance on some issues they previously opposed, but did not go into details.
* On the same day, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested that new negotiations were underway to rescue hostages held by Hamas, after the head of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency met with the Prime Minister of Qatar - the country that acts as an intermediary between Israel and Hamas.
In a press conference, Mr. Netanyahu said that Israel's attack on Gaza helped reach an agreement to release a group of hostages last November.
“The instructions I gave to the negotiating team were based on this pressure, without which we would not have achieved anything,” he said.
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