Hanna Katzir, Israeli hostage survivor who spent 49 days in captivity, has died
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(JERUSALEM) — Hanna Katzir, an Israeli hostage survivor who was released last year after 49 days of captivity in Gaza, has died, officials said.
Katzir, 78, struggled with a “complex medical condition” for “many months” after she was released, Kibbutz Nir Oz said in a statement.
During Hamas’ surprise terror attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Katzir was kidnapped from her home and her husband, Rami, was killed in their safe room at Kibbutz Nir Oz, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum Headquarters said.
The couple’s son, Elad, was kidnapped and later killed in captivity, the Hostages Families Forum said. His body has since been returned to Israel.
Hanna Katzir spent 49 days as a hostage before she was released.
“Mom was a woman, wife, and devoted mother who was all about love. Her heart could not withstand the terrible suffering since October 7th,” her daughter, Carmit Palty Katzir, said in a statement.
There are 100 hostages remaining in Gaza, many of whom are feared dead.
“Each day in captivity endangers the lives of our loved ones,” Carmit Palty Katzir said. “A comprehensive agreement for the return of our 100 brothers and sisters must move forward.”
Hanna Katzir’s funeral will take place at Kibbutz Nir Oz on Tuesday.
(LONDON) — The ceasefire in Lebanon is holding despite ongoing Israeli airstrikes on Hezbollah targets, which Israeli officials say are responses to ceasefire violations by the Iranian-backed militant group.
The Israel Defense Forces continues its intense airstrike and ground campaigns in Gaza, particularly in the north of the devastated Palestinian territory.
Tensions also remain high between Israel and Iran after tit-for-tat long-range strikes in recent months and threats of further military action from both sides.
IDF says it’s hitting targets in Lebanon
The IDF said it is striking targets in southern Lebanon on Monday after Hezbollah officials said earlier they fired on an Israeli target.
“We will respond decisively to Hezbollah’s severe violation of the ceasefire —and will continue to do so. We have plans and targets ready to be carried out and at any given moment,” the Chief of the General Staff, LTG Herzi Halevi, said Monday.
Hezbollah says it fired on Israeli target in southern Lebanon
Hezbollah officials said Monday they fired on an Israeli target in southern Lebanon, accusing Israel of “repeated violations” of the ceasefire agreement.
The Israel Defense Forces said Hezbollah launched two projectiles toward the area of Har Dov. There were no injuries, with the projectiles falling in open space, the IDF said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened a forceful response, calling it a “serious violation of the ceasefire.”
“We are determined to continue enforcing the ceasefire, and to respond to any violation by Hezbollah — minor or serious,” Netanyahu said.
Family of dead Israeli-American soldier release statement
The family of Omer Maxim Neutra, the Israeli-American soldier who had been believed to be in Hamas captivity, released a statement Monday after it was confirmed he was killed Oct. 7.
“Our hearts are shattered with this devastating news,” the family said. “The Neutra family is deeply grieving and are requesting the public, who has shown great support throughout this journey, to please respect their privacy until they are formally ready to announce the next steps.”
“May Omer’s memory be a blessing,” they added.
Netanyahu vows to recover body of US-Israeli soldier from Gaza
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife, Sara Netanyahu, said in a joint statement Monday they “will not rest or be silent” until the body of killed U.S.-Israeli soldier Omer Neutra is recovered from the Gaza Strip.
The Israel Defense Forces confirmed Monday that Neutra, 21, was killed during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack into southern Israel and his body taken back into Gaza. Neutra — who was originally from New York — was previously thought to have been taken hostage. He was serving as a tank platoon commander at the time of the attack.
Neutra “fought fiercely at the head of his soldiers to defend the settlements surrounding Gaza, until he fell.” Netanyahu’s statement said. “We share in the family’s heavy grief,” it added.
“We will continue to act resolutely and tirelessly until we return all of our captives — the living and the dead,” the statement said.
There are still three American citizens thought to be alive as hostages inside Gaza.
-ABC News’ Jordana Miller and Joe Simonetti
Israeli drone strike injures Lebanon soldier, army says
The Lebanese Armed Forces said on Monday that an Israeli drone “targeted an army bulldozer while it was carrying out fortification work” at a military center in the northeastern Hermel region close to the border with Syria.
The attack “resulted in one soldier being moderately injured,” the army wrote in a post to X.
The Israel Defense Forces has not yet commented on the alleged strike.
-ABC News’ Victoria Beaule
IDF confirms death of US-Israeli hostage
The Israel Defense Forces on Monday confirmed that missing U.S.-Israeli soldier Omer Maxim Neutra, 21, was among those killed in Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack into southern Israel.
Neutra was believed taken into Gaza as a hostage by militants during the attack. But the IDF said Monday he was killed during the Oct. 7 assault and his body was taken by militants.
Neutra — originally from New York — was serving as a tank platoon commander in the 77th Battalion of the 7th Brigade at the time of the Hamas attack. He was among hundreds of security forces personnel killed during the assault.
Neutra’s parents have been campaigning for a hostage release deal in the U.S., their activity including public appearances at the White House and the Capitol.
-ABC News’ Jordana Miller
IDF reports ‘several operations’ against Hezbollah in Lebanon
The Israel Defense Forces said Sunday it launched “several operations” targeting Hezbollah fighters that it claimed posed a direct threat to Israel “in violation of the ceasefire agreement.”
Among the operations was an attack on armed militants operating close to a church in southern Lebanon, the IDF said.
Those killed “were active in the ground defense, anti-tank and artillery formations in the sector, and took part in the fighting while using the church,” it wrote in a post to X.
The 60-day ceasefire that went into effect last week is holding despite continued sporadic fighting and Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon.
The deal stipulates that IDF troops will withdraw from their positions in Lebanon during the 60-day window and that Hezbollah forces will withdraw from the region south of the Litani River.
-ABC News’ Jordana Miller
Hostage Edan Alexander’s father makes an appeal to Biden, Trump and Netanyahu
The father of American-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander issued an emotional request on Sunday to President Biden, President-elect Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, telling the leaders to act now to bring the hostages home “before it’s too late.”
A day after seeing his son for the first time in a year in a propaganda video released by Hamas’ military wing, Adi Alexander of New Jersey spoke at a rally in New York City’s Central Park, saying, “No father should hear his child plead for his life like that.”
“President Biden, President Trump, Prime Minster Netanyahu, I call on all of you to act,” Alexander said. “This is not a moment for politics or hesitation. This is a moment of courage, collaboration and decisive action.”
He appealed to Biden to use the United States’ influence “to negotiate a deal before it’s too late.”
Directing his words to Trump, he said, “You do not have to wait until January to make an impact. The world is watching. Act now.”
To Netanyahu, Alexander said, “The fate of the hostages, including my son, rests in your hands. You have the power to bring them home. Don’t let this opportunity slip away.”
Edan Alexander, 20, was serving in the Israeli military and stationed near Gaza when he was taken captive by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023.
The White House issued a statement, saying, it has been in touch with the Alexander family and called the hostage video a “cruel reminder of Hamas’s terror against citizens of multiple countries, including our own.”
“The war in Gaza would stop tomorrow and the suffering of Gazans would end immediately– and would have ended months ago– if Hamas agreed to release the hostages,” White House National Security Council spokesperson Sean Savett said in a statement. “It has refused to do so, but as the President said last week, we have a critical opportunity to conclude the deal to release the hostages, stop the war, and surge humanitarian assistance into Gaza. This deal is on the table now.”
Netanyahu to hold meeting to discuss hostages, Lebanon, Syria tonight: Official
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will hold a security meeting Sunday night to discuss the issue of the hostages, as well as Lebanon and Syria, an Israeli official told ABC News.
-ABC News’ Jordana Miller
UN pauses aid deliveries to Gaza amid safety concerns
UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini on Sunday announced a pause to Gaza aid deliveries via the strip’s main crossing point, citing serious threats to the safety of staff.
The road out of the Kerem Shalom crossing “has not been safe for months,” Lazzarini said in a post to X.
“This difficult decision comes at a time hunger is rapidly deepening,” Lazzarini said. “The delivery of humanitarian aid must never be dangerous or turn into an ordeal.”
The UNRWA chief said a “large convoy of aid trucks was stolen by armed gangs” on Nov. 16, with several more aid trucks taken on Saturday.
Lazzarini also said that Israel’s “ongoing siege” of Gaza, “hurdles” put in place by Israeli authorities and “political decisions to restrict the amounts of aid” were among the other problems facing U.N. staff.
“The humanitarian operation has become unnecessarily impossible,” he wrote. “The responsibility of protection of aid workers [and] supplies is with the state of Israel as the occupying power.”
(LONDON) — A spate of alleged sabotage operations against undersea cables in the Baltic Sea has raised the prospect of a dangerous 2025 in NATO’s northern theater, with allied leaders vowing closer surveillance of and tougher action against Russian- and Chinese-linked and other ships accused of nefarious efforts there.
“NATO will enhance its military presence in the Baltic Sea,” alliance chief Mark Rutte said in late December, after the last such instance of suspected sabotage, condemning “any attacks on critical infrastructure.”
Rutte’s commitment came after the most recent of three alleged sabotage operations in the Baltic Sea — the damaging of the Estlink 2 power cable and four internet cables on Christmas Day. The Estlink 2 cable — along with the Estlink 1 cable — transfers electricity from Finland to Estonia across the Gulf of Finland.
Finnish authorities quickly seized control of the ship suspected of the damage to the Estlink 2 cable — the Eagle S. Though flagged in the Cook Islands, Finnish and European Union authorities said the Eagle S is part of Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” of tankers.
On Jan. 3, Finnish authorities said repair work on the cable had begun and forensic samples would be taken as part of the investigation. Eight sailors were still under a travel ban as the probe continued, they added.
NATO accuses Moscow of using tankers and other vessels to evade an international sanctions campaign on its fossil fuel exports prompted by the Kremlin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The Atlantic Council described this “shadow fleet” as made up of ageing vessels often sailing without Western insurance, under opaque ownership and with regularly changing names and national registrations.
Allied officials say some of the ailing ships are doubling as low-tech saboteur vessels.
There may be as many as 1,400 ships in Russia’s shadow fleet, according to the Windward maritime risk management firm. In December 2023, the energy cargo tracking company Vortexa calculated that 1,649 vessels had operated in what the Atlantic Council called the “opaque market” since January 2021, among them 1,089 carrying Russian crude oil.
Cat-and-mouse at sea
December’s round of suspected sabotage prompted the UK-led Joint Expeditionary Force — a defensive regional bloc also including Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden — to launch an advanced AI-assisted reaction system to “track potential threats to undersea infrastructure and monitor the Russian shadow fleet.”
A Jan. 14 meeting of NATO’s Baltic states in Helsinki, meanwhile, will focus on “measures required to secure the critical underwater infrastructure,” Finnish President Alexander Stubb said, and the “strengthening of NATO’s presence in the Baltic Sea and responding to the threat posed by Russia’s shadow fleet.”
But allies face a major challenge in surveilling some 145,560 square miles of sea crisscrossed by as many as 4,000 ships per day.
NATO tracking efforts are complicated by “the sheer scale of the global commercial shipping sector and the fact that ownership structures are often quite opaque and complex,” Sidharth Kaushal — the sea power senior research fellow at the British Royal United Services Institute think tank — told ABC News.
“A vessel may have multiple beneficial owners, its owners may not necessarily be from the state where it’s registered and so actually attributing its activity to a given state becomes very difficult,” he explained.
Russian- and Chinese-linked vessels could play a role, but so could ships seemingly unconnected to Moscow or Beijing.
“The Russians have quite a broad spectrum of commercial vessels to choose from,” Kaushal said. “It’s actually quite odd, in some ways, that they opted for a vessel that’s associated with their shadow fleet.”
The Baltic Sea is also relatively shallow. Its average depth is around 180 feet, compared to 312 feet in the North Sea and 4,900 feet in the Mediterranean Sea.
Reaching cables or pipelines at the bottom of the Baltic is far easier than in the world’s largest bodies of water, like the Atlantic Ocean with its average depth of 10,932 feet or the Pacific Ocean at 13,000 feet.
“In the Atlantic, for example, one has to use some pretty specialized equipment to go after undersea infrastructure,” Kaushal said. In the Baltic, “much simpler tools — things like dragging an anchor — are perfectly feasible means of attack.”
NATO’s toolbox
Guarding specific sites appears more realistic than identifying and surveilling all potential saboteurs. After the damage to Estlink 2 was reported, for example, Estonia said it dispatched naval vessels to protect Estlink 1.
November’s Bold Machina 2024 naval exercise in Italy also saw special forces divers test underwater sensors that NATO said could one day be used to protect underwater infrastructure.
“That’s the only way to narrow the problem — to focus on the critical infrastructure, rather than trying to achieve wide area surveillance over an area like the Baltic,” Kaushal said.
But NATO ships will still be limited in what action they can take to stop damage occurring. “International freedom of navigation limits what navies can do on international waters, or even within their own exclusive economic zone,” Kaushal said.
The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea does note that freedom of navigation may be challenged if a ship’s passage “is prejudicial to the peace, good order or security” of coastal states.
Historic agreements — like the 1884 Convention for the Protection of Submarine Telegraph Cables — might also offer allies some latitude to act against suspect vessels.
But challenging the passage of civilian shipping might have unwelcome consequences elsewhere. More muscular policing by NATO in the Baltic might encourage more assertive Chinese naval activity in the South China Sea, for example, or encourage more Iranian interdictions in the Persian Gulf.
“I think that’s something that nations, particularly Western nations, have shied away from,” Kaushal said.
Local allied leaders, at least, appear to be clamoring for action. December’s alleged attack is only the most recent of a spate of suspected sabotage incidents in the Baltic.
In November, two intersecting submarine cables — the BCS East-West Interlink connecting Lithuania to Sweden and the C-Lion1 fiber-optic cable connecting Germany to Finland — were damaged in the Baltic Sea.
Authorities suspected the Chinese-flagged cargo ship Yi Peng 3 of causing the damage. German, Swedish, Finnish and Danish officials boarded the ship off the Danish coast to inspect the vessel and question the crew. The Yi Peng 3 later set sail for Egypt.
The first notable alleged cable sabotage incident in the Baltic Sea occurred in October 2023, when the Hong Kong-flagged Newnew Polar Bear vessel dragged its anchor across and damaged the Balticconnector gas pipeline linking Estonia and Finland. The nearby EE-S1 telecoms cable was also damaged.
Investigators recovered a damaged ship’s anchor from the seabed close to the damaged cables, with gouge marks on either side of the cables indicating its trajectory. Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation said the Newnew Polar Bear was missing one of its anchors.
In August, the Chinese government admitted that the vessel damaged the underwater infrastructure “by accident,” citing “a strong storm.”
2025 in the Baltic theater
Even before ships began damaging cables in the Baltic region, the strategic sea — referred to by some allied leaders as the “NATO lake” after the accession of Sweden and Finland to the alliance — played host to covert operations apparently linked to Russia’s war on Ukraine.
The Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines carrying natural gas from Russia to Germany were bombed in September 2022, marking the first notable incident of alleged sabotage in the Baltic Sea since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The pipelines had long been fiercely criticized by those in North America and Europe skeptical of Berlin’s business dealings with Moscow, particularly leaders in Ukraine and the Baltic region who saw the pipelines as a plank of Russian hybrid warfare.
Investigators are yet to establish who was responsible for the apparent sabotage to the pipelines, with a series of unconfirmed reports variously accusing Russia, the U.S. and Ukraine for the blasts. All have denied involvement.
The Baltic, then, is already an important theater in the wider showdown between Russia and the West.
The potential value for Russia is clear. With a handful of tankers, Moscow can force its NATO rivals to commit significant time and resources to guarding undersea infrastructure. When sabotage does occur, the Baltic’s relative ease of access and the energy needs of regional nations might amplify its impact.
“The gas grid in the area is not particularly well integrated with the rest of the European grid,” Kashaul noted. “In much of Europe, this would be a bit of a nuisance, but in the Baltic Sea limited sabotage — particularly to the gas pipelines — can actually have some pretty disproportionate effects.”
European nations are highly sensitive to gas outages given the knock on economic — and thus polling — effects. Energy insecurity has been one of the major themes undermining the continent’s response to Russia’s war. Moscow has been keen to exploit this weak spot.
But undersea escapades in the Baltic are not necessarily a free hit for Russia.
Moscow’s shadow operators have “thus far enjoyed the freedom of navigation and the ability to move Russian oil at above price cap rates quite freely through NATO controlled waters,” Kashaul said.
If NATO nations can demonstrate that sanctions-busting vessels are involved in sabotage, the ghost ships might yet face more tangible retaliation.
But that too could prompt escalation. A Danish intelligence report cited by Bloomberg, for example, noted that Russia may begin attaching military escorts to tankers transiting the Baltics.
Such a development is “quite plausible,” Kashaul said, though noted the intensity of regular convoy operations may be beyond Russia’s relatively small Baltic Fleet.
A more militarized approach, he added, may also unsettle the non-Russian nationals crewing the vessels.
“Whether the people on those ships want to take the risk, even if the Russians are offering escorts and convoys, is another factor,” Kashaul said.
ABC News’ Zoe Magee and Ellie Kaufman contributed to this report.
(LONDON) — Mouaz Moustafa, the head of the U.S.-based Syrian advocacy organization, the Syrian Emergency Task Force, told ABC News Tuesday there are believed to be well over 100,000 bodies in a “massive” grave discovered at a site 25 miles north of Damascus.
Opposition groups and rescue workers are still uncovering evidence of the alleged human rights abuses committed by toppled President Bashar Assad’s regime over his 24 years in power — and over 50 years of Assad family rule.
The overthrown president was in power from 2000 to his ousting on Dec. 8. His sudden fall in the face of a surprise, multi-pronged rebel offensive marked the end of a 14-year conflict between Damascus and a collection of anti-government forces.
Now, Syria’s rebel-led transitional government, NGOs and rescue workers are uncovering Assad’s vast network of prisons and suspected mass burial sites, where more than 100,000 people may have gone missing since 2011.
SETF believes it has identified three other “mass graves” so far, as well as two “smaller ones,” Moustafa said.
Moustafa told ABC News from the Syrian capital that the site in al-Qutayfah close to Damascus consists of “massive graves” where “lines or trenches were 6 to 7 meters deep, 3 to 4 meters wide and 50 to 150 meters long.”
“In my conversation with the gravediggers, they told me that four tractor trailer trucks each carrying over 150 bodies came twice a week from 2012 until 2018,” Moustafa said.
“The bulldozer excavator driver described how intelligence officers forced workers to use the bulldozer to flatten and compress the bodies to make them fit and easier to bury before digging the next line or trench,” he added.
The graves contained men, women, children and the elderly “tortured to death” by Assad’s regime, Moustafa said.
The Qutayfah burial site is in an area that was under military control, with the road in closed to civilian traffic.
Large villas nearby housed Iranian and Iraqi allies of the Assad regime, which became increasingly reliant on foreign partners in Moscow, Tehran and Baghdad to retain control as the brutal civil war wore on.
Syria’s Air Force Intelligence — considered the most powerful branch of Assad’s military — also maintained a presence nearby.
At the site, workers clad in white overalls piled large black plastic bags of human bones onto a truck. Some of the bags had Farsi — the official language of Iran — written on them.
Locals told ABC News they saw bags being dumped at the site in the days leading up to Assad’s fall, as rebels surged towards the capital from Idlib and Aleppo in the north and Daraa in the south.
In his first statement since fleeing Syria, Assad on Monday blamed a “terrorist onslaught” for the stunning collapse of his regime.
Assad made no comment on the longstanding human rights abuse allegations, abuses that the opposition and key Western governments say intensified after the outbreak of civil war in 2011.
The fall of his regime saw jubilant fighters and residents emptying Assad’s infamous prisons. More than 100,000 people are still believed to be missing, disappeared into Damascus’ fearsome security apparatus.
The leader of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham rebel group, which led the surprise offensive striking out of Idlib southwards towards Damascus, vowed that the transitional government would hold to account those implicated in Assad’s human rights abuses.
Ahmed al-Sharaa — also known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani — said shortly after the fall of Damascus, “We will not hesitate to hold accountable the criminals, murderers, security and army officers involved in torturing the Syrian people.”
