The Israeli military said today it was raising its "level of alert" and reinforcing its forces in the Southern Command for defensive missions, Reuters reports.
It was also said to be postponing leave for combat soldiers and operational units within the command.
It comes after Hamas announced today that it would stop releasing Israeli hostages until further notice due to what the Palestinian militant group called Israel's violation of the Gaza ceasefire agreement, raising the risk of a re-ignition of the conflict.
Serbian Foreign Minister Marko Đurić today appealed to the international community and everyone who can help to secure the release of Serbian and Israeli citizen Alon Ohel, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced.
"Today marks 493 days since Israeli and Serbian citizen Alon Ohel, whose family is originally from Serbia, has been lying in a dungeon at the bottom of a tunnel in Gaza, imprisoned and chained. We demand, appeal and pray that Alon be released without delay and allowed to return to his mother, father, brothers and sisters," said Đurić.
Đurić recalled that Alon, when he was captured, was not a member of the armed forces, but rather a young man, a pianist, who was heading to a music festival with his peers and friends.
"Two weeks later, he was supposed to visit his family in Serbia. Unfortunately, he never got there. He did not see the sun, his loved ones, for 493 days. The people who were imprisoned with him were reduced, in a physical sense, to a shadow of what they were before their imprisonment and are telling harrowing stories about the conditions in which they were held for more than a year," said Đurić.
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He added that Alon turns 24 today, adding that, unfortunately, he is spending this birthday chained, without food and without medical care, even though he is in captivity and seriously wounded.
"I appeal to all those who can help, I appeal to those who are holding Alon, I appeal to the entire international community to do everything possible to ensure that this young man is released, that he returns to his family and that international humanitarian law - in this case, humanity - prevails. Serbia stands with Alon, with the families of the abductees, with all who died in this tragic conflict and we pray for their freedom," wrote Marko Đurić.
The family of hostage Ohel, a Serbian citizen who was kidnapped by members of the Palestinian Hamas on October 7, 2023, during an attack on southern Israel, announced that they learned from the released hostages that he was alive, but that he was injured and that he had not been provided with medical assistance.
"Today we were informed that since the kidnapping, Alon has been held in the tunnels in Gaza along with the recently released hostages. We are happy and excited to know that Alon is alive, but devastated and shocked by the difficult physical and mental condition Alon is in, as well as the abuse he and the other hostages continue to go through," his family said.
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The Palestinian militant group Hamas said on Monday it would stop releasing Israeli hostages until further notice due to what it said was Israel's violation of a ceasefire agreement, Reuters reported.
In response, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Hamas violated the ceasefire agreement with its announcement and said he had instructed the military to prepare at the highest level of readiness in Gaza and to defend Israeli communities.
Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for Hamas' military wing, said that since the ceasefire took effect on January 19, Israel has delayed allowing displaced Palestinians to return to northern Gaza, shelled Gaza and stopped material aid from entering the territory.
The ceasefire has largely held for the past three weeks, although there have been incidents in which Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire.
The flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza has increased since the ceasefire, aid agencies say.
Another exchange was scheduled for Saturday.
Hamas chief in Gaza Khalil al-Haja said Donald Trump's plans for the Gaza Strip are "doomed to failure".
"We will demolish them, just as we demolished the projects before them," he said during a ceremony marking the 46th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution in Tehran.
Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, previously said Trump's plan would "add fuel to the fire" in the region.
Hamas has steadfastly insisted it wants to stay in Gaza, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who agreed with Trump's proposal to take over Gaza, has vowed to destroy the Palestinian militant group and never allow it to rule the territory again.
Iranians are marking the 46th anniversary of the Islamic Republic's victory today by taking to the streets in Tehran and across the country, chanting anti-American and anti-Israeli slogans.
Iranian President Masoud Pazakhstani accused his American counterpart Donald Trump today of wanting to "bring the Islamic Republic to its knees," during a speech marking the 46th anniversary of the revolution that overthrew the Pahlavi monarchy.
Displaced Palestinian families who returned to northern Gaza after a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas came into effect last month were shocked by the extent of the destruction of their homes and settlements, the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) said.
Tess Ingram, a UNICEF spokeswoman, said children are particularly traumatized by the war Israel is waging in the territory, leaving many communities without adequate healthcare, sanitation, shelter and water.
"The families I spoke to this week here in northern Gaza were shocked by what they found. They were shocked by the scale of this destruction. Even after seeing the photos and the footage, they were hopeful that their homes, their neighborhoods, their communities might have been spared," she said in a video posted on the X network.
"And now that they're coming back and realizing that's not the case, the hope they held for 15 months turns into a huge burden, and this is especially traumatic for children - children who have already suffered so much and are now returning to communities without water, without healthcare, without the basics needed to survive," she added.
An Israeli campaign of intense aerial bombardment and mass demolitions has leveled large swaths of Gaza, leaving entire neighborhoods barely habitable. Nine out of ten homes in the territory have been destroyed or damaged, according to UN figures. Schools, hospitals, mosques, cemeteries, shops and offices have been repeatedly targeted, the Guardian reports.
Israeli police raided a Palestinian-owned bookstore in East Jerusalem, detaining the owners and confiscating books about the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict, accusing them of inciting violence.
The Education Bookshop, opened more than 40 years ago, is a center for intellectual events in East Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed to its capital in a move not internationally recognized.
Most Palestinian citizens live in East Jerusalem and want it to be the capital of their future state.
The three-story bookstore that police raided on Sunday had a large selection of books, mostly in Arabic and English, about the conflict and the wider Middle East, including many by Israeli and Jewish authors. The bookstore hosts cultural events and is particularly popular with researchers, journalists and foreign diplomats.
Bookstore owners Ahmed and Mahmud Muna were detained and police confiscated hundreds of books related to the conflict before ordering the bookstore to close, said May Muna, Mahmud Muna's wife.
She said the soldiers selected books with Palestinian titles or flags "without knowing what they meant." She said they used Google Translate on some of the Arabic titles to see what they meant before putting them in plastic bags and taking them away.
Police raided another Palestinian-owned bookstore in the Old City of East Jerusalem last Sunday.
Police said the two owners were detained on suspicion of selling books that contain incitement and support for terrorism.
As an example, the police provided a children's coloring book in English titled "From the River to the Sea" in reference to the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea that today includes Israel, the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Palestinians and hardline Israelis view the entire territory as their national homeland. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose government opposes Palestinian statehood, has said Israel must retain unrestricted control over all territory west of the Jordan River.
Israeli-Palestinian tensions have soared since Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel, which sparked the war in the Gaza Strip. A ceasefire agreement that came into effect on January 19 led to a pause in fighting and the release of several Israeli hostages taken in the attack as well as hundreds of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. Tensions have also risen in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war, and the Palestinians want all three territories for their future state. The last serious and meaningful peace talks broke down after Netanyahu returned to power in 2009.
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