The Times of Israel liveblogged Saturday’s events as they happened.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke this evening with the families of slain hostages Ilan Weiss and Idan Shtivi, after their bodies were recovered from Gaza in a joint IDF and Shin Bet operation, the Prime Minister’s Office says.

Netanyahu “praised the courage of Ilan and Idan, who acted on October 7 to save lives,” the PMO says, adding that he stressed to the families that Israel is “working tirelessly to return all hostages, both living and dead.”

The IDF confirms that the prime minister of the Houthi-led government in Yemen was killed in an Israeli strike on the capital Sanaa last week.

A news agency run by the Iran-backed Houthis had announced the death of the group’s prime minister, Ahmad Ghaleb al-Rahwi, earlier today.

The military says that several Houthi military officials were killed in the strikes as well, along with other senior members of the group’s political leadership.

The exact outcome of the strike and the fate of some of those targeted has yet to be determined, it says.

“The strike was made possible by seizing an intelligence opportunity and completing a rapid operational cycle, which took place within a few hours,” the IDF adds.

The IDF and the Shin Bet recovered the body of Idan Shtivi during an operation in the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announces.

On Friday, the IDF announced it had recovered the bodies of slain hostage Ilan Weiss and of a second hostage, whom it did not identify at the time.

Shtivi, now confirmed as the second slain hostage whose body was recovered in the operation, was killed at the Nova music festival during Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught in southern Israel.

Shtivi, 28, was a nature lover and photography enthusiast who was studying sustainability and government at Herzliya’s Reichman University

His body was identified at the Abu Kabir Institute of Forensic Medicine.

In a statement, Netanyahu calls Shtivi “a man of great courage and heart.”

“On October 7, 2023, he took part in the Nova music festival, and when the terrorist attack began, he acted to rescue and save many participants at the party,” says Netanyahu.

He was seized by Hamas terrorists at the desert rave, where he had volunteered to photograph the event.

He joined the party at 6 a.m. — just half an hour before the attack started — and called his girlfriend at 7, telling her about the missiles overhead and that he was leaving.

Shtivi left in his car with two friends, Lior and Yulia, but was blocked by the terrorists on the road heading north. He then turned the car around and started driving south, but was driven off the road, lost control of the vehicle and hit a tree.

He was last seen in that location, and the car was later found full of bullet holes and blood. His friends’ bodies were found at the scene.

In a separate statement, Defense Minister Israel Katz sends his “deepest condolences” to Shtivi’s family, and praises his bravery.

Netanyahu and Katz both promise to bring back the remaining 48 hostages. Twenty of them are believed to be alive, there are grave concerns for two others, and the other 26 have been confirmed as dead.

The Trump administration is advancing plans to rename the Department of Defense as the Department of War, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing a White House official.

Restoring the Department of War name — last used in 1947 — for the government’s largest department could require congressional action, but the White House is exploring alternative methods to implement the change, the report says.

Reuters cannot immediately verify the report.

The Israeli strikes in which the prime minister and several other officials of Yemen’s Houthi government were killed are “just the beginning,” warns Defense Minister Israel Katz.

“Two days ago, we dealt an unprecedented crushing blow to the senior officials in the military-political leadership of the Houthi terrorist organization in Yemen, in a bold and brilliant action by the IDF,” Katz says, hours after the Iran-backed group confirmed the death of Ahmad Ghaleb al-Rahwi.

Rahwi was seen largely as a figurehead who was not part of the inner circle of the Houthi leadership.

“The destiny of Yemen is the destiny of Tehran — and this is just the beginning,” Katz continues. “The Houthis will learn the hard way that whoever threatens and harms Israel will be harmed sevenfold — and they will not determine when this ends.”

Moshe Or, the brother of Hamas-held hostage Avinatan Or, tells a thousands-strong crowd rallying for a hostage-ceasefire deal in Tel Aviv that “what we haven’t achieved in two years of war, we most likely won’t achieve in years to come.”

“But for the hostages, they have something to lose every day, every night. Their lives, their health, their soul,” he adds. “Every moment of hesitation costs them, and us, an unbearably heavy price.”

He demands that the government negotiate a deal to release all the hostages in one fell swoop.

“We need a deal already, and that deal must be one deal with everyone together. Not the Witkoff outline, not in waves — everyone, together,” he declares.

He says that the last time he saw his brother was on his daughter’s third birthday, nearly two years ago. She is now almost five years old.

“How do you explain to a little girl why her uncle isn’t coming back? He is alive but not here. Why does he not visit her?” he says.

“Amid all of this, the public agenda is occupied with other things. The government is dealing with flight plans to Uman and other nonsense,” he says, referring to the yearly Rosh Hashanah pilgrimage made by many Hasidic Jews to the Ukrainian city.

“How is it possible that the beating heart of this nation, our hostages, is not at the top of the priority list?”

Yemen’s Houthi rebels vow to avenge the killing of their prime minister and other political leaders in Israeli strikes this week.

“We promise to God, to the dear Yemeni people and the families of the martyrs and wounded that we will take revenge,” the head of the group’s supreme political council, Mehdi al-Mashat, says in a video message posted on Telegram.

He warns foreign companies to leave Israel “before it’s too late.”

Tuval Haim, the brother of slain hostage Yotam Haim, who was mistakenly killed by IDF troops in Gaza in December 2023, tells a crowd of thousands at Hostages Square that the continued suffering of the hostages in captivity attests to “our failure as a state.”

“How can it be that ministers take pride in thwarting deals, while hostages are being murdered in tunnels?” he asks. “How can it be that the individual who shot Yotam didn’t even receive a photo of him and didn’t know what he looked like?”

He says that it was only after IDF troops accidentally shot his brother, alongside two other hostages, Alon Shamriz and Samar Talalka, that the IDF chief of staff began to distribute photos of the hostages to soldiers in Gaza.

“They promised us that Yotam would come back, they said they knew where he was, they said he was on his way home,” he says, teary-eyed. “Today I feel like they lied to us, that they didn’t actually give every effort then and still today. They told us he was the first priority, but they actually had different goals.”

“Today is my birthday, the second birthday that I don’t get a hug and a blessing from Yotam,” he laments. “What I wish for myself is that no one will ever have to go through what I went through, that they will get their siblings back so that they can sing with them.”

An Israeli reservist was killed during fighting in the southern Gaza Strip earlier today, the IDF announces.

The slain soldier is named as Sgt. First Class (res.) Ariel Lubliner, 34, of the 6036 logistics unit of the 36th Division, from Kiryat Bialik.

The circumstances of his death are being investigated as suspected so-called friendly fire. A preliminary IDF investigation indicates he was killed by a bullet fired accidentally by another soldier.

Lubliner immigrated from Brazil about 10 years ago. He leaves his wife Barbara, an immigrant from Spain, and their nine-month-old son, Lior. Lubliner was due to finish this latest of numerous stints of reserve duty tomorrow, Channel 12 reports, and the family was set to fly to Brazil for a vacation.

The TV report calculates that Lubliner is the 900th soldier killed on all fronts since war erupted with Hamas’s invasion and massacre in southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

Unnamed security sources express cautious optimism about the outcome of a strike in the Gaza Strip targeting a senior Hamas terrorist earlier this evening.

Hebrew media outlets reported that the target of the strike was the longtime spokesperson for Hamas’s armed wing, known by his nom de guerre Abu Obeida.

Abu Obeida, whose real name is Hudayfa Samir Abdallah al-Kahlout, always appears masked in statements to the media and is something of a symbol in the Strip.

“There is optimism, we have cautiously assessed that the direction is positive,” one security source tells Channel 12.

Another tells the Kan public broadcaster that the outcome of the strike is “looking good.”

Thousands of protesters gather in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square to rally for a hostage deal and ceasefire in Gaza, ahead of tomorrow’s scheduled security cabinet meeting in which ministers are expected to push ahead with plans for the IDF to take over Gaza City.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum calls the scheduled meeting “further proof that Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government is aiming for a forever war and the sacrifice of the hostages,” and urges protesters to travel tomorrow evening to Jerusalem and demonstrate outside the Prime Minister’s Office.

“This coming week, we will go up to Jerusalem with one call, a deal before it’s too late!” says Gil Dickmann, the cousin of slain hostage Carmel Gat, from the stage.

In English, Dickmann appeals to US President Donald Trump to pressure Israel’s government into signing a deal to end the war.

“My cousin Carmel Gat was murdered in captivity one year ago; you weren’t president then, you weren’t there to save her. If you had been president then, maybe she’d be alive here today,” says Dickmann, who is a dual Israeli-American citizen.

“Don’t let Bibi fool you like he fooled resident Biden, save these hostages, Mr. President, like you saved so many others,” he continues. “President Trump, end this war now!”

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