 Welcome to the I-24 News Desk, I'm Sarah Martinez, live from Tel Aviv. Today marks the 75th day of the war as Israel's ground operation to dismantle Hamas rages on. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with some of the families of Israelis held hostage in Gaza Tuesday evening and made reports of renewed indirect Israel-Hamas negotiations on a new deal to secure the release of the 129 hostages still held captive in the Gaza Strip. This, as Hamas political chief Ismail Haniye will reportedly be in Cairo today to take part in those talks. Pressure on the war cabinet to secure a deal has doubled down after the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror organization published a video of two Israeli hostages Tuesday evening, 79-year-old Gadi Moses and 47-year-old Elad Kassil were kidnapped from Neil Oz on October 7th. Meanwhile, the IDF is announcing this morning the death of another soldier who was killed in fighting in the Southern Gaza Strip, bringing the death toll of IDF troops to 133. Let's cross over to I-24 News correspondent Piaf Kloschenler who's in southern Israel near those communities that were the hardest hit on October 7th. Piaf, the IDF says it's taking control of the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza. Paint us a picture of where the ground operation stands at this moment. Right. The head of the 162 IDF division declared yesterday evening that the northern Gaza Strip has been basically dismantled of any Hamas terrorist structure and that the brigade, that the Hamas brigade that was in control of the Jabalia refugee camp as well as the northern Gaza Strip has been also collapsing with over 1,000 terrorists killed and 500 taken prisoners among them, at least 70 from the Jabalia refugee camp who participated in the October 7th massacre. Now, we are facing the southern sector of the Gaza Strip or at least part of it and you just heard maybe an artillery outgoing and this is the scene here on the right of your monitor. You will see Chejaia which is probably the last stronghold of Hamas in the northern sector. On the southeastern outskirts of Gaza City, the Chejaia neighborhood or town has been the siege of very hard harsh battles for the past two and a half weeks. Last week we heard that nine Golanian infantry units brigade died in a very sophisticated ambush and a few days later, three hostages were erroneously killed by the Golanian infantry brigade as they were waving a white flag. This is probably the last stronghold that is still standing, facing, the IDF there is facing probably the most hardened battle Hamas battalion and on the left you will see already the southern or central sector of the Gaza Strip with the town of Almugraka which is the site of heavy pounding for the past days already because it lies on a very strategic axis, another outgoing shell, on a very strategic axis the Salahadin axis which leads to Hanyunas further down the south in your monitor it would be on the left side. Now Hanyunas is also the site of intensive battles both from the air but also from the ground forces. Defence Minister Joav Galant said yesterday that an additional brigade in reinforcement has been added to the forces that are operating in Hanyunas and on the vicinity of Hanyunas and there's pounding on the places which have not been invested by the Israeli army which is the southern city of Rafah and the central refugee camps of El Buraj, Nusserat and Direl Balak. Thank you for that update from the Israel Gaza border. I want to bring into the conversation Professor Kobi Mikhail he's a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies Professor thank you very much for joining me this morning. Good morning. Following the PIJ video of the hostages that was released last night Israel is reportedly seeking a new humanitarian deal to secure the release of 30 to 40 women, the Sikh, the elderly. I want to take a listen to one of the mothers of the hostages the mother of Tamir Adal what she had to say following her meeting with Netanyahu last night. Let's take a listen. We held an intimate meeting about 19 families with the Israeli Prime Minister. The meeting was generally positive I feel there was listening the meeting was held in an intimate fashion that allowed us to say what we're feeling what we want think demand the Prime Minister addressed the issues at this stage I prefer not to specify exactly what was said in order to allow all of the families to meet with the Prime Minister in this format of intimate meetings to allow the Prime Minister to invite the rest of the families that did not attend today's meeting I think every family should get the opportunity to say what they think feel want to hear directly from the Prime Minister not through us or through the media after the Prime Minister finishes this round of meetings with all the families then we can sit together all the families sum up share insights and decide if we want to respond to anything at this moment I'm asking you to respect our decision to not reveal the specifics of the meeting there was listening there was a positive atmosphere and I am glad we got this opportunity tonight the bottom line we understand efforts are being made processes are underway of course we did not get all the details but the conversation was respectful and it's important during these days there was a lot of criticism following that meeting that Netanyahu only met with 15 to 19 of those families out of all the 129 hostages Kobe in your opinion how long will it take to secure a deal look first of all with regard to the meeting and the political aspects of the meeting I prefer not to refer to but I think that the idea that the meeting has been held and the idea that we heard such a message for from one of the participants is is important at least with regard to the Israeli constituency because and any any sort of tension between the families and the government is something that plays in favor of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic jihad I think that the Israeli government does all the possible efforts in order to rescue and to release more hostages but we have to remember with whom we deal eventually and we have to remember that Hamas will continue holding a hostages as a sort of the policy insurance for the survival of its leaders and it is going to be a long journey and I hope that we will be able to find the way to to balance between the humanitarian efforts that will enable us to release more hostages and in the very same time to continue pressuring Hamas militarily in order to accomplish successfully the mission in the Gaza Strip which is very crucial for the current stage and for the future but Kobe my question is how long will it take to get this deal I mean time is running out it's been 75 days now that these people have been held captive it will take a time I think that not less than a week because it is a very complicated negotiation and with a very tough cynical brutal adversary and there are some technical problems as well because it is not a direct negotiation secondly Hamas still doesn't hold all the hostages and we saw just yesterday the film that was released by the Palestinian Islamic jihad and there are hostages that are still hold by some some others even civilians and Hamas has to first of all together all the all the hostages and this will take time and this is the reason that Hamas or at least this is an excuse for Hamas to demand a longer a longer call and now we are talking about two weeks of calm something that will play in favor of Hamas as well but I think that it will take not less than a week in order to see any real progress Kobe up until now the exchange of prisoners has been female captives for female Palestinian prisoners this principle is expected to be the same for elderly hostages but among those elderly Palestinian prisoners are also senior ones my question to you is how far is Israel willing to go to secure the release of these hostages can we expect Israel to release its more senior prisoners such as Marwan Bargouti who was convicted for murder and regarded as the leader of the first and the second Intifada I'm not sure that one will be on the list but I do think that Israel will be more flexible with regard to some other senior Palestinian prisoners even with with blood on their hands and mainly elderly and I think that Israel is willing to pay a high price in this regard but there are some limits as well and mainly when we are talking about something as an interim agreement okay this is not the final agreement that deals with the release of all the hostages and maybe in the final stage Israel will be ready to do something like that and but I think that even if it will be done it will not be in place of the continuation of the military attack against Hamas because in this regard Israel is very determined to dismantle the military and the governmental capacities of Hamas is Hamas interested in a deal that doesn't include a permanent ceasefire yes of course I mean Hamas this is the reason that Hamas will keep a group of hostages as the ultimate policy insurance for their survival and they will put very heavy and meaningful demands like international guarantees that Israel will not kill the leaders of Hamas that will come out of the tunnels and they will demand that Hamas will remain in the Gaza Strip they will have very heavy demands that Israel will not be able to to accept but this is something that they will keep for the for for the further phases of the negotiation not for this phase of negotiation and speaking of those leaders a delegation of senior Hamas officials is reportedly expected to arrive in Cairo soon to discuss that Haas Agil with Egyptian intelligence officials who benefits from Egypt's involvement as a negotiator first of all the Egyptians they are in a sort of I would say competition with the Qatarians because this is something that helps them to leverage their regional position as a very influential regional player first of all vis-à-vis the region itself vis-à-vis the Americans and the international community and secondly benefits Israel because I think that from the Israeli point of view the Egyptian role is much more preferable than the Qatarian role I see Qatar is a very problematic player here in the region and I think that it is an Israeli interest that the Egyptians will be more involved and more influential and I think that if the Egyptians will be more influential it will help us in the future as well. Turning to the fighting in Gaza you can see those live images on your screens there of Gaza with big large plumes of smoke Kobe I want to get your take on the shocking revelations of the chief of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza telling the Shembet security agency that Hamas used the hospital for military operations and that even a hostage was held at that medical facility. Let's take a listen. What is Hamas. And what are the results of this? They are the ones who were hiding behind some pictures and are uncaught for me. For the better their political leaders and the government officials and their soldiers. They had a hearth to hide in it. They were in it for about 10 days and then they moved to It was in the second place, and then it was in the hospital. Why did you come to the hospital? Because the hospital is safe. Because it doesn't target the hospital. How many people came? There was a time when they came to the hospital in the tens. Around 100 people. Is there a medical condition in the hospital? Is it part of the medical system? Yes. Do you know 16 people? I remember all of them. What was their job? Was it in the hospital or outside? Is there a medical condition in the hospital? Yes. What was their job in the hospital? It was their job as a doctor. As a patient. As a doctor. As a writer. I have a official job. But what is the other job in the hospital? In the hospital. There is one of the doctors. So you enter the hospital, and then you go to the hospital. Do you have a medical condition? Yes. Do you have a medical condition in the hospital? Yes. What do you mean? I have a medical condition in the hospital, and two of my legs. I remember that day, when I went to the hospital. There is a medical condition in the hospital. I came to the hospital. There is a protection place, the police station, there is a prevention place, there is a security place. And people have a special therapy. A special therapy for the patients in these places. What device did you use most recently? I used a special device. I know the device very well. What did you do? I worked on my project. What did you do? I did nothing. What do you think of Zouama Hamas? I told you that they came to us. They came to us because they were in the field. They didn't want us to be there. They didn't want to talk to us. What do you mean? They didn't want to talk to us. We found in Shifa hospital, and Mrazio hospital, and any other hospital or civilian facility. Hamas is deeply embedded in the civil society in Gaza. And Hamas uses all the civilian facilities in Gaza, be it hospitals, clinics, mosques, even UN facilities, even cemeteries, if you want. And unfortunately, the international community is still not convinced in this regard and does not understand how deep Hamas is embedded and how cynical and brutal is the way that Hamas uses the civilians and the civilian facilities. I think that this is another evidence, an important evidence. But I'm not sure that this is something that will convince the international community that's still distinguished between the civil society and the civilian facilities and Hamas. Hebrew media is reporting the IDF troops have twice managed to reach tunnels in Gaza in recent days where they believe Hamas leader Yahya Sinoir was hiding just before they arrived. In your opinion, how long will it take to eliminate him? Will he be eliminated in this phase of the war or perhaps further along when the IDF turns to a more targeted killings? I'm not sure that he or other senior officials of Hamas would be eliminated in this phase of the war. I'm pretty sure that it will occur in the future. I think that we are exaggerating with regard to the importance of these officials although it's very symbolic and it will contribute at least to the moral of the Israeli constituency. But I think that the most important mission that we have in front of us is to paralyze the main significant or essential centers of gravity of Hamas in a way that will not enable Hamas to continue operating effectively as a military and governmental entity. And this can be done even if Yahya Sinoir and Mohammad Defi will remain alive. They will remain alive in the tunnels under the ground because they know that once they will come out of these tunnels that they will not remain alive. But I believe that at the end of the day in this phase, I mean in Hanyunas area the IDF will succeed destroying, eliminating the main centers of gravity of Hamas with Yahya Sinoir or without Yahya Sinoir. At the end of the day, we will be able to do that and we will close what we have to close with Yahya Sinoir and Mohammad Defi. If not today, it will be tomorrow. Kobe, the conversation continues to revolve around Gaza. The day after the war, different visions on who should be in charge of running the Gaza Strip. In your eyes, what is the ideal solution? There is no ideal solution. There are no solutions at all. I mean, we have to think in terms of managing the situation and improving the situation, not resolving the situation. The Gaza Strip is a sort of a problem without a solution. We have to internalize it. But I think that the gaps between Israel and the American administration are bridged. And the idea that a sort of a trusteeship or a sort of an administration that will be composed of the Americans and the Arab countries here in the region and run the Gaza Strip and train and will educate the sort of local technical administration in Gaza is an idea that becomes more and more valid. And it looks that this is generally speaking the direction. And I think that anyway we are talking about the process that will last several years until this local administration that might be affiliated even with the future reformed Palestinian Authority in the West Bank will be able to run independently and effectively the Gaza Strip with regard to the territory and its population. Kobe, the United States, the European Union and NATO in a collection of 44 other partners released a statement to stake condemning Houthi attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea. And citing a senior U.S. Diploma Al-Arabiya reporting the U.S. is hoping China will join the Maritime Coalition tasked with countering the Iran-backed Yemeni groups attacks. I want to take a listen to White House National Security spokesman John Clarice speaking on the matter. Bottom line is these attacks have to stop. They need to stop. They're unacceptable. The United States, our allies and our partners will do what we have to do to counter these threats and to protect these ships. Well, now it just started, didn't it? And there's going to be a whole lot of hardware in the Red Sea now, naval hardware, not just from the United States but other ships from other nations to counter these threats. So let's see where it goes. I mean, it's up and running now. We hope it gets stronger and we're able to add additional countries and additional capabilities to it. And I think where China could be helpful, quite frankly, is more with the influence that we know they have in Tehran, the conversations that they can have with the Supreme Leader. And we have, in the past, and we continue to encourage the Chinese to use that influence, use those conversations to lean on the Supreme Leader and Iran to stop their support for the Houthis. Kobe, I want to ask you, how much of a threat do the Houthis actually pose to Israel? And do you expect these confrontations to escalate in the Red Sea? First of all, it's not only an Israeli problem. I'm truly satisfied that at the end of the day, the international community understood that this is a global problem that should be dealt by the international community as well. I do believe that the situation might be escalated and we might find ourselves, or this coalition might find itself in sort of a more severe coalition with the Houthis that will include even some attacks of this coalition on the Houthis, on the Yemen soil. But I believe that at the end of the day, there will be no other option but to deal with the Iranians themselves and to hit the Iranians in order to signal them that they have to do something in this regard. No, Kobe, we do have to go out to a break. I do want to thank you for joining me this morning and offering us your insight. Thank you. Bye-bye. I, 24 years, will be back at the top of the hour. Don't go anywhere. In a state of war, families completely gunned down in their beds. We have no idea where we see as our soldiers are fighting on the front lines, but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well. Israel under attack. News 24 in Spanish brings the analysis and the information about the events of the war, weapons of iron. Exclusive interviews and reports from the war zone. The reaction of the Spanish-speaking countries. News 24, the only media in Spanish that keeps you informed and connected with the Latin community in Israel. News 24, only on I-24 News. 24 News Desk. I'm Sarah Martinez, live from Tel Aviv. Today marks the 75th day of the war as Israel's ground operation to dismantle Hamas rages on. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with some of the families of Israelis held hostage in Gaza Tuesday evening. He made reports of renewed, indirect Israel-Hamas negotiations on a new deal to secure the release of the 129 hostages still held captive in the Gaza Strip. This, as Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh will reportedly be in Cairo today to take part in those talks. Pressure on the war cabinet to secure a deal has doubled down after the Palestinian Islamic jihad terror organization published a video of two Israeli hostages Tuesday evening, 79-year-old Ghadi Moses and 47-year-old Elad Katsir who were kidnapped from Neil Oz on October 7th. Meanwhile, the IDF is announcing this morning the death of another soldier who was killed in fighting in the Southern Gaza Strip, bringing the death toll of IDF troops to 133. Let's cross over to I-24 News correspondent Pierre Klochenler who is in southern Israel near those communities that were the hardest hit on October 7th. Pierre, the IDF says it's taking control of the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza. Paint us a picture of where the ground operation stands at this moment. Right, the head of the 162 IDF division declared yesterday evening that the northern Gaza Strip has been basically dismantled of any Hamas terrorist structure and that the Hamas brigade that was in control of the Jabalia refugee camp as well as the northern Gaza Strip has been also collapsing with over 1,000 terrorists killed and 500 taken prisoners, among them at least 70 from the Jabalia refugee camp who participated in the October 7th massacre. Now, we're facing the southern sector of the Gaza Strip or at least part of it and you just heard maybe an artillery outgoing and this is the scene here on the right of your monitor. You will see Chejaïa which is probably the last stronghold of Hamas in the northern sector on the southeastern outskirts of Gaza City. The Chejaïa neighborhood or town has been the siege of very hard harsh battles for the past two and a half weeks. Last week we heard that nine Golanee infantry unit brigade died in a very sophisticated ambush and a few days later three hostages were erroneously killed by the Golanee infantry brigade as they were waving a white flag. This is probably the last stronghold that is still standing facing, the IDF there is facing probably the most hardened battle Hamas battalion and on the left you will see already the southern or central sector of the Gaza Strip with the town of Almugraka which is the site of heavy pounding for the past days already because it lies on a very strategic axis another outgoing share on the very strategic axis the Salahadin axis which leads to Hanyunas further down the south in your monitor it would be on the left side. Now Hanyunas is also the site of intensive battles both from the air but also from the ground forces. Defense Minister Joav Galant said yesterday that an additional brigade in reinforcement has been added to the forces that are operating in Hanyunas and on the vicinity of Hanyunas and there's pounding on the places which have not been invested by the Israeli army which is the southern city of Rafah and the central refugee camps of Elburej Nusserat and Direl Balach. Jack Lushander thank you for that update from the Israel-Gaza border. I want to bring into the conversation Professor Kobi Mikhail he's a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies Professor thank you very much for joining me this morning. Good morning. Following the PIJ video of the hostages that was released last night Israel is reportedly seeking a new humanitarian deal to secure the release of 30 to 40 women the sick the elderly. I want to take a listen to one of the mothers of the hostages the mother of Tamir Adal what she had to say following her meeting with Netanyahu last night. Let's take a listen. We held an intimate meeting about 19 families with the Israeli Prime Minister. The meeting was generally positive. I feel there was listening. The meeting was held in an intimate fashion that allowed us to say what we're feeling, what we want, think, demand. The Prime Minister addressed the issues. At this stage I prefer not to specify exactly what was said in order to allow all of the families to meet with the Prime Minister in this format of intimate meetings to allow the Prime Minister to invite the rest of the families that did not attend today's meeting. I think every family should get the opportunity to say what they think, feel, want. To hear directly from the Prime Minister, not through us or through the media. After the Prime Minister finishes this round of meetings with all the families, then we can sit together, all the families, sum up, share insights and decide if we want to respond to anything. At this moment I'm asking you to respect our decision to not reveal the specifics of the meeting. There was listening, there was a positive atmosphere and I am glad we got this opportunity tonight. The bottom line, we understand efforts are being made, processes are underway. Of course we did not get all the details but the conversation was respectful and it's important during these days. There was a lot of criticism following that meeting that Netanyahu only met with 15 to 19 of those families out of all the 129 hostages. Kobe, in your opinion, how long will it take to secure a deal? Look, first of all, with regard to the meeting and the political aspects of the meeting I prefer not to refer to. But I think that the idea that the meeting has been held and the idea that we heard such a message from one of the participants is important at least with regard to the Israeli constituency. Because any sort of tension between the families and the government is something that plays in favor of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic jihad. I think that the Israeli government does all the possible efforts in order to rescue and to release more hostages. But we have to remember with whom we deal eventually. And we have to remember that Hamas will continue holding hostages as a sort of policy insurance for the survival of its leaders. And it is going to be a long journey. And I hope that we will be able to find a way to balance between the humanitarian efforts that will enable us to release more hostages. And in the very same time to continue pressuring Hamas militarily in order to accomplish successfully the mission in the Gaza Strip, which is very crucial for the current stage and for the future. But Kobe, my question is how long will it take to get this deal? I mean, time is running out. It's been 75 days now that these people have been held captive. It will take a time. I think that not less than a week because it is a very complicated negotiation with a very tough, cynical, brutal adversary. And there are some technical problems as well because it is not a direct negotiation. Secondly, Hamas still doesn't hold all the hostages. We saw just yesterday the film that was released by the Palestinian Islamic jihad. And there are hostages that are still held by some others, even civilians. And Hamas has to, first of all, together all the hostages. And this will take time. This is the reason that Hamas, or at least this is the excuse for Hamas to demand a longer calm. And now we are talking about two weeks of calm, something that will play in favor of Hamas as well. But I think that it will take not less than a week in order to see any real progress. Kobi up until now, the exchange of prisoners has been female captives for female Palestinian prisoners. This principle is expected to be the same for elderly hostages. But among those elderly Palestinian prisoners are also senior ones. My question to you is how far is Israel willing to go to secure the release of these hostages? Can we expect Israel to release its more senior prisoners such as Marwan Barghouti, who was convicted for murder and regarded as the leader of the first and the second Intifada? I'm not sure that Marwan Barghouti will be on the list. But I do think that Israel will be more flexible with regard to some other senior Palestinian prisoners, even with blood on their hands, mainly elderly. I think that Israel is willing to pay a high price in this regard. But there are some limits as well. Mainly when we are talking about something as an interim agreement. This is not the final agreement that deals with the release of all the hostages. Maybe in the final stage Israel will be ready to do something like that. But I think that even if it will be done, it will not be in place of the continuation of the military attack against Hamas. Because in this regard Israel is very determined to dismantle the military and the governmental capacities of Hamas. Is Hamas interested in a deal that doesn't include a permanent ceasefire? Yes, of course. I mean Hamas. This is the reason that Hamas will keep a group of hostages as the ultimate policy insurance for their survival. And they will put very heavy and meaningful demands, like international guarantees, that Israel will not kill the leaders of Hamas that will come out of the tunnels. And they will demand that Hamas will remain in the Gaza Strip. They will have very heavy demands that Israel will not be able to accept. But this is something that they will keep for the further phases of the negotiation, not for this phase of negotiation. And speaking of those leaders, a delegation of senior Hamas officials is reportedly expected to arrive in Cairo soon to discuss that hostage with Egyptian intelligence officials. Who benefits from Egypt's involvement as a negotiator? First of all, the Egyptians. They are in a sort of, I would say, competition with the Qatarians because this is something that helps them to leverage their regional position as a very influential regional player. First of all, vis-à-vis the region itself, vis-à-vis Israel and vis-à-vis the Americans and the international community. Secondly, it benefits Israel because I think that from the Israeli point of view, the Egyptian role is much more preferable than the Qatarian role. I see Qatar as a very problematic player here in the region. And I think that it is an Israeli interest that the Egyptians will be more involved and more influential. And I think that if the Egyptians will be more influential, it will help us in the future as well. Turning to the fighting in Gaza, you can see those live images on your screens there of Gaza with big, large plumes of smoke. Kobi, I want to get your take on the shocking revelations of the chief of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza telling the Shembet security agency that Hamas used the hospital for military operations and that even a hostage was held at that medical facility. Let's take a listen. Where is he? What do you think of Hamas? What do you think of Amid? And how did Hamas use the hospital for military operations? They were the ones who hid the picture, they were the political leaders. They were the soldiers, the soldiers were the guards, they were hiding in it. They stayed in it for about 10 days, then they changed to another place and then they went to the hospital. Why did they go to the hospital? Because the hospital is safe, because they are not targeted in the hospital. How many people came? About 100 people came to the hospital. Do you know the hospital you are in? Are they part of the police? Yes. Do you know the 16 people you mentioned? What is their job? Is it in the hospital or outside? Is it in the hospital? Yes, in the hospital. What is their job in the hospital? Their job is either a doctor, or a patient, or a lawyer, or a writer. They have official duties, but they have other duties in the story. Not in the police. There is one in the police. So you are saying that the hospital is safe? Is it safe for military operations? Do you think so? Is Hamas in the hospital? Yes. There is one in Hamas, and two in the police. I mentioned it earlier. The first one is not for the military operations. There is a place for military operations. There is a place for security. There is a place for police. There is a place for investigation. There is a place for security. There is a place for security. All of them have their own lines. They have their own lines. They are all here. Hamas uses special services. Special services? Yes, special services are known. Even if they are different, they are different. Why do they use it? They use it for the military operations. They use it for the house. They use it for other purposes, I don't know. But I saw them going up and down, and they didn't get down. They didn't help us to get down. There is a lot of down. There is a place for security. They take what they need to do to protect the Indians. They go up and down. Why? Their job is important. What is their job? Their job is to clean their blood vessels. So they use it for the house? They use it for other purposes. What do you think about Hamas's wife? I told you they are our wife. Because they used to live in the city. They don't want to hide in places like ours. And they don't want to live in the city. What do you think about me? They don't want to. They don't want to. Klobby, I want to get your take on what we just heard there. It is not surprising at all. Most of the facts or evidence were known, at least in Israel. Here we see that the manager of the hospital is a Hamas member. Even in the rank of Brigadier General. This is the same phenomenon that we found in Shifa Hospital, Mrazi Hospital, and any other hospital or civilian facility. Hamas is deeply embedded in the civil society in Gaza. And Hamas uses all the civilian facilities in Gaza, be it hospitals, clinics, mosques, even UN facilities, even cemeteries, if you want. And unfortunately, the international community is still not convinced in this regard and does not understand how deep Hamas is embedded and how cynical and brutal is the way that Hamas uses the civilians and civilian facilities. I think that this is another evidence, an important evidence. But I'm not sure that this is something that will convince the international community that's still distinguished between the civil society and the civilian facilities and Hamas. Hebrew media is reporting the IDF troops have twice managed to reach tunnels in Gaza in recent days where they believe Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar, was hiding just before they arrived. In your opinion, how long will it take to eliminate him and will he be eliminated in this phase of the war or perhaps further along when the IDF turns to a more targeted killings? I'm not sure that he or other senior officials of Hamas would be eliminated in this phase of the war. I'm pretty sure that it will occur in the future. But I think that we are exaggerating with regard to the importance of these officials, although it's very symbolic and it will contribute at least to the moral of the Israeli constituency. But I think that the most important mission that we have in front of us is to paralyze the main significant or essential centers of gravity of Hamas in a way that will not enable Hamas to continue operating effectively as a military and governmental entity. And this can be done even if Yahya Sinwar and Muhammad definitely remain alive. They will remain alive in the tunnels under the ground because they know that once they will come out of these tunnels, they will not remain alive. But I believe that at the end of the day, in this phase, I mean in Hanyunas area, the IDF will succeed in destroying, eliminating the main centers of gravity of Hamas with Yahya Sinwar or without Yahya Sinwar at the end of the day, we will be able to do that. And we will close what we have to close with Yahya Sinwar and Muhammad there. If not today, it will be tomorrow. Kobe, the conversation continues to revolve around Gaza the day after the war. Different visions on who should be in charge of running the Gaza Strip. In your eyes, what is the ideal solution? There is no ideal solution. There are no solutions at all. I mean, we have to think in terms of managing the situation and improving the situation, not resolving the situation. The Gaza Strip is a sort of a problem without a solution. And we have to internalize it. But I think that the gaps between Israel and the American administration are bridged. And the idea that a sort of a trustee for a sort of an administration that will be composed of the Americans and the Arab countries here in the region that will run the Gaza Strip and train and will educate a sort of a local technical administration in Gaza is an idea that becomes more and more valid. And it looks that this is generally speaking the direction. And I think that anyway we are talking about the process that will last several years until this local administration that might be affiliated even with the future reform Palestinian Authority in the West Bank will be able to run independently and effectively the Gaza Strip with regard to the territory and its population. Kobe, the United States, the European Union and NATO in a collection of 44 other partners released a statement to state condemning Houthi attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea and citing a senior U.S. Diploma Al-Arabiya reporting the U.S. is hoping China will join the Maritime Coalition tasked with countering the Iran-backed Yemeni groups attacks. I want to take a listen to White House National Security Spokesman John Clarice speaking on the matter. Bottom line is these attacks have to stop. They need to stop, they're unacceptable. The United States, our allies and our partners will do what we have to do to counter these threats and to protect these ships. Well, now it just started, didn't it? And there's going to be a whole lot of hardware in the Red Sea now, naval hardware, not just from the United States, but other ships from other nations to counter these threats. So let's see where it goes. I mean, it's up and running now. We hope it gets stronger and we're able to add additional countries and additional capabilities to it. And I think where China could be helpful, quite frankly, is more with the influence that we know they have in Tehran, the conversations that they can have with the Supreme Leader. And we have in the past, and we continue to encourage the Chinese to use that influence, use those conversations to lean on the Supreme Leader and Iran to stop their support for the Houthis. Coby, I want to ask you, how much of a threat do the Houthis actually pose to Israel? And do you expect these confrontations to escalate in the Red Sea? First of all, it's not only an Israeli problem and I'm truly satisfied that at the end of the day, the international community understood that this is a global problem that should be dealt by the international community as well. I do believe that the situation might be escalated and we might find ourselves or this coalition might find itself in sort of a more severe coalition with the Houthis that will include even some attacks of this coalition on the Houthis, on the Yemen soil. But I believe that at the end of the day, there will be no other option but to deal with the Iranians themselves and to hit the Iranians in order to signal them that they have to do something in this regard. On that note, Kobe, we do have to go out to a break. I do want to thank you for joining me this morning and offering us your insight. Thank you. Bye-bye. I, 24 years, will be back at the top of the hour. Don't go anywhere. In a state of war, families completely done down in their beds. We have no idea where she is. Our soldiers are fighting on the front lines but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well. Welcome to the I-24 News Desk. I'm Sarah Martinez, live from Tel Aviv. Today marks the 75th day of the war as Israel's ground operation to dismantle Hamas rages on. Reports are emerging of a renewed, indirect Israel-Hamas negotiations on a new deal to secure the release of the 129 hostages still held captive in the Gaza Strip. The Washington Post reporting Israel is considering agreeing to eat longer ceasefire that could last up to two weeks in order for Hamas to locate the hostages and return them to Israel. Hamas political chief, Ismael Hania, will be in Cairo today to take part in those talks. Earlier this week, he met with the Iranian foreign minister in Qatar. Pressure on the war cabinet to secure a deal has doubled down after Palestinian Islamic jihad published a video of two Israeli hostages on Tuesday, 79-year-old Ghadi Moses and 47-year-old Elad Katsil who were kidnapped from Neil Oz on October 7th. Meanwhile, hostilities continue on Israel's northern border with Lebanon. The IDF reportedly striking in Ait-e-Ashab in southern Lebanon. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with some of the families of Israelis held hostage in Gaza Tuesday evening. Here's what one of the mothers of the hostages, Tamir Adel, had to say after that meeting. We held an intimate meeting about 19 families with the Israeli prime minister. The meeting was generally positive. I feel there was listening. The meeting was held in an intimate fashion that allowed us to say what we're feeling, what we want, think, demand. The prime minister addressed the issues. At this stage, I prefer not to specify exactly what was said in order to allow all of the families to meet with the prime minister in this format of intimate meetings to allow the prime minister to invite the rest of the families that did not attend today's meeting. I think every family should get the opportunity to say what they think, feel, want. To hear directly from the prime minister, not through us or through the media. After the prime minister finishes this round of meetings with all the families, then we can sit together, all the families, sum up, share insights, and decide if we want to respond to anything. At this moment, I'm asking you to respect our decision to not reveal the specifics of the meeting. There was listening, there was a positive atmosphere, and I am glad we got this opportunity tonight. The bottom line, we understand efforts are being made, processes are underway. Of course, we did not get all the details, but the conversation was respectful, and it's important during these days. I'd like to welcome my panel here in studio, Securidad Analyst, Rafael Urshami, former IDF senior intelligence officer, and Bendol Yamini, senior journalist at Yadiot Achanot Daily newspaper. Gentlemen, thank you both for joining me today. Bendol, I want to start with you. There's been criticism over this meeting with Netanyahu and the hostage families. Not all of the hostage families invited, correct? Let me tell you something. I do not belong to the supporters of Netanyahu. In this case, he's completely right. I mean, those meetings that he had before with more than 100 families, which mean hundreds of people, I mean, nothing can come out of those meetings. I mean, a private intimate meeting can actually produce much better kind of understanding. So we have a lot of complaints. Again, Netanyahu, I'm not sure that in this case, it will be the right thing. I think it was correct. In one condition, of course, in one condition, that he's going to meet other families, small groups, but let's go on. I want to discuss this report of this two-week ceasefire for this hostage deal. We're talking about release of women, the elderly, and the sick. There's no mention of men in this deal. How far is Israel willing to go to secure the release of these hostages? Can we expect Israel to release its more senior prisoners, such as Marwan Barbuti, convicted of murder and regarded as one of the leaders of the First and the Second Intifada? Yes, it can happen because we know exactly that at the beginning they always have this kind of demands that nobody's going to accept. Like, for example, now Hamas is asking for the end of the war, something which is totally unacceptable and it will be a political suicide on behalf of Netanyahu. It will not happen. But that's the way. I mean, we have to understand that this is the way negotiations are carried out. Yes, they have their demands. Eventually, we hope, we pray that something will come out of it. We don't know yet. We cannot criticize anybody. And I don't think, I belong to the people who think we should not take that much pressure on the government because actually what happened, and we have to pay attention, the pressure of the families until some weeks ago was in the international public opinion, which was great because this pressure produced something. If they will put all the pressure only, but only on the Israeli government, the meaning is that the price is going to be much higher in the eyes of the Hamas. Speaking of the price, Lafayla, I want to get your take here. Two weeks ceasefire. What would that look like on the ground? Two weeks ceasefire you can live with. It's going to be complicated. It is putting yet again the stop to the momentum of the IDF. But in the meanwhile, we saw that in the last truce, the IDF managed to exploit the free time, if you can call it that, to gather more intel, to regroup, to have more ammunition and equipment being brought in. So in a way, it's not a catastrophe if we have a truce. If this truce brings all the hostages back because we cannot play that game endlessly. First of all, the cloth is sticking for, especially the last batch of the hostages, which are the younger soldiers who are probably the most mistreated. Women who we have been, let's believe. Of course. Of course. At this point, until now, it was okay to play that game because we could save as many as we could. Right now, there is a danger that whoever will save, it will be at the expense of those who stay behind. This is very problematic. Another, like Benjaro said, also the pressure being put on the government, that's not right because it might corner Benjamin Netanyahu in trying to make a political gain by having these hostages really at any price. He's very popular right now in Israel and he's looking for anything that might make him look better. This is one way for him to capitalise politically on this thing and he might accept demands that are not really acceptable. And also the insisting on everybody home, back home, is because we do not still have a real list of who is still alive, who is at the end of the Hamas, who God knows where they are. This is not right. So we're demanding women or children first, but we don't really even have the figures. The main figure being who is still alive because day after day I'm afraid some of the people might just die from the mistreatment they're under. And yet again I'm saying the real danger is to shortchange those who are at the bottom of the list who are the soldiers of the IDF, who are the remaining last card the Hamas can play during this conflict. It's not right not to think about that. You have this time a thing to go for a more overall deal where all the hostages will be liberated, which is of course utopia because the Hamas needs them as a life insurance, et cetera, et cetera. If the Hamas wants a longer truth, it can have it. It just has to do one thing because by now anything that the Hamas will say or anything that the international community wants has only one answer. The Hamas has to lay down their weapons. By the time the Hamas lay down their weapons then Mr. Sinon can say okay, let me be a politician. I'm going to be some guy working with the PLO or going to Doha. It doesn't matter. Would they lay down their arms now? It's the solution to everything including what the Biden administration wants. They will not do it. They're not going to do it. So we have to continue fighting. I want to go back to the price of this hostage deal which would mean the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. How will the Israeli public react to a deal that would include a wide release of Palestinian terror prisoners, including more senior ones? I think under the circumstances, Israel's public opinion will accept it because of what is happening, because of the long that is taking such a long time. But to my opinion, I think Israel should change completely the attitude. And what I speak about is, I mean Israel should initiate something. Because right now it looks like if the Hamas is offering Israel a ceasefire, come on, no, it Israel should initiate something like that, which means we are offering you a long ceasefire, an internal ceasefire. You just have to follow the demands of the international community. So Israel needs to set the table. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Israel has to put the conditions on the table, which means these arming the Gaza Strip, we don't want to kill anybody. We don't want to kill one child. We have to do it, unfortunately, and we are sorry that we have to do it because we are fighting a terror organization which is totally embedded among civilian population. But Israel should initiate something. Why? I mean, what will happen? What will happen if Israel will declare that we begin a ceasefire of 24 hours and you have the time to answer us, to give us. So I don't want the headlines in the world, Israel is refusing a ceasefire. I want the headlines in the world, even if it will not go. Hamas is refusing a ceasefire. Because right now, right now we are losing the battle speaking from the point of view of the public opinion. Gentlemen, stay with me. Let's go over to our correspondent, Pierre Colochandre, who's on the Israel-Gaza border. Pierre, what's the latest where you are? I'm going to show you with Rotem Ben-Chemo the Almugraka town, which is southeast of Gaza City. There was what the Palestinians call a belt of fire, which means intense artillery and Israeli air force bombing on that strategic town because it controls the Salahadin access road to Hanyunas, where the shifting of the battle is occurring right now. Defense Minister Joav Galant and Rear Admiral Daniela Garry of the spokesperson unit of the IDF have said that the army is deploying an additional brigade in Hanyunas, which has been dubbed by Galant as the capital of terrorism now, because the estimate is that the political and military leadership of Hamas is hiding in its underground tunnel network there. But Galant also said that the military operation will expand in areas where the IDF has not yet invested, which is the Rafar city on the border with Egypt and the central refugee camps north of Hanyunas and south of Gaza City. In addition, on the northern eastern side of the picture, you will see Shejaia, which is probably the last stronghold, which is still being fought for between the IDF and one of the most battle-hardened battalions. Earlier on, we just saw the 202 paratrooper battalion of conscripted soldiers getting out of Shejaia for a short leave after having operated in this city for the past three and a half weeks. Shejaia has been the site of bloody encounters and confrontations between the Israeli army and the Hamas battalion there. Nine Golan infantry brigade were killed last week, and three hostages were killed by mistake by the IDF in that same town of Shejaia. Sarah? And Pierre, within that fighting, a game of cat and mouse with Sinois, I understand. Yes, Sinois is probably hiding according to the IDF in the underground tunnel network of Hanyunas, and yet he has many houses in the Gaza Strip. And, for instance, the IDF, when it conquered the refugee camp of Shati on the northern shore of Gaza City, they found a house belonging to him in which there was a secret door leading to an underground tunnel. Now, we know that Sinois is hiding. We know that Sinois is the head of the political branch of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and we understand from the IDF that in a few occasions he left a place of hiding just before the IDF entered that place. And that happened a few times already according to the IDF. Now, of course, that would be the make-of-break of Hamas if the IDF manages to neutralize or catch Yahya Sinois and his military leadership accolades such as Muhammad Def and Marwan Issa. And, Pierre, reports of some progress in indirect Israel-Hamas negotiations on a new deal to secure more hostages. What would that deal entail exactly? Well, we don't exactly know what the deal would entail, but Israel insists on freeing the remaining women and children that are in Hamas's hand. There are about 11. We know also that Israel wants to release the sick and the wounded and the elderly. That would be probably the most vulnerable people that Hamas is holding. Hamas and Palestinian Islamic jihad have released videos of five of the hostages, the elderly hostages. That would mean that Hamas has received the message that Israel is trying to convey to it indirectly through Qatari and Egyptian mediation. And it seems that that message has been released if the elderly are shown alive on video. That's a good sign. We know also that Israel is ready for a prolonged pose in the fighting of over a week to allow the release of those hostages. The ratio for the IDF would be the same. Three Palestinian prisoners for one hostage liberated. We know also that that would entail Palestinian prisoners who have committed crimes, killed Israelis in the past, people who have, according to the Israeli expression, blood in their hand. But we don't know what Hamas is ready to offer. We know Hamas wants a full pull out of Israeli forces, a complete stop in the fighting, two conditions that Israel will never accept. Thank you very much for that update from the Israel-Gaza border. Still with me here in studio, Rafaani Wurshalmi, former IDF's Senior Intelligence Officer and Bender Olyamini, Senior Journalist at Yediot-Runot Daily newspaper. Rafaani, I want to ask you, how do you expect the next few weeks of the war to play out on the ground? Well, everybody seems to say that by the end of January, we might end the massive attack, the ground offensive on Gaza, North, Center and South. It's also an expectation from the Biden administration and the international community that we show should lower the intensity of our attack. Then we go into a very long phase that will request from us a lot of patience and cold-blooded attitude, because for many, many weeks or months we're going to have to do a cleanup. Yesterday, for instance, the IDF announced that the Jebalia camp was under control, that it had been cleaned up, and today we're seeing a lot of bombing on Jebalia, meaning the cleanup is still going on. It has been taking days and days and days to clean up this Jebalia camp. So imagine the whole of the Gaza Strip to have to clean up that, not forgetting that apart from the military branch of the Hamas and neutralizing the armed fighters, we have to get rid of some of the civilian structures of the Hamas, the white color terrorists, all the civil servants that hold key positions and administrate the Gaza Strip that we want to also suck, let's say, away so that the Hamas doesn't control Gaza anymore, politically as well. This will be followed maybe like after a year. Let's say at the end of 2024, it should be followed by what they call the day after arrangements, like sitting around Gaza, not inside Gaza, and we'll only go in like in the West Bank when needed and if there is a threat. All this taking into consideration that somebody will take Gaza over. We take it from our hands. Please take Gaza. We don't want Gaza. We have nothing to do with them. We want to get rid of them, but nobody wants them. Nobody wants to take care of these poor people. And to that point, the Washington Post is also reporting Israeli and American officials have agreed to a rough outline of sorts for a transitional body in Gaza post-war where Hamas wouldn't be able to impose its political will while other Palestinians, most likely from the Palestinian Authority, would take responsibility with governing Gaza with the support of key moderate Arab states. Your analysis on that, what do you think? I think there are some options. We heard also about the option of, instead of Qatar, it should be the Emirates and Saudi Arabia. It can happen. It can happen. But they say we are not willing to come because we do not want, we do not want in any way that Israel will keep on with the same kind of policy, which means no Palestinian state just as was declared a few days ago by Benjamin Netanyahu. So, if you want to find a solution to the Gaza Strip, you have to be much more flexible. Now, just to understand what we're talking about, if you will say, yes, I am accepting the idea of two states for two peoples solution, it's not going to be realized tomorrow. Of course. It's not. So, I mean, and anyway, not long time ago, we don't have to go back to his speech in 2009. We can speak about what happened just in 2020. When he accepted the Trump vision of peace, which means two states for two peoples. I mean, so why don't you say it now? Why? Because you want to have this kind of conflict with the United States. Why? I do not understand sometimes Benjamin Netanyahu, I must admit. I'm not sure that he's doing the right thing. He did not do the right things in the day before. I'm not sure he's going to do the right things in the day after. I'm surely facing a lot of internal pressure. I do want to turn to our correspondent, Zach Anders, who's in the Northern Israel where tensions continue. Zach, what's the latest where you are? Well, we see renewed strikes in southern Lebanon this morning. Apparently, some multiple strikes targeting Hezbollah targets in, again, southern Lebanon. What we saw last night and yesterday was a very busy day of strikes across several different areas here along the northern border. We saw one of the larger barrages of apparent rockets between six and seven. The IDF says rockets were intercepted. We were able to catch some of that late last night, rather. Also, during the day, Hezbollah claimed that they struck an IDF position and that caused extensive damage and casualties. The IDF late last night reporting that two soldiers were injured, but only moderately, that they were taken for treatment and their families were notified. But outside of that, the damage or approximate amount of settlements that were hit in the morning, or all throughout the day, rather, is still unclear. Some of these communities, too, have been largely evacuated and the leaders, the mayors of these communities, have been asked not to return to assess some of the damage in places because the situation is still considered dangerous. So we are not seeing much in way of reporting for damage to buildings and things like that. And you can see on your screens the visuals of those IDF targetings in Southern Lebanon. Zach, I want to ask you, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was just in Israel. Is there any progress on diplomatic efforts to secure a buffer zone on Israel's northern border to push Hezbollah back? And they haven't shared too much as to how the negotiations are taking shape. They also haven't shared who exactly is in the room. The biggest factor here is what will Hezbollah do to what can even be offered to Hezbollah that will get them to back down. But the buffer zone has moved a little. The goalposts on this conversation has moved from the Israelis and it's saying that the 1701 agreement is where the Hezbollah will need to be above the Letani River. Now it's changed to a six-mile buffer. At least this is what we're hearing out of D.C. A six-mile buffer to start is still a progress, at least for these people here in the north, because it does push some of the weapons in Hezbollah's arsenal out of range, such as the anti-tank guided missiles just out of range. So it seems like the six-mile buffer is where the negotiations are taking place. But again, what is being offered to Hezbollah is unclear. Zach Anders, thank you very much for that update from Northern Israel. I want to ask you some 200,000 Israeli families have been displaced from around the country, including Israel's northern border. Is the idea of concern at all about Hezbollah's threat in the north, which has a much larger arsenal than Hamas? Well, it's obvious that quantitatively the Hezbollah presents much more disquieting threats than the Hamas. You can say almost tenfold in the number of missiles and the military capacity. It's also threatening the Haifa area with very strategic civilian infrastructures. One thing we can say about the need to strike in Lebanon, and we are striking. People don't realize that the idea of east striking is striking hard. There are also 100,000 Lebanese who have evacuated south Lebanon. The agriculture is at standstill. It's a very big blow to the Lebanese country. The only problem is that we will have no choice but have a military confrontation because I can guarantee you only one thing. I don't even know what agreement they will reach with the Hezbollah. The Hezbollah will not respect it. That's it. So whatever you're going to sign with them, they're not going to respect it. Two minutes after it's signed, they will breach it. There will be no Hezbollah operators, agents in the buffer zone. There will be only nature reserve rangers and street cleaners, but all of them with a machine gun under the shirt. So we cannot trust the Hezbollah to keep any political diplomatic agreement that will be signed. So the military solution is the only one. We might, we might. This is always the question mark. Let's see what happens if there is a truth in the south with the Hamas, will there be again a truth with the north, with the Hezbollah? Gentlemen, I want to thank you both for joining me. This does wrap up this broadcast. We'll be back at the top of the hour. Don't go anywhere. Israel is in a state of war. Families completely done down in their beds. We have no idea where is she as our soldiers are fighting on the front lines, but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well. 24 News Desk. I'm Sarah Martinez, live from Tel Aviv. Fifth day of the war as Israel's ground operation to dismantle Hamas rages on. Reports are emerging of a renewed, indirect Israel-Hamas negotiations on a new deal to secure the release of the 129 hostages still held captive in the Gaza Strip. The Washington Post reporting Israel is considering agreeing to a longer ceasefire that could last up to two weeks in order for Hamas to locate the hostages and return them to Israel. Hamas political chief Ismail Haniah will be in Cairo today to take part in those talks. Earlier this week, he met with the Iranian foreign minister in Qatar. Pressure on the war cabinet to secure a deal has doubled down after Palestinian Islamic jihad published a video of two Israeli hostages on Tuesday, 79-year-old Ghadi Moses and 47-year-old Elad Katsil, who were kidnapped from the U.S. on October 7th. Meanwhile, hostilities continue on Israel's northern border with Lebanon. The IDF reportedly striking in Ait-e-Ashab in southern Lebanon. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with some of the families of Israelis held hostage in Gaza Tuesday evening. Here's what one of the mothers of the hostages, Tamir Adel, had to say after that meeting. We held an intimate meeting about 19 families with the Israeli Prime Minister. The meeting was generally positive. I feel there was listening. The meeting was held in an intimate fashion that allowed us to say what we're feeling, what we want, think, demand. The Prime Minister addressed the issues. At this stage, I prefer not to specify exactly what was said in order to allow all of the families to meet with the Prime Minister in this format of intimate meetings to allow the Prime Minister to invite the rest of the families that did not attend today's meeting. All of the families should get the opportunity to say what they think, feel, want. To hear directly from the Prime Minister, not through us or through the media. After the Prime Minister finishes this round of meetings with all the families, then we can sit together, all the families, sum up, share insights, and decide if we want to respond to anything. At this moment, I'm asking you to respect our decision to not reveal the specifics of the meeting. There was listening, there was a positive atmosphere, and I am glad we got this opportunity tonight. The bottom line, we understand efforts are being made, processes are underway. Of course, we did not get all the details, but the conversation was respectful, and it's important during these days. I'd like to welcome my panel here in studio, Security Analyst, Rafael Urshami, former IDF Senior Intelligence Officer, and Bendro Yemini, Senior Journalist at Yadiot, Achonot Daily newspaper gentlemen. Thank you both for joining me today. Bendro, I want to start with you. There's been criticism over this meeting with Netanyahu and the hostage families, not all the hostage families invited, correct? Let me tell you something. I do not belong to the supporters of Netanyahu. In this case, he's completely right. Those meetings that he had before with more than 100 families, which mean hundreds of people, nothing can come out of those meetings. I mean, a private intimate meeting can actually produce much better kind of understanding. So we have a lot of complaints. Again, Netanyahu, I'm not sure that in this case it will be the right thing. I think it was correct. In one condition, of course, in one condition, that he's going to meet other families, small groups, but let's go on. I want to discuss this report of this two-week ceasefire for this hostage deal. We're talking about release of women, the elderly and the sick. There's no mention of men in this deal. How far is Israel willing to go to secure the release of these hostages? Can we expect Israel to release its more senior prisoners, such as Marwan Barbuti, convicted of murder and regarded as one of the leaders of the first war? Yes, it can happen, because we know exactly that at the beginning they always have this kind of demands that nobody is going to accept. Like, for example, now Hamas is asking for the end of the war. Something which is totally unacceptable and it will be a political suicide on behalf of Netanyahu. It will not happen. But that's a way. We have to understand that this is a way negotiations are carried out. Yes, they have their demands. Eventually, we hope we pray that something will come out of it. We don't know yet. We cannot criticize anybody and I don't think I belong to the people who think we should not accept that much pressure on the government because actually what happened, and we have to pay attention, the pressure of the families until some weeks ago was in the international public opinion, which was great because this pressure produced something. If they will put all the pressure only, but only on the Israeli government, the meaning is that the price is going to be much higher in the eyes of the Hamas. Speaking of the price, Rafael, I want to get to your take here. A two-week ceasefire. What would that look like on the ground? Two-week ceasefire you can live with. It's going to be complicated. It is putting yet again the stop to the momentum of the IDF. But in the meanwhile, we saw that in the last truce, the IDF managed to exploit the free time, if you can call it that, we have more ammunition and equipment being brought in. So in a way, it's not a catastrophe if we have a truce. If this truce brings all the hostages back because we cannot play that game endlessly. First of all, the clot is taking for especially the last batch of the hostages, which are the younger soldiers who are probably the most mistreated women who we have been let's believe. Of course. At this point, until now, it was okay to play that game because we could save as many as we could. Right now, there is a danger that whoever will save will be at the expense of those who stay behind. This is very problematic. Another, like Benjaro said, also the pressure being put on the government, that's not right because it might corner Benjamin Netanyahu in trying to make a political gain by having these hostages really at any price. He's very popular right now in Israel. And he's looking for anything that might make him look better. This is one way for him to capitalize politically on this thing and he might accept demands that are not really acceptable. And also the insisting on everybody home, back home, is because we do not still have a real list of who is still alive, who is at the end of the Hamas, who is God knows where they are. This is not right. So we're demanding women or children first, but we don't really even have the figures. The main figure being who is still alive, because day after day, I'm afraid some of the people might just die from the mistreatment there and yet again I'm saying the real danger is to shortchange those who are at the bottom of the list who are the soldiers of the IDF, who are the remaining last cards the Hamas can play during this conflict. It's not right not to think about that. You have this time I think to go for a more overall deal where all the hostages will be liberated, which is of course utopia, because the Hamas needs them as a life insurance etc. If the Hamas wants a longer truth, it can have it. It just have to do one thing, because by now anything that the Hamas will say or anything that the international community wants has only one answer. The Hamas has to lay down their weapons. By the time the Hamas lay down their weapons then Mr. Sinon can say let me be a politician. I'm going to be some guy working with the PLO or going to Doha. It doesn't matter would they lay down their arms now? It's the solution to everything including what the administration wants. They will not do it and they are going to do it, so we have to continue fighting. I want to go back to the price of this hostage deal, which would include the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. How will the Israeli public react to a deal that would include a wide release of Palestinian terror prisoners including more senior ones? I think under the circumstances, Israel public opinion will accept it because of what is happening, because of the long that is taking such a long time. But to my opinion I think Israel should change completely the attitude and what I speak about is I mean Israel should initiate something, because right now it looks like if the Hamas is offering Israel a ceasefire, come on, no it Israel that should initiate something like that, which means we are offering you a long ceasefire, an internal ceasefire. You just have to follow the demands of the international community. So Israel needs to set the table. Israel has to put the conditions on the table, which means this arming the Gaza Strip we don't want to kill anybody. We don't want to kill one child. We have to do it unfortunately and we are sorry that we have to do it because we are fighting a terror organization which is totally embedded among civilian population but Israel should initiate something. What will happen if Israel will declare we begin a ceasefire of 24 hours and you have the time to answer us to give us. So I don't want the headlines in the world Israel is refusing a ceasefire I want the headlines in the world even if it will not go. Hamas is refusing a ceasefire because right now right now we are losing the battle speaking from the point of view of the public opinion. Gentlemen stay with me. I want to cross over to our correspondent the Israel-Gaza border. Pierre what's the latest where you are? I'm going to show you with Rotem Ben-Chemo the Al Mugraka town which is southeast of Gaza city. There was what the Palestinians call a belt of fire which means intense artillery and Israeli air force bombing on that strategic town because it controls the Salahadin access road to Hanunas where the shifting of the battle is occurring right now. Defense Minister Joav Galant and Rear Admiral Daniela Garry of the Spokesperson unit of the IDF have said that the army is deploying an additional brigade in Hanunas which has been dubbed by Galant as the capital of terrorism now because the estimate is that the political and military leadership of Hamas is hiding in its underground tunnel networks there. But Galant also said that the military operation will expand in areas where the IDF has not yet invested which is the Rafar city on the border with Egypt and the central refugee camps north of Hanunas and south of Gaza city. In addition on the on the northern eastern side of the picture you will see Shejaia Shejaia which is probably the last stronghold which is still being fought for between the IDF and one of the most battle-hardened battalion earlier on we just saw the 202 paratrooper battalion of conscript soldiers getting out of Shejaia for a short leave after having operated in this city for the past three and a half weeks Shejaia has been the site of bloody encounters and confrontations between the Israeli army and the Hamas battalion there nine Golan infantry brigade were killed last week and three hostages were killed by mistake by the IDF in that same town of Shejaia, Sarah and Pierre within that fighting a game of cat and mouse with Sinois I understand Yes, Sinois is probably hiding according to the IDF in the underground tunnel network of Hanunas and yet he has many houses in the Gaza Strip and for instance the IDF when it conquered Tujikamp of Shatti on the northern shore of Gaza city they found a house belonging to him in which there was a secret door in leading to an underground tunnel now we know that Sinois is hiding we know that Sinois is the head of the political branch of Hamas in the Gaza Strip and we understand from the IDF that in a few occasions he left a place of hiding just before the IDF entered that place and that happened a few times already according to the IDF now, of course that would be the make of break of Hamas if the IDF manages to neutralize or catch Yeah, Sinois and his and his military leadership acolyte such as Muhammad the IDF and Marwan Issa and Pierre reports of some progress in indirect Israel Hamas negotiations on a new deal to secure more hostages what would that deal entail exactly well, we don't exactly know what the deal would entail but Israel insists on freeing the remaining women and children that are in Hamas's hand there about 11 we know also that the Sikh and the wounded and the elderly that would be probably the most vulnerable people that Hamas is holding Hamas and Palestinian Islamic jihad have released videos of 5 of the hostages, the elderly hostages that would mean that Hamas has received the message that Israel is trying to convey to it indirectly through Qatari and Egyptian mediation and it seems that that message has been released if the elderly are shown alive on video that's a good sign we know also that the Israel is ready for a prolonged pose in the fighting of over a week to allow the release of those hostages, the ratio for the IDF would be the same three Palestinian prisoners for one hostage liberated we know also that that would entail Palestinian prisoners who have committed crimes killed Israelis in the past, people who have according to the Israeli expression blood in their hand but we don't know what Hamas is ready to offer we know Hamas wants a full pull out of Israeli forces a stop in the fighting, two conditions that Israel will never accept thank you very much for that update from the Israel Gaza border still with me here in studio, Rafael Iwushalmi former IDF senior intelligence officer and Benderol Yamini, senior journalist at the daily newspaper Rafael, I want to ask you how do you expect the next few weeks of the war to play out on the ground well everybody seems to say that by the end of January we might end the massive attack, the ground offensive on Gaza north, center and south it's also an expectation from the Biden administration and the international community that we show should lower the intensity of our attack then we go into a very long phase that will request from us a lot of patients the cold-blooded attitude because for many, many weeks or months we're going to have to do a cleanup yesterday for instance the IDF announced that the Jebalia camp was under control that it had been cleaned up and today we're seeing a lot of bombing on Jebalia meaning the cleanup is still going on it's been taking days and days and days to clean up this Jebalia camp so imagine the whole Gaza Strip to have to clean up that not forgetting that apart from the military branch of the Hamas and neutralizing the armed fighters we have to get rid of some of the civilian structure of the Hamas the white color terrorists all the civil servants that hold key positions and administrate the Gaza Strip that we want to also suck let's say away so that the Hamas doesn't control Gaza anymore politically as well this will be followed maybe like after years at the end of 2024 should be followed by what they call the day after arrangements where the IDF is sitting around Gaza not inside Gaza and will only go in like in the West Bank when needed and if there is a threat all this taking into consideration that somebody will take Gaza over we take it from our hands please take Gaza we don't want Gaza we have nothing to do with them we want to get rid of them but nobody wants them nobody wants to take care of these poor people and to that point the Washington Post is also reporting Israeli and American officials have agreed to a rough outline of sorts for transitional body in Gaza post war where Hamas wouldn't be able to impose its political will while other Palestinians would take responsibility with governing Gaza with the support of key moderate Arab states your analysis on that what do you think? I think there are some options we heard also about the option of instead of Qatar it should be the Emirates and Saudi Arabia it can happen it can happen but they say we are not willing to come because we do not want any way that Israel will keep on with the same kind of policy which means not Palestinian state just as was declared a few days ago by Benjamin Netanyahu so if you want to find a solution to the Gaza Strip you have to be much more flexible now just to understand what we are talking about if he will say yes I am accepting the idea of two states for two peoples solution it's not going to be realized tomorrow it's not so I mean and anyway not long time ago we don't have to go back to his speech in 2009 we can speak about what happened just in 2020 when he accepted the Trump vision of peace which means two states for two peoples so why don't you say it now why because you want to have this kind of conflict with the United States why I do not understand sometimes Benjamin Netanyahu I must admit I'm not sure that he's doing the right thing he did not do the right things in the day before I'm not sure he's going to do the right things in the day after I'm surely facing a lot of internal pressure I do want to turn to our correspondent Zach Anders who's in the northern northern Israel where tensions continue Zach what's the latest where you are well we see renewed strikes in southern Lebanon this morning apparently some multiple strikes targeting Hezbollah targets in again southern Lebanon what we saw last night and yesterday was a very busy day of strikes across several different areas here along the northern border we saw one of the larger barrages of apparent rockets between 6 and 7 the IDF says rockets were intercepted we were able to catch some of that early or late last night also during the day Hezbollah claimed that they struck an IDF position and caused extensive damage and casualties the IDF late last night reporting that two soldiers were injured but only moderately that they were taken for treatment and their families were notified but outside of that the damage or approximate amount of settlements that were hit in the morning is all throughout the day rather is still unclear some of these communities too have been largely evacuated and the leaders the mayors of these communities have been asked not to return to assess some of the damage in places because the situation is still considered dangerous so we are not seeing much in way of reporting for damage to buildings and things like that and you can see on your screens visuals of those IDF targetings in southern Lebanon Zach I want to ask you US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was just in Israel is there any progress on diplomatic efforts to secure a buffer zone on Israel's northern border to push Hezbollah back and they haven't shared too much as to how the negotiations are taking shape they also haven't shared who exactly is in the room the biggest factor here is what will Hezbollah agree to what can you even be offered to Hezbollah that will get them to back down but the buffer zone has moved a little the goalpost on this conversation has moved from the Israelis and it saying that the 1701 agreement is where the Hezbollah will need to be above the border now it's changed to a six mile buffer at least this is what we're hearing out of DC a six mile buffer to start is still a progress at least for these people here in the north because it does push some of the weapons in Hezbollah's arsenal out of range such as the anti-tank guided missiles just out of range so it seems like the six mile buffer is where the negotiations are taking place but again what is being offered to Hezbollah is unclear. Zach Anders thank you very much for that update from northern Israel Still with you here in studio Reflande Roushami, Ben Dori and we need gentlemen I want to ask you some 200,000 Israeli families have been displaced from around the country including Israel's northern border is the idea of concerned at all about Hezbollah's threat in the north which has a much larger arsenal than Hamas? Well it's obvious that quantitatively the Hamas the Hezbollah presents a much more disquieting threat than the Hamas you can say almost tenfold in the number of missiles and the military capacity it's also threatening the Haifa area with very strategic civilian infrastructures one thing we can say about the need to strike in the Lebanon and where striking people don't realize that the idea is striking is striking hard there are also 100,000 Lebanese who have evacuated south Lebanon the agriculture is at standstill it's a very big blow to the Lebanese country the only problem is that we will have no choice but have a military confrontation because I can guarantee you only one thing I don't even know what agreement they will reach with the Hezbollah the Hezbollah will not respect it that's it so whatever you're going to sign with them they're not going to respect it two minutes after it's signed they will breach it there will be no Hezbollah operators, agents in the buffer zone there will be only nature reserve rangers and street cleaners but all of them with a machine gun under the shirt so we cannot trust the Hezbollah to keep any diplomatic agreement that will be signed so the military solution is the only one we might, we might this is always the question mark see what happens if there is a truth in the south with the Hamas will there be again a truth with the north with the Hezbollah gentlemen I want to thank you both for joining me this does wrap up this broadcast we'll be back at the top of the hour don't go anywhere Shrail is in a state of war no idea where is she as our soldiers are fighting on the front line but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well Welcome to the I-24 news desk I'm Sarah Martinez live from Tel Aviv Today marks the 75th day of the war as Israel's ground operation to dismantle Hamas rages on reports are emerging of renewing indirect Israel Hamas negotiations on a new deal pardon to secure the release of the 129 hostages still held captive in the Gaza Strip today marks the 75th day of the war as Israel's ground operation to dismantle Hamas rages on still held captive in the Gaza Strip the Washington Post reporting Israel is considering agreeing to a long ceasefire that could last up to two weeks in order for Hamas to locate the hostages and return them to Israel Hamas political chief Ismail Hania will be in Cairo today to take part in those talks that follows meeting earlier this week with Iranian Foreign Minister in Qatar pressure on the war cabinet to secure a deal has doubled down after the Israeli-Islamic jihad published a video of two Israeli hostages Tuesday evening 79-year-old Gadi Moses and 47-year-old Elal Katsir were kidnapped from Nile Oz on October 7 meanwhile the IDF preemptively struck Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon a short while ago as hostilities continue between Israel and Hezbollah and let's cross over to I-24 news correspondent Pierre Klochender who's on the Israel-Gaza border what's the latest where you are? Well, we'll show you with Rotem Ben-Femo the southeastern part of Gaza city which has been under very intensive bombing what the Palestinians are calling belts of fire on pounding presumed terror targets of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic jihad earlier we've seen also the engineering of a tunnel network destruction it was very clear that it was a tunnel destruction in the sense that it was a very large and wide explosion of white clouds and without any warning from an artillery outgoing shell or from the roaring of an air force jet fighting is intensifying in the southern sector of the Gaza Strip with a lot of bombardments of presumed terror targets in the central refugee camps of Borej Nussera, Direl Balak and then in Hanyouness the capital of terror according to the defense minister you have Galant in Hanyouness you have troops operating within the city in the heart of the city with division 98 of elite commando units operating in the heart of the city but also on the eastern and northwestern outskirts of the city also in Rafar on the southern tip of the Gaza Strip heavy pounding of presumed terror targets and you have Galant as said yesterday evening while touring the border with the Gaza Strip that the IDF would expand its operation to places that have not yet been invested which means the southern tip city of Rafar and the central area of the refugee camps in addition in Hanyouness another brigade has been deployed in addition to the operating brigades inside Hanyouness that means that Hanyouness is really the big trophy that the IDF wants to get because they believe that the political and military leadership of Hamas are hidden internal networks underneath the city and Pierre reports of some progress in indirect Israel Hamas negotiations to secure a new deal to release more hostages what more can you tell us about that deal we know what are Israel's demand and we know that Hamas has internalized these demands because they've published videos of elderly Israelis that are held hostages inside the gels of Hamas for 75 days we know that Israel wants to release those elderly hostages as well as those who are sick or wounded from the October 7 massacre we know also that there are about 11 women and the two children Ariel and Pierre Bibas that are held hostage in Hamas's gels and Israel wants to have them released first and foremost Hamas is internalizing those demands but the demand that Israel pulls out its troops of Gaza and also that the fighting stops completely and that of course is unacceptable by Israel Thank you very much for that update from the Israel Gaza border I want to welcome my guest here in studio Mark Schulman editor-in-chief at History Central and columnist at Newsweek also joining us for this conversation is journalist Niri Zilber adjunct fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy thank you both for joining me Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with some of the families of Israelis held hostage in Gaza Tuesday evening I want to take a listen to the mother of Tamir Adal he's one of the hostages and what she had to say after the meeting let's take a listen we held an intimate meeting about 19 families with the Israeli Prime Minister the meeting was generally positive the meeting was held in an intimate fashion that allowed us to say what we're feeling what we want, think, demand the Prime Minister addressed the issues at this stage I prefer not to specify exactly what was said in order to allow all of the families to meet with the Prime Minister in this format of intimate meetings to allow the Prime Minister to invite the rest of the families that did not attend today's meeting I think every family should get the opportunity to say what they think, feel, want to hear directly from the Prime Minister not through us or through the media after the Prime Minister finishes this round of meetings with all the families then we can sit together, all the families sum up, share insights and decide if we want to respond to anything at this moment I'm asking you to respect our decision to not reveal the specifics of the meeting there was listening, there was a positive atmosphere and I am glad we got this opportunity tonight the bottom line we understand efforts are being made processes are underway of course we did not get all the details but the conversation was respectful and it's important during these days Mire, I want to start with you there's been mounting pressure on Netanyahu to secure a deal to the release of the hostages but some critics say that pressure on the war cabinet is playing into Hamas' game what's your take on that there's obviously rising pressure both by the families and also the wider public we just have to think back how the war started Netanyahu and some of his senior ministers didn't even really mention the hostages or if they did it was essentially a second or third order priority and that's obviously changed massively in the past month we saw the hostage deal late last month and that was widely supported by the Israeli public and now the hostage families as well as their supporters in Israel and around the world are demanding something similar now we have to remember too it's not just on the Netanyahu government to strike a deal to release the hostages there is another side Hamas that has to be negotiated with and so your question is well taken what price will Hamas demand will Israel be willing to meet that price and Hamas actually negotiating in good faith or is it just trying to run out the clock as we know it's been trying to do since the beginning of the war to force Israel to actually stop the overall campaign And as we just heard our correspondent Pierre Kloschenler disclose these new negotiations would include women, the sick elderly but it doesn't include men Neri how far is Israel willing to go to secure the release of hostages and do you believe that Israel will release its more senior Palestinian prisoners some of whom have been in charge of at least headed the first and the second atifada? That's the key question there are people inside the war cabinet and also a lot of people amongst regular Israelis who are willing to strike that kind of deal what's called all for all all the Israeli hostages held in captivity in Gaza in return for in theory all the Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli jails that's six to seven thousand people including like you said terrorists with blood on their hands there are some people in Israel willing to count in that deal but there are others primarily from the Israeli right but not we say something like that should not be agreed to despite and with all the difficulty involved you know for the hostages and their families and that's really the crux of the matter no one in Israel I believe is against the hostage release deal like we saw last month just a question about the price with me here in studio Mark Shulman Mark I want to get your take on how this is being viewed from an American optic an American point of view here well look the two parts of it the Americans are very interested in the hostage deal President Biden obviously has taken a very strong interest in the hostage deal it ties into the feeling that needs to be some sort of humanitarian pause the problem once again comes back to the price and the time because the humanitarian pause for a week or two is one thing ending the war the Americans are not in favor of Israel ending the war at least the American administration I don't want to say Americans we'll get into that later I gather but the administration doesn't want Israel to end the war there's also a question the United States wouldn't come wouldn't make a deal all for all let's be quite honest the United States wouldn't make a deal for a hundred hostages to clear out all the federal prisoners of all the people who've been convicted of terrorism acts in the last 20 years it wouldn't happen in the United States I don't think it's going to happen here either I think Israel will be willing to pay a price willing to give 10 terrorists for every person but all the everybody in our jails all 6,000 terrorists for 100 people now there really aren't probably aren't very few women if any I don't see Israel going for all for all at the very beginning they might have worked but now I don't think so and I don't think how much will either they want to hold this to the very end they want us out of there that's the key card and Mary the Washington Post is also reporting the Biden administration officials want Israel to move to a quote less intense stage of the battle soon ideally within the next 11 days that's by January 1st but the U.S. is still insisting that it's not putting a timetable on Israel's are the Americans and the Israelis on the same page here so I'm a bit familiar with the Washington Post report I reported something similar several weeks ago that Israel as of January was planning on shifting into the lower intensity phase of the war against Hamas and Gaza and now it's just a question of the time and also progress on the ground so I don't believe we're going to come to a situation on New Year's Day where the Biden administration will tell Israel we need to shift to the lower intense phase of the operation that's not how it works and I don't believe the Americans are there either we've heard now for several weeks that the Americans are urging Israel to wrap up in several weeks and that's that hasn't come to pass over the past two months so we have to wait and see what happens once we get into January how the Biden administration responds to developments on the ground how much progress the IDF itself believes it has been it has made Israel countenance a shift to a lower intensity phase if some of those war objectives have not yet been met say in mid to late January but this was always the Israeli plan to shift into a lower intensity phase at some point in early 2024 but it's protecting Israel longer than expected that's part of the problem and the Washington Post is also reporting Israeli American officials have agreed on a rough outline for a transitional body in Gaza after the war where Hamas not impose its political will while other Palestinians most likely from the Palestinian Authority would take responsibility with governing Gaza Niri I want to ask you first what would that look like concretely on the ground well concretely on the ground it would look like a mess at least for the coming year this transition and stabilization period the Israelis expect will last for much of 2024 now what that would encompass is an open question from David Ignatius in the Washington Post this morning it's essentially all of the above framework you know Palestinian Authority components local Gaza power brokers and technocrats you know enveloped by a wider international era peacekeeping force while Israel itself the IDF has overall security responsibility that all sounds great on paper on a PowerPoint slide in reality on the ground if you still have pockets even several thousand armed Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip they can very easily impose their will on whatever Palestinian Authority or local or even Arab or national force is moved into the Gaza Strip that will essentially be the crux of the problem for most of 2024 if Hamas is still able to exert its will even through several thousand armed gunmen that could derail the entire transition and stabilization program and process and as we speak about the war here in Israel and other interesting developments in the United States ahead of elections that have direct implications on US policy in the Middle East the state of Colorado Supreme Court has dis qualified Donald Trump from running on the 2024 ballot let's take a listen to Trump's reaction it's no wonder crooked Joe Biden and the far left lunatics are desperate to stop us by any means necessary there willing to violate the US constitutions at levels never seen in order to win this election Joe Biden is a threat to democracy it's a threat they're weaponizing law enforcement for high level election interference because we're beating them so badly in the polls Mark Shulman I want to get your reaction to Colorado basically disqualifying Trump here okay so what happened yesterday was the Supreme Court of Colorado decided it and it decided on a local court which had decided that had ruled that Trump had indeed been an insurrectionist in what he did on January 6 in the events leading up to January 6 he however sort of dodged the issue by claiming that Trump wasn't an offer that the presidency wasn't an officer of the United States now the language of the amendment to the Constitution this was passed after the Civil War but I remind everybody that they passed an amendment to the Constitution they didn't pass the law when you pass something for the Constitution it's forever it's not something to be blamed for this particular time and it says no person shall be a senator or a representative in the Congress or a elector of the president or vice president or hold any office civil or military under the United States or any state who having previously taken an oath to the Constitution Trump had taken an oath to the Constitution the local judge said the presidency wasn't an officer it was an absurd ruling on his part he had to be elected and he didn't want to be the one saying that Trump couldn't run the Colorado Supreme Court looked at the amendment of the Constitution and said presidency is an officer of the United States and therefore Trump falls under it so under this ruling he cannot be on the ballot as a nominee for the Republican Party of course this will have the same effect if he's tried to be put on the ballot for the presidency as well so it's not only it's temporarily the ruling for the nomination hopefully this will wake up the Republicans maybe maybe we should nominate somebody else but it was clearly the right choice constitutionally politically it's a whole other story but once one judge came to this conclusion and one judge came to this the conclusion of law or the Supreme Court it's going to go to the United States Supreme Court I believe the US Supreme Court is going to uphold it as much as their conservatives they really don't want Donald Trump back in the office of president they want some other conservative there so that is my guess is the Supreme Court is going to uphold this and the way that goes afterwards who knows chaos for a little while to say the least and other states follow? Yes every state can follow every state has its own rules for the purposes of nominating somebody this is a nomination don't forget this wasn't of an election however once it gets the question of the national ballot then the whole question can be litigated in every single state court and if the Supreme Court rules in favor of this in favor of the ruling supports it it's going to be very difficult for Trump to end up being on the ballot everywhere and of course all you need is a couple of key states but then the election is over Mary I want to get your take well that clip that you saw of Trump reacting to the Colorado Supreme Court decision tell us everything we need to know about the current moment he's alleging that Joe Biden is trying to undermine American democracy that he's using the powers of his office to undermine the upcoming election and we know it wasn't that long ago that Donald Trump is president actively undermined or tried to undermine American democracy actively used the powers of his office to foment a mob that sacked the capitol and tried to stop the certification of the result of the election and so up is down down is up and so like Mark said it'll go to the Supreme Court in Washington you know I'm not that confident the Supreme Court will uphold the decision but we can only hope and yet a surprising poll by the New York Times found that overall 57% of voters disapprove of Biden's handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict while just 33% approve and even more surprisingly is 48% of voters said that they would trust Donald Trump more than Biden on the issue by a margin of 8% Mark I want to get your take on this first of all it's not a fair poll because the minute you had Biden there you're gonna have 30 to 40% of the people whose policies we would say it's bad so that's number one so it really doesn't give us a good idea of support for the actual American policy as opposed to Biden doing it or Trump doing it so that's not the issue of course those people who support Trump think he's gonna be more pro-Israel those people don't they don't do those you know in the other direction altogether the more troubling part of that poll was not that it was again once again the age group of 18 to 24 and that poll had talked about 18 to 24 year olds and I don't remember the exact number but at least 50% of them supported the Hamas slash Palestinians over Israel in that age group now the New York Times actually had another interesting part of the poll they didn't give the statistics but they wrote about it in the article that those people who use tiktok a lot regardless of the age are more likely to support the Palestinians and more likely to have a negative opinion of Israel so clearly tiktok which is very prevalent amongst the younger generation is having a tremendous impact on the perceptions of this war look we also have to keep in mind the fact you know I listen to the news hour every morning which I used to do in America years and years ago I listened to it by as a podcast every single day since almost the beginning of the war at least after the first week or two the lead article is about this family in Gaza who was killed and that family who was killed and that woman who was killed etc etc every morning that is the every night in America every night what does that do week after week after week if that's what everyone sees is the lead story every night Nair I want to get your take well obviously concerning in terms of the impact the Gaza war is having on domestic US politics it boggles the mind that there is a large group especially of liberal or democratic voters who think that getting rid of Joe Biden and helping re-elect Donald Trump will somehow punish Israel and help the Palestinians I don't know how that works in reality given Trump's track record in office and so you can only hope that the election is what 11 months away in America that both the Gaza situation and the overall politics and security situation in the Middle East stabilizes and that Joe Biden does what he's done throughout most of his career is that you know the moment he's you know called out and people kind of write him off he actually amounts to come back and is actually much stronger come election day than the polls would indicate Alright I want to cross over to I24 News correspondent Zach Anders he's in northern Israel where tensions continue Zach we're new exchange of fire the idea of preemptively striking in southern Lebanon I understand Yeah we're seeing that as well these strikes in southern Lebanon appear to be in retaliation for what was taking place yesterday and late last night these attacks in the upper Galilee with multiple rocket barrages we were watching as some of those were intercepted last night we still don't have any reports of damages or casualties from late last night but earlier in the day yesterday apparently two IDF soldiers were wounded moderately wounded and taken to nearby medical centers Hezbollah has announced late into the evening yesterday as well more deaths on their side 116 now is the standing number for Hezbollah militants killed in this fighting and Zach any progress on diplomatic efforts to secure buffer zone? The last update we have is about 24 hours old now and these updates are coming out of both DC and New York the United Nations appears to be trying to facilitate what they can some of these talks but mostly that it appears that the US and France actually are the ones party to negotiations but one of the big absent pieces here is Hezbollah and Nasrallah not in the room apparently not a part of these negotiations where the US and other stakeholders are attempting to find some ability to create this buffer zone is within these political factions inside Lebanon from some reports sources in the states indicating that they're trying to find ways to incentivize this deal with aid even potentially withholding some of the current aid that's flowing into the country but again where all this stands with Hezbollah who in the end are going to be the ones that need to move out of this buffer zone either on their own accord or by force is the big question and despite these diplomatic efforts numerous security officials and commentators have said there's just no avoiding it there will be some sort of confrontation between the IDF and Hezbollah direct confrontation tell me there's been 200,000 Israeli families displaced by this war both in south as well as in the north when can these northern Israeli families expect to go home and if an operation at that scale does open up is going to be a very very long time it's going to take a couple of things for any sort of safety here for these people to be able to return one Hezbollah will need to have been pushed back a considerable distance out of range of the weapons that they have in their arsenal like these ATGMs the anti-tank guided missiles they can fire they need a line of sight and they're launched by personnel on the ground to fire for miles before hitting their target the artillery the mortars that also have a range of several miles will need to be pushed back and eliminated and then at that point even with a buffer created you still have heavy rockets that can be launched much further away with range of tens of sometimes even hundreds of miles and then at that point everyone here in the north is still at risk so from what the IDF has been telling communicating to some of the residents here is to brace for the long haul to not expect that these evacuation orders will be lifted anytime soon but they don't get any sort of firm timeline whether that's weeks or months or even longer but if an operation does open up here and their diplomatic talks break down then people are expecting this to be a very long time Zach Anders thank you for that update from the Israel Lebanon border still with me Neri Zilber and Mark Shulman Neri I want to start with you the US and France are insisting on a diplomatic solution to deter tensions the north with Hezbollah but do they truly understand who the IDF is dealing with here they do they do both the Biden administration and the administration of President Macron are very clear-eyed about the problem they're just trying to resolve it diplomatically in the first instance in other words they're going to give diplomacy a shot I don't know what percentage success they think they may have and to find a deal that pushes Hezbollah at least a few kilometers off the border with Israel and in return there may be a demarcation kind of ironing out the 12 or 13 remaining points of dispute on the Israel Lebanon border that in theory is what the package and the compromise that's being offered I'm not entirely convinced Hezbollah and its leader Hassan Asrallah will go for that but the Americans and the French are intent on trying and short of that Israel will likely feel the need to take military action to resolve the problem Neri Zilber, adjunct fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy Mark Schulman editor-in-chief at History Central and columnist at Newsweek I want to thank you both for joining me today and that wraps this hour's broadcast way back at the top of the hour with more rolling coverage of the war here in Israel is in a state of war families completely done down in their beds we have no idea where is she as our soldiers are fighting on the front line but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well welcome to the I-24 news desk I'm Sarah Martinez live from Tel Aviv today marks the 75th day of the war as Israel's ground operation to dismantle Hamas rages on reports are emerging for new indirect Israel Hamas negotiations on a new deal pardon to secure the release of the 129 hostages still held captive in the Gaza Strip the Washington Post reporting Israel is considering agreeing to a long ceasefire that could last up to two weeks in order for Hamas to locate the hostages and return them to Israel Hamas political chief Ismael Hania will be in Cairo today to take part in those talks meeting earlier this week with Iranian foreign minister in Qatar pressure on the war cabinet to secure a deal has doubled down after Palestinian Islamic jihad published a video of two Israeli hostages Tuesday evening 79 year old Gadi Moses and 47 year old Elal Katsir were kidnapped from Nile Oz on October 7 meanwhile the IDF preemptively struck Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon a short while ago and the hostilities continue between Israel and Hezbollah and let's cross over to I-24 news correspondent Pierre Clochender who's on the Israel-Gaza border Pierre what's the latest where you are well we'll show you with Rotem Ben Femo the southeastern part of Gaza city which has been under very intensive bombing what the Palestinians are calling belts of fire on pounding presumed belts of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic jihad earlier we've seen also the engineering of a tunnel network destruction it was very clear that it was a tunnel destruction in the sense that it was a very large and wide explosion of white clouds and without any warning from an artillery outgoing shell from the roaring of an air force jet fighting is intensifying in the southern sector of the Gaza Strip with a lot of bombardments of presumed terror targets in the central refugee camps of El Burej, Nussera, Direl Balak and then in Hanyounes the capital of terror according to the defense minister you have Galaant in Hanyounes you have troops operating within the city in the heart of the city with division 98 of elite commando units operating in the heart of the city but also on the eastern and northwestern outskirts of the city also in Rafah on the southern tip of the Gaza Strip heavy pounding of presumed terror targets and you have Galaant as said yesterday evening while touring the border with the Gaza Strip that the IDF would expand its operation to places that have not yet been invested which means the southern tip city of Rafah and the central area of the refugee camps in addition in Hanyounes another brigade has been deployed in addition to the operating brigades inside Hanyounes that means that Hanyounes is really the big trophy that the IDF wants to get because they believe that the political and military leadership of Hamas are hidden internal networks and the city and Pierre reports of some progress in indirect Israel Hamas negotiations to secure a new deal to release more hostages what more can you tell us about that deal we know what are Israel's demand and we know that Hamas has internalized these demands because they've published videos of elderly Israelis that are held hostages inside the jails of Hamas for 75 days we know that Israel wants to release those elderly hostages as well as those who are sick or wounded from the October 7 massacre we know also that there are about 11 women and the two children Ariel and Pierre Bibas that are held hostage in Hamas's jail and Israel wants to have them released first and foremost Hamas is internalizing those demands but the demand that Israel pulls out its troops of Gaza and also that the fighting stops completely and that of course is unacceptable by Israel Thank you very much for that update from the Israel Gaza border I want to welcome my guest here in studio Mark Schulman editor-in-chief at History Central and columnist at Newsweek also joining us for this conversation is journalist Niri Silver adjunct fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy Thank you both for joining me Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with some of the families of Israelis held hostage in Gaza Tuesday evening I want to take a listen to the mother of Tamir Adal he's one of the hostages and what she had to say after the meeting we held an intimate meeting about 19 families with the Israeli Prime Minister the meeting was generally positive I feel there was listening the meeting was held in an intimate fashion that allowed us to say what we're feeling what we want, think, demand the Prime Minister addressed the issues at this stage I prefer not to specify exactly what was said in order to allow all of the families to meet with the Prime Minister in this format of intimate meetings I want to thank the Prime Minister to invite the rest of the families that did not attend today's meeting I think every family should get the opportunity to say what they think, feel, want to hear directly from the Prime Minister not through us or through the media after the Prime Minister finishes this round of meetings with all the families then we can sit together, all the families sum up, share insights and decide if we want to respond to anything at this moment I'm asking you to connect our decision to not reveal the specifics of the meeting there was listening, there was a positive atmosphere and I am glad we got this opportunity tonight, the bottom line we understand efforts are being made processes are underway of course we did not get all the details but the conversation was respectful and it's important during these days Mireille, I want to start with you there's been mounting pressure on Netanyahu to secure a deal to the release but some critics say that pressure on the war cabinet is playing into Hamas's game what's your take on that? there's obviously rising pressure both by the families and also the wider public we just have to think back how the war started Netanyahu and some of his senior ministers didn't even really mention the hostages or if they did it was essentially a second or third order priority and that's obviously changed massively in the past month we saw the hostage deal late last month and that was widely supported by the Israeli public and now the hostage families as well as their supporters in Israel and around the world are demanding something similar now we have to remember too it's not just on the Netanyahu government to strike a deal to release the hostages there is another side, Hamas that has to be negotiated with and so your question is well taken what price will Hamas demand will Israel be willing to meet that price and is Hamas actually negotiating in good faith or is it just trying to run out the clock as we know it's been trying to do since the beginning of the war to force Israel to actually stop the overall campaign and as we just heard our correspondent Pierre Kloschenler disclose these new negotiations would include women the sick elderly but it doesn't include men Mary how far is Israel willing to go to secure the release of hostages and do you believe that Israel will release it's more senior Palestinian prisoners some of whom have been in charge of the headed the first and the second atifada that's the key question there are people inside the war cabinet and also a lot of people amongst regular Israelis who are willing to strike that kind of deal what's called all for all all the Israeli hostages held in captivity in Gaza in return for in theory all the Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli jails that's six to seven thousand people including like you said a terrorist with blood on their hands there are some people in Israel willing to count in that deal but there are others primarily from the Israeli right but not only who rejected out of hand who say something like that should not be agreed to despite then with all the difficulty involved you know for the hostages and their families and that's really the crux of the matter no one in Israel I believe is against the hostage release deal like we saw late last month just a question about the price with me here in studio Mark Shulman Mark can you take on how this is being viewed from an American optic an American point of view here well look the two parts of it the Americans are very interested in the hostage deal President Biden obviously has taken a very strong interest in the hostage deal it ties into the feeling that needs to be some sort of humanitarian pause the problem once again comes back to the price and the time because the humanitarian pause for a week or two is one thing ending the war the Americans are not in favor of Israel ending the war at least I don't want to say Americans we'll get into that later I gather but the administration doesn't want Israel to end the war there's also a question the United States wouldn't come wouldn't make a deal all for all people let's be quite honest the United States wouldn't make a deal for a hundred hostages to clear out all the federal prisoners of all the people who have been convicted of terrorism acts in the last 20 years it wouldn't happen in the United States I don't think it's going to happen here either but all the everybody in our jails all 6,000 terrorists for 100 people now there really aren't probably aren't any children alive and very few women if any I don't see Israel going for all for all the very beginning they might have worked but now I don't think so and I don't think they want to hold this to the very end they want us out of there that's the key card and Mary the Washington Post is also reporting the Biden administration officials want Israel to move to a quote less intense stage battle soon ideally within the next 11 days that's by January 1st but the U.S. is still insisting that it's not putting a timetable on Israel's military campaign are the Americans and the Israelis on the same page here. So I'm a bit familiar with the Washington Post report I reported something similar several weeks ago that Israel as of January was planning on shifting into the lower intensity phase of the war against Hamas and Gaza and now of the time and also progress on the ground. So I don't believe we're going to come to a situation on New Year's Day where the Biden administration will tell Israel okay now you need to shift to the lower intense phase of the operation that's not how it works and I don't believe the Americans are there either we've heard now for several weeks that the Americans are urging Israel to wrap up in several weeks and that's no that hasn't come to pass over the past two months. So we have to wait and see what happens how the Biden administration responds to developments on the ground how much progress the IDF itself believes it has been it has made and whether the politics in Israel countenance a shift to a lower intensity phase if some of those war objectives have not yet been met say in mid to late-ish January but this was always the Israeli plan to shift into a lower intensity phase at some point in early 2024 but it's protecting Israel longer than it expected that's part of the problem and the Washington Post is also reporting Israeli-American officials have agreed on a rough outline for transitional body in Gaza after the war where Hamas cannot impose its political will while other Palestinians most likely from the Palestinian authority would take responsibility with governing Gaza. Niri I want to ask you first what would that look like concretely on the ground well concretely on the ground it'll look like a mess at least for the coming year transition and stabilization period the Israelis expect will last for much of 2024 now what that would encompass is an open question we saw the report from David Ignatius in the Washington Post this morning it's essentially all of the above framework you know a Palestinian authority component local Gaza power brokers and technocrats you know enveloped by wider international and Arab peacekeeping force while Israel itself the IDF has security responsibility that all sounds great on paper on a power point slide in reality on the ground if you still have pockets even several thousand armed Hamas and other militants in the Gaza Strip they can very easily impose their will on whatever Palestinian authority or local or even Arab or national force is moved into the Gaza Strip that will essentially be the crux of the of the problem for most of 2024 if Hamas is still able to exert its will even through several thousand armed gunmen that could derail the entire transition and stabilization program and process and as we speak about the war here in Israel another interesting development in the United States ahead of elections that have direct implications on US policy in the Middle East the state of Colorado's Supreme Court has disqualified Donald Trump from running on the 2024 ballot let's take listen to Trump's reaction it's no wonder crooked Joe Biden and the far left lunatics are desperate to stop us by any means necessary they're willing to violate the US constitutions at levels never seen before in order to win this election Joe Biden is a threat to democracy it's a threat they're weaponizing law enforcement for high level election interference because we're beating them so badly in the polls Mark Shulman I want to get your reaction to Colorado basically disqualifying Trump here okay so what happened yesterday was the Supreme Court of Colorado decided it and it decided on a local court which had decided that had ruled that Trump had indeed been an insurrectionist in what he did on January 6 and the events leading up to January 6 he however sort of dodged the issue by claiming that Trump wasn't an that the presidency wasn't an officer of the United States now the language of the amendment to the constitutions was passed after the Civil War but I remind everybody that they passed an amendment to the Constitution they didn't pass a law when you pass something for the Constitution it's forever it's not something I mean for this particular time and it says no person shall be a senator or representative in the Congress or elector of the president or vice president or hold any office civil or military under the United States or any state who having previously taken an oath to the Constitution Trump had taken an oath to the Constitution the local judge said the presidency wasn't it was an absurd ruling on his part he just didn't he had to be elected and he didn't want to be the one saying that Trump couldn't run the Calvado Supreme Court looked at the wording of the Constitution of the amendment of the Constitution and said presidency is an officer of the United States and therefore Trump falls under it so under this ruling he cannot be on the ballot as a nominee for the Republican party of course this will have the same effect if he's tried to be put on the on the ballot for the presidency as well so it's not only it's temporarily the ruling for the nomination hopefully this could wake up the Republicans maybe maybe we should nominate somebody else but it was clearly the right choice constitutionally politically it's a whole other story but once one judge came to this conclusion and one judge came to this conclusion of Laura the Supreme Court it's going to go to the United States Supreme Court I believe the US Supreme Court is going to uphold it as much as their conservatives they really don't want Donald Trump back in the office of president they want some other conservative there so that is my guess is the Supreme Court is going to uphold this and the way that goes afterwards who knows chaos for a little while to say the least and speaking of chaos Mark can other states follow yes every state can follow every state has its own rules for the purposes of nominating somebody this is a nomination don't forget this wasn't of an election however once it gets the question of the national ballot then the whole question can be litigated in every single state court and it's if the Supreme Court rules in favor of this in favor of the ruling supports it it's going to be very very difficult for Trump to end up being on the ballot everywhere and of course all you need is a couple of key states from not to being on the ballot then the election is over so Mary I want to get your take well that clip that you saw of Trump reacting to the Colorado Supreme Court decision tell us everything we need to know about the current moment he's alleging that Joe Biden is trying to undermine American democracy that he's using the powers of his office to undermine the upcoming election and we know it wasn't that long ago that Donald Trump as president actively undermined or tried to undermine American democracy actively used the powers of his office to foment a mob that sacked the Capitol and tried to stop the certification of the results of the election and so up is down down is up and so like Mark said the Supreme Court in Washington you know I'm not that confident the Supreme Court will uphold the decision but we can only hope and yet a surprising poll by the New York Times found that overall 57% of voters disapprove of Biden's handling of the Israeli Palestinian conflict while just 33% approve and even more surprisingly is 48% of voters said that they would trust Donald Trump more than Biden on the issue of 8% Mark, I want to get your take on this First of all, it's not a fair poll because the minute you had Biden there you're going to have 30 to 40% of the people whatever his policies we would say it's bad so that's number one so it really doesn't give us a good idea of support for the actual American policy as opposed to Biden doing it or Trump doing it so that's not the issue of course those people who support Trump think he's going to be more pro-Israel those people don't so those in the other direction all together the more troubling part of that poll was not that it was again once again the age group of 18 to 24 and in that poll it talked about 18 to 24 year olds and I don't know the exact number but at least 50% of them supported the Hamas slash Palestinians over Israel in that age group now the New York Times actually had another interesting part of the poll they didn't give the statistics but they wrote about it in the article that those people who use tic-tac a lot regardless of the age are more likely to support the Palestinians and more likely to have a negative opinion of Israel so clearly tic-tac which is very prevalent amongst the younger generation is having a tremendous impact on the perceptions of this war look we also have to keep in mind the fact you know I listen to the news hour every morning which I used to do in America years and years ago I listened to it as a podcast every single day since almost the beginning of the war at least after the first week or two the lead article is about the Gaza who was killed and that family was killed and that woman who was etc etc every morning that is every night in America every night that is the lead story what does that do after week after week after week if that's what everyone sees is the lead story every night Nair I want to get your take well obviously concerning in terms of the impact the Gaza war is having on domestic US politics it boggles the mind that there is a large group especially of liberal or democratic voters who think that getting rid of Joe Biden and helping re-elect Donald Trump will somehow punish Israel and help the Palestinians I don't know how that works in reality given Trump's track record in office and so you can only hope that the election is what 11 months away in America that both the Gaza situation and the overall politics and security situation in the Middle East stabilizes what he's done throughout most of his career is that the moment he's called out and people kind of write him off he actually mounts a comeback and is actually much stronger come election day than the polls would indicate alright I want to cross over to I24 News correspondent Zach Anders he's in northern Israel where tensions continue Zach renewed exchange of fire the idea of pre-emptively striking in southern Lebanon I understand can be off yeah we're seeing that as well these strikes in southern Lebanon appear to be in retaliation for what was taking place yesterday and late last night these attacks in the upper Galilee with multiple rocket barrages we were watching as some of those were intercepted last night we still don't have any reports of damages or casualties from late last night yesterday apparently two IDF soldiers were wounded moderately wounded and taken to nearby medical centers Hezbollah has announced late into the evening yesterday as well more deaths on their side 116 now is the standing number for Hezbollah militants killed in this fighting and Zach any progress on diplomatic efforts to secure buffer zone the last update we have is about 24 hours old now and these updates are coming out of both DC and New York the United Nations appears to be trying to facilitate what they can some of these talks but mostly that it appears that the US and France actually are the ones party to negotiations but one of the big absent pieces here is Hezbollah and Nasrallah not in the room apparently not a part of these negotiations where the US and other stakeholders are attempting to find some ability to create this buffer zone is within these political factions inside Lebanon from some reports sources in the states indicating that they're trying to find ways to incentivize this deal with aid even potentially withholding some of the current aid that's flowing into the country but again where all this stands with Hezbollah who in the end are going to be the ones that need to move out of this buffer zone either on their own accord or by force is the big question and despite these diplomatic efforts numerous security officials and commentators have said there's just no avoiding it there will be some sort of confrontation between the IDF and Hezbollah direct confrontation tell me there's been 200,000 Israeli families displaced by this war both in the south as well as in the north when can these northern Israeli families expect to go home? And if an operation at that scale does open up it's going to be a very very long time it's going to take a couple of things for any sort of safety here for these people to be able to return one Hezbollah will need to have been pushed back a considerable distance with the range of the weapons that they have in their arsenal like these ATGMs the anti-tank guided missiles they can fire they need to line a site and they're launched by personnel on the ground but they can fire for miles before hitting their target the artillery the mortars that also have a range of several miles will need to be pushed back and eliminated and then at that point even with a buffer created you still have heavy rockets that can be launched much further away with range of tens sometimes even hundreds of miles and then at that point everyone here in the north is still at risk so from what the IDF has been telling communicating to some of the residents here is to brace for the long haul to not expect that these evacuation orders will be lifted anytime soon but they don't get any sort of firm timeline whether that's weeks or months or even longer but if an operation does open up here and their diplomatic talks break down then people are expecting this to be a very long time Zach Anders thank you for that update from the Israel Lebanon border still with me Neri Zilber and Mark Shulman Neri I want to start with you the US and France are insisting on a diplomatic solution to deter tensions the north with Hezbollah but do they truly understand who the IDF is dealing with here they do they do both the administration of President Macron are very clear eyed about the problem they're just trying to resolve it diplomatically in the first instance in other words they're going to give diplomacy a shot I don't know what percentage success they think they may have and to find a deal that pushes Hezbollah at least a few kilometers off the border with Israel and in return there may be a demarcation kind of ironing out the 12 or 13 remaining to dispute on the Israel Lebanon border that in theory is what the package and the compromise that's being offered I'm not entirely convinced Hezbollah and its leader Hassan Asrallah will go for that but the Americans and the French are intent on trying and short of that Israel will likely feel the need to take military action to resolve the problem Neri Zilber adjunct fell out the Washington Institute for Near East Paul Steve Mark Shulman editor in chief history central and columnist at Newsweek for joining me today and that wraps this hour's broadcast we're back at the top of the hour with more rolling coverage of the war here in Israel I'm Sarah Martinez thanks for watching in a state of war families completely done down in their beds we have no idea where she as our soldiers are fighting on the front lines but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well the I-24 news desk I'm Sarah Martinez live from Tel Aviv today marks the 75th day of the war as Israel's ground operation to dismantle Hamas rages on reports are emerging of a renewed indirect Israel Hamas negotiations on a new deal to secure the release of the 129 hostages still held captive in the Gaza Strip the Washington Post reporting Israel is considering agreeing to a long ceasefire that could last up to two weeks in order for Hamas to locate the hostages and return them to Israel Hamas's political chief Ismail Hania is in Cairo today to take part in those talks amid reports the head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad will also be visiting Cairo in the coming days pressure on the war cabinet to secure a deal has doubled down after the PIJ published a video of two Israeli hostages Tuesday evening 79 year old Gandhi Moses and 47 year old Elad Kassil who were kidnapped from Neil Oz on October 7th all the IDF preemptively striking Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon earlier this morning hostilities continue between Israel and Hezbollah and let's cross over to Israel's northern border where I-24 news correspondent Zach Anders is standing by Zach what's the latest where you are well we're seeing those strikes as well and it does attempt again to strike these Hezbollah cells have either situated themselves or are moving closer to southern the southern border here the blue line between Israel and Lebanon we've seen quite a few strikes throughout yesterday today no red alarms yet to speak of but back to yesterday it was a very active day with both drones rockets we saw some interceptions late into the night the IDF saying that throughout yesterday's events that two soldiers were moderately wounded and are being treated this is much different than what Hezbollah claims earlier in the day they had said they struck an Israeli tank and killed everyone inside of course Hezbollah has been putting out very extreme unverified claims throughout the course of this conflict through Lebanese media channels and they have not often proved true and a quick update here a reported ramming attack in the West Bank Hezbollah rescue organizations say a Palestinian driver was shot and critically wounded by soldiers while attempting to ram his vehicle into the troops guarding a southern West Bank intersection back to you Zach tell me a little bit about the diplomatic efforts to secure a buffer zone on Israel's northern border well the stakeholders involved appear to be the US the UK and France they're pushing to create this buffer zone not to the Lattani River to start but just a six mile buffer is the figure that's being proposed now at some points that would still reach the Lattani River at its most narrow but at its most widest point from this border here to the Lattani River there's still a large stretch of land that would be outside of this buffer this exclusion zone one of the big questions is there are 10,000 peacekeepers United Nations peacekeepers in the field force the interim force for Lebanon what happens in this scenario with peacekeepers are they going to be the ones that are involved in enforcing this are they party to this agreement this is still something that we have not heard out of New York in the United Nations with much clarity yet these are forces that have been here since the late 70s even though they're called the interim forces and their force numbers have changed considerably they're up to about 10,000 troops now from armies all across the world and they're tasked with essentially just staying put and keeping trying to keep this these two forces on either side and to keep themselves in the middle what does their role become I think that's a question that the Security Council has as well because in August as they were voting to renew this unifil decision they came down to the very last day and had questions just about this too Zach Anders thank you for that update from Israel's northern border meanwhile Yemen's Iranian back Touthis continue their attack campaign on commercial ships in the Red Sea a US-led coalition has set up a maritime task force to counter the militias attacks according to Al Arabiam the US is hoping China will also join that operation let's take a listen to White House national security spokesperson John Kirby on the matter the bottom line is these attacks have to stop they need to stop they're unacceptable the United States our allies and our partners will do what we have to do to counter these threats and to protect these ships well now it just started didn't it and there's going to be a whole lot of hardware in the Red Sea now naval hardware not just from the United States but other ships from other nations to counter these threats so let's see where it goes I mean it's up and running now we hope it gets stronger we have had additional countries and additional capabilities to it and I think where China could be helpful quite frankly is more with the influence that we know they have in Tehran the conversations that they can have with the supreme leader and we have in the past and we continue to encourage the Chinese to use that influence use those conversations to lean on the supreme leader and Iran to stop their support for the Houthis and joining me now is retired Colonel Amit Assa, former member of the Israeli security agency thank you very much for joining me in the studio today I want to ask you Hania and P.I.J. later both in Cairo this week P.I.J. is believed to be holding numerous of these hostages captive including 25 year old Noah Al-Gamani is this a sign negotiations for a new hostage release deal are moving forward? Yes of course first we heard from that they will not do any negotiation until we will stop the war and now we are hearing other sounds because Hania coming to Egypt meaning he will do negotiation and that means that we are a lot of steps before what they say before this stage and we have to think about it very clearly because I think Hamas now is on pressure Hamas on pressure inside Gaza Strip because of the attacks of the IDF and this pressure made him to understand that he had to do something that's why he is releasing these videos of our hostages that's why Hania is coming to Egypt and in that point I think we have to think and to understand that Hamas on pressure now what we will do with it it's a very big question because it's an opportunity for us to release hostages from another hand we are now we know now that this pressure that we put on Hamas inside Gaza made them think that they have to do something Tell me how far is Israel willing to go to secure the release of all the hostages here? I think we have to do it we have to put it on the table and say negotiation is just for all of the hostages all of our people there not just the oldest not just the young not just anyone all of them we have to do some deal that this is my opinion that will release all of them I think IDF needed to not just for the values of the Israeli and the Jewish community in Israel it's more for IDF activity if we will have no hostages inside Gaza Strip the war will look like something else and this is what Hamas also knows so he is keeping these cards very close to the chest so it will be difficult to make this kind of deal with them and prior to Hamas visit to Cairo today he was in Doha earlier this week where he met Iran's foreign minister Iran is still on the agenda for international organizations and policymakers when expressing concern over Tehran's ongoing Iranian enrichment correspondent Pia Stiklbach has more in this report Iran continues to raise the levels of uranium enrichment the UN Security Council flagging the issue once again during a briefing specifically on the Islamic Republic the agency is still unable to verify the stockpile of enriched uranium in the country nevertheless the agency estimates that Iran maintains a total enriched uranium in stockpile more than 20 times the allowable amount under the CPOA after several failed attempts to revive the 2015 nuclear deal the UN now says that monitoring and assessing Iran's uranium enrichment has become increasingly difficult earlier this year the Iranian atomic agency disabled the UN nuclear watchdog's cameras at its sites to apply pressure for the renewal of a nuclear deal Iran has come under massive economic pressure from western sanctions as concerns grow UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has suggested the US should lift its sanctions as a gesture of goodwill to advance talks at the same time Iran is adding fuel to the fire backing Hamas and Gaza his balance southern Lebanon and allegedly supporting Yemen's Houthis attacks against Israeli linked ships although Iran denies the letter the Yemenis are an independent player in the international scene who act based on their recognition therefore it is not right to relate their measures to others on Monday gas stations across Iran were hit in a cyber attack by a group said to be linked to Israel still with me here in studio is Amit Asaf former member of the Israeli security agency Amit Iran has been behind all of its proxies Hezbollah and Lebanon Hamas and Gaza and the Houthis and Yemen the United States are now reportedly wanting to bring China into this coalition to address the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea on commercial ships in your opinion how crucial is Chinese involvement Yes, it's very important that we see now a sign from the American to get the Chinese inside this coalition I don't know really if the Chinese will do it because of the the way that the Chinese is behaving with Iran is from the opposite side so it's very important for us to understand if it will be or not in a commercial way of thinking inside this group of countries behind the United States and if it will happen it will affect Iran very deeply because Iran here is controlling the Houthis and Iran controlling everything that is connected also to Israel and the region and if it will lead Iran to lower power because of the Chinese support that they will lower the support maybe it will affect also Hezbollah and the attack of the Hezbollah is on the table now so it's very important to see what the Chinese is going to do with this American opportunity for them I'm sure it presents some sort of opportunity to calm the tensions in the region I'm going to call over to I-24 news correspondent Pierre Klochender who's on the Israel Gaza border Pierre the IDF says it's taking control of the Hezbollah refugee camp in northern Gaza paint us a picture of where the ground operation stands at this hour Well it's true that the IDF yesterday stated that the Hezbollah refugee camp and Hezbollah village are under full control of the Israeli army because the Hezbollah brigade was dismantled basically with 1,000 terrorists killed 500 arrested amongst them 70 who participated in the massacres of October 7 but this morning they were intense bombardment on presumed terror targets inside Hezbollah they were what the Palestinians call belts of fire which are intense bombing in a very precise location and in Shejahia which is a bit south of Shejahia there are also armed clashes at close distance between Hamas terrorists of the hardened battle battalion of Shejahia and the Israeli ground forces earlier we've seen some rotation of forces paratroopers of the 202 brigade getting out of Gaza getting out of Shejahia after three weeks of fighting there are rotations but here in the south of Gaza city there are intense bombardments all along the southern part of Gaza which means behind me Almugraka which is a strategic town southeast of Gaza city the Salahadin access road to Hanyunas leads and then in the central refugee camps which have not been invaded by the ground forces a lot of bombing we've seen belts of fire again there we've seen the engineering of the neutralization destruction of tunnels and further south in Hanyunas there is a deployment of an additional brigade in addition to the 28 brigade of elite commando units that are fighting in the heart of Hanyunas in addition to the reserve paratrooper brigade 55 that is fighting in and around Hanyunas and further south in Rafah there are also poundings of presumed terror targets on the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt on Gaza territory and the Israeli border of defense you have gallant as expressively said yesterday that the operation will expand in the coming days which means probably Rafah and the central refugee camps north of Hanyunas Thank you very much for that update Amit still with me here in studio we heard a Pierre saying a minute ago that gallant is saying that the operation will expand meanwhile the Americans are saying hone it in it's time to move on to the next phase of the war we will not be able to move to the next stage of the war as the Americans said without disconnecting Gaza from the border of Egypt what we calling Philadelphia line because this is the way that they got in and out all the ammunition all these years and also they can get out people from the Hamas members and maybe hostages from Gaza to the south maybe to the through the border of Egypt and it's very dangerous for Israel so we will not stop maybe I assume that they will not stop until we will disconnect Rafah from the border in with Egypt meaning Philadelphia that means that we have to move very fast we hear that there is three brigade there that are working very hard we have a lot of bombing from the air the activity there is very highly intense now absolutely we will have to wait and see the next few days how this potential ceasefire deal comes to fruition to bring those 129 hostages home thank you very much for your insight this morning Ophiel Engel is one of the 110 hostages released from Hamas captivity last month during the first hostage release deal ceasefire now the 18 year old and his girlfriend Ophiel trip to see his favorite basketball team play abroad all the while dealing with the onslaught of October 7 and his captivity in Gaza here's more from this report from Channel 12 the romantic trip of these two teenagers Ophiel Engel and his friend Yuval Sharabi to Belgrade in time for Christmas season to see his favorite basketball team Ophiel Jerusalem is accompanied with immense distress 18 year old Ophiel was released from Gaza two weeks ago but Yuval's father died of pain in Hamas captivity how does it feel to fly right now exciting but weird a little Yuval a little because dad is still there yes we miss them so much they're probably in the tunnel or in a house on that black Saturday Ophiel a 12th grade student from Kibbutz Ramat Rachel near Jerusalem was with 17 year old Yuvalin during the sirens the two together brothers and two sisters entered the safe room it was 10 in the morning when the terrorists broke in and what do you see three terrorists enter with guns two with guns one with an RPG first thing they shoot the dog shoot the dog first they're very afraid of dogs and then just take us all downstairs are they speaking with you in Arabic they say to you in Arabic in Arabic and there they got us all up they took us to the road and a black car was just waiting there there was a black car waiting for us they motioned in opening the door her father Yossi went in first and then she and I held hands she's already getting in her foot inside already then they take her out and put me in are the women just taken out no they just leave them with the other two terrorists that's the image I have in my memory of them are you yelling anything to them I told him I love you did you hear did you answer no we were already driving away what I remember is the red eyes fear, shock because you don't understand what's going on you see her with two terrorists and in captivity you think she is either dead or kidnapped there is no other option logically nothing two terrorists, what are they doing with you the two terrorists just walked away what's going on in the car they just take us to Gaza the person sitting in front has a weapon aimed at us like this oh really? yes Ophir was kidnapped together with Yossi Yuval's father and a neighbor 16 year old Amit Chani 54 days in captivity they saw no other hostages they stayed close to his girlfriend's father and Yuval's father calms you down yes he reassured us but obviously everyone is scared so it's calming only for a moment what do you do all day play cards I can't look at another card what did you play a game they taught us are the terrorists also playing with you how did they act towards you it is relative to a good situation because we were not abused they were simply psychologically abused they keep saying they don't want you who doesn't want you? Israel there's only one demonstration in Israel there's only one demonstration for a week and the families don't want you to come back they don't take action or do anything you're going to stay here for at least a year things like that in your head you say it won't be a year for sure it'll be five months I figured I'd be back sometime were you afraid to die there yes I was less afraid that they would kill me because if they wanted to kill me they probably would have killed me on the first day and they wouldn't care about bringing food what food really there was no food a pita and a half in the morning yes with labneh so what scared you from the booms around that the IDF doesn't know our location suddenly a missile would hit when it was near us was bombed it sounded like it hit us one of the guards was informed that a relative of his had been killed you say to yourself just as long as it doesn't come back at us just don't come back at us it feels the most difficult moments were when terrorists moved them twice through the heart of the city when they were completely exposed in total darkness when all around and non-stop explosions when they transferred you overnight do you see Gazans obviously yes it was a terrible fear how would you know who's going to turn on you do you think they care? no they don't care about each other you know some extremist would kill me and the Hamasnik with me and did anyone come see you they had their boss who would come and bring food once every two days who would bring a packet of pita bread whatever you eat you eat in these three days did he say anything to you? he would come and tell us again that they don't want us and all that he was the main one who was psychologically abusing us did you make a connection with one of them that was more pleasant the one who guarded us was a bit better didn't he say something like death to the Jews? yes he did say that they know nothing other than that he tried to explain to him say what do you want from me? I'm a kid from Israel so he told them a hundred times they said why are you in Israel? why did your family come to Israel? what did you answer? I told him my grandfather was born here then he tells me you're lying why would I lie? so I just said yes should I argue with him? do you see Sinwar? no where? they told me this is Sinwar when they told me you are returning to Israel he pointed at someone he said this is Sinwar but he was so fat and didn't even look like him do you believe them when they tell you you are going back the next day? yes because they look happy and to get rid of you? yes we are quite a heavy burden for them what did you say to your father before you separated? nothing we were separated in an instant oh just like this? yes just like this I call her and tell her I'm fine I'm alive everything is good what did she say to me? shave your beard and then call me did you see what he looked like? no you were excited yes yes until I saw him with my own eyes I couldn't believe it is there one moment that you cry or did you suddenly fall apart? I asked the soldier on the minibus and his sisters and they told me they were fine everything is well with them I was in shock crying? falling apart? yes that was the only thing I was worried about I was just shocked that he was there in front of me I collapsed for a second did it surprise you that she suddenly fell to the floor? yes I think she was also a little shocked Ophir who played last year the young Jerusalem youth basketball team is a die-hard fan the team flew him and his family this week for a match against Pauk de Saloniki in the Champions League so I had this picture for two months on my shirt and he was in every square and to see him come out of all the demonstrations and the pictures and it comes out to something real on the court how do you say it? it's double happiness for us Ophir was locked, trapped in Gaza for almost two months I don't think any of us expected him to be here I don't think his family expected I don't think he expected to see the smile in the face is not only of Ophir but his family and to the other families that are here with us as well it moves me a lot Ophir and Juval's joy at a Puel Jerusalem's victory at the game and the feeling of freedom in Belgrade is momentary the photos of Juval's father Yossi and his brother Yaza never leave their mind and that wraps this hour's broadcast right here on i24 news don't go anywhere though we'll be back at the top of the hour with more news I'm Sara Martinez, thanks for watching is in a state of war families completely gunned down in their beds we have no idea where she is our soldiers are fighting on the front lines but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well 24 news desk live from Tel Aviv today marks the 75th day of the war as Israel's ground operation to dismantle Hamas rages on reports are emerging of a renewed indirect Israel Hamas negotiations on a new deal to secure the release of the 129 hostages still held captive in the Gaza Strip the Washington Post reporting Israel is considering agreeing to a long ceasefire that could last up to two weeks Hamas to locate the hostages and return them to Israel Hamas's political chief Ismail Hania is in Cairo today to take part in those talks amid reports the head of Palestinian Islamic jihad will also be visiting Cairo in the coming days pressure on the war cabinet to secure a deal has doubled down after the PIJ published a video of two Israeli hostages Tuesday evening 79 year old Gandhi Moses could seal who were kidnapped from Nile Oz on October 7 mean all the IDF preemptively striking Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon earlier this morning as hostilities continue between Israel and Hezbollah and let's cross over to Israel's northern border where I-24 news correspondent Zach Anders is standing by Zach what's the latest where you are well we're seeing those strikes as well and it does attempt again to strike these Hezbollah cells they have either situated themselves or are moving closer to southern the southern border here the blue line between Israel and Lebanon we've seen quite a few strikes throughout yesterday today no red alarms yet to speak of but back to yesterday it was a very active day with both drones rockets we saw some interceptions late into the night the IDF saying that throughout yesterday's events that two soldiers were moderately wounded and are being treated this is much different than what Hezbollah claims earlier in the day they had said they struck an Israeli tank and killed everyone inside of course Hezbollah has been putting out very extreme unverified claims throughout the course of this conflict through Lebanese media channels and they have not often proved true and a quick update here reported ramming attack in the west bank Hezbollah rescue organizations say a Palestinian driver was shot and critically wounded by soldiers while attempting to ram his vehicle into the troops guarding a southern west bank intersection back to you Zach tell me a little bit about the diplomatic efforts to secure a buffer zone on Israel's northern border well the stakeholders involved appear to be the US the UK and France they're pushing to create this buffer zone not to the Latani River to start but just a six mile buffer is the figure that's being proposed now at some points that would still reach the Latani River at its most narrow but at its most widest point from this border here to the Latani River there's still a large stretch of land that would be outside of this buffer this exclusion zone one of the big questions is there are 10,000 peacekeepers United Nations peacekeepers the UNIFIL force the interim force for Lebanon what happens in this scenario with peacekeepers are they going to be the ones that are involved in enforcing this are they party to this agreement this is still something that we have not heard out of New York in the United Nations with much clarity yet these are forces that have been here since the late 70s even though they're called the interim forces and their force numbers have changed considerably they're up to about troops now from armies all across the world and they're tasked with essentially just staying put and keeping trying to keep this these two forces on either side and to keep themselves in the middle what does their role become I think that's a question that the Security Council has as well because in August as they were voting to renew this UNIFIL decision they came down to the very last day and had questions just about this too Zach Anders thank you for that update from Israel's northern border meanwhile Yemen's Iranian back Tuthi's continue their attack campaign on commercial ships in the Red Sea a US-led coalition has set up a maritime task force to counter the militias attacks according to Al Arabiam the US is hoping China will also join that operation let's take a listen to White House national security spokesperson John Kirby on the matter bottom line is these attacks have to stop they need to stop they're unacceptable the United States our allies and our partners will do what we have to do to counter these threats and to protect these ships well now it just started didn't it and there's going to be a whole lot of hardware in the Red Sea now naval hardware not just from the United States but other ships from other nations to counter these threats so let's see where it goes it's up and running now we hope it gets stronger and as we will add additional countries and additional capabilities to it and I think where China could be helpful quite frankly is more with the influence that we know they have in Tehran the conversations that they can have with the supreme leader and we have in the past and we continue to encourage the Chinese to use that influence use those conversations to lean on the supreme leader and Iran to stop their support for the Houthis and joining me now we have Colonel Amit Assa, former member of the Israeli security agency thank you very much for joining me in studio today I want to ask you Hania and P.I.J. later both in Cairo this week P.I.J. is believed to be holding numerous of these hostages captive including 25 year old Noah Al-Ghamani is this a sign negotiations for a new hostage release deal are moving forward? Yes of course first we heard from us that they will not do any negotiation until we will stop the war and now we are hearing other sounds because Hania coming to Egypt meaning he will do negotiation and that means that we are a lot of steps before what they say before this stage and we have to think about it very clearly because I think Hamas now is on pressure Hamas on pressure inside Gaza Strip because of the attacks of the IDF and this pressure made him to understand that he had to do something that's why he is releasing these videos of our hostages that's why Hania is coming to Egypt and in that point I think we have to think and to understand that Hamas on pressure now what we will do with it it's a very big question because it's an opportunity for us to release hostages from another hand we know now that this pressure that we put on Hamas inside Gaza made them think that they have to do something Tommy how far is Israel willing to go to secure the release of all the hostages here I think we have to do it we have to put it on the table and say negotiation is just for all of the hostages all of our people there not just the oldest not just the young not just anyone all of them we have to do some deal that this is my opinion it's all of them I think IDF needed not just for the values of the Israeli and the Jewish community in Israel it's more for IDF activity if we will have no hostages inside Gaza Strip the war will look like something else and this is what Hamas also knows so he is keeping these cards so it will be difficult to make this kind of deal with them and prior to Hamas visit to Cairo today he was in Doha earlier this week where he met Iran's foreign minister Iran is still in the agenda for international organizations and policy makers he went expressing concern over Tehran's ongoing Iranian enrichment correspondent Pia Stiklba has more in this report under the cover of smoke created by the escalation in the Gaza Strip Iran continues to raise the levels of uranium enrichment the UN Security Council flagging the issue once again during a briefing specifically on the Islamic Republic the agency is still unable to verify the stockpile of enriched uranium in the country nevertheless the agency estimates that Iran maintains a total enriched uranium in stockpile in 20 times the allowable amount under the JCPOA after several failed attempts to revive the 2015 nuclear deal the UN now says that monitoring and assessing Iran's uranium enrichment has become increasingly difficult earlier this year the Iranian atomic agency disabled the UN nuclear watchdog's cameras at its sites to apply pressure for the renewal of a nuclear deal Iran has come under massive economic pressure from western sanctions the U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres has suggested the U.S. should lift its sanctions as a gesture of goodwill to advance talks at the same time Iran is adding fuel to the fire backing Hamas and Gaza his balance southern Lebanon and allegedly supporting Yemen's Houthis attacks against Israeli linked ships although Iran denies the letter the Yemenis are an independent player in the international scene who act based on their recognition therefore it is not right their measures to others on Monday gas stations across Iran were hit in a cyber attack by a group said to be linked to Israel still with me here in studio is Amit Asaf former member of the Israeli security agency Amit Iran has been behind all of its proxies Hezbollah and Lebanon Hamas and Gaza and the Houthis and Yemen the United States are now reportedly wanting to bring China coalition to address the Houthi attacks and the Red Sea on commercial ships in your opinion how crucial is Chinese involvement yes it's very important that we see now a sign from the American to get the Chinese inside this coalition I don't know really if the Chinese will do it because of the the way that the Chinese is behaving with Iran is from the opposite side so it's very important for us to understand if it will be or not in a commercial way of thinking inside this group of countries that behind the United States and if it will happen it will affect Iran very deeply because Iran here is controlling the Houthis and Iran controlling everything that is connected also to Israel and the region and if it will lead Iran to lower power because of the Chinese support that they will lower the support maybe it will affect also Hezbollah and the attack of the Hezbollah is on the table now so it's very important to see what is the Chinese going to do with this American opportunity for them that sure does present some sort of opportunity to calm the tensions in the region Amit, stay with me I want to call over to I-24 news correspondent Pierre-Claude Schender who's on the Israel-Gaza border Pierre, the IDF says it's taking control of the Jebalia refugee camp in northern Gaza paint us a picture of where the ground operation stands at this hour well it's true that the IDF yesterday stated that the Jebalia refugee camp are under full control of the Israeli army because the Jebalia Brigade was dismantled basically with 1,000 terrorists killed 500 arrested amongst them 70 who participated in the massacres of October 7 but this morning they were intense bombardment on presumed terror targets inside Jebalia they were what the Palestinians call belts of fire which are intense bombing in a very precise location and in Chejaia which is a bit south of Jebalia there are also armed clashes at close distance between Hamas terrorists of the hardened battle battalion of Chejaia and the Israeli ground forces earlier we've seen some rotation of forces with the paratroopers of the 202 brigade getting out of Gaza getting out of Chejaia after three weeks of fighting there are rotations but here in the south of Gaza city there are intense bombardments all along the southern part of Gaza which means behind me Almugraka which is a strategic town southeast of Gaza city where the Salahadin access road to Hanyunas leads and then in the central refugee camps which have not been invaded by the ground forces a lot of bombing we've seen belts of fire again there we've seen the engineering of the neutralization destruction of tunnels and further south in Hanyunas there is a deployment of an additional brigade in addition to the 98 brigade of elite commando units that are fighting in the heart of Hanyunas in addition to the reserve paratrooper brigade 55 that is fighting in and around Hanyunas and further south in Rafah there are also poundings of presumed terror targets on the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt on Gaza territory and the Israeli minister of defense you have Gallant as expressively said yesterday that the operation will expand in the coming days which means probably Rafah and the central refugee camps north of Hanyunas. Thank you very much for that update. Amit still with me here in studio we heard a Pierre saying a minute ago that Gallant is saying that the operation will expand meanwhile the Americans are saying that's time to move on to the next phase of the war. Yeah I think we will not be able to move to the next stage of the war as the Americans said without disconnecting Gaza from the border of Egypt what we calling Philadelphia line because this is the way that they got in and out all the ammunition all these years and also they can get out people from us members and maybe hostages from Gaza to the south maybe to the border of Egypt and it's very dangerous for Israel so we will not stop maybe I assume that they will not stop until we will disconnect Rafah from the border in with Egypt meaning Philadelphia that means that we have to move very fast we hear that there is three brigade that are working very hard we have a lot of bombing from the air the activity there is very highly intense now Absolutely we will have to wait and see the next few days how this potential ceasefire deal comes to fruition to bring those 129 hostages home Amit Asad thank you very much for your insight this morning Meanwhile Ophiel Engel is one of the 110 hostages released from Hamas captivity last month during the first hostage release deal ceasefire now the 18-year-old and his girlfriend have been treated to a special trip to see his favorite basketball team play abroad all the while dealing with the onslaught of October 7th and his captivity in Gaza Here's more from this report from Channel 12 The romantic trip of these two teenagers Ophiel Engel and his friend Uval Sharabi to Belgrade in time for Christmas season to see his favorite basketball team Hapuel Jerusalem is accompanied with immense distress 18-year-old Ophiel was released from Gaza two weeks ago but Uval's father and uncle remain in Hamas captivity How does it feel to fly right now? Exciting But weird a little Uval? A little Because dad is still there Yes, we miss them so much They're probably in the tunnel or in a house On that Black Saturday Ophiel a 12th grade student from Kibbutz Ramat Rachel near Jerusalem was with 17-year-old Uval in Beiri The two together with Uval's parents and two sisters entered the safe room It was 10 in the morning when the terrorists broke in And what do you see? Three terrorists enter with guns Two with guns, one with an RPG First thing, they shoot the dog Shoot the dog first They're very afraid of dogs and then just Take us all downstairs Are they speaking with you? In Arabic they say to you Mahfish Israel And there they got us all up They took us to the road and a black car was just waiting there There's a black car waiting for us They motioned in, opening the door Her father, Yossi, went in first and then she and I held hands She's already getting in, her foot inside already Then they take her out and put me in Are the women just taken out? I told them with the other two terrorists This is the last image I have in my memory of them Are you yelling anything to him? I told him I love you Did you hear? Yes Did you answer? No, we were already driving away What I remember is the red eyes Fear, shock, because you don't understand what's going on You see her with two terrorists and in captivity you think she is either dead or kidnapped There is no other option, logically Is there anything in captivity about Yuval? Nothing, nothing Two terrorists, what are they doing with you? The two terrorists just walked away What's going on in the car? They just take us to Gaza The person sitting in front has a weapon aimed at us like this Oh really? Yes Ophir was kidnapped together with Yossi Yuval's father and a neighbor, 16 year old Amit Chani 54 days in captivity They saw no other hostages Ophir stayed close to his girlfriend's father And Yuval's father calms you down? Yes, he reassured us But obviously everyone is scared So it's calming only for a moment What do you do all day? Play cards I can't look at another card What did you play? A game they taught us Are the terrorists also playing with you? Yes How did they act towards you? They didn't even because No, they weren't abused Yes, we were not abused They were simply psychologically abused They keep saying they don't want you Who doesn't want you? Israel There's only one demonstration in Israel There's only one demonstration for a week And the families don't want you to come back They don't take action or do anything You're going to stay here for at least a year Things like that In your head you say it won't be a year for sure Were you afraid to die there? Yes I was less afraid that they would kill me Because if they wanted to kill me They probably would have killed me on the first day And they wouldn't care about bringing food What food really? There was no food What did you eat? A pita and a half a day So what scared you? From the booms around That the IDF doesn't know our location And that's how it hit Fear of death, a house near us was bombed It sounded like it hit ours One of the guards was informed That a relative of his had been killed You say to yourself Just as long as it doesn't come back at us Just don't come back at us Well, fear's most difficult moments Were when terrorists moved them twice Through the heart of the city When they were completely exposed In total darkness When all around non-stop explosions When they transferred you It was always overnight Do you see Gazans? Obviously Yes, it was a terrible fear How would you know who's going to turn on you? Do you think they care? No They don't care about each other You know some extremists would kill me And the Hamasnik with me And did anyone come see you? They had their boss who would come and bring food Once every two days Who would bring a packet of pita bread You eat in these three days Did he say anything to you? He would come and tell us again That they don't want us and all that He was the main one Who was psychologically abusing us Did you make a connection with one of them That was more pleasant? The one who guarded us was a bit better Didn't he say something like death to the Jews? Yes, he did say that He said nothing other than that Did you try to explain to him Say what do you want from me? I'm a kid from Israel So he told them a hundred times They said why are you in Israel? Why did your family come to Israel? What did you answer? I told him my grandfather was born here Then he tells me you're lying, you're lying Why would I lie? So I just said yes Should I argue with him? Do you see Sinwar? No, where? They told me When they told me you are returning to Israel He pointed at someone He said this is Sinwar But he was so fat and didn't even look like him Do you believe them when they tell you You are going back the next day? Yes, because they look happy and To get rid of you? Yes, we are quite a heavy burden for them What did you say to your father Before you separated? Nothing, we were separated in an instant Oh, just like this? Yes, we were separated in an instant I call her and tell her I'm fine, I'm alive, everything is good What did she say to me? Shave your beard and then call me Did you see what he looked like? No, you were excited Yes, yes Until I saw him with my own eyes I couldn't believe it Is there one moment that you cry Or did you suddenly fall apart? When you were on the minibus What about Yuval, her mother and her sisters And they told me they were fine Everything is well with them I was in shock Crying? Falling apart? Yes, that was the only thing I was worried about I was just shocked that he was there In front of me I collapsed for a second Did it surprise you that she suddenly fell to the floor? Yes, I think she was also a little shocked Who played last year on the Apoel Jerusalem Youth Basketball team Is a die-hard fan The team flew him and his family this week For a match against Pauk de Saloniki in the Champions League So I had this picture for two months on my shirt And he was in every square And to see him come out of all the demonstrations And the pictures and it comes out to something real On the court, how do you say it? It's double happiness for us Our fair was locked Trapped on Gaza for almost two months I don't think any of us expected him to be here I don't think his family expected I don't think he expected To see the smile on the faces Not only of Fidel, but his family And to the other families that are here with us as well It moves me a lot Ophiren Juval's joy at Apoel Jerusalem's victory At the game and the feeling of freedom in Belgrade Is momentary The photos of Juval's father, Yossi And his brother, Eli, in Gaza Never leave their mind And that wraps this hour's broadcast Right here on I-24 News Don't go anywhere, though We'll be back at the top of the hour with more news I'm Sara Martinez, thanks for watching Is in a state of war Families completely done down in their beds We have no idea where she is Our soldiers are fighting on the front lines But the general perception is something That certainly needs to be fought as well I-24 News Desk I'm Sara Martinez, live from Tel Aviv Today marks the 75th day Of the war as Israel's ground operation To dismantle Hamas rages on The IDF announcing a short while ago The death of yet another soldier Kill in combat in the Gaza Strip Bringing the death toll of IDF troops To a total of 134 dead Reports are emerging of renewed Indirect Israel-Hamas negotiations On a new deal to secure the release Of the 129 hostages Still held captive in the Gaza Strip The Washington Post reporting Israel Is considering agreeing to a long ceasefire That could last up to two weeks In order for Hamas to locate the hostages And return them to Israel Hamas political chief Ismail Hania Is in Cairo today to take part In those talks amid reports The head of Palestinian Islamic jihad Will also be visiting Cairo In the coming days Pressure on the war cabinet to secure a deal Has doubled down after PIJ Published a video of two Israeli hostages Tuesday evening The IDF preemptively struck Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon Earlier today as hostilities continue Between Israel and Hezbollah Let's cross over to I-24 news correspondent Pierre-Claude Schenler, who's on the Israel-Gaza border. Pierre, what's The latest where you are? Well, we've heard from the IDF Spokesperson Unit that in Jebalia Although yesterday it was stated That the Israeli hostages Will be in the Gaza Strip In the Gaza Strip Yesterday it was stated that Jebalia Camp was Already under Israeli control Today again The IDF says that The Nachal Infantry Brigade Is operating inside They found rockets, a battery of Long range rockets mounted on a Truck That was supposed to target The center of the country probably Because it's long range rockets They've been clashes in Jebalia They've been clashes also In Shejaya Which is just Left to where I'm standing And further south of Gaza City The offensive is going full force There's been intensive pounding Of presumed Hamas targets In Al-Mugraqa Which is just behind me Which controls the access road to Hanyunas As well in the central refugee camps In this direction at around 10 kilometers away from where we are Nussera, Tel Buraj, Direl Barak And then in Hanyunas itself The deployment of an additional Brigade In addition to the 98 commando unit brigade As well as the 55 paratrooper reserve brigade And other Units that are operating Within and without Hanyunas On the outskirts We know that there's also Targets on the western side Of Hanyunas, eastern side Northern side And further south on the Egyptian Gaza border in the city of Rafah Also Air Force Targeting of presumed Hamas targets And Pierre, a game of cat and mouse With Hamas Chief Sinoir in the Gaza Strip Absolutely According to the IDF The ground forces were Very close to capturing Pierre Sinoir, the political leader Of Hamas in the Gaza Strip He has, according to the IDF Four houses that have been Taken over by the IDF In one of them in the Shatir refugee camp Which has been under control Of the Israeli army For about three weeks Now we understand that the ground forces Operated inside one of his houses They found a secret Opening inside the Facility which led to An underground tunnel Of course, Yerkes Sinoir Wasn't there, but according To the IDF, he was very close Of being captured Now the estimation of the IDF Is that he's hiding in the underground Tunnel network Beneath Hanyunas Pierre Coloshan there, thank you very much For that update According to the conversation Brigadier General in the Reserves HaNan Geffen, former IDF commander Of Shmonim Atayim, that's 8,200 intelligence Unit, he joined me from Tel Aviv Thank you very much for joining me, HaNan The Washington Post Is reporting Israel is considering A long two week ceasefire How would that look like on the ground And how detrimental would that be For the IDF? What we have Entering this negotiation phase Is nothing compared to the last one But right now Hamas is In the northern part as we Are described is Now going In Losi Central Command The capabilities, the southern Part is under attack Now I would say The Hamas is looking For a ceasefire, it's grasping For a ceasefire Hopefully this ceasefire will End with a long-term Ceasefire due to the pressure In Israel of the hostages Families all the toll of this And This happened in the past Hopefully they are going to That will try And they will work for what we will see Work for this kind of A long-term Ceasefire On the Israeli side In the mirroring contra Israel actually has the hostages problem But it also has two other problems Which actually Define the way Israel will take One of them is the Evacuees, we have over Well over 100,000 Evacuees Will not turn Return to their home places Unless the situation is dramatically changed That is Hamas is no longer In power This is one thing The other thing is if Hamas Remain in power Israel is in big trouble because They will assign to the Arab world Which was in a very well Process of recognizing Israel And the Israel peace agreement And so on, they will understand That the tide Are turned and they can return To the old 50 years old Slogans of annihilating Israel And the basic term Which faces the leaders in Israel And in the other side From Israeli point of view I would say in the northern part of Gaza The I would say Well over 50% of the Task were achieved And in the southern In the southern part We are in the Yet in the beginning But the pressure is on the high command So Israel So this is the situation Israel I believe can allow Is two weeks Which Washington Post Mentioned I'm not sure that this is correct This might be a balloon Just a balloon that somebody Trying to Yes, but from Israeli point of View, that won't be a problem Since the process We know they already We know everything All around So That won't be a problem for this For this big group But one thing I believe That has to be made clear to the From us In the game This is only a temporary Peace fire It might be measured by hours But it's not going to lead to a Longer one So we are facing a lot Of new problems That right now are being Addressed well by Israel I wanted to bring to the conversation Gershon Vaskin, he was a negotiator In the deal to release IDF soldier Gilad Shalit from Hamas captivity In 2011, he's also the Middle East director Of the international community's organization Goshen, thank you very much for joining me I want to ask you, Haniye And PIJ leaders In Cairo this week, PIJ That's Palestinian Islamic Jihad Is believed to be holding numerous Of those hostages captive Including 25-year-old Noa Al-Ghamani Is this a sign negotiations For a new hostage release deal Are moving forward? It seems so, and it's very good news That it's happening in Cairo And that the Egyptian intelligence Is directly involved in it Because I have a lot more confidence And faith in their ability It's much more than the Qataris Who were essentially backing Hamas And I want to ask you Israel's red line is the release Of women and children that were supposed To be released in that first deal In your opinion, will Hamas come To those terms? Will they release The bebis children and the numerous Women who have been reported Experienced sexual violence I don't know, and I think That Israel has not put a red line But Israel is interested in getting Out as many hostages As possible from all categories That Hamas determines Of course the first priority is the young women There are 14 or 15 young women Between the age of 20 and 30 Who are believed to be held by Hamas And by others in Gaza And Hamas is responsible for them Hamas claims repeatedly That the bebis family Or the children And the mother Are not alive We're sure this is part of their psychological Warfare And we need evidence of whether or not They are in fact alive We don't know what happened to these women We need to get all the hostages out And if Hamas is willing to release hostages There's no way that Israel should say no To any of the hostages coming back There are no red lines Everyone brought out of Gaza Is important for us every day That they remain in Gaza Is a risk to their lives But men are still not part of this deal It includes only women Elderly and the sick Will men ever be part of this deal Is Hamas holding them as sort of Their last golden ticket I don't think that we know Who are included in the deal We don't have any real information I think that from what I understand Hamas is willing to release The elderly men They are demanding in return elderly Prisoners Elderly prisoners in Israel have been sitting In prison for 20, 25 years 30 years They are people who have murdered Israelis They have blood on their hands And this is why there is a chance That Hamas might be willing to release The elderly men because they think They can get the hardcore prisoners Released in exchange Hanana, I want to get your take On these negotiations I would like to complicate it With the equation I agree with Gerson His work, tremendous work in the past And thank you Gerson for the work You have done in the past But in this case I believe that Hamas right now Is not controlling all the hostages Which is complicating totally the picture One of the First issue that Israel is tackling Is trying to solve Is getting a list And a commitment, a commitment I would not say Because we are not getting any commitment from Hamas We believe their commitment We want to have a list Of the people, of all the people Not the categories, they might give a list Of 12 people and that's what they have All the rest are spread out In families in Gaza, all over Gaza And the Palestinian They don't have any Way to reach them To know where about What their condition So this make These negotiations much more complicated The Hamas is of course And trying to play around I hope this way Aside with the huge Intelligence construction That is in behind Supporting this effort We know how to deal with this case Gershon I want to ask you Should Israel make the first move To state 8th terms of the deal And if so, what should Israel offer Definitely Israel needs to take the initiative now We know from any kind of negotiation The person who takes the initiative And puts a plan on the table Controls the negotiations Israel has been playing a passive role In negotiations with Hamas Over the 17 years that I've been involved In negotiations with Hamas Always waiting for Hamas to make the offer And Israel responding to it Israel needs to take control Of the negotiations by making an offer I use the term from the godfather That Israel should make an offer That Hamas cannot refuse Because we are threatening to kill them But because we will offer to release so many prisoners And then release the names of those Prisoners and all the Arabic press All around the region So that pressure is put from within Palestinian society and within the prisons On Hamas to accept it We're holding more than 7,600 Palestinian prisoners Of which 559 of them are serving life sentences Another 130 of the terrorists From October 7th There is a large number of prisoners That we could release With a relatively low risk to Israel Of course there are always risks involved But I think it could be taken care of By our security forces And let's not forget that Israel could Re-arrest them as well as we've done in the past Israel arrests Palestinians Every night hundreds of them every month Now and so We have no shortage of prisoners That we could offer to release Looking back at the Gilat Shalit deal In 2011 which saw the release Of 1,000 Palestinian prisoners Exchange for the release of one Israeli soldier How much do you think this affected Hamas's Leverage in these negotiations? I think what affects Hamas's Leverage in these negotiations Is the fact that there's no shortage To Palestinian prisoners And as long as the conflict goes on There will be Palestinians willing to fight And die for Palestine And this is the factor that we need To examine more than the fact that We released so many prisoners initially Of course it was a bad deal, it wasn't good for Israel It was the only deal, it was a deal That was put on the table six months after Shalit Was abducted and remained the deal That Israel signed in October of 2011 Five years and four months after He was held in captivity In Palestinians A Sinwar Hamas are committed To emptying the Israeli prisons Sinwar said it on the day that he's released He's made that comment in every Important speech he's made over the last 12 years And he means it, this is his ultimate goal Is to free all Palestinian prisoners And of course our challenge Is to free as few as possible But the main thing Our responsibility is as a country The moral responsibility of Israel Is to bring all the hostages home Hanan, do you think the government Is factoring the results of the Gilat Shalit deal in these negotiations? Yeah, there is no No question about it This is a thing that is a nightmare For every Israeli that understand What happened, Hamas is now Is created And build and set the targets By people who were released In this Exchange And this of course is driving the Israeli Israelis and this is why One of the things of this The Polish Israelis right now Is conducting in the Gaza Is that it has two arms One is negotiating and the other one is the military Getting as close as possible To Yakhs in war They understand that the option he has Are windowing every day We have the obligation To get the hostages As soon as possible Every day is too much But on the other hand We cannot give No, they are calling it now Peace now Free people now Jewish people are much clever than that For the future we cannot speak now Because if we release them now Whatever they want Tomorrow we get it back Ten times worse situation So this is Hopefully The Hamas people The Hamas leadership are under Permanent pressure I don't believe from the population But more for their own life All the families are threatened And that will affect the way This negotiation hopefully Will get a different result Gentlemen, stay with me I want to cross over to Israel's northern border Where I-24 news correspondent Zach Anders is standing by Zach, the IDF striking Preemptively Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon Earlier today, what's the latest at this hour? We still haven't seen a red alarm This afternoon, so The most activity was taking place yesterday With multiple attacks From Hezbollah Of course, some of them not all Claimed by responsibility By Hezbollah through Lebanese media channels But happening again against the backdrop Of these tense strikes That take place on Both evacuated towns In areas that have not been Entirely evacuated in some places Where it's not mandatory And so these individuals are again Under threat from What appears to be heavy rockets And drones, the drones Have been a curious element to all of this Because One of them in the last several days Has evaded the air defense systems Here And killed one IDF soldier Wounded two others In the last week So while The success of the Iron Dome Is still Remarkable It is not perfect And that's the reason for the evacuations So many people haven't been able to return to their homes Any progress on diplomatic efforts To secure a buffer zone On Israel's northern border to push Hezbollah back Well, on Monday we saw France's foreign minister Visit Beirut and meet with The caretaker prime minister In Lebanon Some of the parliament leaders But notably Absent in all of these Diplomatic negotiations Of course, Hezbollah Not As far as we know And independent media reports that we can tell Hezbollah is Not meeting with any Foreign dignitaries Or leaders in being party to these talks That's not to say that there hasn't been Some communication But it's happening behind closed doors And the real question being What can you possibly offer Hezbollah Or Hezbollah Cokes this deal into fruition To create a buffer The buffer has changed From Israel's original Statements of pushing All the way back to the Latani river Honoring UNSC 1701 Now the buffer that's being proposed Out of the US Is a six mile buffer to start Which does reach the Latani river But in some places it's much wider And would create Still a large zone where Hezbollah would be Still outside the river And outside the buffer Zach Anders, thank you very much for that update From Israel's northern border Still with me here, Hanan Geffen And Gershon Baskin We just heard our correspondent tell us about diplomatic efforts From both the United States and France To issue to broker pardon Some sort of buffer zone to push Hezbollah forces away from Israel So that Israeli civilians can go back To living their lives in northern Israel A direct confrontation with Hezbollah Is unavoidable I want to ask you, Hanan Why has the terror group held off until now From attacking Israel full on? Yeah, that's actually a question From the 8th of October Hezbollah is acting totally different From what we have used to in the past There was an equation Which broken Months ago And he still is acting I would describe it as Not caught in the light of a car But it's frozen, like a cut in the light of Of a car Now And politically there are no Any Speeches by Hezbollah And beside the one or the two Even the first days It's very strange Every day passes Israel is Targeting more pre-emptive Strikes Strikes are already Announced, are not concealed anymore And the question is Whether this situation Is a background for negotiation So far it seems the negotiations Are not leading to anything There are people coming and going But And on the other side we see that Iran And the others are very quiet Are not inciting Hezbollah to do anything more that he is doing So it's a Very good question We have to remember because It might be changing its direction And To turn it into something else So we have to wait To this game To roll out Gentlemen I want to thank you both For joining me today with your insight We too On October 7th Yareev Hajabi, a farmer living in the Gaza envelope Woke up to the realization that his entire family From nearby Mosheb Yakhiney Was under Hamas attack Take a listen to his harrowing account From here Yakhiney told me There are people So I took my phone And told me they were coming In that moment When my mother told me That they were coming So I went to my friend I took him And two more years We were four We were all together And in fact We were in the middle of the storm Up to the waterfalls And on the way To the waterfalls We started moving We saw three Or four people here I started to see To see if they could help us To take them out of the house There were many of us And we That Someone was watching us And suddenly There was a wind And the wind was blowing They saw us And they started to see us And then they sent Another wind To take us out From the east And then we realized That the situation was very, very dangerous It was already in our hands We just had to put our hands Like this And we didn't like it The power went on And we were left here alone We started to steal All the stuff here And to keep the area All this area was my garden Because it was a garden So I stayed here In the garden It was still there All this area Was filled with And all this stuff That I put here I went to the garden To the garden Where they are I saw that It was a mess I threw away some of the other two That were around here We broke the tree And then we realized That my children were actually hurt Because of the blood I mean, everyone was hurt When we realized that there were animals here He had to come to his own garden To get rid of them But It was more than the time We had to live To model all this work And Nothing else started There was a fight Because the wind was blowing And it was just a struggle Every day If you want to get rid Of them And move on To another day That's the biggest mentality Here Because the work is work But we are not at all In the future That wraps this hour's broadcast But don't go anywhere I'm Sarah Martinez Thanks for watching As our soldiers are fighting On the front line But the general perception Is something that certainly needs to To be fought as well Today marks the 75th day of the war As Israel's ground operation To dismantle Hamas rages on The IDF announcing a short while ago The death of yet another soldier Kill in combat in the Gaza Strip Bringing the death toll of IDF troops To a total of 134 dead Reports are emerging of Renewed, indirect Israel-Hamas Negotiations on a new deal To secure the release of the 124 people who were killed By the Israeli military To secure the release of the 129 hostages still held captive In the Gaza Strip The Washington Post reporting Israel is considering agreeing to A long ceasefire that could last Up to two weeks in order for Hamas to locate the hostages And return them to Israel Hamas political chief Ismail Hania Is in Cairo today to take part In those talks amid reports The head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad will also be visiting The Israeli military A deal has doubled down after PIJ published a video of two Israeli hostages Tuesday evening 79-year-old Gadi Moses and 47-year-old Elad Katsir were Kidnapped from Nile Oz on October 7th. Meanwhile, the IDF preemptively Struck Hezbollah targets in Southern Lebanon earlier today As hostilities continue between Israel and Hezbollah. Let's cross over to I-24 news What's the latest where you are? Well, we've heard from the IDF Spokesperson Unit that in Hezbollah although yesterday It was stated that Hezbollah camp was Already under Israeli Control today again The IDF says that The Nahal Infantry Brigade Is operating inside They found rockets A battery of long range Rockets mounted on a truck That was supposed to target The center of the country Probably because it's long range rockets It was neutralized There've been clashes in Hezbollah There've been clashes also In Shejaya which is Just left To where I'm standing And further south of Gaza city The offensive is going Through force. There's been Intensive pounding Of presumed Hamas targets In the center of Hezbollah Which is just behind me Which controls the access road To Ghaniunas A lot of pounding as well In the central refugee camps In this direction at around 10 kilometers away from where we are Nusera, Tel Buraj, Direl Barak And then in Ghaniunas itself The deployment of an additional Brigade in addition to the 98 commando unit brigade As well as the Paratrooper reserve brigade And other units that are Operating within And without Ghaniunas On the outskirts We know that there's also Targets on the western side Of Ghaniunas, eastern side Northern side And further south on the Egyptian Gaza border in the city of Rafah also Air force Targeting of presumed Hamas targets And Pierre, a game of cat and mouse With Hamas Chief Sinoir in the Gaza Strip Absolutely According to the IDF The ground forces were Very close to capturing Yes, Sinoir the Political leader of Hamas In the Gaza Strip He has according to the IDF Four houses that have been Taken over by the IDF In one of them in the Shatir refugee camp Which has been under control For about three weeks Now we understand that the Ground forces operated inside One of his houses They found a secret opening Inside the facility Which led to an underground tunnel Of course Yes, Sinoir wasn't there But according to the IDF He was very close of being captured Now the estimation of the IDF Is that he's hiding in the Underground tunnel network Beneath Hanayunas Pierre Coloshan there Thank you very much for that update I want to bring into the conversation Brigadier General and the Reserves Hanan Geffen, former IDF commander Of Shmone Mataim, that's 8200 intelligence Unit, he joined me from Tel Aviv Thank you very much for joining me, Hanan The Washington Post Is reporting Israel is considering A long two week ceasefire How would that look like on the ground And how detrimental would that be For the IDF? Entering this negotiation phase Is nothing compared to the last one Right now Hamas is in the northern part As we are describing Is now going Elosid Central Command The capabilities The southern part is under Attack Now I would say the Hamas Is looking for a ceasefire Is grasping for a ceasefire Hopefully this Ceasefire will end with a long Term ceasefire Due to the pressure in Israel Of the hostages families For the toll of death And this happened in the past So hopefully they are going to That will try And they will work for What we will see work for this kind of A long term Ceasefire On the Israeli side In the mirroring Contra Israel actually has the hostages problem But it also has two other problems Which actually Define the way Israel will take One of them is there Evacuees We have over 100,000 Evacuees Will not return to their home Places unless the situation Has dramatically changed That is Hamas is no longer In power This is one thing The other thing is if Hamas Remain in power Israel is in big trouble Because they will assign to the Arab world Which was in a very well A process of recognizing Israel And this Peace agreement and so on They will understand That the tides are turned They can return to the old 50 years old slogans Of annihilating Israel So this is the basic term Which faces the leaders In Israel and in the other side From Israeli point of view I would say in the northern part Of Gaza I would say Over 50, well over 50% Of the tasks were achieved So and in the Southern part We are in the Yet in the beginning But the pressure is on the high command Of Hamas So Israel So this is the situation Israel I believe can allow These two weeks Which Washington Post Mentioned I'm not sure that this is correct This might be a balloon Just a balloon that somebody Trying to Find both of you That won't be a problem Since the process We know they already got enough information We know everything all around So That won't be a problem For this very process We group and carry on But one thing I believe That has to be made clear To the Hamas In the game This is only a temporary Solution by hours By few days But it's not going to lead to a longer one Otherwise We are really facing a lot of New problems That right now are being addressed Well by Israel I wanted to bring to the conversation Gershon Vaskin He was a negotiator In the deal to release IDF soldier Gilad Shalit from Hamas Captivity In 2011 I want to ask you Hania and PIJ leaders Will both be in Cairo this week PIJ, that's Palestinian Islamic Jihad Is believed to be holding numerous Of those hostages captive Including 25 year old Noa Al-Ghamani Is this a sign negotiations for a new Hostage release deal are moving forward It seems so And it's very good news that it's happening In Cairo and that the Egyptian intelligence Directly involved in it because I have a lot more confidence and faith In their ability to deliver What Israel needs much more than The Qatari's who were essentially backing Hamas And I want to ask you Israel's red line Is the release of women and children That were supposed to be released in that first deal In your opinion Will Hamas come to those terms Will they release the bebis children And the numerous women who have been Reported experience sexual violence I don't know And I think that Israel has not Put a red line but Israel is interested In getting out now as many Hostages as possible From all categories that Hamas Determines. Of course the first priority Is the young women there are 14 or 15 Young women between the age of 20 And 30 who are believed to be Helped by Hamas and by others In Gaza and Hamas is responsible For them Hamas claims repeatedly that the bebis family Or the children And the mother are not alive We don't know that for sure This is part of their psychological warfare And we need evidence of whether or not They are in fact alive We don't know what happened to these women We need to get all the hostages out And if Hamas is willing to release hostages There's no way that Israel should Say no to any of the hostages Coming back there are no red lines Everyone brought out of Gaza Is important for us every day that They remain in Gaza is a risk to their lives As we mentioned Men are still not part of this deal It includes only women Elderly and the sick Will men ever be part of this deal Is Hamas holding them as sort of Their last golden ticket I don't think that we know Who are included in the deal We don't have any real information I think that From what I understand Hamas Is willing to release the elderly men They are demanding And return elderly prisoners Now people who are elderly prisoners In Israel have been sitting in prison For 20, 25 years, 30 years They are people who have murdered Israelis They have blood on their hands And this is why there's a chance That Hamas might be willing to release The elderly men because they think They can get the hardcore prisoners Released in exchange I wanna get your take on these negotiations I would like to complicate With the equation I agree with Gershon Follow his work Mendes' work in the past Thank you Gershon for the work you've done In the past but in this case I believe that Hamas right now Is not controlling all the hostages Which is complicating Totally the picture One of the first issue That Israel is tackling Is trying to solve The list and the commitment Commitment I would not say Because we are not getting any commitment But we want to have a list Of all the people Not the categories They might give a list of 12 people And that's what they have All the rest are spread out In families in Gaza All over Gaza Palestinian traction They don't have any way to reach them To know where about The condition So this make This negotiation much more complicated The Hamas of course will kill it And try to play around I hope this will aside With the huge intelligence Construction that is in behind Supporting this effort Will know how to deal With this case Gershon I wanna ask you Should Israel make the first move To state its terms of the deal To make an offer? Definitely Israel needs to take the initiative now We know from any kind of negotiation The person who takes the initiative And puts a plan on the table Controls the negotiations Israel has been playing a passive role In negotiations with Hamas Over the 17 years that I've been involved In negotiations with Hamas Always waiting for Hamas to make the offer And Israel responding to it Israel needs to take control Of the Godfather That Israel should make an offer That Hamas cannot refuse But not in those terms That they can't refuse it Because we are threatening to kill them But because we will offer to release So many prisoners And then release the names of those Prisoners and all the Arabic press All around the region So that pressure is put from within Palestinian society And within the prisons on Hamas We have a number of prisoners That are serving life sentences Another 130 of the terrorists From October 7th There is a large number of prisoners That we could release With a relatively low risk to Israel Of course there are always risks involved But I think it could be taken care Of by our security forces And let's not forget that Israel could Re-arrest them as well as we've done In the past Israel arrests Palestinians every night As well as the Palestinian prisoners That we could offer to release Looking back at the Gilat Shalit deal In 2011 which saw the release of Over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners Exchange for the release of one Israeli soldier How much do you think this affected Hamas's leverage in these negotiations I think what affects Hamas's Leverage in these negotiations Is the fact that there's no shortage To Palestinian prisoners And as long as the conflict goes on There's no shortage of Palestine And this is the factor that we need To examine more than the fact that We've released so many prisoners In a Shalit deal Of course it was a bad deal It wasn't good for Israel It was the only deal It was a deal that was put on the table Six months after Shalit was abducted And remained the deal that Israel signed In October of 2011 Five years and four months After he was held in captivity The day that he's released He's made that comment in every important speech He's made over the last 12 years And he means it. This is his ultimate goal Is to free all Palestinian prisoners And of course our challenge Is to free as few as possible But the main thing Our responsibility is as a country The moral responsibility of Israel Is to bring all the hostages home Do you think the government Is factoring the results of the Gilat Shalit deal in these negotiations Yeah, there's no question about it This is a thing that It's a nightmare for every Israeli That understand what happened Hamas is now Created and built And set the targets By people who were released In this Exchange And this of course is driving the Israeli Israelis and this is why One of the things of this The policy that Israel Is right now Is conducting in Gaza Is that it has two arms One is negotiating and the other one is the military Getting as close as possible To Yakhs-e-Sinbar They understand that the options he has Are windowing every day We have the obligation to To get the hostages as soon as possible Every day is Too much But on the other hand we cannot give No They're calling it now Peace now, free people now Jewish people are much cleverer than that We think for the future We cannot speak now because if we release them Now whatever they want Tomorrow we'll get it back Ten times worse Situation So this is hopefully The Hamas people The Hamas leadership are under Permanent pressure I don't believe from the population But more for their own life All the families are threatened And that will affect the way They will conduct this negotiation Hopefully we'll get a different result This time Gentlemen stay with me I want to cross over to Israel's northern border Where I-24 news correspondent Zach Anders Is standing by Zach the IDF striking preemptively Has blood targets in southern Lebanon earlier today What's the latest at this hour We still haven't seen a red alarm this afternoon So the most activity was taking place Yesterday with Multiple attacks from Hezbollah This of course Some of them not all claimed By responsibility by Hezbollah Through Lebanese media channels But happening again against the backdrop Of these tense strikes That take place on Both evacuated towns In areas that have not been Entirely evacuated in some places Mandatory And so these individuals are again under threat From what appears to be Heavy rockets and drones The drones have been A curious element to all of this Because One of them in the last several days Has evaded the air defense systems here And Killed one IDF soldier Wounded two others In the last weeks So while The zone is still Remarkable It is not perfect And that's the reason for the evacuations And the reason why so many people Haven't been able to return to their homes And any progress on diplomatic efforts To secure a buffer zone on Israel's northern border To push Hezbollah back Well on Monday we saw France's foreign minister visit Beirut and meet with The caretaker prime minister In Lebanon Some of the parliament leaders But notably absent In all of these diplomatic negotiations All these talks is of course Hezbollah Nasrallah As far as We know and independent media reports That we can tell Hezbollah Nasrallah not meeting with Any Foreign dignitaries or leaders In being party to these talks That's not to say that there hasn't been Some communication but There has been some communication Behind closed doors And the real question being What can you possibly offer Nasrallah or Hezbollah And to Cokes this deal into fruition To create a buffer The buffer has changed From Israel's original Statements of pushing all the way Back to the Lattani river Honoring UNSC 1701 Now the buffer that's being proposed Is a small buffer to start Which does reach the Lattani river But in some places it's much wider And would create Still a large zone where Hezbollah Would be still outside The river and outside the buffer Zach Anders thank you very much For that update from Israel's northern border Stay with me here We just heard our correspondent Tell us about diplomatic efforts From both the United States and France To issue to broker pardon To push Hezbollah forces Away from Israel so that Israeli civilians can go back to Living their lives in northern Israel But security experts say a direct Confrontation with Hezbollah is unavoidable I want to ask you Why has the terror group held off Until now from attacking Israel full on Yeah that's Actually a question from the 8th of October You know Hezbollah acting Totally different From what we have used to in the past There was an equation which Broken Months ago And it still is acting I would describe It as a cat caught in the light of A car that is frozen Like a cat in the light of A car Now and politically There are no Speeches Beside The one or the two In the first days It's very strange Every day passes Israel is Targeting more preemptive Strikes Strikes are already announced Are not concealed anymore And the question is whether This situation is a background For negotiation So far it seems the negotiations Are not leading to anything There are people coming going But On the other side we see that Iran and the others Are not Insiting Hezbollah to do Anything more that he is doing So it's a very good question We have to remember Because it might be changed In direction And to turn it To something else So we have to wait To this game to roll out Roll out Gentlemen, I want to thank you both For joining me today with your insight With you On October 7, Yerib Khadjabi A farmer living in the Gaza envelope Woke up to the realization that his entire family From nearby Mosheb Yakhini Was under Hamas' attack Take a listen to his harrowing account After a few minutes My mother called me From here Yakhini said to me They are here I said there are people And then I hung up the phone And she said that they were in my brother's In that moment When my mother told me That they were in So I went to my brother I put him in There were four of us We all stayed And in fact we waited For four minutes We crossed the border And we crossed the border To get to Mata And on the way To Nistar We started to move We saw three Or four people here I started to see the direction To push them away There was a lot of pressure on us We realized that Who is going to be on us In the end There was actually some kind of force The army was here And they were actually fighting They saw us And they actually started to see us And then they also Took some kind of force To push us away from the east And then we realized There was a lot of pressure There was a lot of pressure on us We just realized that we were still And we crossed them And in the end We didn't like it The force continued And we actually stayed here We started to push all the pressure To push the area All the area was My brother's house My brother lives here In the house On the left side of the road All this area Was filled with Thermals And all the buildings I built here Actually I went to a small village Of my brothers That they know I saw that it was actually a village I left two soldiers Who were here On the other side And then we realized that my brothers Were actually killed They were actually killed In the same situation My brother and my sister all died When we realized that there were terrorists He had to come to his brother's house To kill them But He died more than the time Now we have to live To model all this work And Nothing else starts Because the situation is different And It only depends on If you are going to die If you are going to die