 And we have to do the job and that if we have the right ingredients and we do the job that the Vakita can be protected. Morning from Tel Aviv and welcome to I-24 News' ongoing coverage of Israel at war. I'm Ariel Levin-Waldman. We are going to open on the northern front massive airstrikes at the airports in Damascus and Aleppo, putting both airports out of commission. The IDF has begun evacuation plans for 14 more villages along the northern border after creating a three mile deep evacuation zone last weekend. Just about half an hour ago another anti-tank missile fired in the Israeli tank in the north. The tank wasn't hit and returned fire. A senior Hamas commander in their rocket division was eliminated last night and the number of hostages held by the terror organizations has regrettably been updated to 212. The West Bank also heating up with the IDF destroying an underground terrorist route at a mosque in Janine where members of the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic jihad were sheltering and planning a massive imminent attack, planned for today in fact, modeled after the October 7th massacre. All this coming as security forces launch massive arrest raids across the West Bank to confiscate the weapons and ammunition you're seeing in these pictures here from terror operatives, guns and ammunition as well as parts for manufacturing automatic weapons to use in terror attacks. 727 arrests so far, 480 Hamas members including the mayor of Albirah. The U.S. has also activated more military assets in the region as the war threatens to expand. In addition to those two carrier strike groups, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has ordered the deployment of air defense systems and additional forces on standby for rapid deployment. The IDF earlier gave a briefing on the war, let's take a quick lesson. On the northern front, we thwart threats and kill terrorists and respond to any attack from Lebanese territory. In the last day, the IDF forces eliminated several squads that planned to attack outposts and settlements along the border. The last squad was eliminated this morning. During the night, we attacked a Hezbollah military compound and attacked a compound from which a missile was fired at our unmanned aerial vehicles. We hit the compound, there were no casualties to our forces, and the aerial vehicle was not hit. We continued to attack Hezbollah targets and damage its observation collection system. This morning, 14 villagers were added to the state-funded evacuation plan. The addition of these villagers was approved by Defense Minister Joav Galant. The heads of the villagers were informed of this. The evacuation of the villagers increases the IDF's freedom of action in space. And we're going to open in the north with our Middle East correspondent, Ariel Osiron. What is the latest going on on that front? Right, Ariel, so in the past hour, there have been at least two anti-tank guided missile attacks on Israeli military targets. The first one at the beginning of last hour, an anti-tank missile was fired at an Israeli tank near in the area of Haridov that's in the far eastern part of the Israel-Lebanon border. The IDF said that the tank responded with shelling towards the origin of fire. And just a short while ago, IDF issuing another statement saying that a number of anti-tank guided missiles were launched at the border outpost of Tsiporen. Now Lebanese media sharing footage of that attack and you can see that they're targeting not only communication systems along the outposts but specifically intelligence gathering systems that is according to the Lebanese side and they've been releasing, Hezbollah has been releasing images of targeting these systems along the border. So that definitely is something to keep in mind and that is concerning. But in addition to these two attacks, there have been numerous attacks that have been thwarted just today with IDF forces taking out terror cells. In addition to that, the IDF saying that a drone was shot down on its way to Israel from southern Lebanon. Thank you very much, Ariel. We will be coming back to you over the course of the day with more updates from the situation on the northern border. Before that though, we are going to be joined by Reserve Colonel Itamar Yar, former deputy head of Israeli national security. Thank you very much for being with us. I want to get a quick assessment from you on what the current state of affairs is. As far as the northern borders go, does Israel expect in the coming days Hezbollah to fully commit to this war? As far as I know, Israel doesn't have a clear answer to the question if the Hezbollah took a decision already to be involved and to open a frontier between Lebanon and Israel. I would like to make it clear if it will happen, it will not be some kind of a battle between Israel and Hezbollah, because not like the situation in other places, in Lebanon, it's very clear that the Hezbollah is controlling the government. The government is supporting Hezbollah. Hezbollah is part of the government. So once it will happen, it will be a battle between Israel and Lebanon and the results will be much, much tougher compared to the results even that we can see and we will see in Gaza, because Israel is preparing for such a battle in Lebanon because of Hezbollah for a long time. And it will be in many ways easier for Israel to destroy Lebanese infrastructure in a way that will affect Hezbollah. So what you're describing the situation with the Lebanese army is also involved in Israel's fighting a peer-to-peer conflict rather than a counterinsurgency conflict. It's not between Israel and the Lebanese army. The Lebanese army is not really an army. The Lebanese army is some kind of a force that gets orders from the Lebanese government in one hand and from the Hezbollah in the other hand. They don't act in any way in every place that the Hezbollah don't want them to act. And we know it. It's clear. Everybody understands it, including UNIFIL in South Lebanon. But again, let's speak about the current situation. The current situation, I believe, the best way to describe it is that Hezbollah try to make sure that Israel will have to send forces to defend the northern part of Israel. And they're right. And Israel sent forces for that. They try to destroy some Israeli collection, intelligence collection systems that even succeed to kill some Israeli civilians and some Israeli military. But all together, the Hezbollah is very careful, at least for now, not to open a real campaign against Israel, because I believe that they understand what will be the results of it. At the same time, on top of the local successes that I just mentioned, they also, in this way, try to send a message that they see, that they would like themselves to be seen as somebody that supports the Hamas battle and so on. I would like to remind you another thing that in some of these activities that Hezbollah didn't take responsibility. They have said that it's not us. It's some kind of Hamas elements that come from the Palestinian communities in South Lebanon. As far as we're concerned, we believe that nobody in South Lebanon can do anything without the permission from the Hezbollah. So for us, everything that comes from Lebanon, it's Hezbollah. And in this way, we see it. In this way, we will act once we will decide to act. It's not a secret that for the short time, we are not very happy to open another frontier in Lebanon at the same time that we try to focus our mind in the Gaza Strip against the Hamas. But as the Defense Minister said yesterday publicly, once the Hezbollah will go on with these kind of activities, and if it will be perhaps even worse, Israel have the willingness and have the capabilities to deal with it in this way, because we are stretched between the two areas, the results will be even worse, because we will not be able to make sure that our activities will be very sensitive activities. And in real, using real words, it will mean that the casualties on the Lebanese side will be much heavier. We will not be happy with it, but if we will be forced to act, this will be the kind of results. Colonel, there's a hard question at play here when we're talking about fighting terrorists on multiple fronts. The IDF is very skilled at fighting against peer-level armies on multiple fronts that it was designed to do, but to actually fight against terrorist forces in urban environments outside of Israeli territory seems like it presents a major challenge to the IDF. What is the road forward fighting this sort of war? In a sense, what you asked is not really related to the Hezbollah activities, because the Hezbollah succeed to build up during the last, I would say almost 40 years already, starting perhaps in 2000 and, sorry, 1982, to build up an army. It's not a typical terrorist activity only. It's a mixture of terrorism activity, guerrilla activity, and regular force activities. And the pictures that you just, that they see that you have on the screen show it. So from this point of view, for Israel, it will be much easier to deal with it. At the same time, I would say that because, as I said, we understood that one day we will have to deal with Hezbollah, something that we try to ignore when we thought about the future in the south, between us and the Gaza Strip. The plans are there. A lot of information along the years, the exact weapons, exact tactics that can deal with it. So for the Israeli armed forces to deal with the Hezbollah, it will be a challenge. And many people will lose their lives, some of them in our side as well, understand it. But again, if we will be forced to do it, we will know how to do it. Okay, well, we're gonna try to get back to you after we first speak to our correspondent in the south for updates on that front. P.S. Dekelbach, you are out there on the southern border now. Give us the updates from that front. Well, Ariel, this morning, Rocketfire has been coming out of the Gaza Strip, targeting some of the communities here close to the Gaza Strip, including the city of Ashkelon, where now residents that do not have an own shelter in their homes are planned to be evacuated from the city into other areas of the country. What you see behind me is the northern Gaza Strip, very close to the border. You're seeing the area of Bed Hanun there. The Israeli military said that it struck dozens of Hamas targets, including tunnels, warehouses, centers for command and weapons, and also mosques that were used as Hamas depots throughout the night. Really, the Israeli military is also preparing to immediately step up its strikes in the Gaza Strip to increase pressure on a Hamas yesterday, which is two weeks after the beginning of the war, the first humanitarian aid deliveries entered Gaza through the Rafah crossing with Egypt. And we're talking about 20 trucks carrying food, water, medicine. As Israel ruled out to allow fuel to enter, the concern is that Hamas will confiscate it to use for its own infrastructure. Now, the continuation of the humanitarian aid for Gaza is said to be dependent on whether this aid will actually reach the civilian population or be taken by Hamas. Now, how this is going to be monitored is yet unclear, but organizations on the ground are saying that 20 trucks for a civilian population of 2 million is like a drop in the ocean, and it is not clear yet when the deliveries will resume and more trucks can enter. Hospitals too on the ground say that fuel is needed to run those hospitals' ambulances and also run desalination plans to supply water. The UN has repeatedly called for a ceasefire as reports from the ground, and Gaza suggests that the humanitarian crisis is intensifying day by day. But meanwhile, Israel calls upon the residents still to leave northern Gaza and move to the southern part of the strip, as Israel continues to prepare its ground offensive from the air with strikes. We can also, from time to time here, the boom seer Israeli artillery striking Gaza earlier about an hour ago. We also saw a major airstrike here tearing down one building, targeting one building in Gaza. We also see that reinforcement is still being brought here to the border, and the soldiers are still training and that ground offensive is looming, but nobody really knows when it will begin. And now, as you're still looking at pictures from northern Gaza, this is also the place where 212 hostages are believed to be held currently by Hamas. This number was just updated this morning by the Israeli authorities. Now, on Friday, the first two hostages were freed in a deal that is believed to be actually connected to the entry of aid. It sparked some hope among the families of other hostages. It sparked some hope that there might be future deals. But that is very much in the unknown as of now is also the possible ground offensive that everybody is sort of waiting for more or less so that is expected. But no date has been, of course, in the room as of now. It might further endanger the hostages, but it also might bring some movement into this war. It might bring some developments here as the situation here, especially here, that close to the Gaza border is very, very volatile, Ariel. Well, thank you very much. It's a tense situation that you are describing, but as it develops, we're definitely going to have you on the ground to break it down for us. But in studio to help us understand this better is Neri Zilber, adjunct fellow from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Before we get into anything else, I want to really get your read on some of the situation that we just saw there on the southern border. On the southern border? I mean, look, we're now over two weeks into this campaign. And as your correspondent said, the ground operation still has not come about. The Israeli army says very clearly that it's preparing the ground for a ground offensive. I don't think there's any doubt that it is coming, although some people may doubt in their minds. But the Israeli officials, both political and military, have been very clear in recent days that they're preparing the troops, they're preparing the public for a serious ground operation, really the first of its kind in probably 20 or 30 years, in terms of the Israeli army going in massive force into enemy territory. So it is coming, it is likely imminent. The IDF is preparing the ground. And before we continue this, I want you to go back briefly to Colonel Itamar Iyar, because we had been discussing a fair bit, the Lebanese front. But now we're going to talk about what is going to look like the actual operation in Gaza. First of all, I would say the operation had started already. It's not only preparation. The operation itself had started. The first two main elements that took place already, and they are part of the operation, is what we see the air attacks. The air attacks have many, many goals. One of them is to destroy Hamas infrastructure, military infrastructure, tunnels, rockets, centers and so on, headquarters, and to kill commanders and Hamas activists. At the same time, there are ground forces within Gaza already. You don't see them, and I don't speak about tanks that you can see. But there are some Israeli groups that are collecting information that are part of the preparation for the heavy part of the attack. Secondly, I would like to say that when people speak about ground operation, some of them at least have in mind that Israel is going to occupy Gaza Strip. I would like to make it very clear, Israel will not occupy the Gaza Strip. Having said that, Israel might keep some areas of the Gaza Strip for a very long time, and in other places Israel will send forces in to do what needs to be done, and then these forces will go out and in. So it's a mixture. It's not an invasion of the Gaza Strip, but it will be different kinds of ground operation. Now dealing with the humanitarian elements, first of all I would say that the way that the Israeli side see humanitarian is that there is no one side kind of humanitarian aid. We or Israel, the Israeli authorities, see information and release of those that were kidnapped into Gaza Strip, not less humanitarian than the supply of some goods into Gaza. So what we saw yesterday when the two hostages were released, in this case to Americans, is I understand it's part of an understanding. It's not an agreement, but it's part of an understanding that has respond to the right to send humanitarian supply inside. We will see equivalent actions from the Hamas. Now it's, you know, taking give. If the Israeli side will see that this is what is happening, there is a chance that Israel will go on with what we allow to do. If we realize one of two options, one of them is that we don't see anything in the field of the hostages. And secondly, that we will see that some of this supply is some kind of supply that goes into the hands of the Hamas, we will stop it. And it's easy for us to stop it. Now I'd like to relate even deeper, you know, there is no question of water. Why? Because Israel send and goes on with supply of water. You might ask yourself, how is it that the Gaza needs supply of water from Israel? And the answer for it is that they invest on building tunnels instead of building desalination centers, even though the international community tried to help them and to convince them to invest the money that they got from Qatar for that they didn't do it. So the water question is not a question. It's definitely a complicated issue on the ground there, though. The fuel, the fuel only one more point is something different. Two days ago, the UN even announced that fuel that was there for the hospitals were taken by Hamas for their interest. So Israel will not allow to send in fuel because we understand already what will happen to this fuel once it will go in. It's a very challenging issue ahead. I thank you for helping us all understand why there are so many facets and difficulties to navigate with that approach. For everyone that was Colonel Atamart Yard, former deputy head of Israeli National Security Council. I'm going to return back to you in the studio here now because we hadn't got a chance to hear from you, Neri. So let's just jump into a little bit about what we heard because we heard about the tactical side and the humanitarian side. I do want to discuss more the hostage situation because it is going to be hanging over this entire operation and it is going to be challenging any operational freedom that Israel has to operate with. What can be done at this point? You would think it would limit Israeli operational possibilities, although I have my doubts that the Israeli political and military leadership sees it that way. I say that sadly because there are over 200 people, including many civilians, including babies and elderly Israelis, and foreign nationals as well, being held right now inside the Gaza Strip. I'm not convinced that the hostages are the number one priority for this government. And now you could also ask a question, should it be the number one priority? I'm not the one to make those decisions. It was very, very heavy and difficult decisions. But it seems to me that the government and the leadership in Israel is operating on two contradictory or very difficult to balance tracks. Number one, their stated goal is to eliminate Hamas as a military and governing force in the Gaza Strip. And number two, they say a very high priority to return all the hostages. How you do the two objectives, I don't know. Hopefully, as we saw a few days ago, Hamas unilaterally or not, depending on whether there was a deal or not, is kind of beside the point. But they released a mother and a daughter. I think that's all for the good. If there are back channels via Qatar, Egypt, the UN or other agencies working to get more innocent civilians out of Gaza, I think that's all for the good. I don't think that's going to delay Israeli ground operation. You mentioned some of the international angles that have interest here. We've been discussing a lot the international angles and the positions of Israel's enemies, but we haven't really seen a really in-depth look at how many people are out there that could potentially help with this state of affairs. And as someone who analyzes the entire region, I'd like to get your input on that. Well, we know that Qatar has a major influence on Hamas. They're Hamas's primary financial backer and have been for many years, by the way, with Israeli approval. We all remember the suitcases of cash landing in Ben Gurion Airport and then being driven down to the Erez Crossing and into the Gaza Strip for Hamas directly. And that was done with Israeli approval. That's no longer going to be the case, obviously, after October 7th. Qatar has a major influence, I would argue Turkey as well, Egypt as well, because Egypt really is the only lifeline and avenue out for Gaza and the Gazans to the outside world. Israel is no longer an option after Hamas destroyed all the border crossings on October 7th. So those three actors, I would believe, are the primary ones, as well as the entire world. The international community should make it very clear that while they may not be happy with this or that, Israeli policy vis-a-vis the Palestinians say in the West Bank that has no bearing, or should have no bearing on what happened on October 7th, nothing can justify that kind of savagery and cross-border attack. Also precisely due to the fact that in recent years there have been more negotiations, indirect negotiations, but negotiations nonetheless, between the governments of Bibi Netanyahu and Hamas via the UN, via Egypt, via the Qataris, and no negotiations with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. That should also change arguably forward whatever happens in the coming weeks and months. Very briefly, how do we see that developing in the near future, this change towards the Palestinian Authority? We'll have to see how the war goes. It really depends how difficult and bloody it will get in Gaza in the coming weeks. But ideally, a big lesson for the Israeli leadership, whoever comes after this as well inside Israel, is that you have to deal with the moderate and pragmatic wing of the Palestinian national movement and not the Islamists and jihadists who may be very convenient for you because they're not asking for negotiations and some kind of territorial compromise on the West Bank. I guess ultimately you have to ask if the lesser evil is ultimately still the lesser evil. In this case, thank you very much, Nari, for helping us understand the inside look there and some of the regional politics at play for everyone else. We are just about out of time. We're going to see you again at the top of the next hour with breaking news from around this war and all possible discussions related to it and all possible facts. Thank you very much. Israel is officially in a state of war. This is a very active scene and we need to get in the car as we're talking. More than a hundred soldiers and civilians have been kidnapped. Entire families including babies and children and elderly were butchered in their beds. Awaken the giant and we are ready and we are strong. Everyone is showing up. This is the unity. And more than 3,000 injured and the war with Hamas continues. First-hand testimonies from the front lines from those who survived and all the records of the atrocities by Hamas says Israel fights terror from the south and north. Get the inside scoop on what's going on only on I-24 news. Good morning from Tel Aviv and welcome to I-24 news. Ongoing coverage of Israel at war. We're going to open on the northern front. Massive air strikes at the airports in Damascus and Aleppo putting both airports out of commission. The IDF has begun evacuation plans for 14 more villages along the northern border after creating a three mile deep evacuation zone last weekend. Just about half an hour ago, another anti-tank missile fired in the Israeli tank in the north. The tank wasn't hit and returned fire. A senior Hamas commander in their rocket division was eliminated last night and the number of hostages held by the terror organizations has regrettably been updated to 212. The West Bank also heating up with the IDF destroying an underground terror route at a mosque in Janine where members of the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic jihad were sheltering and planning a massive imminent attack, planned for today in fact, modeled after the October 7th massacre. All this coming as security forces launch massive arrest raids across the West Bank to confiscate the weapons and ammunition you're seeing in these pictures here from terror operatives, guns and ammunition as well as parts for manufacturing automatic weapons to use in terror attacks. 727 arrests so far, 480 Hamas members including the mayor of Al-Bira. The US has also activated more military assets in the region as the war threatens to expand. In addition to those two carrier strike groups, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has ordered the deployment of air defense systems and additional forces on standby for rapid deployment. The IDF earlier gave a briefing on the war. Let's take a quick lesson. On the northern front, we thwart threats and kill terrorists and respond to any attack from Lebanese territory. In the last day the IDF forces eliminated several squads that planned to attack outposts and settlements along the border. The last squad was eliminated this morning. During the night, we attacked a Hezbollah military compound and attacked a compound from which a missile was fired at our unmanned aerial vehicles. We hit the compound, there were no casualties to our forces and the aerial vehicle was not hit. We continue to attack Hezbollah targets and damage its observation collection system. This morning, 14 villagers were added to the state funded evacuation plan. The addition of these villagers was approved by Defense Minister Yohav Galant. The heads of the villagers were informed of this. The evacuation of the villagers increases the IDF's freedom of action in space. And we're going to open in the north with our Middle East correspondent, Ariel Osiron. What is the latest going on on that front? Right, Ariel. So in the past hour there have been at least two anti-tank guided missile attacks on Israeli military targets. The first one at the beginning of last hour. An anti-tank missile was fired at an Israeli tank near in the area of Haradov. That's in the far eastern part of the Israel-Lebanon border. The IDF said that the tank responded with shelling towards the origin of fire. And just a short while ago, IDF issuing another statement saying that a number of anti-tank guided missiles were launched at the border outpost of Tsiporen. Now, Lebanese media sharing footage of that attack. And you can see that they're targeting not only communication systems along the outposts, but specifically intelligence gathering systems that is according to the Lebanese side. And they've been releasing, Hisbala has been releasing images of targeting these systems along the border. So that definitely is something to keep in mind and that is concerning. But in addition to these two attacks, there have been numerous attacks that have been thwarted just today with IDF forces taking out terror cells. In addition to that, the IDF saying that a drone was shot down on its way to Israel from southern Lebanon. Thank you very much, Ariel. We will be coming back to you over the course of the day with more updates from the situation on the northern border. Before that, though, we are going to be joined by Reserve Colonel Itamar Yar, former Deputy Head of Israeli National Security. Thank you very much for being with us. I want to get a quick assessment from you on what the current state of affairs is. As far as the northern borders go, does Israel expect in the coming days, Hisbala, to fully commit to this war? As far as I know, Israel doesn't have a clear answer to the question if the Hisbala took a decision already to be involved and to open a frontier between Lebanon and Israel. I would like to make it clear if it will happen, it will not be some kind of a battle between Israel and Hisbala because not like the situation in other places. In Lebanon, it's very clear that the Hisbala is controlling the government. The government is supporting Hisbala. Hisbala is part of the government. So once it will happen, it will be a battle between Israel and Lebanon and the results will be much, much tougher compared to the results even that we can see and we will see in Gaza because Israel is preparing for such a battle in Lebanon because of Hisbala for a long time and it will be in many ways easier for Israel to destroy Lebanese infrastructure in a way that will affect Hisbala. So what you're describing the situation with the Lebanese army is also involved in Israel's fighting a peer-to-peer conflict rather than a counter-insurgency conflict. It's not between Israel and the Lebanese army. The Lebanese army is not really an army. The Lebanese army is some kind of a force that gets orders from the Lebanese government in one hand and from the Hisbala in the other hand. They don't act in any way in every place that the Hisbala don't want them to act. And we know it's clear. Everybody understands it, including UNIFIL in South Lebanon. But again, let's speak about the current situation. The current situation, I believe, the best way to describe it is that Hisbala try to make sure that Israel will have to send forces to defend the northern part of Israel. And they're right. And Israel sent forces for that. They tried to destroy some Israeli collection, intelligence collection systems that even succeed to kill some Israeli civilians and some Israeli military. But all together, the Hisbala is very careful, at least for now, not to open a real campaign against Israel because I believe that they understand what will be the results of it. At the same time, on top of the local successes that I just mentioned, they also, in this way, try to send a message that they see they would like themselves to be seen as somebody that supports the Hamas battle and so on. I would like to remind you another thing that in some of these activities that Hisbala didn't take responsibility. They have said that it's not us, it's some kind of Hamas elements that come from the Palestinian communities in South Lebanon. As far as we're concerned, we believe that nobody in South Lebanon can do anything without the permission from the Hisbala. So for us, everything that comes from Lebanon, it's Hisbala. And in this way, we see it. In this way, we will act once we will decide to act. It's not a secret that for the short time, we are not very happy to open another frontier in Lebanon at the same time that we try to focus our mind in the Gaza Strip against the Hamas. But as the Defense Minister said yesterday publicly, once the Hisbala will go on with these kind of activities, and if it will be perhaps even worse, Israel have the willingness and have the capabilities to deal with it in this way because we are stretched between the two areas, the results will be even worse because we will not be able to make sure that our activities will be very sensitive activities. And in real using real words, it will mean that the casualties on the money side will be much heavier. We will not be happy with it, but if we will be forced to act, this will be the kind of results. Colonel, there is a hard question at play here when we're talking about voting terrorists on multiple fronts. The IDF is very skilled at voting against peer level armies on multiple fronts that it was designed to do, but to actually fight against terrorist forces in urban environments outside of Israeli territory seems like it presents a major challenge to the IDF. What is the road forward fighting this sort of war? In a sense, what you asked is not really related to the Hisbala activities because the Hisbala succeed to build up during the last, I would say almost 40 years already, starting perhaps in 1982 to build up an army. It's not a typical terrorist activity only. It's a mixture of terrorism activity, guerrilla activity, and regular force activities. And the pictures that you just that they see that you have on the screen show it. So from this point of view, for Israel, it will be much easier to deal with it. At the same time, I would say that because, as I said, we understood that one day we will have to deal with the Hisbala, something that we try to ignore when we thought about the future in the in the south in between us and the gas street. The plans are there. A lot of information along the years, the exact weapons, exact tactics that can deal with it. So for the Israeli armed forces to deal with the Hisbala, it will be a challenge. And the many people will lose their lives, some of them in our side as well, understand it. But again, if we will be forced to do it, we will know how to do it. Okay, well, we're going to try to get back to you after we first speak to our correspondent in the south for updates on that front. P.S. Dekovach, you are out there on the southern border now. Give us the updates from that front. Well, Ariel, this morning, rocket fire has been coming out of the Gaza Strip, targeting some of the communities here close to the Gaza Strip, including the city of Ashkelon, where now residents that do not have an own shelter in their homes are planned to be evacuated from the city and to other areas of the country. What you see behind me is the northern Gaza Strip, we're very close to the border. You're seeing the area of Bed Hanun is there. The Israeli military said that it struck dozens of Hamas targets, including tunnels, warehouses, centers for command and weapons, and also mosques that were used as Hamas depots throughout the night. Really, the Israeli military is also preparing to immediately step up its strikes in the Gaza Strip to increase pressure on the Hamas yesterday, which is two weeks after the beginning of the war, the first humanitarian aid deliveries entered Gaza through the Rafah crossing with Egypt. And we're talking about 20 trucks carrying food, water, medicine, as Israel ruled out to allow fuel to enter. The concern is that Hamas will confiscate it to use for its own infrastructure. Now, the continuation of the humanitarian aid for Gaza is said to be dependent on whether this aid will actually reach the civilian population or be taken by Hamas. Now, how this is going to be monitored is yet unclear, but organizations on the ground are saying that 20 trucks for a civilian population of 2 million is like a drop in the ocean, and it is not clear yet when the deliveries will resume and more trucks can enter. Hospitals too on the ground say that fuel is needed to run those hospitals, ambulances, and also run desalination plans to supply water. And the UN has repeatedly called for ceasefires, reports from the ground. And Gaza suggests that the humanitarian crisis is intensifying day by day. But meanwhile, Israel calls upon the residents still to leave northern Gaza and move to the southern part of the Strip, as Israel continues to prepare its ground offensive from the air with strikes. We can also, from time to time, here the boomseer Israeli artillery striking Gaza earlier about an hour ago. We also saw a major airstrike here tearing down one building, targeting one building in Gaza. We also see that reinforcement is still being brought here to the border, and soldiers are still training at that ground. Offensive is looming, but nobody really knows when it will begin. Now as you're still looking at pictures from northern Gaza, this is also the place where 212 hostages are believed to be held currently by Hamas. This number was just updated this morning by the Israeli authorities. Now, after on Friday, the first two hostages were freed in a deal that is believed to be actually connected to the entry of aid. It sparked some hope among the families of other hostages. It sparked some hope that there might be future deals. But that is very much in the unknown as of now, is also the possible ground offensive that everybody's sort of waiting for more or less, so that is expected. But no date has been, of course, in the room as of now. It might further endanger the hostages, but it also might bring some movement into this war. It might bring some developments here as the situation here, especially here, that close to the Gaza border is very, very volatile, Ariel. Well, thank you very much. It's a tense situation that you are describing. But as it develops, we're definitely going to have you on the ground to break it down for us. But in studio to help us understand this better is Neri Zilber, adjunct fellow from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Before we get into anything else, I want to really get your read on some of the situation that we just saw there on the southern border. On the southern border, I mean, look, we're now over two weeks into this campaign. And as your correspondent said, the ground operation still has not come about. The Israeli army says very clearly that it's preparing the ground for a ground offensive. I don't think there's any doubt that it is coming, although some people may doubt in their minds, but the Israeli officials, both political and military, have been very clear in recent days that they're preparing the troops, they're preparing the public for a serious ground operation, really the first of its kind in probably 20 or 30 years in terms of the Israeli army going in massive force into enemy territory. So it is coming. It is likely imminent. The IDF is preparing the ground. And before we continue this, I want you to go back briefly to Colonel Itamar Yar, because we had been discussing a fair bit, the Lebanese front. But now we want to talk about what is going to look like the actual operation in Gaza. First of all, I would say the operation has started already. It's not only preparation. The operation itself had started. The first two main elements that took place already, and they are part of the operation, is what we see, the air attacks. The air attacks have many, many goals. One of them is to destroy Hamas infrastructure, military infrastructure, tunnels, rockets, centers and so on, headquarters, and to kill commanders and Hamas activists. At the same time, there are ground forces within Gaza already. You don't see them, and I don't speak about tanks that you can see, but there are some Israeli groups that are collecting information that are part of the preparation for the heavy part of the attack. Secondly, I would like to say that when people speak about ground operation, some of them, at least, have in mind that Israel is going to occupy Gaza Strip. I would like to make it very clear. Israel will not occupy the Gaza Strip. Having said that, Israel might keep some areas of the Gaza Strip for a very long time, and in other places, Israel will send forces in to do what needs to be done, and then these forces will go out and in, so it's a mixture. It's not an invasion of the Gaza Strip, but it will be different kinds of ground operation. Now, dealing with the humanitarian elements, first of all, I would say that the way that the Israeli side sees humanitarian is that there is no one side kind of humanitarian aid. We, or Israel, the Israeli authorities, see information and release of those that were kidnapped into Gaza Strip, not less humanitarian than the supply of some goods into Gaza. So what we saw yesterday when the two hostages were released, in this case to Americans, is I understand it's part of an understanding. It's not an agreement, but it's part of an understanding that as a response to the right to send humanitarian supply inside, we will see equivalent actions from the Hamas. Now, it's taking give. If the Israeli side will see that this is what is happening, there is a chance that Israel will go on with what we allow to do. If we realize one of two options, one of them is that we don't see anything in the field of the hostages. And secondly, that we will see that some of this supply is some kind of supply that goes into the hands of the Hamas, we will stop it. And it's easy for us to stop it. Now, I'd like to relate even deeper. There is no question of water. Why? Because Israel sends and goes on with supply of water. You might ask yourself how is it that the Gaza needs supply of water from Israel? And the answer for it is that they invest on building tunnels instead of building desalination centers, even though the international community tried to help them and to convince them to invest the money that they got, that they got from mainly from Qatar for that they didn't do it. So the water question is not a question. Yeah, it's definitely a complicated issue on the ground there, though. The fuel only one point is something different. A few days ago, the UN even announced that fuel that was there for the hospitals were taken by Hamas for their interest. So we will not so Israel will not allow to send in fuel because we understand already what will happen to this fuel once it will go in. Colonel, it's a very challenging issue ahead. I thank you for helping us all understand why there are so many facets and difficulties to navigate with that approach. For everyone that was Colonel Atamart Yar, former deputy head of Israeli National Security Council, I'm going to return back to you in the studio here now because we hadn't got a chance to hear from you, Neri. So let's just jump into a little bit about what we heard because we heard about the tactical side and the humanitarian side. But I do want to discuss more the hostage situation because it is going to be hanging over this entire operation and it is going to be challenging any operational freedom that Israel has to operate with. What can be done at this point? You would think it would limit Israeli operational possibilities although I have my doubts that the Israeli political and military leadership sees it that way. And I say that sadly because there are over 200 people including many civilians, including babies and elderly Israelis and foreign nationals as well being held right now inside the Gaza Strip. I'm not convinced that the hostages are the number one priority for this government. And now you could also ask the question, should it be the number one priority? I'm not the one to make those decisions. It's very, very heavy and difficult decisions. But it seems to me that the government and the leadership in Israel is operating on two contradictory or very difficult to balance tracks. Number one, their stated goal is to eliminate Hamas as a military and governing force in the Gaza Strip. And number two, they say a very high priority to return all the hostages. How you do the two objectives? I don't know. Hopefully, as we saw a few days ago, Hamas unilaterally or not, depending on whether there was a deal or not, is kind of beside the point. But they released a mother and a daughter. I think that's all for the good if there are back channels by Qatar, Egypt, the UN or other agencies working to get more innocent civilians out of Gaza. I think that's all for the good. I don't think that's going to delay Israeli ground operation. And you mentioned some of the international angles that have interest here. We've been discussing a lot the international angles and the positions of Israel's enemies, but we haven't really seen a really in-depth look at how many people are out there that could potentially help with this state of affairs. And as someone who analyzes the entire region, I'd like to get your input on that. We know that Qatar has a major influence on Hamas. Their Hamas is a primary financial backer and have been for many years. By the way, with Israeli approval, we all remember the suitcases of cash landing in Ben Gurion Airport and then being driven down to the Ares Crossing and into the Gaza Strip for Hamas directly. And that was done with Israeli approval. That's no longer going to be the case, obviously, after October 7th. Qatar has major influence, I would argue Turkey as well, Egypt as well, because Egypt really is the only lifeline and avenue out for Gaza and the Gazans to the outside world. Israel is no longer an option after Hamas destroyed all the border crossings on October 7th. So those three actors, I would believe are the primary ones, as well as the entire world. The international community should make it very clear that while they may not be happy with this or that Israeli policy vis-a-vis the Palestinians, in the West Bank, that has no bearing or should have no bearing on what happened on October 7th. Nothing can justify that kind of savagery and cross-border attack. Also precisely due to the fact that in recent years there have been more negotiations, indirect negotiations, but negotiations nonetheless between the governments of Bibi Netanyahu and Hamas via the UN, via Egypt, via the Qataris, and no negotiations with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. That should also change arguably forward whatever happens in the coming weeks and months. Very briefly, how do we see that developing in the near future, this change towards the Palestinian Authority? We'll have to see how the war goes. It really depends how difficult and bloody it will get in Gaza in the coming weeks. But ideally, a big lesson for the Israeli leadership, whoever comes after this as well inside Israel, is that you have to deal with the moderate and pragmatic wing of the Palestinian national movement and not the Islamists and jihadists who may be very convenient for you because they are not asking for negotiations and some kind of territorial compromise on the West Bank. I guess ultimately you have to ask if the lesser evil is ultimately still the lesser evil. In this case, thank you very much, Neri, for helping us understand the inside look there and some of the regional politics at play for everyone else. We are just about out of time. We're going to see you again at the top of the next hour with breaking news from around this war and all possible discussions related to it and all possible threats. Thank you very much. Over 1,300 people murdered and more than 3,000 injured and the war with Hamas continues. We bring you first-hand testimonies from the front lines, from those who survived, and all the records of the atrocities by Hamas. Follow us as Israel fights terror from the South and North. Get the inside scoop on what's going on, only on I-24 News. Officially in a state of war, this is a very active scene and we need to get in the car as we're talking. Within 100 soldiers and civilians have been kidnapped. Because we don't know what to do. We just don't know anything. Entire families, including babies and children and elderly, were butchered in their beds. Awaken the giant and we are ready and we are strong. Everyone is showing up. This is the unity. Welcome to the latest edition of Zoom In, continuing our rolling coverage of the war here in Israel. I'm Nicole Zedek. Another 14 communities near Israel's northern Lebanon border have been asked to evacuate. As rocket and missile attacks from the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terror group pick up in intensity. The IDF striking back, hitting multiple terror cells in southern Lebanon, reportedly planning to carry out anti-tank guided missile attacks against Israel's northern communities. Meanwhile, Syria claims Israel carried out an airstrike on the Aleppo and Damascus airports early Sunday morning. Both airports were also attacked last week by alleged Israeli airstrikes. While Israel is preparing for an escalation on the northern front, the IDF is monitoring a third front as well, the West Bank. The IDF recently struck an underground terror route at a mosque in Janine, where members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad were said to be sheltering and planning an imminent attack. All of this as Israel's main focus remains in the south, as forces reportedly increase airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, overnight killing two members of Hamas's Nukba commando forces, the same unit that led the October 7th assault on southern Israel. More than two weeks into the war, and the IDF is still confirming more hostages being held by Hamas. The total number of hostages now stands at 212, and there's a fresh wave of protests urging the government to do everything they can to get their loved ones back now. Now we want to begin in southern Israel where our correspondent Pia Stekalback is right now. Pia, standing by right there, we're just hearing new recent reports that the IDF, two weeks since the initial invasion to southern Israel's community, still finding Hamas terrorists. What can you tell us about this recent report? Right, Nicole. Well, this one person, which is suspected to be one of those Hamas members that infiltrated Israel on that black Saturday, the 7th of October, was found here in the area close to the Gaza Strip. He has been handed over for further investigation at the Shin Bet, which is Israel's internal security agency. We are here in Steroz, only a few kilometers away from the Gaza border, a city that has really become a ghost town. There is not a lot of people here around. You basically see no civilians. It is a city of 30,000 residents, and it is believed that only a bit less than 10% have remained here. We're talking about elderly people, people who might not understand Hebrew very well. As of now, the municipality cares for them with food distributions here, but you can really see that this city has turned into a city basically for journalists as nobody else really can live here right now, as the road has gotten under constant fire here from the Gaza Strip. As of now, this has been a calm morning here in Steroz. However, other border communities did have an incoming rocket alert, including the city of Ashkelon. Ashkelon had two sirens today, and there also the municipality has said that they would prepare the evacuation of all the residents that do not have a shelter or safe room in their own homes, which is estimated to apply for between 25,000 to 40,000 people. So we might see another major evacuation operation there. As Israel, meanwhile, continues to strike in the Gaza Strip. It has targeted what it said were Hamas targets throughout the night, weapon depots, warehouses, also mosques, where they were believed to be Hamas infrastructure inside or under in Nice. We have been closer to the border earlier, and you can really hear the Israeli artillery striking. We even saw an Israeli strike onto one of the buildings in the northern Gaza Strip. This is after yesterday, for the first time since the beginning of the war, two weeks after the beginning, the first trucks carrying humanitarian aid entered the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing bordering Egypt. 20 trucks were talking about food, medicine, and water. Israel currently does not allow the entry of fuel into the Gaza Strip, as the concern is that Hamas will take it for its own infrastructure. Now, experts say, humanitarian organizations also, of course, residents on the ground say that this is a drop into the ocean. 20 trucks will not actually reach the people. It is, of course, not enough as hundreds of trucks before the war have entered Gaza every day. It is not yet known when the next humanitarian aid will enter Gaza. The entry of that aid might have also been connected to the deal that got the hostages released on Friday to American citizens. That gave some hope to the hostage families. Now, you mentioned it in Nicole, the idea of updating that 212 people are believed to be held hostage in Gaza as of now, as also against the backdrop of that looming ground offensive that we don't know yet when it will begin. Piaz, I'll go back in our northern or in our southern community there in Israel. Thank you so much for all of the latest there. Now, as Piaz was stating just about the imminent possibility of a ground invasion, I want to bring in my guests in studio right now. I'm joined by Lieutenant Colonel and Reserve Daron Abitel, former commander of Special Forces for the IDF, along with our senior correspondent Owen Olderman. Daron, as we were hearing from our correspondent, Pia, who is there in the south, a ghost town. And they wrote, more communities possibly preparing to evacuate. All while we're hearing that there has been an increase in airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, all of it probably leading to the imminent ground operation. How likely is this? I think it's likely. I think the Army declared the leaders of the Army declared that they are prepared, that the plans are set, that the forces are ready. The question is, of course, to get the OK from the political leadership. And I think the hostage issue complicates the situation, not a bit seriously. But a decision should be made. It's hard for me to predict, but the decision should be made. The forces are ready. I heard the commander of the south. I heard healthy. I heard the Chinese minister. Yeah, Gallant. So everybody is ready, planned, set. The forces are ready. Waiting for the OK. The hostage situation absolutely does complicate the ground operation. Exactly. Hamas, over the weekend, releasing two hostages. But a lot of speculation that this is more about strategy, also just postponing that ground operation even more. Exactly. Hamas is a very clever enemy we have to admit, and we have to work it out. Even if there is a ground offensive, it doesn't mean that there would be no special forces looking for the hostages trying to, in locality, negotiate even with Hamas that are locked in some locality. So a ground offensive doesn't mean we don't make the most effort to take the hostages out. But it means that the diplomatic venue would be blocked for the time of the offensive. So it's a tricky situation. A big dilemma for the decision makers. The army is ready. The political leadership has to make a decision. And speaking just of the diplomatic front and also the pressure that we're seeing from some of these other outside places, Owen, I just want to hear your perspective, because so far two hostages have been released. A lot of people saying this just feeds into the psychological warfare that Hamas is continues to do. More propaganda perhaps. But we are seeing Western forces maybe urge Israel a little bit to hold off on a ground operation to see if more hostages might be released. That's the reporting. But I think at the end of the day, the Israeli government is going to set a time limit on that too. It's been said in the studio by military specialists that the ground forces can't be kept there indefinitely on high readiness. The public here wants forward progress in the conflict and in the war and in achieving the objectives of the war. I don't think people are going to have endless patience for this here in Israel. And unlike in other arenas, such as a preemptive strike on Hezbollah, which the United States has by all accounts, including really thick hints from the US themselves on the record, has by all accounts vetoed. I don't know that in the balance of power, if you will, between Israeli decision making and foreign pressure, that the foreign element will be able to postpone this ground invasion indefinitely. I also want to call all of our attention to the fact that the, and this just strikes me time and time again, that the IDF spokesperson doesn't always use the phrase ground invasion. So that's what the next phase of the war, which may not be entirely a ground invasion, may not even be primarily a ground invasion. I think there are still questions about exactly the balance between air and ground forces. But certainly there is a plan for a more intensified set of strikes and a strategy to try to bring Hamas to heal and get some kind of decisive result in the war that would then be completed by ground forces who go in and essentially conduct mop-up operations as presented by the Defense Minister in terms of his three-stage plan of intensified fighting, mop-up operations, and then as he put it, constructing a new security architecture for the Gaza Strip. Well, and as we do prepare for things to escalate in Israel's southern border, as you said Owen, we're also seeing quite a bit of action on Israel's northern border as well. That's where our correspondent Ariel Osseron is right now near the Lebanon border with Israel. Ariel, quite a lot of action in the north today alone. The IDF continuing to strike terror cells preparing possibly more anti-tank missile attacks. So what's happened this morning? Right in the course of throughout the day, multiple attacks by anti-tank guided missiles on Israeli military targets. One was an attack on an IDF tank in the eastern region of the border in the area of Har Dov and also on the a little bit west to there in the area of Tsipo and multiple anti-tank guided missiles launched at an Israeli military outpost there in both incidents. The forces responded to the source of fire. In addition to that, the IDF said that it thwarted two attempted attacks on by anti-tank guided missiles as well. The IDF said that there was a drone that made its way from southern Lebanon towards Israel and they managed to intercept that as well. Now if you're wondering where Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has been for the past 16 days since this war began, so you're not the only one and a parliament member in Lebanon Hassan Fadlala of Hezbollah touring the south today and telling Lebanese media that Nasrallah is following on an hourly basis the developments down south and his absence in the media is part of that and when he sees fit to appear in the media he will do so. Now that's on the other side but here in the border communities I'm standing outside one of them there's been a massive evacuation for the past few days one that has been extended to 14 additional communities today. I spoke to one of the residents of the area her name is Eden Leon she's a resident of the Kibbutz Kabri it's more to the west of where we're standing now and she said that despite the order to evacuate she is uh deciding to stay here let's take a listen. I'm not going to evacuate I feel quite safe with the attendance of security forces here and the large presence of soldiers I very much understand those who did decide to evacuate there is concern I still think we shouldn't stop our lives we should support them all and I'm staying right now I have a relative who was killed in the massacre that was at the nova party and another one who was also kidnapped unfortunately so it does touch me directly and I am very sad about it it is very difficult I think there is no one who does not know someone who is hurt or murdered or kidnapped these are really difficult stories I'm really sorry this is our reality now but it is important to stay strong for those who are here to strengthen and embrace them until everything comes down and with God's help they will be brought home. Ariel as we're hearing from that that woman you spoke with she said that she is planning to stay even as the IDF is urging more of these communities to evacuate I'm curious you have been up in the north repeatedly for the past two weeks now what's your sense on the ground right now should these citizens be taking caution or or do you think it's a appropriate response for them to want to stay in their homes well looking to call these are the guidelines and Israelis should listen to the guidelines of authorities and if authorities call on residents local residents to evacuate they should do so however she she's saying Edna is saying that basically she feels safe here I asked her aren't you concerned of a similar situation from what happened in the southern border community she said she she doesn't feel like that could happen here there are massive amounts of soldiers now in across spread across the areas she feels safe here yes there is the hazard and danger of rockets but as of now she says that she feels safe enough to stay here she also said that this is expecting to be this is expected to drag on for a while so she is not ready quite yet to evacuate but obviously she acknowledges that if the situation does get worse perhaps she'll have to recalculate her decision she's not the only one in this situation but many many thousands tens of thousands of residents across this the the the israel-ebanon border communities many of them the majority have chosen to evacuate ariel osron our i-24 news correspondent thank you for bringing us the voices of people in those northern communities we appreciate your reporting now as we mentioned earlier at least two hundred and twelve people are still being held hostage by hamas according to israeli officials 16 days into the war young babies haven't been held by their mother in two weeks grandparents without vital medication still in the hands of hamas i'm joined now by netta hyman whose 84-year-old mother was kidnapped on october 7th netta thank you so much for joining us here i can imagine what you've been going through for these past two weeks can you take us back to that day on october 7th when you first realized your mother was in danger yes i woke up and i realized the situation outside and i called my mother and i asked her mommy are you in the safety room she said yes are the safety room is locked yes after we realized that there is no possibility to lock the safety room i don't think she realized that as well as me and we lost contact with her at the around 10 a.m. for lots of hours and then at around 4 p.m. my sister tried to call her again and someone from the hamas answered the phone later on we realized that the neighbor heard her shouting hell for help went out tried to help her she was with a gun but he couldn't help her there is a lot of terrorists out there and he came back into his safety room lucky because he saved himself and a few days after we saw a video that they they took her and they get her up to a car and i saw that video of hamas bringing her pushing her into the car kidnapping her when you saw that video what emotions were you feeling knowing that your fears unfortunately had been confirmed we know that that she's missing to see her okay healthy go up to their car it was a absurdly a good news because we didn't know what in what a situation they took her and when we saw that she's alive and they're not injured it was better than don't know that's the heartbreaking situation that so many families are grappling with right now um so the fact that you're saying even just seeing her on video was a positive feeling i feel like definitely shows the reality that people like yourself are facing now two weeks 16 days after she has been kidnapped how are you and your family feeling now are you still hopeful for her release and her safety i i still hopeful i hope that they uh have an interest to uh to say to uh that she will live and be in a good shape uh because it's absurd to say this to say this but uh she works more than than uh than a body a dead body have you been in contact by anyway by the israeli government have they been keeping you updated on her whereabouts or have they've done anything so far they contact us they told us they she's uh kidding up uh they know it from the from the video that we saw before they came to us and since they then they don't have news for us any news not about her medicine nothing that we didn't have news do you think that the israeli government is doing enough to get these at least 212 no no i don't think so i i think they put the they didn't put the right man on the on the head of the uh the one that they are responsible to the kidding up people i don't think i hear that they didn't want to talk to the kathari to to kathar i don't know what they do and we see that they uh the united the state president uh succeed to release two two men that they had uh american citizens do you feel abandoned by the israeli government right now yes yes i'm i'm i'm really angry i think that they are a they're a they a didn't take care of her when she was home and they didn't do a enough to bring it back to bring her back netta hyman thank you so much for sharing your story and continuing to let us share the story of your mother and we also all of us here at i-24 news are hoping for her safe release and the safety of your family as well and netta we also know that you're not alone in your concerns with the israeli government in fact hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets of telebeef on saturday night demanding the government take immediate action to return their loved ones being held by hamas their main message bring them back now now you can just hear the anger and frustration in so many of these families the idf continuing to alert more families daily it seems as the number of confirmed hostages is now at 212 now i want to come back to my guests in studio as we just heard from netta there's a lot of frustration when it comes to the israeli government a lot of anger thinking that they're not doing enough however we also know it's difficult when it comes to negotiations negotiating with terrorists hamas terrorists even negotiating with proxies in the qatar government so when it comes to the release of these hostages how exactly can it happen when you're talking about a actual government officials having to negotiate with a recognized terror organization first of all the hostage dilemma is a terrible dilemma for the decision makers of israel and in terms of the diplomatic negotiation we did have in the past negotiations with hamas not directly but through egypt and through qatar and in this respect this venue is open and we and together with the help of the us and european countries they do have hostages in gaza so this is one way of handling it and but it's also of course i think part of the what we hear is a fear from the ground offensive that might of course disrupt such moves i have to emphasize that in terms of ground the offensive they i'm sure that by now the israeli is enough intel about what's going on in gaza and i don't know i hope i that there are some plans also in this context to try to to try to bring them to bring them out but it's a dilemma for every decision maker israel never in its history faced a dilemma like this 200 and more hostages we had done taba fair where the other hostages taking incidents but never in this magnitude never in this context of war this is really a different new story and the decision makers would have a tough decision to make and the public is not it doesn't have any patience right now so it's also part of the consideration the government has to take yes i mean there is another consideration of course which is in my opinion the and i've said this in the studio a number of times the worst decision in 75 years of israeli history the number one worst decision out of maybe tens of thousands say of decisions was the decision to free gilad shalit in 2011 in exchange for more than a thousand palestinian prisoners who went on to lead hamas in the case of yiyah sinwar to go and be part of the massacre that opened this so in exchange for freeing one israeli soldier we have lost thousands of lives i think there's a doctoral dissertation to be written to actually trace and get to a number of how many people were killed because of that deal so this country has to be very very careful what we do and i and again of course it's a dilemma and we're far from reaching this kind of dilemma of parameters of something like the the shalit deal but it hovers over us and i think the public understands that as well as much as everyone has a great deal of empathy for the hostages families and of course for the hostages themselves and i think it's reasonable to be patient for in the short term to see if more can be done without paying a price but at the end of the day the objective of this war in the eyes of the public is to end hamas control of the gaza strip it's not to free the hostages it is to end hamas control over the gaza strip of course we would love to do both like early military men will tell you that the definition of the what dismantling hamas and the how are interconnected so there's no question we want to dismantle hamas we have to dismantle hamas because the context the con the general context we've been we are in and i think this is still a major dilemma i just want to emphasize that guy that one of the best officer is really has a guy who served under me it's an alone general it's an alone was recruited exactly to this mission i'm not talking about a guy that runs the relationship with the hostages as families talking a guy that thinks operationally but also in a context of ground offensive how we are trying to get into those hostages so this is a dilemma i hope the right decision will be made i agree that the window is not that long in terms of diplomatic negotiations the political echelon would have to make a decision and of course freeing them during an operation themselves in a rescue operation course and teby is is the ultimate example of course is a wonderful scenario from Israel's perspective it's something that would have complete i think public so when you're talking it's not impossible for sure because of a ground offensive the hamas is under pressure and if we have the right intel we can get there first that would be a wonderful exactly a possible context but very problematic i think that's the result that most people are hoping for and and oh and as you said i think the general public uh is is hoping that the number one goal is to completely eliminate hamas however when you are looking at these protests the hundreds of people who took to the streets you do see many different uh banners they're saying to release to a prisoner exchange so you are hearing this on the ground as well i actually you are hearing this on the ground let's listen let's listen some of these protesters had to say who were just in the streets of televieve last night all the countries where are you you must understand it's crazy we've lost complete contact there's no sign of life no signal it's been two weeks now and we are here i'm here together with all these families um hundreds of them there's over 200 hostages and we're all here to cry out and reach out to the entire world to the international community to help us and we're demanding to bring them back now you can hear the anger and the passion in their voice definitely one of the most complicated parts of this whole war as israel continues their war efforts uh we're going out for a quick break 1300 people murdered and more than 3000 injured and the war with hamas continues we bring you first-hand testimonies from the front lines from those who survived and all the records of the atrocities by hamas follow us as israel fights terror from the south and north get the inside scoop on what's going on only on i24 news particular project with a gross capacity of 103.5 megawatt will be producing around 230 gigawatt hour of clean renewable energy per year vaquito reserve we have to write ingredients and we have to do the job and that if we have the right ingredients and we do the job that the vaquita can be protected made for me a unique concept in israel custom made men's fashion to your measurements made for me designer of all your events schedule your appointment at www.madeforme.co.il made for me official dresser of i24 news good evening ladies and gentlemen welcome back to zoom in continuing our coverage of the war here in israel now since the outbreak of the war there has been an uptick in pro-palestinian demonstrations around the world tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets of london this weekend waving palestinian flags and chanting stop bombing gaza calling for an end to israeli airstrikes targeting hamas terror cells a metro conductor on london's tube even instigating a pro-palestinian chant now this is just one of the countless scenes taking place in western countries around the world what these demonstrations failed to recognize is one the atrocities that hamas committed that sparked this war in the first place and two isles right to defend itself now to talk more about some of these protests we're seeing specifically in london i'm joined now by jonathan satsredoti i24 news uk correspondent jonathan thanks so much for being here now with these pro-palestinian protests it's not just pro-palestinian organizations that are sparking and organizing these protests this message seems to be everywhere we saw even a metro conductor blasting it through his subway car that's right i think part of the issue here is the gulf between the position of the uk government and other european governments as well which has been very much behind israel in this round of fighting this this unprecedented war and the general public and and there have been a lot of people in the public who've been very supportive of israel's position but then you see plenty who will take to the streets yesterday an estimated 100 000 in london streets protesting against israel they say in favor of palestinian liberate liberation and that example from the london underground the tube is just one of many there was another protest a smaller one at the same time yesterday by his book takria uk which is an organization which is illegal in many countries but not here in the uk and even though there are videos there of people calling for jihad the police say that no crimes were broken in the footage they saw or with their officers there observing because they say jihad can have more than one meaning similarly the waving of flags has been something that's been in the news a lot here with the home secretary suela brahman saying that anyone supporting hamas waving a hamas flag would be arrested because hamas is a prescribed terror group in the uk but of course palestinian flags and not the same thing there were some examples of people waving the shahada flag which is the muslim proclamation of faith on a black background often associated with jihadi and extremist groups like al qaeda and others but the police again saying that on its own not enough for them to arrest people they have they say made 10 arrests after yesterday's protests mostly focusing around use of fireworks and public order results and they say there were also an emergency service worker offence and so those people remained in custody at the end of the day yesterday but generally speaking many are asking what this tougher line that was talked about from the government actually is going to manifest as because the police it seems aren't making jewish people and many other britains who aren't in favor of these protests feel any safer on the streets jonathan i think you bring up such a great point that these jewish people and people who are not in favor of these protests do not feel safe right now in many of these different places london the uk so how is this all fueling the rides of antisemitism in in these these places well there's always been an element of antisemitism in european society i think and in britain as well often people say that british jews have a very good life very free very happy life in the uk and i wouldn't say that that's wrong but at the same time it doesn't take much to wake the beast and during moments like this where israel is going through this unprecedented threat from hamas with the awful massacre on the 7th of october of over a thousand israelis i think people are genuinely hoping that wider society will finally understand the actual nature of the threat against israel and more broadly against jews now that has been the case i think that a lot of people who previously didn't necessarily speak out are doing so and have shown their solidarity with israel much more broadly but as i said those protests on the street are not insignificant and that means that some people are quite afraid so that tube train is just one example it's not really an issue of freedom of speech drivers are not meant to be making political statements or sympathetic statements to political or controversial marches on the tanois they're meant to be saying things like mind the gap or steer clear of the closing doors or what the next station is perhaps so i think that it should be very easy for the british transport police to figure out who was driving that train on that line at that time and deal with them appropriately that's because no matter what position one takes on these issues everybody within london should feel safe and able to use the public transport system and certainly from the looks of that video i don't imagine many people who weren't in favor of those protests and against israel would have felt particularly safe in that train especially jewish people jonathan i'm curious when we're taking a look at these images besides you the tens of thousands possibly as you said up to 100 000 protesters taking to the streets of london on the ground you get a sense that these protesters realize what they're truly supporting i mean by urging israel to stop targeting hamas do they want hamas to continue controlling gaza and therefore palestinians in the strip i think there's often been a mix of people on these sorts of marches there are those who maybe are simply against war pacifists who don't want to see any form of war any form of civilian deaths any form of deaths going on anywhere in the world and they have maybe been seduced by the cause of palestinian liberate liberation but of course there's a large number of people there who know exactly what it is they're marching in favor of and i think after the gruesome images that came out of israel on the 7th of october not many people can be in doubt about the nature of the threat against israel and even if they maybe are not sympathetic normally to israel's cause or specific israeli governments or their action in wartime i think most people this time must realize what it is israel is facing and yet there is still this mass protest that goes on it's now happened two weeks in a row at the weekends i think that's something that society has to deal with not just here in britain but more broadly across much of the west the idea that people don't fully recognize the horrors of the enemy so to speak in this in this example it's hamas in others it has been isis and israel has done a sterling job of trying to draw those parallels so that people in the west who maybe did understand with isis might now understand with israel as well and and those gruesome images now you know gouging out of eyes that you're seeing on screen the mistreatment of people alive and dead the abduction the rape the burning alive the beheading all of these horrors are things that people aren't used to seeing in the news i think that this time round plenty of britains have been shocked by what they've seen and that accounts for despite these protests on the street the wave of public support that has been also behind israel in its battle against hamas in its battle against this form of brutal and savage extremism we'll have to see as weeks go on and as the images coming out of the region change more of them maybe of the palestinian casualties and if there is a ground offensive we'll also see perhaps the numbers going up of palestinian civilians caught up in the fighting we'll have to see if public support and indeed governmental support stays where it is behind israel or if the pressure starts to increase that has so often been the case in the past to get israel to stop the fight before it's necessarily won the war we will certainly continue to keep an eye on the public perception as this war does continue jonathan centredodi i-24 news uk correspondent thank you so much for your insight now as jonathan was stating all of this all of these protests that we're seeing in the uk it really does stem beyond there american jews in fact many of whom are liberal democrats constantly voicing their support for minorities advocating for lgbtq plus rights black lives matters immigrants well now that the american liberal jews need someone to advocate for them they feel abandoned by many of these pro palestinian protests also taking place across these western communities now i'm joined in studio by activist and influencer hiya let's thank you so much for being there in studio now it is so interesting what's happening with the many liberal jews american jews they've constantly voiced their support for many of these minorities who don't have a voice to share yet now that they need someone to stand up for them where is everyone they're not there it's just really it's for me it's really painful wow it's really sad um because one thing about the jewish community especially in the states is they come through they we the jewish value is to is to lend a hand is to heal the world we have something called tikon olam it's a very very heavy value of ours and there are a lot of layers there are a lot of there's a lot of nuance in the states but when you see everybody not coming out when the jewish community has been so helpful and has lent their air especially on black lives matter and a lot of people know my position on the statement of black lives mattering it is absolutely something i stand behind the organization many of my friends in the states have given countless amount of time and money my rabbi marches comes together with churches to try to put on the ground support and for my friends to tell me they don't have the support it hurts because i know that we know better i know that we know better and i know that humanity knows better and for me i am a black woman i am a jewish woman i'm an israeli woman and to know that my fellow human being wouldn't stand up and say this is wrong or we don't understand make us understand it's quite disgusting actually and i feel sorry i feel really bad for my community but i've been a lot watching with the black community some not when i say the black community of course i don't mean everyone just like when i say the jewish community i don't mean everyone because you cannot put everyone in a basket however i'm going to talk on a broad scale and when i see the black community not coming together because look it's america it's a colorized society jews in america are white period i didn't say that that's the box that's been put in so no one wants to help the white person the colonizer and they are so wrong but even in the event that the state of israel is a colonizer and you live in the states this is a humanity issue and they need support in the end the jewish people we really just have us and we just really have god this is what this is what we're learning if no one really wants to help the jew no one likes jews until they're dead i'm going to keep it real and so can i please finish because this is really so important people want to say oh we want to help with this but they don't want to help when right now it's going right there in their face and that is painful and i think that is something that all communities when i see a woman like a woman's right and they're not supporting after seeing people being raped until they're you know it's not enough enough it's just a humanity issue and people are just not going to step up because it's because it's jews and we need to be honest with that we need to say what it is on my instagram the other day i asked what does this mean and i'm not going to go into what i said you can go on my instagram you can look for yourself and not one person has been able to tell me what xxx means no just say we don't like the jew that's it well and what you just said i think something so powerful is people only care when jewish lives are lost that that seems to be not even the case 1400 jewish lives lost and the message is being being shifted now to palestinian lives lost there's always this this thing that happens of a standard being held our community than any other community and i'm going to keep it very very real because that's what i've always done in my whole of 50 years that it is because it's the jewish people i'm not going to talk facts where there's palestinians where is this this and who's doing what around the world because we pull up facts no one wants to hear the facts they just think whether white european jewish colonizers well i look pretty darn white i must have been at the at the beach too long because i don't look white to me so who what is the problem and even if we were britain united states do we have to talk about the histories there do did 9 11 does did anybody that died in 9 11 did they deserve that the conversation even need to be had bipartisan issues like we can go on and on just say it's because it's the jew and i think that's where people don't want to stand up for the jew in america they don't want to stand up they don't want to stand up in america i'm also curious how just the rhetoric on college campuses and not just college campuses we're also seeing videos school-aged children in san francisco running through the halls of their school chanting free palestine from from the the river to the sea let them be free do they realize what they're implying no they don't know they don't know they don't because first of all we as as and i can say this in is in is in israeli and as a woman as a black woman we definitely stand with the palestinian people however when you say free palestine on a random recipe of a jewish creator that's bullying that's not about the palestinian people you want to free the palestinian people amazing help us tell us because you're you're a kid and you're saying free palestine and you were i think it's great that you have a flag you should be proud but what does that waving that flag mean what does that particular statement mean and so i think americans are out of touch they live in a bubble the local starbucks is the issue the fact that the price and target went up a dollar is your biggest issue yeah you have mass shootings and things of that nature yeah you have bad food yeah you have health care issues but yet and still you choose to harass your fellow neighbor it's it's it's too hatred and you mentioned just the so many israelis who do stand up for the lives of palestinians and i feel like what we are seeing abroad is just the equation between pro-palestinian equaling hamas basically because as they're stating that they support they want israel to stop targeting these hamas infrastructures then then you're stating that you want hamas to continue to control the gaza strip and control these palestinians let me give you an old school black american proverb it says don't start nothing won't be nothing okay if hamas doesn't come for us then we don't have to be on the defense don't slap someone in the face and pray they don't slap you back so for those people that live in america once again they're sitting there little starbucks and they type free palestine i can guarantee you if what the horror happened in their city new yorkers you don't even want someone from brooklyn to come to bed style you don't want somebody from to go to the bronx if someone came into your city and did this atrocity did this atrocity police you're holding me and my people to a standard that you wouldn't hold yourself and that's unacceptable and i'm never going to accept it and i'm going to speak out on it every single chance i get because that's the right thing to do and by the way let me just add one more thing i had a conversation because i'm a dance teacher i teach african dance but i work in a gym that is mixed with arab christian arab israeli palestinian jews christians was whatever and i saw something on someone's post and i asked the question because i need to talk to that person i need to connect on a human level so we talked and you know what i said he said i have a lot of pain as a palestinian i said i want to hear your pain i want to feel your pain i said but i'm going to tell you something right now your pain should not override saying when something's wrong because i know i'm 400 years deep in the us with pain our babies were throwing the alligators and if a let's say some black gang decided to start murdering carcassian people's and maybe it's justified maybe it's not i don't know i would say straight up that's wrong because that's humanity i'm not going to bring politics well we're back in the day they threw a no if you can't even stand up for humanity you've lost your moral compass so for all of those americans out there that are sitting at home watching this and talking free palestine over their coffee table over their little coffee cups you need to look in the mirror at yourself and ask yourself what do you really stand for don't worry about what we stand for what do you stand for and that's my piece do you think that the rhetoric is going to change i mean if nothing i feel like this was the major example of now stand with israel or it's hopeless the jewish people have been here for 3000 plus years and we're going to be here for 3000 plus until eternity because that's what we believe this is not new to us i'm actually not shocked wow i'm not shocked one bit i'm not shocked when we said never again i truly believe that was not just words that was an action we have to take action to be amazing people to be good people to be better people and if we don't take that action never again we'll be right now just like you see i love thank you so much for your insight as always providing so much into the on look of everything that is happening abroad right now thank you so much thank you now 16 days after the vicious massacre that took place in israel's southern communities the invaded bloodstained homes remain empty as residents fled leaving their loved ones bodies behind they were also forced to leave their pets many of the frightened lost pets mainly dogs were shot on sight by the terrorists since then one group has been working tirelessly to rescue these surviving pets with the hopes of reuniting them with their families and finding new homes to those who lost their family more ellen joined dogs and heroes on their mission israeli residents living next to the gaza border have been forced to evacuate their homes in a hurry many were forced to leave their pets behind we're talking about cases where people themselves had to run with their babies under hands stories of them you know jumping out out of windows with their babies and they the stories that i hear are of people trying to call their dogs right or cats is even harder to come with them but the dogs are so afraid um that they hide or they run away um and they just had to run they were running for their lives so a lot of the dogs which are right there there are another and cats there are other another family member that was just left behind so that's why it was really important for us to just go and get you know extract them as fast as possible dr. shira yasveh from the dogs and heroes organization realized the problem early on and is trying to rectify it dogs and heroes is a spontaneous um grouping of the few volunteers friends from before the war started some of us are um graphic designers i'm a veterinary doctor there's people from all across the the spectrum of professions um and basically when the war broke we understood that animals would have to be animals needs uh would have to be addressed in some way and that there's going to be a crisis also on the animal front so and already like the the same night uh of the 7th and october we started our uh gathering volunteers for the past two weeks thousands of israelis from all over the country have come together to reunite families with their pets a war room in bait kama in the south of israel was established and from there the teams leave for their assignments these volunteers are headed to another operation to extract dogs from the dangerous areas the areas that are still closed military zones under the control of the idf don't try run to a shelter just line the ground and put your hands on your head don't kneel same goes if we are driving quickly halt the cars get us far away as we can from the car and lie flat on the ground in kerim shalom or any other village when we look after animals if the dog runs off let us know so we can come with you don't get too far away from us we can be with the forces of the village they will direct us where to go i'm sure you all know as well but just please stay with us for those who are carrying weapons we are here to safeguard you please leave your gun in the holster except when we are under fire it doesn't faze these volunteers when the war broke out i was basically just at home and i didn't really do anything to to help and i felt a little bad with myself that i can do something better than just sitting at home watching the news it can be a bit scary sometimes but it's for the dogs for the volunteers the satisfaction of reuniting pets with owners is worth the risk this dog owner came all the way from a lot where he and his family have been staying since the war broke out after his dog was found in one of the villages he tells the volunteers that his second dog is still inside not a minute goes by and another group of volunteers come back with a missing dog the the unions are unbelievable they're unbelievable it's i think it's also you know a sliver of hope that if the dog came back then maybe the kidnap right that the kidnap people would come back as well that it shows the possibility of getting back someone that you thought you lost a small sliver of hope here in israel but also just shows the destruction that was left behind something as simple as someone's pet now being reunited with their loved ones now we're going out for a break here on zoom in but i want to remind you of the top stories that are happening around the country as israel enters its 16th day of war another 14 communities near israel's northern lebanon border have been asked to evacuate as rocket and missile attacks from the iranian backed as a lot terror group pick up in intensity the idea of striking back hitting multiple terror cells in southern lebanon reportedly planning to carry out anti tank guided missile attacks against israel's northern communities meanwhile syria claims israel carried out an airstrike on via lepo and demascus airports early sunday morning both airports were also attacked last week by alleged israeli airstrikes general israel is preparing for an escalation on the northern front the idf is monitoring a third front as well the west bank the idf recently struck an underground terror route at a mosque in janin for members of famas and palestinian islamic jihad were said to be sheltering planning an imminent attack all of this as israel's main focus remains in the south as forces reportedly increased airstrikes in the gaza strip overnight killing two members of famas's nokba commando forces the same unit that led the october 7th assault on southern israel also capturing another terrorist who remained hiding in the southern israel two weeks after that initial invasion meanwhile 212 hostages remain in the hands of hamas will continue to unpack all of the latest developments of the war here in israel in return here on zoom in 1300 people murdered and more than 3000 injured and the war with hamas continues we bring you first hand testimonies from the front lines from those who survived and all the records of the atrocities by hamas follow us as israel fights terror from the south and north get the inside school on what's going on only on i24 news dot com dot b select recharges and digit the number that you want to place the recharge also they receive the double balance in recharges of eight dollars or more latest edition of zoom in as we continue our rolling coverage of the war here in israel i'm de coles eddick another 14 communities near israel's northern lebanon border have been asked to evacuate as rocket and missile attacks from the iranian backed hezbollah terror group pick up in intensity now meanwhile israel is preparing for an escalation on the northern front the idf monitoring a third front as well the west bank the idf recently struck an underground terror route at a mosque in janin or members of hamas and palestinian islamic jihad were said to be sheltering planning an imminent attack now all of this on the northern front is israel's main focus remains in the south as forces reportedly increase airstrikes in the gaza strip overnight killing two members of hamas's nuqba commando forces the same unit that led the october 7 assault on southern israel meanwhile one other terrorist also apprehended in southern israel following that initial invasion now two weeks after that initial invasion on october that's where we want to begin in israel's southern community where our correspondent pia stekelback is uh pia you're currently in the city of stay wrote at a food distribution center yet stay wrote is one of the cities that has been asked to evacuate right nicole i'm speaking to you from a food distribution center here you can get all goods that you need for your daily life here canned tomatoes canned food a basic everyday needs that the municipality here has set up for the very few people who remained in the city still what is the city of 30 000 residents and it is estimated that about only 10 remained here staying in the city but struggling to get food as many many shops are closed but this is where they can come and grab what they need for the everyday life and i'm here with one of the volunteers child slain who came on that saturday october the 7th from the u.s calder plane and got to israel tell me what is it that you're doing here what is what is it that you're volunteering for and why did you come initially on such a dark day i think the question is how can you not come uh with our life and history and partnership there's a lot of good words there's a lot of goodwill but it takes people on the ground to be here and it's our relationship to bring the heart of the midwest to the heart of israel especially in this city still wrote that's been so plague i considered an honor to be here you said you're from texas right can you tell me what are you doing here now in still wrote a city that has become quite a ghost town but we have heard that their residents who desperately in need for that food can you tell us a little bit about who comes here and what is it that they're asking for yes obviously this for the americans back home and for people here this is rocket city this is the front line this city's taken a pounding and so it is a ghost town and there's very few people here but the ones that are here are frightened they need food and the municipalities running strong we're strained standing strong and as the boxes go out what they say we stand strong together so we're standing how would you describe the atmosphere here in this city i know you've been here for a couple of days you've been driving around can you tell me a little bit about how you personally feel having you know come here on such a and it's such a dark period how do you experience the atmosphere i know this city when it's full and to see it is heartbreaking and what went on but i also see life here and it's unusual to be in a town this side is that it's totally empty there's no doubt about that but there's also vibrancy and and emitting string that will stand and get through this and we believe we'll see better days do you also speak to the people coming here taking food are there any stories that they can share that you've heard from people the stories are unbelievable the people i know the family from india some caretakers who basically saved a lady from here she was a caretaker my mother needed health care when she was older and uh they they helped her there's still people in their homes there's they're very frightened they don't want to answer the door per se because the infiltration was deep in this city never never in the history but um again there's uh um there's hope here and we hope to get everyone back in town as soon as we can thank you very much charles lin a volunteer here at the food distribution center in sterot who came from texas to help hear residents in need in the city of sterot that really has become a ghost town but as charles just said there's also some hope here he has to go back i love hearing those stories on the ground of that slight sliver of hope and people truly jumping into action from all over the world to help those in the south thank you for your coverage in in israel southern community now i want to bring in my guest in studio i'm joined by avi melamed founder of inside the middle east institute and a middle east expert avi thank you for joining me here now as we heard from my correspondent ps tackle back the communities in southern israel so many of them already evacuated we're hearing reports that more of them might be evacuated possibly uh some places in ashkelone that don't have a immediate shelter same situation happening in the north as well the northern front absolutely heating up i i'm hearing reports and just the possibility has bought dragging lebanon into this war is it in their best interest to get involved we know that idf is stationing many troops and they're prepared for that but when it comes to lebanon is it in their best interest well nicole thank you for having me indeed the hezbollah and the iranians are facing a big dilemma are they going to step into the war full scale trying to save hamas and islamic jihad from falling down or are they staying out and basically at least securing for now hezbollah's a position in lebanon since they one of this war what we saw from the hezbollah side was a very calculated policy of a very gradual and very small scale intensity relatively speaking of military escalation along the israel northern border that reflects two major issues two major policy guiding line basically coming from the iranian regime one is this is an attempt to intimidate israel from expanding the war against hamas hoping that israel would stop and not expand the war and the second reason for that is that they are basically um trying to um result in or to basically reflect their dilemma and concern that if they're going to be dragged into the world they're going to pay heavily price for that we have to look at this whole story in a wider even regional perspective because one of the things that the iranian regime is doing right now is they are trying simultaneously to activate other proxies in iraq and yemen we saw last thursday and the take by hooties from yemen apparently targeting israel this is all part of a calculated iranian move that still is in the frame of trying to intimidate israel from going into a massive war the big question is once israel is going to make its next expected military move which is expected to be a wide-scale incursion into gaza strip what is going to happen what will be the iranian hezbollah next move we have to wait and see we have to watch it very closely and i want to continue to unpack how this impacts the whole middle eastern region but as we're speaking of the north we're hearing reports of sirens in the the north right now where our i-24 news correspondent ariel osaron is near the lebanon border ariel what can you tell us about the action that you're you're seeing on the ground right nicole so in the past few minutes there have been a rocket alert sirens sounded in the border community of iftah it's about 40 miles to the west of where i'm standing now and this would appear to be the first rocket launch today to a border community until now we've seen throughout the day multiple anti-tank guided missile attacks on israeli military vehicles as well as border outposts there were also two attacks two missile attacks that were thwarted by israeli forces as well as a drone that made its way from lebanon towards southern from southern lebanon towards northern israel that was downed by the idf so following a lot of activity aimed mainly at military targets israeli military targets over the morning now we're seeing for the first time today rocket launches towards the border community of iftah so far we haven't received any reports of impact or of injuries due to this barrage of rockets ariel it's it's this exact situation why israel is urging more and more communities to evacuate from the north at 14 more communities now asked to evacuate correct indeed basically yesterday they expanded the evacuation zone to five kilometers from the border and today israeli authorities announcing that 14 more border communities are going to be added to that evacuation zone but i spoke to one of those residents edin leon she works in one of the border communities she lives in another one nearby and she said that she is not planning to leave despite the evacuation order but another interesting thing she told me is that like many israelis who is was a small country and like many israelis she has also relatives uh she was her family was personally affected by the tragedies of uh of october the seventh and so that too plays a factor in her decision-making let's take a listen to what she told me a short while ago i'm not going to evacuate i feel quite safe with the attendance of security forces here and the large presence of soldiers i very much understand those who did decide to evacuate there is concern i still think we shouldn't stop our lives we should support them all and i'm staying right now i have a relative who was killed in the massacre that was at the nova party and another one who was also kidnapped unfortunately so it does touch me directly and i am very sad about it it is very difficult i think there is no one who does not know someone who is hurt or murdered or kidnapped these are really difficult stories i'm really sorry this is our reality now but it is important to stay strong for those who are here to strengthen and embrace them until everything comes down and with god's help they will be brought home corresponded ariel osaron thank you for bringing us the voices of those impacted in those northern communities we appreciate it now i want to come back to my guest in studio avi as we were speaking with ariel you know more rockets being fired towards northern israel hezbollah the iranian backed terror group we were just talking about iran and its proxies getting involved in this war but so far that's all it is iran's proxies uh what are the odds i guess that that iran itself actually gets involved rather than using all of these different terror cells to do its business for them well the nicole the iranian regime has a very simple effective unfortunately quite vicious policy they are gladly sacrificing others other than themselves syrian libanese palestinians israelis this is the modus operandi uh talking about hezbollah here is some two interesting aspect of the hezbollah's tactics as of now first they are firing mostly from her area in south libanon that are populated by sunnis or christians not chiites but basically the their logic beyond that is is double logic first that the people that will flee from some libanon will be sunnis and christians and they will be pissed with israel and the second thing is nasrallah is very concerned about the sins of hundreds of thousands of libanese fleeing from south libanon south libanon to large most part is a shiaid-based area this is nasrallah's major political hub and by the way there are reports about libanese fleeing to the north towards beirut large numbers one of the interesting figure that i came of course one of my sources in beirut told me the prices of rent in places in beirut jumped in 500 percent wow so going back to the story of the iranians and their proxies what we see right now as i said before the iranians are trying to move around their proxies in the region we saw the story of the hooties one more interesting development in that context iranian-backed iraqi militias in iraq did two things one they attacked again us persons in iraq and the second thing they did they gathered people unarmed as a protest next to the jordan and iraqi borders and they are basically sending a message to jordan saying open the borders with iraq so we could go in and go and fight for palestine the jordan and of course have no intention to do in that but this is yet another move by the iranian regime who is trying to move on the chessboard game his soldiers on the chess board game as long as he is staying out of the game he is safe and soundly around that may have to be changed you believe that it will be changed well you see this is a great story because the big question is right now we are witnessing this massive tectonic plate movement in the middle east the united states of america sent very clear message to the iranian regime and to the hezbollah don't it is backed by a massive us firepower that is now deployed in the region and here is something that the iranian surely are aware of the iranian have strategic assets in different part of the middle east in the babelman the uh straight in the red sea in syria in iraq those are vulnerable assets you can cause the iranian regime significant damage by not necessarily attacking the iranian regime itself you can attack its strategic assets in different places we had by the way last night an interesting notes for the first time but a very significant signal from israel to the iranians the attacks last night on the airport in the maskers and the airport in aleppo are basically have two double sort of kind of objective so speaking one is to prevent moving of arms towards the hezbollah and deployment of advanced weapon systems and the second sending signal to the iranian you have other assets in syria and they are vulnerable interesting so when it comes to everything that's happening in israel we continue to hear how the repercussions of this could completely change the how the middle east looks and how the middle east works together i think a a major sign of that is even with the release of the two american hostages which was negotiated by qatar now some people are pointing the finger saying that qatar should not have been involved in those negotiations in the first place israel should be drawing a red line when it comes to qatar because they're not negotiating with hamas terrorists yet by negotiating with qatar is it not one in the same well you're talking about qatar an interesting player in the middle east it's a small place but they are basically trying to conduct and quite successfully an independent policy they are using to that end their major card sort of speaking their money and al jazeera these are the two major cards al qatar al qatar is very sophisticatedly using to end to serve its interest qatar has a lot of influence in different arenas we have to take it into consideration this is part of what we see right now and going back to something that you said before nicole which is very important and i have been saying that since the first moment of this world this is a pivotal moment this is a seismic event this is an event that it's already sending a huge aftershock waves across the middle east and not only across the middle east outside of the middle east as well because one of the things that i've all been saying to my western audience is what happens in the middle east does not stay in the middle east one when we're talking about just the hostage situation we do see those family members as we are 16 days more than two weeks their their frustration their anger is increasing we've seen hundreds of demonstrators taking to the streets of tell of eve just last night on saturday demanding the government take immediate action to return their loved ones being held by hamas we know now 212 at least still held by hamas now these demonstrators their main message bring them back now we've lost complete contact there's no sign of life no signal it's been two weeks now and we are here i'm here together with all these families hundreds of them there's over 200 hostages and we're all here to cry out and reach out to the entire world to the international community to help us and we're demanding to bring them back now you can hear the anger and the passion in their voices as they just want to see their loved ones for the first time in two weeks now avi i want to talk to you because the idf continues to announce they've had contact with more and more family members of those who have taken hostage the number now as of today 212 how trustworthy is this idf intel because of anything october 7th has proven to us that the idf does not always know what's happening in the gaza street so how do we know that they know where these hostages are being held how safe they are and how many there are well nicole that's a great question i'll say it this way the more israel is increasing its preparation and simultaneously once israel is going to roll in into gaza strip as expected one of the most significant thing in the context of the hostages is that israel's ability to gather intelligence and information would be tripled if not quadruple there is something very significant about gaza strip to to understand there are many people in gaza strip who don't like hamas and they are waiting for hamas downfall so there will be a lot of information flying in uh streaming in and that information intelligence could be very useful in the context of the hostages i have to say something about the hostages and i said it from the from the first day um it seems like israel's policy is to handle the issue of the hostages as there is no war and to handle the war as if there is no issue of the hostages and i'm afraid that i'm not bringing a new um good you know statement to the hostages families hamas will use the hostages as a card to try to avoid a downfall he's going to use that he's going to cynically use that uh we saw an example for that last week when he was releasing the two women uh we we should probably should expect more cynical move by hamas we should be aware of that well and i think you you bring up just the the best point hamas is using these hostages as as leverage and as propaganda as well it all ties into the psychological warfare and the psychological toll that it's taking on these families absolutely we have to remember that i mean this is an organization that butcher babies by raping their models this organization have no moral restrictions whatsoever and i think that we should be ready for that we should be we should be ready for that with all the pain that comes along with that but we should be ready for it and meanwhile they are preparing for that we are seeing more uh hundreds of thousands of soldiers going to the front lines uh jumping into action to defend the state of israel and it's not just israel's jewish shoulders that are ready to fight hamas drus arabes and better ones are all fighting together to destroy the terrorist group was there a moment in the midst of all the chaos when you said to yourself how is this possible that's not the kind of thing that crosses your mind during a battle you're focused on countering the attack and preventing them at all costs from succeeding in doing what they came to do did you fear for your life i'd be lying if i told you i wasn't so yes of course the fear is there lieutenant colonel m is the commanding officer of the better in trekkers unit in the israeli army for the area surrounding the gaza strip he has been in service for 24 years never in my worst nightmares did i think that i'd give the order to fire a missile from an Apache helicopter at my headquarters details of what transpired on the morning of the attack have been scarce now we can see from within the idea of base that has turned into a bloody battlefield the bedrooms and offices are riddled with bullets shattered glass in every corner and a gymnasium which was bombed to take down the terrorists who were barricaded inside on that morning i was called up with info of two simultaneous incidents near kibbutz nachalas at this time at headquarters only a few men are in sight some in the operation room with some staff officers the only combat soldiers on site are the bedouin trekkers i went outside and on the left about 200 or 300 meters away there's a long line of terrorists on motorcycles i understood right away that they were a mass operatives and that they were blocking the road the battle to prevent the terrorists from entering the base was long and no doubt it prevented a much greater catastrophe every nook and cranny around the base's entrance every signpost or rock turned into a fighting position then they tried to enter the base on their motorcycles but we stopped them with a barrage of bullets it lasted about an hour and a half we were six against 30 after a long exchange of fire the terrorists changed their tactics and split into several groups they placed one group ambushing at the crossroads and the others split up some attacked the entrance others blocked the road to prevent cars from passing at 6 30 am there were rocket alerts and at that moment i received a phone call from the officer at headquarters who told me there is a serious incident in the area go i then headed for the rhyme base to rejoin the division and then i was ambushed by the terrorists in front of the base they put their motorcycles to block the way there were about 13 of them and they started coming towards me they were merely 40 meters away from us and at that point i had no choice but to make contact an attack then return to the base that's what i was trained for that's what that's what i was brought up with as major akram rejoins the operations room and prepares to return to combat on the north side lieutenant colonel m also goes to the command room to get the latest information on the situation on the ground he leaves tracker ashraf in position at the entrance with a single mission keep terrorists out my commander told me ashraf you stay here no terrorist gets through we went into battle again and stopped them from advancing all the way to the entrance we killed 13 at the entrance alone as ashraf directs the fighting at the base's entrance dozens of young people who have escaped from the rave party find refuge in the base he tells them where to go for cover there were over 30 families young people full of blood many with face injuries from shreds of glass from windows of the cars they were in when the terrorists shot at them many were shot in the leg arm or shoulder i got them into the room and told them to close the door and not let anyone in until i got back and that i'd say my name three times to let them know it was me the terrorists started to move towards the parking lot i didn't understand what they were doing at the time but i started to hear shooting from the other side of the base so i understood that they had managed to get into the base after all was the fence wide open yes they opened a breach in the fence they wanted to get in with the motorcycles after more than an hour of fruitless efforts outside the base they realized they weren't going to make it and decided to break through the fence from then on things escalated even further dozens of terrorists invaded the north side of the base searching room by room for the command center as they advance they shoot at anything that moves this went on for four hours an eternity in times of emergency at 10 30 a.m the i df's special commando unit of shaldag arrives on the base and starts taking control of the area gradually eliminating the terrorists at least a dozen were holed up here at the gymnasium of the base i saw them go in there so i called for an airstrike as you can see up above is this where the missile went through exactly some died here and others came out but we were already quite a few and we're waiting for them outside just one of the countless acts of heroism that we're hearing as people we tell their tales from October 7th now we are 16 days after that atrocious day continuing to unpack the events as it continues to be an ever-changing and evolving situation for the war here in israel we're going out for a quick break here on zoom in but stay with us as we continue to talk about all of the latest developments and how it's impacting the people here in israel israel is officially in a state of war this is a very active scene and we need to get in the car as we're talking within a hundred soldiers and civilians have been kidnapped we don't want to do we just don't know anything entire families including babies and children and elderly were butchered in their beds awaken the giant and we are ready and we are strong everyone is showing up this is the unity this particular project with a gross capacity of 103.5 megawatt will be producing around 230 gigawatt hour of clean renewable energy per year we came out here where they see us to complain about the rain if in fact in these moments global warming is affecting bolivia and not only bolivia but the whole world and we need rain for the people welcome back to zoom in as we continue our coverage of the war here in israel now as israel prepares for the next stage of the war different foreign leaders are calling for a proportional response urging israel to not get carried away when destroying the hamas terrorists that kidnapped raped and murdered 1400 innocent israeli civilians on october 7th calls for a proportional response to the attack on israel are heard all throughout the media right now as this conflict evolves it is important to protect civilians and this was also clearly expressed by allies there are rules of war there are the quest for proportionality in the conduct of hostilities the principles of necessity distinction proportionality and precautions in attack must be respected at all times by everyone now to talk more about exactly what a proportional response means i'm joined in studio by daniel pomerance ceo of reality check and a legal expert and political analyst thank you so much daniel we're hearing this calls for proportionality israel must have a proportional response to what happened on october 7th what exactly does that mean well israel certainly should have a proportional response the problem is said a lot of people don't really understand what that means obviously it doesn't mean that the response should be proportional to the attack nobody's thinking that israel should behead and burn alive 40 babies rape several hundred women murder 1400 people and call it a day proportionality actually has a meaning in international law it's not just a matter of opinion and the meaning it's in a number of places but one place is the section 51 of the first additional protocol to the geneva conventions which says basically that the military action has to be proportional to the threat that the country's facing there's a technical term for it it says that damage to civilian harm to civilian infrastructure and people cannot be excessive in relation to the military objective song but basically what that means is you have to be proportional to your threat so a good example of this would be after 9 11 what was the proportional response there well it's not that anyone expected the united states to go into afghanistan for one day destroy three targets and kill 3000 civilians the threat the united faced the united states faced was the existence of al-qaeda which was determined to destroy the western world that was their goal that's what they said they intended to do and 9 11 merely created the evidence that they were capable of potentially carrying that out so the proportional response had to be to eliminate that threat which meant eliminating al-qaeda as a functioning organization in this case hamas is essentially a nazi-based isa style organization they idolize adolf hitler and they openly declare that their goal is the mass murder of jews and the destruction of israel something that president biden pointed out in his speech last week and so as long as an organization exists whose goal is this kind of destruction and as long as we've seen that they are potentially capable of carrying that out the proportional response must be eliminating hamas as an organization that can function that is what is both allowed and required under international law now what does it mean to destroy hamas that depends entirely on hamas hamas could at this moment give up their arms turn in the hostages and surrender their senior leadership in which case israel would not take any further action this isn't about revenge israel wouldn't say i don't care that you surrendered we're going to go kill people anyway that's not what this is about but since hamas intends to fight and is very well armed and well trained the proportional response of eliminating hamas is likely to take a great deal of time a great deal of fighting and tragically palestinian and israeli civilians are frequently going to get caught in the middle of that and as we enter just the next stage of this which has been outlined by different israeli officials as well we know that they are going to enter the gaza strip it's going to be a very intense and turbulent time i'm curious though because you talked about proportionality when it comes to hamas what if other terror cells get involved we're already seeing increased tension on the northern border as well i guess does this same proportional response apply to then hezbollah iran other proxies absolutely the proportional response applies to anyone who is involved now israel has to take a test to take stock of what his capabilities are one could make the theoretical argument that a proportional response at this point would be for israel to militarily end the iranian regime but israel may decide that it doesn't have the means or the desire to get involved in a conflict of that scale right now but up to and including eliminating the iranian regime eliminating hezbollah eliminating hamas eliminating palestinian islamic shihad any of those would fit within the international definition of what proportionality means and so when anyone says well you shouldn't continue your operation because too many people have died or too many things have been destroyed that is disconnected from the international definition of proportionality the only question the only question the world should be asking is has israel reached a situation where the threat that it was facing is no longer threatening its citizens and that's certainly their their plan and i think that's brings up such a great perspective on to exactly the goals of israel right now now when we're also speaking of just the legal perspective and legal speaking another thing that we're hearing across the world which has been heard time and time again uh from these pro-palestinian protests the idea free palestine now it's being an uptick right now as well um you said israel has a right to defend its borders but these calls from free palestine they're chanting from the river to the sea let palestine be free what exactly legally does that mean for israel where does israel stand in that well the those calls are a call for the destruction of the state of israel river to the sea if you look at it on a map that's all of israel now some people make the case that israel is an illicit mid-state that never should have existed in the first place therefore we have the right to destroy it that is not correct it's not correct under multiple united states resolutions including the partition plan of 1947 but people are saying it so when people are saying it israel has a right to defend against anyone actually trying to carry out that sort of attack people also when people talk about the occupation they're usually talking about the occupation of all of israel to them ending the occupation means ending israel entirely now whether israel should have a presence in the west bank whether it should have a presence in a security presence in gaza these are other questions that israel's worked through the oslo accords and there are agreements regarding how much presence israel should or shouldn't have there the palestinian people have been offered statehood nine separate times and have turned it down frequently usually because forces like hamas feel that their goal is the annihilation of israel rather than statehood alongside of israel so these are all issues that that israel will have to face and continue dealing with after these hostilities over but are over but for the time being israel's goal and what israel's required to do for its citizens is to create a safe situation well and thank you so much daniel pomerance as we continue to talk about everything that does unfold here in israel's southern and northern borders as well with the threat of hezbollah maybe a proportional response there as well that's actually where our i-24 news correspondent rl osaron is right now near the lebanon border in northern israel rl we continue to see lots of action as i spoke to you just within the past hour sirens sounding throughout northern israel as well what can you tell us on the ground right nicole so earlier we reported on rocket alert sirens that were sounded in the border community of if that's on the more eastern part of the border between israel and lebanon so according to initial information again no official confirmation yet based on initial information we're talking about uh around 15 to 20 uh mortars that were launched towards the community of iftah as well as multiple anti-tank guided missiles launched at israeli border outposts now while there has not been any confirmation as to that or if there were any casualties or injuries in in in these attacks this follows two attacks that did take place on an army tank as well as an army border outpost with anti-tank guided missiles two of these attacks were thwarted and also a drone was downed on the border and so this continues to to escalate throughout the day additional attacks additional attempts of attacks but just today moments ago hezbollah announcing a third member of in their ranks killed by israeli fire this would raise the number acknowledged by hezbollah to 22 but the understanding in israel is that number is fairly higher that could also explain why we haven't heard since october 7th we haven't heard hezbollah leader hassan asrallah referring to anything that's been going on the border this is the man that is not shy of the spotlight he likes to throw his take into the mix but so far we have not heard from him that could be because the exchange of fire throughout these past couple weeks have caused significant damage among the ranks of hezbollah in southern lebanon arel we're continuing to keep an eye up there in the north where you are but we're also hearing reports of more action in the south also along with the humanitarian corridor that has opened in the between the gaza strip and the egypt the rough of border crossing we're hearing reports that 17 more trucks have crossed into gaza allowing 17 more trucks of humanitarian aid um how how valid are these these reports and i know israel had initially only agreed to 20 trucks of aid going through the rough of border crossing right nicole so obviously yesterday was the first batch 20 trucks carrying medicine medical equipment and food today we're seeing reports from arab media that we're seeing reports throughout the day that these 17 trucks the second batch of aid are preparing to enter are going to enter soon then they were passing through the examination point to the checkpoint to make sure that there aren't any weapons or additional materials that have not been agreed upon uh by the sides and according to arab media that is on the ground in the rough of crossing because israeli media or most western media cannot make it there israeli media for sure so we're basing this on arab media that is on the ground and reporting filming seeing the trucks go in and so this indeed would be the second batch of humanitarian aid making its way into the gaza strip i will just note that the first batch the 20 trucks came hours after hamas released to hostages now to our understanding that is not the case now there were no hostages released prior to this second batch and that would undermine israel's claim or at least the claim of the families of the 212 hostages that they say that israel should refuse the entry of humanitarian aid as long as their relatives their loved ones are still being held captive by hamas are saying that that is also a humanitarian issue and so if yesterday the first batch 20 humanitarian aid trucks came in after the release of two is ready two hostages that is not the case right now so far we're seeing just on a one-sided entry of 17 humanitarian aid trucks ariel osaran up there on the northern border thank you for your reporting also something that you noted that the 17 trucks reportedly being looked at into exactly what they are taking into the gaza strip initial report yesterday said that the 20 trucks initially had not been looked at which israel later came back and clarified that according to them they had confirmed what had been in those 20 trucks of humanitarian aid daniel pomerance i want to come back to you as we're looking at this rough of border crossing the aid coming into the gaza strip when we're also just talking about the legal perspective of helping any palestinians who have been displaced by this letting in this this aid and the responsibility of the of the un other arab states not necessarily the responsibility of israel and well for the most part the arab states have flatly declined to accept palestinian refugees from gaza israel's responsibility under international law is to not cause harm to civilian people or infrastructure that is excessive in relationship to the military goals so that means for example you can't go intentionally targeting civilians just to kill people israel the israeli army the idf never intentionally targets civilians and it never intentionally targets civilian infrastructure unless that infrastructure is also being used for a military purpose that's israel's responsibility in this in this particular situation beyond that there is a response if it's possible to bring in humanitarian aid international law does require bringing it in there is a valid argument that in this case we're treating palestinian civilians differently than israeli civilians who are being held and not released nonetheless international law as a technical matter doesn't allow two wrongs to make a right and so there is a requirement to allow that that aid to flow through but i don't think international law was written with this particular kind of horrific situation in mind and you're talking about the the rules of war and how israel is playing by the rules of war but how does that come into account when hamas is not playing by the rules of war they are actively targeting israeli civilians that's true and hamas is also actively endangering their own civilians and israel actually goes beyond the rules of war it often announces where it's going to attack in advance which very few countries in the world ever do hamas does the opposite forces their civilians to stay in combat zones israel that can be a disadvantage to israel nonetheless it's what israel chooses to do and i believe that israel benefits from it in the long run for one thing it it makes an impression on countries like the united states who now have two aircraft carriers in the eastern Mediterranean it also makes an impression on the israeli people who know that they're fighting for a moral army and regardless of the internal disagreements israelis have israelis invest tremendous creativity and effort and motivation into the idf and that doesn't happen unless people genuinely feel that they they're doing the right thing daniel palmer and ceo of reality check and legal expert political analysts thank you i think that time and time again we really are seeing the israeli soldiers come together and fight for this world ground that israel stands for thank you nicol thank you um now 16 days after the vicious massacre that took place in israel southern communities the invaded bloodstain homes remain empty as residents fled leaving their loved ones bodies behind they were also forced to leave their pets many of the frightened lost pets mainly dogs were shot on site by the terrorists since then one group has been working tirelessly to rescue these surviving pets with the hopes of reuniting them with their families and finding new homes to those who lost their family more ellen joined dogs and heroes on their mission israeli residents living next to the gaza border have been forced to evacuate their homes in a hurry many were forced to leave their pets behind we're talking about cases where people themselves had to run with their babies under hands stories of them you know jumping out out of windows with their babies and they the stories that i hear are of people trying to call their dogs right or cats is even harder to come with them but the dogs are so afraid that they hide or they run away and they just had to run they were running for their lives so a lot of the dogs which are right there there are another and cats there are other another family member that was just left behind so that's why it was really important for us to just go and get you know extract them as fast as possible dr. shira yasve from the dogs and heroes organization realized the problem early on and is trying to rectify it dogs and heroes is a spontaneous grouping of a few volunteers friends from before the war started some of us are graphic designers i'm a veterinary doctor there's people from all across the the spectrum of professions and basically when the war broke we understood that animals would have to be animals needs would have to be addressed in some way and that there's going to be a crisis also on the animal front so and already like the the same night uh of the 7th and october we started our uh gathering volunteers for the past two weeks thousands of israelis from all over the country have come together to reunite families with their pets a war room in bait comma in the south of israel was established and from there the teams leave for their assignments these volunteers are headed to another operation to extract dogs from the dangerous areas the areas that are still closed military zones under the control of the idf don't try run to a shelter just line the ground and put your hands on your head don't kneel same goes if we are driving quickly halt the cars get as far away as we can from the car and lie flat on the ground in kerim shalom or any other village when we look after animals if the dog runs off let us know so we can come with you don't get too far away from us we can be with the forces of the village they will direct us where to go i'm sure you all know as well but just please stay with us for those who are carrying weapons we are here to safeguard you please leave your gun in the holster except when we are under fire it doesn't phase these volunteers when the war broke out i was basically just at home and i didn't really do anything to help and i felt a little bad with myself that i can do something better than just sitting at home watching the news it can be a bit scary sometimes but it's for the dogs for the volunteers the satisfaction of reuniting pets with owners is worth the risk this dog owner came all the way from elat where he and his family have been staying since the war broke out after his dog was found in one of the villages he tells the volunteers that his second dog is still inside not a minute goes by and another group of volunteers come back with the missing dog the the unions are unbelievable they're unbelievable it's i think it's also you know a sliver of hope that if the dog came back then maybe the kidnap right that the kidnap people would come back as well that it shows the possibility of getting back someone that you thought you lost track of you can see the emotional scar left on the state of israel is truly enormous something as simple as people being left without their family pets and that's just the beginning of it now as the initial shock is starting to wear off many people are left in a state of grief despair and fear i'm joined now by dr camilla forkash levon a licensed practicing psychologist and organizational consultant joining me from jr. thank you so much for joining me uh dr levon the emotional toll it cannot be overlooked everyone in israel knows someone killed kidnapped wounded called from reserve duty as people are asking me are are you okay how are you doing it almost has a new meaning it's it's more about my physical well-being because no one is emotionally okay yes definitely definitely it's the whole the whole thing again i just want to thank you all for for bringing these topics in and um everyone is in a state of shock i can see this with friends i can see this with clients i can see this everywhere um and uh with other professionals yes like everyone literally is still in a state of shock and everyone's dealing with it very differently uh some you can already see the emotional responses that are turbulent and coming out uh some are completely still detached and life is you know as usual in a way but you can see that the stress is so huge that it's starting to affect them in different ways so um i think it's very very important to talk about this because yes the meaning of are you okay becomes not just like a hello have a nice day but like are you are you really okay you know well i think one of the most difficult conversations i don't even know how to explain what's happening here in israel to my family back into the united states how do people begin to explain what's happening to their kids to their young kids exactly so i think that's it's very important i'm going to like take a step back just and again cramming as much as possible so that hopefully it actually is helpful it first of all you you as a parent as an adult as somebody that you are need to make sure that you're okay as much as possible and understand that everything you're feeling is no matter how like crazy or whatever it is that you want to you know call the feelings and emotions and whatever is going through your head or mind or soul is normal because the situation is shocking and crazy to begin with so like normalize that and understand really really this is not something that anyone is being prepared for ever and we all hope not to ever be there yet not not even thinking about it to be there so that's one two it's very important during the time of stress especially during the time of stress people usually do not have the time or the the the peace of mind or whatever you might call it to actually stop for a minute and do something for yourself except it's it's the time that it's the most important because your your nervous system is on such a high over overrun overdrive kind of a thing that it will spiral so it's very very important if you want to go for a long long run to be able to stop and to do anything like literally shamelessly do anything that you can give yourself little pockets of peace and trust me your brain is still going to be working there and it's not like you're not taking it seriously because you are just the opposite watch a comedy even if it's just little pieces of it watch some stupid movie even if it's in pieces put some music on even if your mind travels around and you don't even know what you saw or what you heard but it gives a little bit a little bit of taking off a little bit to the edge so you can keep going another hour another day another few minutes and that brings you to your children right your children will read you children are incredibly bright they're brilliant they're very intuitive they know things somehow magically almost they just read the information so well and they will read you so like if you're talking about how everything is cute and nice or whatever you're trying to say but you yourself is very very very old on overdrive they will see you and they will read you and doesn't matter what you say the importance again this question is very important the importance for children to have some sense of stability and balance is because their nervous system is only being built like yours is already built and see how you feel there is only being built meaning whatever is happening now has a big effect for the future as well so the more balanced you are and of course the situation is crazy it's only what I'm saying is also sounding crazy but the more you can like give some reprieve for your mind to at least help pockets so that you can be functional the more they're going to be okay as well and then you explain you you give you give a picture you don't need to go give in fact don't give gruesome details because you know age appropriately but do talk about our strength to do talk about which is true yes we always in some kind of a war and we're always turning out to be okay and now also we are armed to our teeth they need to know this that we are to our teeth and we're doing everything possible to turn this around so that these kinds of things don't keep happening so it is important to have those conversations with with your children or other young kids young adults it's important to talk about what's happening right now rather than putting it under the rug or rug or acting like everything is okay well definitely because first of all in schools and kindergarten they already also discuss and second of all they do see that something is going on and if they see that something is going on and and you know everyone around them is stressed out and freaked out but they don't really know what is going on and they see the silence so their interpretation of it might be way worse than what you can explain because they're just cooking it now and you have no idea what they're feeling so it's very important to actually talk to them about it to say like what do you know first find out right what do you know what do they tell you in school or in the kindergarten or with your friends how are you feeling what are you thinking even if they start to get emotional it's okay don't get scared and be like no no it's okay no let them cry let them let them have the hold the space for them to put these emotions somewhere share those emotions with them tell them that it's okay to be sad it's okay to be scared and you're there with them and you love them and that you know again we have such a strong country we're fighting very nicely we're protecting them and then one step at a time and one step at a time it's very very important to have that open door and to tell them like you know I love you I'm here for you thank you so much for sharing this with me I know this was difficult for you to share anytime you want to talk to me please come so they don't feel like they need to protect you because if you're going to be shutting down their emotions they will feel like they need to protect you it's not like their emotions are going to go away they're still going to be there you're just not going to know about them you know I'm saying so it's very very important for them to have a space to talk to somebody because we as adults can call up our friend call up a psychologist but having those conversations with one another it's truly the most important part as difficult as those conversations are have not only with your friends as you were saying your family members but your children so dr. Kamila forkash levon thank you so much for breaking down how do we even begin to approach what's happening here in israel thank you now here on continue to unpack all the latest developments over 1300 people murdered and more than 3000 injured and the war with hamas continues we bring you firsthand testimonies from the front lines from those who survived and all the records of the atrocities by hamas follow us as israel fights terror from the south and north get the inside scoop on what's going on only on i24 news or this is a very active scene and we need to get in the car as we're talking more than a hundred soldiers and civilians have been kidnapped we don't want to do we just don't know anything entire families including babies and children and elderly were butchered in their beds awaken the giant and we are ready and we are strong everyone is showing up this is the unity is breaking news edition i'm benita levine coming to live from tel aviv rocket fire once again in the south and in the north of israel siren sounding in southern communities just a short while ago and in parts of the north day 16 of the war israel evacuating 14 communities near the lebanon border amid concerns around the next move by the hezbollah terror group the israeli defense force confirming it intercepted a hostile drone from southern lebanon and returned fire on terrorist positions in lebanese territory the idf also targeting a terrorist squad that launched an anti-tank missile in the area of haridov on sunday morning there was another missile attack towards the area of zipporen and two attempted attacks in avivim and zari meanwhile airstrikes continuing on terror infrastructure in syria allegedly the most extensive strikes by the israeli air force since the start of the war the runways at airports throughout syria are reportedly damaged seemingly a move to stop advanced weapons from being sent from iran and iraq to lebanon and syria now our rolling coverage will include a range of developments on the ground the idf capturing a hamas terrorist who had been hiding in fields near the border with gaza for over two weeks since the hamas killing rampage on the 7th of october he's from the nuqba force of hamas and has been handed over to the shin bet internal security agency earlier in the day the idf updating the number of hostages believed to be held by the hamas terror group in gaza spokesman daniel higari saying 212 families had been notified the figure does not include the two hostages hamas released over the weekend now he also says the families of 307 fallen soldiers have been notified another major concern evidence of chemical weapon production was found on the body of a hamas terrorist the axios news site reporting it's not yet clear if hamas intends to mass produce chemical weapons or even if the group has begun production and there has been no official confirmation on that report now for the latest on the ground let's go to our middle east correspondent ariel osir and he joins us from the northern border so sirens in the north a little while ago at iftach indicating rocket fire again also israel evacuating 14 communities amid concerns around the next move by hezbollah what update can you share on this day right benita so as it's been going on every day the border here in the north with lebanon is heating up gradually following the numerous attacks and thwarted attacks that you mentioned the latest uh the sirens that were heard about a short hour ago in the border kibbutz of iftach that according to the idf appeared to have been mortars numerous mortars launched towards the border community like many others across the 80 mile long border that has been evacuated all communities to a five kilometer distance from the border have been evacuated now the idf said that an aircraft has struck an anti-tank missile squad that fired an anti-tank missile towards our numerous missiles at the military outpost of tsiporen they added that anti-tank missiles were launched at in the vicinity of two other border outposts and as as you know we can see and we've been reporting throughout the morning there's been an increase at the pace at least in these attacks on the lebanese side there's reports of three hezbollah operatives killed in exchange of fire with israeli forces today that would raise the number that him that hezbollah is acknowledging to 22 but according to assessments here in israel that number is a lot higher middle east correspondent ariel osaran keeping us up to date on all the latest developments on the northern border thank you very much for that update and now for more here in studio our correspondent guy israel so guy thank you very much for being here there are so many developments on the ground not least of which as we're speaking in just the last half hour rocket fire in the south and mortar fire as we heard now in the north also confirmation that 212 families have been alerted to the fact that their relatives or lab ones are being held hostage by Hamas in the Gaza Strip talk to us about the latest developments across the region yes so many developments across the various front that israel is dealing with we've seen rocket alerts or rockets been fired towards so many communities across israel not just in the south also in the center in the region at sea on and be chimish throughout this day so Hamas is still very much alive in that sense its capabilities its rocket launching capabilities still very much active and that is why the adf is increasing its attacks its airstrikes across the Gaza Strip but mainly in the northern part of the Gaza Strip is israel and the adf in general still attempt to persuade as many Gazans to leave the northern part of the Gaza Strip south of Gaza city so that most of the adf operations will be focused on that area a very interesting development earlier today it was revealed that yesterday adf forces have caught a Hamas terrorist who was still in israeli territory hiding for two weeks hiding for two weeks and the story is even more incredible when you get more details about how was he caught well it turns out that he stole an israeli vehicle and a civilian company who tracks one of those cars this car is under the monitoring of this company it noticed suspicious movement of this car which is of course in closed military zone alerted the police and the adf who managed to find this car driven by this Hamas terrorists exhausted but spent two weeks in israeli territory still not clear whether anyone assisted him as it is pretty difficult to stay alone in the field without food for two weeks and he's being interrogated now by the shin bait security agency so no doubt more details will emerge thank you for now correspondent guy israel stay with us right now i want to turn to the many unsung heroes in this war emergency response teams risking their lives to help scores of volunteers often involved in these organizations including yarin pellet a combat medic from kibbutz per airy now she was killed in battle at nacho us and is being laid to rest today our emily francis joins us right now and emily just devastating a 20 year old combat medic yarin pellet being laid to rest shortly a true hero of this war tell us more indeed benita it is uh she is a true hero and it is it is so sad uh to have to be here right now to lay this beautiful young woman to rest 20 years old i spoke to the deputy spokesperson also of madame adan agendavid adom who said that she you know was a volunteer medic in the idf and she was at her outpost in the south she grew up on the kibbutz berry like you mentioned and she literally was one of the first responses and nacho owes and went into that battle and she died of gunshot wound wounds at four o'clock the funeral is going to begin you can see here people are starting starting to arrive we're in savion which is very far away obviously from the south i asked the spokesperson um nadav matzner why why she's being buried here because she did grow up on that kibbutz and he said that he they believe it's actually going to be a temporary location because the people from these kibbutzes cannot be buried there because it is an active obviously a military and crime scene of course but but you know the other questions that people are asking why if she was killed on october 7th it's taken so long to have a funeral for her when in jewish law you're supposed to bury somebody the next day and he said it's because it's literally taken this long to be able to identify the bodies that there are hundreds of families in the south right now trying to identify the bodies so they could be given a proper burial just unimaginable can't even begin to comprehend what her family must be going through right now emily i understand she had a special request for other volunteers from baguette david adam before all of this happened before this war broke out that's right you know it just really shows another reason why she is such a hero that even in the in the height of this terrible tragedy she knew that she wanted to pen a small note that people would find where she said should she die in this battle she not only wants to be buried in her maganda vide uniform that she was so proud of but that she wants everyone who comes here to also show up the same in the maganda vide uniform that she is so proud of and it just goes to show the the the fortitude and and the courage that she had knowing that that may have been the last moment of her life when she penned that letter thoughts are with her family and her team and her community 20 years old yarin pellet thank you very much that's our emily francis at the sauvignon cemetery thank you emily and now we go to our correspondent pierce tackle buff she is in southern israel she joins us from ashkelon and pier we know sirens have been sounding earlier in the rim and other communities near kisu fame as well near the gaza border you and the i-24 news team you will have been at various parts in the south throughout the day what update can you share right now what can you tell us right benita siren sounded in a few committees in close proximity to the gaza strip and also twice in the city of ashkelon we're now in evacuation of everything between 25 000 or 40 000 people is being planned because this is the amount of people who are believed to not have a shelter in their homes now the city of ashkelon has been one of the most or most heavily targeted cities in this war so far so the municipality there is preparing for a possible evacuation of those people who don't have a shelter close to their homes israel has been striking hamas targets in the gaza strip throughout the night we're speaking about weapons depots warehouses other infrastructure that the israeli military was saying was also located beneath or next to a mosque that they have been targeting now we were earlier very close to the gaza strip we could actually see one of the israeli strikes targeting a building there also continuous sounds of the israeli artillery striking the gaza strip this comes the day after 20 trucks delivering aid were let inside the gaza strip that is received as more like more less more less a drop into the ocean because two million people they are there two million civilians are in desperate need of water food and medicine this is what has been delivered now in these 20 trucks that is not yet known when the next aid delivery will be let into the gaza strip israel has said that it will not accept the delivery of fuel into the strip as it believes that hamas will get into the position of fuel but hospitals they're saying and also humanitarian organizations are saying that fuel is needed to run ambulances hospitals and also desalination plans as people are in desperate need for water there as well again we do not know what we do not know when the next aid delivery will be let into the gaza strip now the israeli military this morning publishing a new updated number on the hostages that are currently being held by hamas in the gaza strip they're counting 212 people there now on friday the first two hostages were released but the question really is will we see any more freeing of other hostages possibly it has sparked quite some hope among some of the the hostages families here but we really don't know how that case is going to continue we do know that negotiations are being held in very high levels also abroad as many of those hostages have foreign nationality as well but the question really is if also the looming ground offensive will have any influence on that will the ground offensive endanger them or will it possibly bring some new development into this war those are very open questions as of now we're into the dark also in terms in the dark in terms of when that ground offensive might continue but we have seen that more preparations are being done in the area closer to the gaza strip more troop reinforcements soldiers training there but the question really is if and will the ground offensive will really begin benita and pier as you say many questions remain around the potential ground offensive if and when it is going to happen talk to us a bit more about the refugees that are fleeing certain parts of the gaza strip which arab nations have put their hands up to take in refugees egypt and jordan had earlier suggested they would not be open to taking in people who were fleeing this war any update on that front what are you hearing from the arab world specifically well that is still the latest that we are hearing that egypt and jordan have said that they are not willing to take any refugees egypt has said that the sinai peninsula would not be open for refugees israel should instead consider opening the negive desert for those people as of now israel is still calling upon residents of the northern gaza strip to flee towards the south of the strip but we're talking again about a two million strong civilian population there for many people it is just simply not possible to escape and when you're listening to reports from the ground in gaza many people are saying there is no safe space also the south of gaza is not safe anymore in the beginning of last week it was in the talks that the rafah crossing that was no open for those 20 trucks delivering aid might as well be open for the exit of at least foreign nationals which also counts only for the very minority of the civilian population in gaza but we do not receive any updates on that whether it might be possible for those foreign nationals in gaza to exit there's no real update on that there's also no update on the next date that humanitarian aid will be letting to the crossing so very much in the dark also the residents in gaza there as the humanitarian crisis for the civilian population increases day by day benida and as you say as well concerns remain that the aid and supplies might actually be used by the terror group and not for humanitarian purposes thank you for that update for now it's our correspondent pierce the go back in southern israel in ashkelon thank you pier and now for more insight into all the latest developments we welcome he lael fooled israel startup advisor and tech columnist and he joins us from bet shemesh hello thank you so much for your time we know rockets were fired towards bet shemesh just in recent hours day 16 of this war you personally and your family tragically you lost your brother arry in a terror attack by a palestinian terrorist back in 2018 at gushet zion junction many around the world today are still in shock at the brutality and scale of the latest terror attack of course the 7th of october so to start personally talk us through your reaction your feelings right now sure uh you know i think i share everyone's sentiment the entire nation the entire country maybe you know jews around the world we are devastated we are broken we are um you know in despair but on the other hand we as a nation understand that we've been through worse not much worse but worse and we've um you know come out on the other end stronger and i don't have any doubt that that will be the case here but uh you know it would be dishonest of me if i didn't mention that as i'm sitting here listening to the reports i have to mention you know would the media be reporting nazi germany and how many innocent germans are in nazi germany and how the humanitarian crisis is so horrible in germany and in afghanistan after 9 11 the reporting is is mind-boggling why is there an obsession with gaza when hamas the government that the civilians in gaza elected i came in here and brutally savagely murdered raped and abducted 1300 people and all the media is obsessed with is the humanitarian crisis in gaza they should turn to hamas for that they should turn to egypt to take them in i don't even understand why it's even part of the dialogue it should not be is dangerous and it is dishonest hello this is exactly what i would like to unpack there is so much confusion in the media space and in the social media space and many questions around the response to this war so far hamas has a very clear charter outlining in no uncertain terms its mandate as such to eradicate jews why then when it's there in black and white is it difficult for certain international news channels to refer to this killing rampage on the 7th of october which targeted civilians some of whom were butchered in front of their families and other unimaginable atrocities why is it so difficult for some to call hamas terrorists well because let's start with the fact that it's not just hamas whose charter says that the the plo the the moderate palestinians right go look at their charter that they exist so that israel does not exist these these people do not have a nationalistic agenda they have one agenda that jews and and it's it might not be politically correct it might not be pleasant to hear but the entire country here is in post traumatic stress here and we're trying our best not to see these horrible horrible videos that these absolute savages are sharing proudly on social media so the question i'm going to throw back to you why are we even discussing hamas and the plo or the palestinian authorities two separate entities but in reality literally there is nothing different between what the pa the palestinian people did here in aza as compared to what germans did in nazi germany they elected them and they as as a nation elected them and you know those who say well you know they didn't have a choice who said that before that was the nazis claim we were just following orders it's time we got out of this you know this moral bankruptcy of oh these poor palestinians these poor palestinians as our people elected hamas hamas did what they did these people are celebrating in the streets and not to say there aren't innocent palestinians in gaza of course there are and there were millions of innocent germans who died in world war two and that is tragic but that is the nature of war and let's not get confused between morality and moral relativism as if there's two sides to this conflict there are not two sides there's there's good and there's evil and that is the end of the story and anybody who perpetuates this narrative is part of the problem needs to stop exacerbating exactly what you are saying is the fact of course that hamas films this brutality they wanted the world to see and yet it's fascinating to see that organizations like the bbc are still talking about militants if any human being with a heart with feelings with compassion saw the brutality saw the depravity that is videoed recorded and going viral it would be difficult to describe it as anything other than evil and terror hello obviously the focus right now is on the israeli response on the ground possibly a ground invasion soon but in terms of israel's perception in the media on social media what we are discussing what can it do better in the so-called public space the fact-checking the debunking of fake claims like who really was behind that hospital blast and the likes of a greater thunberg and others pivoting from climate change to bizarre pictures and memes what can israel do in that sphere right now well this is not a new challenge this is a challenge we've always faced on social media they outnumber us and they have absolutely no desire to stick to the truth we stick to the truth so we're not going to win the numbers game ever but i i believe what we've always done what i've always told you know uh people that i work within the idf or in the government to do is stick to the truth even if the truth is sometimes hard because you know the state of israel we make mistakes too so own your mistakes but stick to the truth don't lie and you know at the end of the day truth will prevail i truly believe that but you know again if you're going to look at the numbers there's no way we're going to win this war right now the amount of misinformation and just blatant lies about israel and i'm not talking about from terrorists in and gaza that's not what i'm talking about let's be very clear here i'm talking about the quote-unquote intellectual western woke community whether it's investors in silicon valley whether it's you know like you said environmentalists or other people as if as if the palestinians care about human rights i i declared proudly on my social media that anybody who's part of the lgbtq community i personally vouch to fly them first class to gaza let them bring their flags and let them protest on behalf of the lgbtq community in gaza i will fly them in the hypocrisy is mind boggling it's staggering where are people's you know morality where are people's logic this is counter logical countering to it makes no sense the answer to your question is simple everything you described is true so what's the what's the contra what's the other side why are people behaving this way the answer is the hatred for jews is always has been and always will be stronger than any other morality or ethics or anything else that the world possesses the hatred of jews has always been here and will always been here will always be here and now just two weeks later it is unbelievable to see after everything hamas did the world doesn't stand by israel what what does the world have to see in order to understand that we are the moral side of this conflict i don't think there's anything they will see that will actually get them to stand with the jews and and the hospital you mentioned is a perfect example i i happened to have uh had access to early information that this hospital was bombed before anyone knew about it and i had information that it wasn't the idf because they had not bombed that area and i notified on my x on my twitter to many many millions of people and i told them you're about to hear about an explosion be aware this was not israel and somehow when it came out there was even a doubt that it was israel all of a sudden all the press 500 people israel the second they heard it wasn't israel where did it go where the titles where the fact that it's not 500 where the fact that it's not even a hospital where did they go it's true hatred it's old-fashioned jew hatred i'm sorry that that's you know it's cliche and there's nothing we can do about it the hatred of jews will always remain stronger than morality and ethics around the world that it's a sad tragic situation hello fold you're describing a very sad and tragic situation indeed live from bet she mesh we appreciate you speaking to us thank you very much thank you still with me in studio correspondent guy israel yes uh first we need to update our viewers that a second convoy of humanitarian aid has entered the gaza strip of the past hour we're talking about 17 trucks full of humanitarian aid that have made it into the gaza strip through the rafa crossing through egypt into gaza that is also something that israel has enabled following the agreements made with the the u.s obviously last night there were some reports in new york times that the previous convoy was not checked to make sure that there were no weapons in there that report was later retract and israel made it sure or made it clear at least that any aid that goes into gaza is being thoroughly checked so that it does not include ammunition to go into the hands of hamas although we know hamas certainly does take hold of much of the aid that it wants in any case israel puts most of its efforts humanitarian efforts into the south of the gaza strip while operating in the north and still asking residents there to leave we know that some 750 000 gazans have left the northern part of the gaza strip we're talking about another 350 000 that are still there israel is asking them to leave for their own safety as it increases it operations against hamas as for the israeli side just to understand the the tragedy and what has unfolded on that saturday on that mainly on that daily saturday not just the slaughtering of israeli civilians but what they also did to their bodies the former chief rabbi of the idf speaking to israeli broadcaster today saying that many of the bodies may never be identified and they may have to be buried in one grave as a result of that some 758 israeli civilians have already been identified and that is only 75 percent of those victims but on a maybe on a better note now yesterday in one of the hotels in central israel a hero is welcome for a man who saved lives the members of kibbutz mefal sim have managed to for the first time welcome the hero who saved their lives the manager the head of their security team i hope we have those pictures uh for our viewers right now because it really is heartwarming to see the love that he received there the tears that kept on dropping i hope yeah we can see it maybe just uh listen to those sounds because the the cheers and the um happiness is so evident so you could well let's try to hear it later at least we are looking at those images we can see that reception a hero indeed guy israel thank you that's where we wrap up for now and beneath the divine stay tuned over 1300 people murdered and more than 3000 injured and the war with hamas continues we bring you firsthand testimonies from the front lines from those who survived and all the records of the atrocities by hamas follow us as israel fights terror from the south and north get the inside scoop on what's going on only on i24 news this particular project with a gross capacity of 103.5 megawatt will be producing around 230 gigawatt hour of clean renewable energy per year we have the right ingredients and we have to do the job and that if we have the right ingredients and we do the job that the vaquita can be protected breaking news edition i'm benisa levine coming to you live from tel aviv rocket fire once again in the south and in the north of israel siren sounding in southern communities just a short while ago and in parts of the north day 16 of the war israel evacuating 14 communities near the lebanon border amidst concerns around the next move by the hezbollah terror group the israeli defense force confirming it intercepted a hostile drone from southern lebanon and returned fire on terrorist positions in lebanese territory the idf also targeting a terrorist squad that launched an anti-tank missile in the area of haradov on sunday morning there was another missile attack towards the area of seporen and two attempted attacks in avivim and zari meanwhile airstrikes continuing on terror infrastructure in syria allegedly the most extensive strikes by the israeli air force since the start of the war the runways at airports throughout syria are reportedly damaged seemingly a move to stop advanced weapons from being sent from iran and iraq to lebanon and syria now our rolling coverage will include a range of developments on the ground the idf capturing a hamas terrorist who had been hiding in fields near the border with gaza for over two weeks since the hamas killing rampage on the 7th of october he's from the nuqba force of hamas and has been handed over to the shinbet internal security agency earlier in the day the idf updating the number of hostages believed to be held by the hamas terror group in gaza spokesman daniel higari saying 212 families had been notified the figure does not include the two hostages that hamas released over the weekend now he also says the families of 307 fallen soldiers have been notified another major concern evidence of chemical weapon production was found on the body of a hamas terrorist the axios news site reporting it's not yet clear if hamas intends to mass produce chemical weapons or even if the group has begun production and there has been no official confirmation on that report now for the latest on the ground let's go to our middle east correspondent ariel osir and he joins us from the northern border so syrians in the north a little while ago at if tach indicating rocket fire again also israel evacuating 14 communities amidst concerns around the next move by hezbollah what update can you share on this day right benita so as it's been going on every day the border here in the north with lebanon is heating up gradually following the numerous attacks and thwarted attacks that you mentioned the latest the sirens that were heard about a short hour ago in the border kibbutz of iftakh that according to the idf appeared to have been mortars numerous mortars launched towards the border community like many others across the 80 mile long border that has been evacuated all communities to a five kilometer distance from the border have been evacuated now the idf said that an aircraft has struck an anti-tank missile squad that fired an anti-tank missile towards our enumerous missiles at the military outpost of tsiporen they added that anti-tank missiles were launched at in the vicinity of two other border outposts and as as you know we can see and we've been reporting throughout the morning there's been an increase at the pace at least in these attacks on the lebanese side there's reports of three hezbollah operatives killed in exchange of fire with israeli forces today that would raise the number that hezbollah is acknowledging to 22 but according to assessments here in israel that number is a lot higher middle east correspondent ariel osaran keeping us up to date on all the latest developments on the northern border thank you very much for that update and now for more here in studio our correspondent guy asrael so guy thank you very much for being here there are so many developments on the ground not least of which as we're speaking in just the last half hour rocket fire in the south and mortar fire as we heard now in the north also confirmation that 212 families have been alerted to the fact that their relatives or lab ones are being held hostage by Hamas in the Gaza Strip talk to us about the latest developments across the region yes so many developments across the various front that israel is dealing with we've seen rocket alerts rockets been fired towards so many communities across israel not just in the south also in the center in the nation at sea on and be chimish throughout this day so Hamas is still very much alive in that sense its capabilities its rocket launching capabilities still very much active and that is why the adf is increasing its attacks its airstrikes across the Gaza Strip but mainly in the northern part of the Gaza Strip as israel and the adf in general still attempt to persuade as many Gazans to leave the northern part of the Gaza Strip south of Gaza city so that most of the adf operations will be focused on that area a very interesting development earlier today it was revealed that yesterday adf forces have caught a Hamas terrorist who was still in israeli territory hiding for two weeks hiding for two weeks and the story is even more incredible when you get more details about how was he caught well it turns out that he stole an israeli vehicle and a civilian company who tracks one of those cars this car is under the monitoring of this company it noticed suspicious movement of this car which is of course in closed military zone alerted the police and the adf who managed to find this car driven by this Hamas terrorist exhausted but spent two weeks in israeli territory still not clear whether anyone assisted him as it is pretty difficult to stay alone in the field without food for two weeks and he's being interrogated now by the shin bait security agency so no doubt more details will emerge thank you for now correspondent guy as real stay with us right now i want to turn to the many unsung heroes in this war emergency response teams risking their lives to help scores of volunteers often involved in these organizations including yarin pellet a combat medic from kibbutz per airy now she was killed in battle at nacho us and is being laid to rest today our emily francis joins us right now and emily just devastating a 20 year old combat medic yarin pellet being laid to rest shortly a true hero of this war tell us more indeed benita it is uh she is a true hero and it is it is so sad to have to be here right now to lay this beautiful young woman to rest 20 years old i spoke to the deputy spokesperson also of madame adan agendavid dome who said that she uh you know was a volunteer medic in the idf and she was at her outpost in the south she grew up on the kibbutz berry like you mentioned and she literally was one of the first responses in nacho us and went into that battle and she died of gunshot wound wounds at four o'clock the funeral is going to begin you can see here people are starting starting to arrive we're in savion which is very far away obviously from the south i asked the spokesperson um nadav matzner why why she's being buried here because she did grow up on that kibbutz and he said that he they believe it's actually going to be a temporary location because the people from these kibbutzes cannot be buried there because it is an active obviously uh military and crime scene of course um but but you know the other questions that people are asking why if she was killed on october 7th it's taken so long to have a funeral for her when in jewish law you're supposed to bury somebody the next day and he said it's because it's literally taken this long to be able to identify the bodies that there are hundreds of families in the south right now trying to identify the bodies so they could be given a proper burial just unimaginable can't even begin to comprehend what her family must be going through right now emily i understand she had a special request for other volunteers from baguette david adam before all of this happened before this war broke out that's right you know it just really shows another reason why she is such a hero that even in the in the height of this terrible tragedy she knew that she wanted to pen a small note that people would find where she said should she die in this battle she not only wants to be buried in her maganda vide uniform that she was so proud of but that she wants everyone who comes here to also show up the same in the maganda vide uniform that she is so proud of and it just goes to show the the the fortitude and and uh the courage that she had knowing that that may have been the last moment of her life when she penned that letter thoughts are with her family and her team and her community 20 years old yarin pellet thank you very much that's our emily francis at the savion cemetery thank you emily and now we go to our correspondent pierce tackle buff she is in southern israel she joins us from ashkelon and pier we know sirens have been sounding earlier in nirim and other communities near kisu fame as well near the gaza border you and the i-24 news team you with have been at various parts in the south throughout the day what update can you share right now what can you tell us right benita siren sounded in a few communities in close proximity to the gaza strip and also twice in the city of ashkelon we're now in evacuation of everything between 25 000 or 40 000 people is being planned because this is the amount of people who are believed to not have a shelter in their homes now the city of ashkelon has been one of the most or most heavily targeted cities in this war so far so the municipality there is preparing for a possible evacuation of those people who don't have a shelter close to their homes israel has been striking hamas targets in the gaza strip throughout the night we're speaking about weapons depots warehouses other infrastructure that the israeli military was saying was also located be beneath or next to a mosque that they have been targeting now we were earlier very close to the gaza strip we could actually see one of the israeli strikes targeting a building there also continuous sounds of the israeli auxiliary striking the gaza strip this comes the day after 20 trucks delivering aid were let inside the gaza strip that is received as more like more less more less a drop into the ocean because two million people they are there two million civilians are in desperate need of water food and medicine this is what has been delivered now in these 20 trucks that is not yet known when the next aid delivery will be let into the gaza strip israel has said that it will not accept the delivery of fuel into the strip as it believes that hamas will get into the position of a fuel but hospitals they're saying and also humanitarian organizations are saying the fuel is needed to run ambulances hospitals and also this alienation plans as people are in desperate need for water there as well again we do not know we do not know when the next aid delivery will be let into the gaza strip now the israeli military this morning publishing a new updated number on the hostages that are currently being held by hamas in the gaza strip they're counting 212 people there now on friday the first two hostages were released but the question really is will we see any more freeing of other hostages possibly it has sparked quite some hope among some of the hostages families here but we really don't know how that case is going to continue we do know that negotiations are being held very high levels also abroad as many of those hostages have foreign nationality as well but the question really is if also the looming ground offensive will have any influence on that will the ground offensive endanger them more will it possibly bring some new development into this war those are very open questions as of now we're into the dark also in terms in the dark in terms of when their ground offensive might continue but we have seen that more preparations are being done in the area close to the gaza strip more troop reinforcements soldiers training there but the question really is if and will the ground offensive will really begin benita and pier as you say many questions remain around the potential ground offensive if and when it is going to happen talk to us a bit more about the refugees that are fleeing certain parts of the gaza strip which Arab nations have put their hands up to take in refugees Egypt and Jordan had earlier suggested they would not be open to taking in people who were fleeing this war any update on that front what are you hearing from the Arab world specifically well that is still the latest that we are hearing that Egypt and Jordan have said that they are not willing to take any refugees Egypt has said that the Sinai peninsula would not be open for refugees Israel should instead consider opening the negative desert for those people as of now Israel is still calling upon residents of the northern gaza strip to flee towards the south of the strip but we're talking again about a two million strong civilian population there for many people it is just simply not possible to escape and when you're listening to reports from the ground and gaza many people are saying there is no safe space also the south of gaza is not safe anymore in the beginning of last week it was in the talks that the Rafah crossing that was no open for those 20 trucks delivering aid might as well be open for the exit of at least foreign nationals which also accounts only for the very minority of the civilian population in Gaza but we do not receive any updates on that whether it might be possible for those foreign nationals in Gaza to exit there's no real update on that there's also no update on the next date that humanitarian aid will be led into the crossing so very much in the dark also the residents in Gaza there as the humanitarian crisis for the civilian population increase this day by day benedict and as you say as well concerns remain that the aid and supplies might actually be used by the terror group and not for humanitarian purposes thank you for that update for now it's our correspondent pierce the go back in southern israel in ashkelon thank you pier and now for more insight into all the latest developments we welcome hillel fooled israel startup advisor and tech columnist and he joins us from bet shemesh hillel thank you so much for your time we know rockets were fired towards bet shemesh just in recent hours day 16 of this war you personally and your family tragically you lost your brother arie in a terror attack by a palestinian terrorist back in 2018 at gushet zion junction many around the world today are still in shock at the brutality and scale of the latest terror attack of course the 7th of october so to start personally talk us through your reaction your feelings right now sure uh you know i think i share everyone's sentiment the entire nation the entire country maybe you know jews around the world we are devastated we are broken we are um you know in despair but on the other hand we as a nation understand that we've been through worse not much worse but worse and we've um you know come out on the other end stronger and i don't have any doubt that that will be the case here but uh you know it would be dishonest of me if i didn't mention that as i'm sitting here listening to the reports i have to mention you know would the media be reporting nazi germany and how many innocent germans are in nazi germany and how the humanitarian crisis is so horrible in germany and in afghanistan after 9 11 the reporting is is mind-boggling why is there an obsession with gaza when hamas the government that the civilians in gaza elected i came in here and brutally savagely murdered raped and abducted 1300 people and all the media is obsessed with is the humanitarian crisis in gaza they should turn to hamas for that they should turn to egypt to take them in i don't even understand why it's even part of the dialogue it should not be it is dangerous and it is dishonest hello this is exactly what i would like to unpack there is so much confusion in the media space and in the social media space and many questions around the response to this war so far hamas has a very clear charter outlining in no uncertain terms its mandate as such to eradicate jews why then when it's there in black and white is it difficult for certain international news channels to refer to this killing rampage on the 7th of october which targeted civilians some of whom were butchered in front of their families and other unimaginable atrocities why is it so difficult for some to call hamas terrorists well because let's start with the fact that it's not just hamas whose charter says that the the PLO the the moderate palestinians right go look at their charter that they exist so that israel does not exist these these people do not have a nationalistic agenda they have one agenda they're jews and and it's it might not be politically correct it might not be pleasant but the entire country here is in post traumatic stress here and we're trying our best not to see these horrible horrible videos that these absolute savages are sharing proudly on social media so the question i'm going to throw back to you why are we even discussing hamas and the PLO or the palestinian authorities two separate entities but in reality literally there is nothing different between what the pa the palestinian people did here in aza as compared to what germans did in nazi germany they elected them and they as a nation elected them and you know those who say well you know they didn't have a choice who said that before that was the nazis claim we were just following orders it's time we got out of this you know this moral bankruptcy of oh these poor palestinians these poor palestinians as our people elected hamas hamas did what they did these people are celebrating in the streets and not to say there aren't innocent palestinians in gaza of course there are and there were millions of innocent germans who died in world war two and that is tragic but that is the nature of war and let's not get confused between morality and moral relativism as if there's two sides to this conflict there are not two sides there's there's good and there's evil and that is the end of the story and anybody who perpetuates this narrative is part of the problem needs to stop exacerbating exactly what you are saying is the fact of course that hamas forms this brutality they wanted the world to see and yet it's fascinating to see that organizations like the BBC are still talking about militants if any human being with a heart with feelings with compassion saw the brutality saw the depravity that is videoed recorded and going viral it would be difficult to describe it as anything other than evil and terror hello obviously the focus right now is on the Israeli response on the ground possibly a ground invasion soon but in terms of Israel's perception in the media on social media what we're discussing what can it do better in the so-called public space the fact-checking the debunking of fake claims like who really was behind that hospital blast and the likes of a greater Thunberg and others pivoting from climate change to bizarre pictures and memes what can Israel do in that sphere right now well this is not a new challenge this is a challenge we've always faced on social media they outnumber us and they have absolutely no desire to stick to the truth we stick to the truth so we're not going to win the numbers game ever but I believe what we've always done what I've always told you know people that I work with in the IDF or in the government to do is stick to the truth even if the truth is sometimes hard because you know the state of Israel we make mistakes too so own your mistakes but stick to the truth don't lie and you know at the end of the day truth will prevail I truly believe that but you know again if you're going to look at the numbers there's no way we're going to win this war right now the amount of misinformation and just blatant lies of that Israel and I'm not talking about from terrorists in Gaza that's not what I'm talking about let's be very clear here I'm talking about the quote-unquote intellectual western woke community whether it's investors in Silicon Valley whether it's you know like you said environmentalists or other people as if as if the Palestinians care about human rights I declared proudly on my social media that anybody who's part of the LGBTQ community I personally vouch to fly them first class to Gaza let them bring their flags and let them protest on behalf of the LGBTQ community in Gaza I will fly them in the hypocrisy is mind-boggling it's staggering where are people's you know morality where are people's logic this is counter logical counter it makes no sense the answer to your question is simple everything you described is true so what's the what's the contrary what's the other side why are people behaving this way the answer is the hatred for Jews is always has been and always will be stronger than any other morality or ethics or anything else that the world possesses the hatred of Jews has always been here and will always been here will always be here and now just two weeks later it is unbelievable to see after everything Hamas did the world doesn't stand by Israel what what does the world have to see in order to understand that we are the moral side of this conflict I don't think there's anything they will see that will actually get them to stand with the Jews and the hospital you mentioned is a perfect example I happened to have had access to early information that this hospital was bombed before anyone knew about it and I had information that it wasn't the IDF because they had not bombed that area and I notified on my ex on my Twitter to many many millions of people and I told them you're about to hear about an explosion be aware this was not Israel and somehow when it came out there was even a doubt that it was Israel all of a sudden all the press 500 people Israel the second they heard it wasn't Israel where did it go where the titles where the fact that it's not 500 the fact that it's not even a hospital where did they go it's true hatred it's old-fashioned true hatred I'm sorry that that's you know it's cliche and there's nothing we can do about it the hatred of Jews will always remain stronger than morality and ethics around the world that it's a sad tragic situation Hello Fould you're describing a very sad and tragic situation indeed live from Bet Shemesh we appreciate you speaking to us thank you very much thank you still with me in studio correspondent Guy Azrael yes first we need to update our viewers that a second convoy of humanitarian aid has entered the Gaza Strip over the past hour we're talking about 17 trucks full of humanitarian aid that have made it into the Gaza Strip through the Rafa crossing through Egypt into Gaza that is also something that Israel has enabled following the agreements made with the the US obviously last night there were some reports in New York Times that the previous convoy was not checked to make sure that there were no weapons in there that the report was later retracted and Israel made sure or made it clear at least that any aid that goes into Gaza is being thoroughly checked so that it does not include ammunition to go into the hands of Hamas although we know Hamas certainly does take hold of much of the aid that it wants in any case Israel puts most of its efforts in military and efforts into the south of the Gaza Strip while operating in the north and still asking residents there to leave we know that some 750,000 Gazans have left the northern part of the Gaza Strip we're talking about another 350,000 that are still there Israel is asking them to leave for their own safety as it increases its operations against Hamas as for the Israeli side just to understand the tragedy and what has unfolded on that Saturday on that mainly on that daily Saturday not just the slaughtering of Israeli civilians but what they also did to their bodies the former chief rabbi of the IDF speaking