 Welcome to the special edition on i24 news I'm batch 11th all coming to live from Tel Aviv thanks for joining me it is day 80 of war between Israel and Hamas heavy fighting in the strip continues as the IDF pushes on with its ground offensive to dismantle terror targets over the weekend the number of Israeli troops killed in combat rose to 156 release for publication on Sunday evening the idea revealed that earlier this month it found a large Hamas tunnel network beneath the Jabalia refugee camp near Gaza city inside that tunnel they also found and recovered the bodies of three Israeli soldiers and two civilians meanwhile Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to hold that the war will continue until victory over Hamas his latest comments coming as the war cabinet is set to examine an Egyptian proposal for a new hostage deal following Hamas and Islamic jihad representative's visit to Cairo here's more from Netanyahu Israeli citizens we are deepening the war in the Gaza strip we will continue to fight until complete victory over Hamas this is the only way to return our hostages eliminate Hamas and ensure that Gaza will no longer be a threat to Israel it will take time but we are united the fighters the people and the government we are united and determined to fight to the end war has a price a very heavy price in the lives of our heroic warriors and we do everything to preserve the lives of our warriors but one thing will not be done we will not stop until we achieve victory well let's cross now live to the south where our correspondent Pierre Clashendale is standing by for us on the Israel Gaza border Pierre good morning to you what is the latest there this morning near the border over the weekend rocket alert sirens were sounded in border communities right there has been a rocket alert for the past 14 hours and tonight overnight there were heavy bombardments on the central refugee camps of the Gaza strip El Nusrat El Buraj and El Mourazi Palestinian media affiliated to Hamas are reporting something like 68 70 fatalities in that bombing but without making any distinction between civilians non-involved population and terrorists what we know is that the bombardments targeted certain houses in the central refugee camp as well as the roads connecting the three refugee refugee camps as we know from already three days that there might be some sort of raid or ground operation starting around the refugee camps of the central Gaza strip we know that they've been clashes reported by Palestinian media on the eastern outskirts of El Buraj which is just behind me right now we hear basically the ratata of gunfire of heavy gunfire and from time to time an artillery outgoing exploding in the Gaza strip in Hanyunas the army is deepening its efforts in the hearts of Hanyunas and also around the city as has been the case since basically the start of the ground offensive in that area in December 2nd and Pierre as you mentioned the IDF striking sites overnight in central Gaza a clear sign that Israeli forces are moving further into the strip Israel says it's eliminated 8 000 terrorists since the start of the war but just how many more are there to go throughout central and southern Gaza we don't know figures evolve between 30 and 50 000 what we know is the army arrested something like seven over 700 terrorists and took them to Israeli jails they are providing a lot of intelligence reports and this is why the army established a count of 8 000 terrorists killed since the start of the ground offensive in October 27 in addition to the 100 terrorists which were who were killed during the October 7 massacre so that's probably I would say maybe a third of fatalities amongst the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad ranks but don't forget that there are also a lot of terrorists that have been wounded and are unable to fight and they probably are in the tens of thousands maybe 10 or 20 000 all right our correspondent Pierre Clush and they're giving us an update from the south obviously we'll cross live to you a little later throughout the morning for more updates thanks for that and joining me now from Kochavia area in central Israel is reserve Major General Uzid Dayan the former national security advisor to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Ehud Barak and a former IDF deputy chief of staff good morning to you and thank you so much for joining me good morning Bakya it's um what's the beginning of the week which uh it's a pretty hard day and lots of painful in Israel and you know 15 few hours and 15 houses that are sitting Shiba and so so it has an impact on Israel but we are very determined to continue this war until the end until the victory Uzid I'd like to start by asking you there was a report recently by the Wall Street Journal that says that despite its broken command infrastructure as a result of three months of airstrikes two months of ground operations Hamas is still able to mount effective guerrilla attacks it poses the question of when the threat will be completed come in its entirety how will Hamas be eliminated well this is a tough war with it's slower than we we actually wanted and a lot of casualties but there is no other way and it's getting harder and harder to make a distinction between Hamas and you know and just the residents of Gaza because not they are not only using them as the human shields but I mean tactically but what happened they do it big time they use the as we as we see the infrastructure they use the schools the kindergarten the hospitals and so on even UNRWA become a kind of an organization which actually helps in terrorism and also the ground the more and more Hamas terrorists they don't use the uniform or the bandanas and they are just looking like a citizen and some of them in some incident they even the white flag so we are doing our best and as you reported there there was a complaint about the people that were killed in Gaza we are just inquiring it so I don't I don't have the answer right now but I can assure that we are doing our best in order to fight terrorism and at the same time and not to hurt other people even we do remember that vast majority of those people voted there for the Hamas right and Israelis don't need reminding of how dire the situation is we've got more than hundreds of thousands both in the north and in the south that have been displaced from their homes unable to return obviously until that threat has been eliminated and as you mentioned the IDF troops found recently kid sized explosive belts in a Gaza building that was used to shelter civilians that building was also located near schools a mosque and a clinic how many around the world are still holding Israel as the aggressor with all this information coming out and why is it being looked at with almost a skeptical eye this is eyewitness accounts from the ground from the IDF well I invite all the people around the world that are questioning and then thinking that we are not doing our best to come over and see exactly what is happening here and actually we feel that we don't only fight terrorism which is against Israel but people in Europe and other places should think about what's happening in their place so if you're not helping us at least don't interfere in this world because it's a very just one and actually we don't have another choice I don't think that there is one a country on earth on the globe that will put up with what happened if what happened here in October 7th was happening in I don't know in any other country in Europe you know South America and South America and Asia and so on and so this is a war war is never recommended we didn't ask for it actually people should remember and should know that in 2004 we ended the Gaza Strip on a silver platter to the Palestinian Authority they lost it to the Hamas organization and later on the Hamas was even it was elected in Gaza and even today in what you call the West Bank is the I don't know it's more than a 60 70 percent or 70 percent of the people actually a clone by what Hamas said it so we are we are now involving five different arenas the southern one Gaza the northern one in Lebanon the Hezbollah continue to fire and then Judah and Samaria and the on-front the Israeli off-front because Israel is covered by emissions and rockets from the north Hezbollah from the south Hamas and there is also a depth arena with the actually the good user of this war Tehran so when we fight and then we intend to continue to fight until they dissuade on Israel will be there I was here I want to move briefly you brought it up to the West Bank heavy fighting has been reported in the northern city of Janine Israeli forces have repeatedly faced off against Palestinian terror groups while carrying out raids there there's massive concern over the south and the north but a front on the east could also prove worrying especially as you mentioned that so many Palestinians in the West Bank align with Hamas this isn't a threat on the other side of the border this is within Israel's borders how is Israel going to be dealing with this and what is going to be put in place for the future in the sense of exactly that this is an internal issue yeah you're right about the the situation the Palestinians doing a major mistake we continue to operate in the West Bank and try to arrest as many Hamas members as we can and the Hamas is very much it's under a big pressure now and on his way to disappear in Gaza but there are Hamas members in Lebanon under the Hezbollah and there are Hamas members in Judea and Samaria so it's going to be a long war but the key to everything to every accomplishing this to any the key to win this war is actually right now in Gaza and when we will defeat the Hamas in Gaza it will serve it will do a lot I mean it will actually rebuild some of the details that we need today and it will influence what's going on in the north and in the east and just finally Uzi it does appear in the most recent hours that there does seem to be some kind of a proposal to free the hostages in the war and form a PA Hamas joint government in the Gaza Strip this is something that Egypt is putting through but more so than there's also various reports coming out that Israel is saying that they must spare Hamas chiefs exiling them to free hostages and in the war obviously not only dismantling Hamas in the Gaza Strip but also making sure that the hostages come home safely explain to us a little bit about these reports that are coming out and just how viable a proposition like this would be Well we are ready to any offer actually I don't believe that Hamas will make a deal without Israeli victory but the hostages that we care a lot about them we already understand that the Red Cross is important and can do one thing about it not even give them some medicine just we try to use the Red Cross as a go between just to bring them to give them some medicine I'm not talking about the sign of life which is basic so I mean we are not going to fight against the Red Cross of course but they don't do the solution to anything and so we are we are receiving offer the beginning it was from Qatar and now is the Egypt is trying to go to negotiate about it and we are ready to any any deal that will free most hostages it's very very important to us and the Hamas know it because they don't care not only about our hostages they don't care about their own people so it's it's very tough but I hope that there will be a kind of a deal that we can go forward personally I don't believe that there will be any deal before the Hamas will be before an Israeli a clear victory Reserve Major General Uzzi Dayan the former National Security Advisor to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Ehud Barak and a former IDF Deputy Chief of Staff thank you so very much for your time this morning thank you very much question now there are many angles to this war outside of the actual fighting one of them is psychological warfare another is cyber warfare in fact the Israel National Cyber Directorate recently published a report outlining the cyber attacks conducted against Israel since the start of the war with Hamas they concluded that such attacks have only grown in number and intensity throughout the hostilities and joining me now from Tel Aviv to bring this down further is Oren Eli Melech the founder and CEO of cyber team 360 and a cyber security expert good morning to you good morning I'd like to start by asking you to explain to our viewers perhaps those who don't know what is meant by cyber attacks and how they are specifically used here during the war so great question so during the war and the before the war that the attacks were quite simple unsophisticated like taking down a website just for a sightseeing or just changing the homepage but during the war we've seen a huge increase and now the attacks are much more focused okay they're actually targeted to cause real damage to organization by several layering whether this is denial of service attack and as you mentioned doing attack on this information fake news targeting hacktivists also we've seen a huge huge increase on supply chain attack they're targeting MSPs so during the war we've seen a huge increase and now they're focusing on causing real damage and as before it was mostly on espionage what is called as computer next world exploitation and now we're seeing computer network attacks so yes you've mentioned that the israeli national cyber directorate has released a report just recently yesterday and we can see that these attack are quite similar to other events if we're looking to the russia-ukraine war and we've seen that cyber war or a cyber attack is actually now integrated with a physical war and they're working together and this is causing real damage on the state of mind of people and also causing serious damage to organization during this supply chain attacks so we're in who exactly are these attacks attributed to are we looking at Hamas Hezbollah Iran possibly someone else a combination how do we track exactly who is behind some of these attacks so yes during this since 7 of october we've seen numerous groups attack group threat actors around 15 in the number working in the cyberspace most of them are sharing information one with another and also tools and yes they're affiliated to Iran mass and Hezbollah and they're targeting specific vectors which is for example hosting companies as I've mentioned health sector academy transportation cargo transport energy supply chain for gas and we've seen that the main attribution here is targeting these organization is to have as much as a as a wide cast on their organization causing them serious damage that is a cascading effect so if you're using a hosting company transport academy where they're causing much more damage by targeting one specific company that is supporting dozens if not hundreds of other companies throughout Israel Israel is the high-tech nation we know that we have a specialty and almost a very good specialty on a lot of cyber security and technology with that being said just how much can Israel fight this in the sense of trying to be tongue-in-cheek if I remember correctly at the beginning of the war maybe about three weeks into it it almost seemed like Israel turned what was the Hamas website in Belgium if I'm not mistaken to redirect the page to the IDF home site so is this something that Israel can be doing obviously this is no light matter but is it something that Israel can be using in order to fight this and just do they actually have the resources right now amid the war to be able to dedicate them to dealing with the cyber attacks amazing question thank you and yes your memory is correct so there is more than one front here more than one domain here one is what is Israeli doing on the public facing and in this regard Israel the Israeli National Cyber Directorate is actually issuing security advisory for organization how to protect themselves and this is just on the blue side of protecting organization and supporting this and on the other side there is what is publicly known that Israel is doing to attack cyber warfare on Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas and also behind the scene what our intelligence sources are doing on these area so the mixture of everything is yes we're doing a lot of things some of them are attributed to Israel some are not some of them are behind the scenes some is public but definitely we're in the game and we're fighting them very very well. Oren Ali Melech the founder and CEO of CyberTeam360 and a cyber security expert thank you so much for taking the time and brilliantly breaking that down for so many of us that are not so cleared up on cyber security thank you now moving on the Christian world seems to be celebrating Christmas not only last night but also today being the 25th but here in the Holy Land where Christianity was born the celebrations are being overshadowed by the situation in the region and obviously the lack of tourists and pilgrims that usually crown such towns as Jerusalem Bethlehem and Nazareth. Uri Shapira has the story on how it potentially became a canceled Christmas in the Holy Land. It's supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year for Christians but here in the Holy Land Christmas looks a bit pale this year as opposed to previous years there are barely any Christmas trees and decorations around here in the old city of Jerusalem one of the most sacred places for Christians the Gaza war has overshadowed the celebrations as on one hand we are very saddened by the loss of human life we're very sad that the Israel has to engage in a war against the evil of Hamas and at the same time we have something to celebrate so as it been described it's a bit like perhaps the Jewish understanding of the Sabbath on the Sabbath even if you're in a time of mourning or sadness you don't fast and you don't mourn and so Christmas for us this year will be something similar. The Christ Church was one of the first Protestant institutes in the Holy City Reverend David Pilaghi tells his personal encounter with the situation we're not doing anything special this year although we have quite an extensive aid program helping the victims of the Israel Hamas war and so that's taking most of our focus and our attention but as usual Uri will be having a open house we'll be receiving the public and then tomorrow we Christmas day we will also have a service as well. The current situation has also affected the tourism industry in Israel in general and Christian pilgrimage to the Holy Land in particular unfortunately Christmas new years we just ended Hanukkah this is the peak of the tourism season any year except for this year this year sad because we cannot celebrate Christmas Christmas has been cancelled in most places people came here and went to see the lights in the Christian quarter the Christmas bazaar the merchandising and Christianity basically was during that time however with tourism zero following the attack by Hamas with no tourism. Issa Kasisiye is known as Jerusalem Santa for years he's celebrated the holiday in his small decorated old house in the Christian quarter the so-called Santa on a camel has a clear message to Christians around the world. This year it's not easy last year I have 25 000 people visiting me in my Santa house in all December this year I have a few like let's say around three to four thousand till now I have but because there's no tourists also or there are no flights to come to all the way to Israel my message this year is hope love and peace from Jerusalem to the Holy Land and to the world but despite the tension and the atmosphere people of the Holy Land are still dreaming of a white Christmas and hope for a better time next year in the meantime they wish everyone merry Christmas and a happy new year just heartbreaking an area that is home to the three Abrahamic faiths not being able to celebrate in the way that they used to but that does bring us to an end of this broadcast a short recap of day 80 of war between Israel and Hamas heavy fighting continues in the Gaza Strip you are looking at live images on your screen of the Israel-Gaza border we can see smoke there in the background this as the IDF pushes on with its ground offensive to dismantle terror targets and Hamas in general over the weekend the number of Israeli troops killed in combat rose to 156 the IDF continuing to find more terror tunnels that they are not only dismantling but also unfortunately finding bodies of Israeli soldiers and civilians inside as well we'll bring you more updates at the top of the hour stay with us you're watching a special edition of i24 news Israel is in a state of war families completely done down in their beds we have no idea where is she as our soldiers are fighting on the front lines but the general perception is something that certainly needs to to be fought as well entrevistas exclusivas report es desde la zona de guerra la reacción de los países hispano parlantes news 24 el único medio en español que te mantiene informado y conectado con la comunidad latina en israel news 24 únicamente en i24 news welcome to the special edition on i24 news i'm batch 11th all coming July from Tel Aviv thanks for joining me it is day 80 of war between Israel and Hamas heavy fighting in the strip continues as the IDF pushes on with its ground offensive to dismantle terror targets over the weekend the number of Israeli troops killed in combat rose to 156 release for publication on sunday evening the idea revealed that earlier this month it found a large Hamas tunnel network beneath the Jabalia refugee camp near Gaza city inside that tunnel they also found and recovered the bodies of three Israeli soldiers and two civilians meanwhile Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to hold that the war will continue until victory over Hamas his latest comments coming as the war cabinet is set to examine an Egyptian proposal for a new hostage deal following Hamas and Islamic jihad representatives visit to Cairo here's more from Netanyahu Israeli citizens we are deepening the war in the Gaza strip we will continue to fight until complete victory over Hamas this is the only way to return our hostages eliminate Hamas and ensure that Gaza will no longer be a threat to Israel it will take time but we are united the fighters the people and the government we are united and determined to fight to the end war has a price a very heavy price in the lives of our heroic warriors and we do everything to preserve the lives of our warriors but one thing will not be done we will not stop until we achieve victory well let's cross now live to the south where our correspondent Pierre Clashendale is standing by for us on the Israel Gaza border Pierre good morning to you what is the latest there this morning near the border over the weekend rocket alert sirens were sounded in border communities right there has been a rocket alert for the past 14 hours and tonight overnight there were heavy bombardments on the central refugee camps of the Gaza strip El Nucerat El Buraj and El Mourazi Palestinian media affiliated to Hamas are reporting something like 68 70 fatalities in that bombing but without making any distinction between civilians non-involved population and terrorists what we know is that the bombardments targeted certain houses in the central refugee camp as well as the roads connecting the three refugee refugee camps as we know from already three days that there might be some sort of raid or ground operation starting around the refugee camps of the central Gaza strip we know that they've been clashes reported by Palestinian media on the eastern outskirts of El Buraj which is just behind me right now we hear basically the ratata of gunfire of heavy gunfire and from time to time an artillery outgoing exploding in the Gaza strip in Hanyouness the army is deepening its efforts in the hearts of Hanyouness and also around the city as has been the case since basically the start of the ground offensive in that area in December 2nd and Pierre as you mentioned the IDF striking sites overnight in central Gaza a clear sign that Israeli forces are moving further into the strip Israel says it's eliminated 8 000 terrorists since the start of the war but just how many more are there to go throughout central and southern Gaza we don't know figures evolve between 30 and 50 000 what we know is the army arrested something like over 700 terrorists and took them to Israeli jails they are providing a lot of intelligence reports and this is why the army established a count of 8 000 terrorists killed since the start of the ground offensive in October 27 in addition to the 100 terrorists which were who were killed during the October 7 massacre so that's probably I would say maybe a third of fatalities amongst the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad ranks but don't forget that there are also a lot of terrorists that have been wounded and are unable to fight and they probably are in the tens of thousands maybe 10 or 20 000 all right I correspond in Pierre Klosch and they're giving us an update from the south obviously we'll cross life to you a little later throughout the morning for more updates thanks for that and joining me now from Kochavia area in central Israel is reserve major general Uzid Zayan the former national security advisor to prime minister Ariel Sharon and Ehud Barak and a former IDF deputy chief of staff good morning to you and thank you so much for joining me good morning but yeah it's um well it's the beginning of the week which is pretty hard and it looks painful in Israel and you know 15 few hours and 15 houses that are sitting Shiba and so so it has an impact on Israel but we are very determined to continue this war until the end until the the victory Uzid I'd like to start by asking you there was a report recently by the Wall Street Journal that says that despite its broken command infrastructure as a result of three months of airstrikes two months of ground operations Hamas is still able to mount effective guerrilla attacks it poses the question of when the threat will be completed come in its entirety how will Hamas be eliminated well this is a tough war it's slower than we we actually wanted and a lot of casualties but there is no other way and it's getting harder and harder to make a distinction between Hamas and you know and just the residents of Gaza because not they are not only using them as the human shields but I mean tactically but what happened they do it big time they use the as we see the infrastructure they use the schools the kindergarten the hospitals and the so on even UNR have become a kind of an organization which actually have been terrorism and also the ground the more and more Hamas terrorists they don't use the uniform or the bandanas and they are just looking like a citizen and some of them in some incident they even white flag so we are doing our best and as you reported there was a complaint about people that were killed in Gaza we are just inquiring it so I don't have the answer right now but I can assure that we are doing our best in order to fight terrorism and in the same time and not to hurt other people and even we do remember that vast majority of those people voted there for the Hamas right and Israelis don't need reminding of how dire the situation is we've got more than hundreds of thousands both in the north and in the south that have been displaced from their homes unable to return obviously until that threat has been eliminated and as you mentioned the IDF troops found recently kid sized explosive belts in a Gaza building that was used to shelter civilians that building was also located near schools a mosque and a clinic how many around the world are still holding Israel as the aggressor with all this information coming out and why is it being looked at with almost a skeptical eye this is eyewitness accounts from the ground from the IDF well I invite all the people around the world that are questioning and thinking that we are not doing our best to come over and see exactly what is happening here and actually we feel that we don't only fight terrorism which is against Israel but people in Europe and other places should think about what's happening in their place so if you are not helping us at least don't interfere in this world because it's a very just one and actually we don't have another choice I don't think that there is one a country on earth on the globe that will put up with what happened if what happened here in October 7 was happening in I don't know in any other country in Europe in North America and South America and Asia and so on and so this is a war war is never recommended we didn't ask for it actually people should remember and should know that in 2004 we ended Gaza Strip on a silver platter to the Palestinian Authority they lost it to the Hamas organization and later on the Hamas was even it was elected in Gaza and even today in what you call the West Bank is the I don't know it's more than 60 70 percent around 70 percent of the people actually a clone what Hamas did so we are now involving five different arenas the southern one Gaza the northern one in Lebanon and the Hezbollah continue to fire and then Judah and Samaria and the on-front Israeli on-front because Israel is covered by a mission and rockets from the north Hezbollah from the south Hamas and there is a also a depth arena with the actually the good user of this war Tehran so we fight and we intend to continue to fight until the this threat on Israel will be Ozia I want to move briefly you brought it up to the West Bank heavy fighting has been reported in the northern city of Janine Israeli forces have repeatedly faced off against Palestinian terror groups while carrying out raids there there's massive concern over the south and the north but a front on the east could also prove worrying especially as you mentioned that so many Palestinians in the West Bank align with Hamas this isn't a threat on the other side of the border this is within Israel's borders how is Israel going to be dealing with this and what is going to be put in place for the future in the sense of exactly that this is an internal issue yeah you're right about the the situation the Palestinians doing a major mistake we continue to operate in the West Bank and try to arrest as many Hamas members as we can and the Hamas is very much it's under a big pressure now and on his way to disappear in Gaza but there are Hamas members in Lebanon under the Hezbollah and there are Hamas members in Judea and Samaria so it's going to be a long war but the key to everything to every accomplishing this to any the key to win this war is actually right now in Gaza and when we will defeat the Hamas in Gaza it will serve it will do a lot I mean it will actually rebuild some of the details that we need today and it will influence what's going on in the north and in the east and just finally Uzi it does appear in the most recent hours that there does seem to be some kind of a proposal to free the hostages in the war and form a PA Hamas joint government in the Gaza Strip this is something that Egypt is putting through but more so than that there's also various reports coming out that Israel is saying that they must spare Hamas chiefs exiling them to free hostages and in the war obviously not only dismantling Hamas in the Gaza Strip but also making sure that the hostages come home safely explains to us a little bit about these reports that are coming out and just how viable a proposition like this would be Well we are ready to any offer actually I don't believe that Hamas will make a deal without Israeli victory but the hostages that we care about them we already understand that the Red Cross is important and can do one thing about it not even give them some medicine just we try to use the Red Cross as a go between just to bring them to give them some medicine I'm not talking about the sign of life which is basic so I mean we are not going to fight against the Red Cross of course but they don't do the solution to anything and so we are we are receiving offer the beginning it was from Qatar and now is the Egypt is trying to go to negotiate about it and we are ready to any any deal that will free most hostages it's very very important to us and the Hamas know it because they don't care not only about our hostages they don't care about their own people so it's it's very tough but I hope that there will be a kind of a deal that we can go forward personally I don't believe that there will be any a deal before the Hamas will be before an Israeli a clear victory Reserve Major General Izzy Dayan the former National Security Advisor to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Ehud Barak and a former IDF Deputy Chief of Staff thank you so very much for your time this morning well thank you really nice question now there are many angles to this war outside of the actual fighting one of them is psychological warfare another is cyber warfare in fact the Israel National Cyber Directorate recently published a report outlining the cyber attacks conducted against Israel since the start of the war with Hamas they concluded that such attacks have only grown in number and intensity throughout the hostilities and joining me now from Tel Aviv to bring this down further is Oren Eli Melech the founder and CEO of cyber team 360 and a cyber security expert good morning to you good morning I'd like to start by asking you to explain to our viewers perhaps those who don't know what is meant by cyber attacks and how they are specifically used here during the war so great question so during the war and the before the war the attacks were quite simple unsophisticated like taking down a website just for a sightseeing or just changing the homepage but during the war we've seen a huge increase and now the attacks are much more focused okay they're actually targeted to cause real damage to organization by several layering whether this is denial of service attack and as you mentioned doing attack on this information fake news targeting hacktivists also we've seen a huge huge increase on supply chain attack they're targeting MSPs so during the war we've seen a huge increase and now they're focusing on causing real damage and as before it was mostly on espionage what is called as computer next world exploitation and now we're seeing computer network attacks so yes you've mentioned that the Israeli national cyber directorate has released a report just recently yesterday and we can see that these attack are quite similar to other events if we're looking to the Russia Ukraine war and we've seen that cyber war or a cyber attack is actually now integrated with a physical war and they're working together and this is causing real damage on the state of mind of people and also causing serious damage to organization during this supply chain attacks so we're in who exactly are these attacks attributed to are we looking at Hamas Hezbollah Iran possibly someone else a combination how do we track exactly who is behind some of these attacks so yes during this since 7th of October we've seen numerous groups attack group threat actors around 15 in the number working in the cyberspace most of them are sharing information one with another and also tools and yes they're affiliated to Iran Hamas and Hezbollah and they're targeting specific vectors which is for example hosting companies as I mentioned health sector academy transportation cargo transport energy supply chain for gas and we've seen that the main attribution here is targeting these organization is to have as much as a wide cast on various organization causing them serious damage that is a cascading effect so if you're using a hosting company transport academy where they're causing much more damage by targeting one specific company that is supporting dozens if not hundreds of other companies throughout Israel Israel is the high-tech nation we know that we have a specialty and almost a very good specialty on a lot of cyber security and technology with that being said just how much can Israel fight this in the sense of trying to be tongue-in-cheek if I remember correctly at the beginning of the war maybe about three weeks into it it almost seemed like Israel turned what was the Hamas website in Belgium if I'm not mistaken to redirect the page to the IDF home site so is this something that Israel can be doing obviously this is no light matter but is it something that Israel can be using in order to fight this and just do they actually have the resources right now amid the war to be able to dedicate them to dealing with the cyber attacks amazing question thank you and yes your memory is correct so there is more than one front here more than one domain here one is what is Israeli doing on the public facing and in this regard Israel the Israeli National Cyber Directorate is actually issuing security advisory for organization how to protect themselves and this is just on the blue side of protecting organization and supporting this and on the other side there is what is publicly known that Israel is doing to attack cyber warfare on Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas and also behind the scene what our intelligence sources are doing on these areas so the mixture of everything is yes we're doing a lot of things some of them are attributes or some are not some of them are behind the scenes some is public but definitely we're in the game and we're fighting them very very well. Oren Ali Melech the founder and CEO of cyber team 360 and a cyber security expert thank you so much for taking the time and brilliantly breaking that down for so many of us that are not so clued up on cyber security thank you now moving on the Christian world seems to be celebrating Christmas not only last night but also today being the 25th but here in the Holy Land where Christianity was born the celebrations are being overshadowed by the situation in the region and obviously the lack of tourists and pilgrims that usually crowned such towns as Jerusalem Bethlehem and Nazareth. Orisha Pira has the story on how it potentially became a canceled Christmas in the Holy Land it's supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year for Christians but here in the Holy Land Christmas looks a bit pale this year as opposed to previous years there are barely any Christmas trees and decorations around here in the old city of Jerusalem one of the most sacred places for Christians the Gaza war has overshadowed the celebrations as on one hand we are very saddened by the loss of human life we're very sad that the Israel has to engage in a war against the evil of Hamas and at the same time we have something to celebrate so as it been described it's a bit like perhaps the Jewish understanding of the Sabbath on the Sabbath even if you're in a time of mourning or sadness you don't fast and you don't mourn and so Christmas for us this year will be something similar. The Christ Church was one of the first Protestant institutes in the Holy City Reverend David Pillaghi tells his personal encounter with the situation. We're not doing anything special this year although we have quite an extensive aid program helping the victims of the Israel Hamas war and so that's taking most of our focus and our attention but as usual Uri will be having a open house will be receiving the public and then tomorrow we Christmas day we will also have a service as well. The current situation has also affected the tourism industry in Israel in general and Christian pilgrimage to the Holy Land in particular. Unfortunately Christmas New Year's we just end at Hanukkah this is the peak of the tourism season any year except for this year this year sad because we cannot celebrate Christmas Christmas has been cancelled in most places people came here and went to see the lights in the Christian quarter the Christmas bazaar the merchandising and Christianity basically was during that time however with tourism zero following the attack by Hamas with no tourism. Issa Kasisiya is known as Jerusalem center for years he's celebrated the holiday in his small decorated old house in the Christian quarter the so-called center on a camel has a clear message to Christians around the world this year it's not easy last year I have 25 000 people visiting me in my Santa house in all December this year I have a few like let's say around three to four thousand till now we have but because there's no tourists also or there are no flights to come to all the way to Israel my message this year is hope love and peace from Jerusalem to the Holy Land and to the world but despite the tension and the atmosphere people of the Holy Land are still dreaming of a white Christmas and hope for a better time next year in the meantime they wish everyone merry Christmas and a happy new year just heartbreaking an area that is home to the three Abrahamic faiths not being able to celebrate in the way that they used to but that does bring us to an end of this broadcast a short recap of day 80 of war between Israel and Hamas heavy fighting continues in the Gaza Strip you are looking at live images on your screen of the Israel Gaza border we can see smoke there in the background this as the IDF pushes on with its ground offensive to dismantle terror targets and Hamas in general over the weekend the number of Israeli troops killed in combat rose to 156 the IDF continuing to find more terror tunnels that they are not only dismantling but also unfortunately finding bodies of Israeli soldiers and civilians inside as well we'll bring you more updates at the top of the hour stay with us you're watching a special edition of i24 news digital numeral KD seas colocarle la recarga ademas ellos reciben el doble de balance en recargas de ocho dólares o mas altis la red global de los dominicanos israel is in a state of war families completely done down in their beds we have no idea where she has our soldiers are fighting on the front lines but the general perception is something that certainly needs to to be fought as well to the special news edition on i24 news thank you for joining me it is day 80 of war between israel and hamas heavy fighting in the strip ginti news as the IDF pushes on with its ground offensive to dismantle terror targets over the weekend the number of Israeli troops killed in combat rose to 156 release for publication on sunday evening the IDF revealed that earlier this month it found a large hamas tunnel network beneath the jubalia refugee camp near gaza city inside that tunnel they also found and uncovered the bodies of three Israeli soldiers and two civilians meanwhile Israeli prime minister benjamin itaniao continues to hold that the war will continue until victory over hamas his latest comments coming as the war cabinet is said to examine an egyptian proposal for a new hostage deal following visits to kaira by both hamas and islamic jihad representatives here's more from netanyahu israeli citizens we are deepening the war in the gaza strip we will continue to fight until complete victory over hamas this is the only way to return our hostages eliminate hamas and ensure that gaza will no longer be a threat to israel it will take time but we are united the fighters the people and the government we are united and determined to fight to the end war has a price a very heavy price in the lives of our heroic warriors and we do everything to preserve the lives of our warriors but one thing will not be done we will not stop until we achieve victory joining me here in studio is rafael you're a shelmi a former senior idf intelligence officer and our senior defense correspondent jonathan reggaev good morning gentlemen to you both rafael the idf struck sites overnight in central gaza we seem to be moving away from northern gaza into the center how long before israel does what it needs to do in the central part of the strip to the point that it moves to the south and when that happens what happens to all the civilians that it is told to evacuate further south so first of all we still haven't quite finished with the north there's still some heavy fighting there we have the hanyones front that is right now the main one we're now starting to tackle the center of the gaza strip from where many launching pads shoot at israel this is at first like it was before first a pounding from the artillery and the air force before we start a real ground offensive there and and of course the as you just mentioned the big problem that will stay on our hands is rafiyah area the very very south of the gaza strip with the philadelphia road which is on the border with egypt which are very very strategic points and will probably be the last stronghold of the khamas towards the end of this this war right now there is also a change in the aspect of the war on the side of the khamas the khamas until now behaved more or less like an army fighting another army now we are really switching to guerrilla warfare and it's more smaller units are isolated cells trying to ambush israeli troops rather than really confrontation from force to force which is becoming even more dangerous than before we might have unfortunately more casualties by before as we proceed in in the center of gaza there are still some elite units that are very dangerous and of course in hanyones we're far from finishing and of course the last front which is probably the main front and the hardest one is the tunnels is the everything that is underground that we have to deal with which is very very problematic so that right now we have to we've said for a long time now that we should be patient keep our cool and brace ourselves for a very very long war and this is the start of this this phase i mean was still towards the end i'm not quite finished the main assault ground assault of the idf but we slowly going into a routine a terrible routine that will last for a long long time before we can hope to see the end of the military resistance of the khamas unless some political now the only game changer that could be is a political deal that would entice the khamas to lay down their weapons to stop the fighting and just going to like a political mode if not it doesn't seem to be the case at all and mr sinew is in total disagreement with his mates in doha who are already thinking of an issue on the political level but he seems to want to continue fighting and i'm afraid that in his mind every Israeli soldier that falls is for him a victory and gives him the feeling that he's still in control he's only in control of his troops he's not in control of gaza anymore he doesn't understand and doesn't want to understand that he has lost the war that he has lost gaza and now all this fighting that's going on is completely gratuitous it's not going to lead him anywhere all right gentlemen stay with me i do want to continue this discussion but first i want to cross live to our correspondent pier clash and lo who is standing by for us in the south on the israel gaza border pier over the weekend rocket alert sirens were sounded in the border communities but there seems to be a little bit of a lull this morning right the last rocket attack uh targeted the two communities of of nativa asara and yard more the chi which are on the northern facing the northern tip of the gaza strip it was at 6 17 p.m local time that means that over 14 hours have passed since the last rocket strike up here israel is reeling every weekend it appears as the fighting intensifies in the gaza strip there are more idf fatalities including two more over this weekend that were revealed to the public what more do we know about them right two more deaths amongst the israeli soldiers that were authorized for publication yesterday sunday during clashes in the northern sector of the gaza strip which means in an area which is nominally under full operational control of the idf although the idf controls the ground not the underground necessarily although the idf has neutralized networks of web of of tunnels the latest authorized for publication in the jebalia refugee camp with two levels of tunnel the two soldiers died in two different circumstances one was a tanker and he was killed by an anti-tank guided missile and the other one was an infantry soldier and he died in a close range clash with the with some isolated hamas cell now behind me is the thrust of the ground offensive in the three refugee camps of dir el bala nusera tel al morazi there were heavy bombardments overnight and this morning the palestinian media affiliated to hamas speaks of 68 fatalities but they do not distinguish between civilian population and hamas terrorists and further south in khanunas on a crossroad each of khanunas palestinian media is talking about 23 fatalities after an a strike in khanunas the five brigades that are operating in the area operate very cautiously first of all in order not to harm the hostages and the soldiers but also the civilian population and here i'm going to show you in the area of shejaya al-muraka and jucho redik you see a major head strike you see the pillar of fire that has been burning for the past hour and this pillar of fire is in an area which is still fought for south of the city of gaza our correspondent pia clash and they're giving us all the latest updates this hour from the south thank you for that still with me in studio rafael you're a show me and jonathan reggae jonathan uh rafael mentioned earlier the fact that the fighting seems to be turning into guerrilla warfare a recent report by the wall street journal indicates that despite the losses and the sort of the broken command infrastructure that khamas has been dealt it's been three months of a strikes two months of the ground operation and yet they're still able to fire rockets and they still using guerrilla warfare tactics that is true because uh we have to remember there's two gaza there's overground gaza and underground gaza as far as the overground especially in the areas which were just mentioned now uh jibalia sajaya bethanun all all of the northern gaza strip there's basically israeli control above the ground they've been a cleanse from terrorists but under the ground it's a different story they're still there and yes perhaps without a central and organized command but they're still there with a with ammunition with rockets and with abilities so so yes not perhaps an organized uh not army but an organized organization as they were up until two months ago but still with the with abilities to fight with abilities to fire uh rockets towards israel we've seen images of these launchers are under the ground only the tip of the tip of the launcher is is above the ground everything else is hidden that tip of the tip appears for seconds the rockets are ready everything is ready the the the the rockets are fired and everything is hidden back under under the ground and taking care of all that ground infrastructure is difficult costly and especially takes time i want to touch on that subterranean warfare if i'll perhaps some of our viewers don't fully understand so i'd like for you to break it down when the idea of deals with these tunnels obviously we've got some of the released hostages saying do not enter the tunnels they're traps you can't flood them out we can surely bomb them from the air once we know that they're sort of clear but also the idea of obviously deals from an operational and a tactical front with entering these tunnels what exactly from a step by step or a play by analysis here how do they enter these tunnels what is it that they do in order to make sure that no one's in them and then to dismantle them so first of all you have to detect the tunnels where where are they then you have to see how many entrances lead to those tunnels because in some cases you could bury alive those who are in the tunnel by blocking all the entrances or by injecting some gas into the tunnel but for that you know you need to be sure that you know where all the entrances are which is very difficult because we've seen all kinds of hidden places in a kid's room or somewhere in a in a mosque it's very difficult to find them then there is of course the no no of like avoiding as much as you can the entry physical entry of the soldiers inside the tunnel where awaits them all kinds of traps booby traps and even ambushes by armed terrorists extremely dangerous and we've had casualties at the very entrance of the tunnels even before people went went in hence the use of of dogs with cameras on them we you send a dog with a camera to look at what's going on there are even mini drones that are being used there are many technological ways to tackle the tunnel problem today the real obstacle is if we do not have an intel that guarantees us a hundred percent there's no hostages held in a tunnel we will not we will not do anything we will we will stay there we will just guard the entrances that we know of to the to that tunnel on the contrary with operational tactical tunnels that we know are only used by armed terrorists there are no not places to hold hostages there is just to to fight retreat and fight then we can we can destroy the tunnel there are many different ways some of them are classified some of them are known like this famous gel that you pour at the entrance and that's slowly goes in flows into the tunnel then you light it up and the whole tunnel will just burn for that you need an air vent on the other side that will help the configuration and that's one of the now from the air and from by artillery most of tunnels today are not destroyable you can't destroy them they are too deep underground some of them you can pound with artillery in the hope that you create the kind of an earthquake and then the tunnel crumbles down but really most tunnels are deep enough not to be reachable by an a strike so it only leaves the technological aspect as I said the main progress that has been done since protective border is the detection we are much better at detecting through seismic measurements measurements all kinds of sensors to detect where the tunnels are unfortunately the intel wasn't 100% on that I think we are all surprised by the extent of this underground city and the fact that it is a double war well a war above ground and then a war underground and unfortunately this war underground will last for a long long time and will enable the Hamas to stay alive a long long time which would have been the case if it was just above ground and that's why I come back to the saying we have to now and think of some kind of escape route politically for the Hamas leader Sinu or should be offered some kind of a face saving political future just to lay down their weapons the only solution now to this conflict is finding a way that the Hamas understands its interest to lay down their weapons they have lost Gaza they will never have Gaza back we will not let that happen but they can operate somewhere else in the world Rafael thank you for breaking down what is evidently as you described a very sophisticated and complex network and speaking of the politics in such a politicized society even in times of war and especially as it was arguably a part of the lead up to the ongoing conflict with Hamas internal politics in Israel are never far from the spotlight in many broadcasts here on i24 news in the past few months prior to the war the mass polarization was addressed numerous times with a recurring question are Israel's domestic troubles making it appear weak to its enemies that question is still being pondered today in a recent prime time address Israel's president Isaac Herndon who has long sought to quell be in fighting slammed several politicians over their division saying that especially now during wartime Israel's enemies are celebrating it take a listen the enemy is waiting to see chasms among us for us to start fighting with one another it sees the confrontations the ego battles and the political headbutting on the day before the war and the day after it it celebrates every time disagreement drives us apart we must not return to the discourse of october 6th we must not return to the discourse of us and them we must not return to toxic discourse online i want to tell you in a clear way anyone who returns us to the discourse of october 6th harms the war effort and citizens security well let's go now to jerusalem where i'm joined by Gershon baskin a key negotiator during the gelatial exchange deal back in 2011 and the middle east director of the international communities organization good morning and thank you for joining me one of the big updates of the hour egypt submitted a proposal to free hostages in the war and to form a possible p a chamas government in gaza it's also us a little bit more about their plan and exactly just how viable it is we know kata has put their hat in the ring for a possible or potential longer hostage deal and ceasefire what is egypt's plan exactly well we don't have all the details of the egyptian plan what we understand is that it's a three phase plan that would bring about a release of all the hostages a long-term ceasefire and some kind of more permanent arrangement in a post tamas gaza without knowing all the details it seems like the first comprehensive plan that's been put down on the table that addresses the two primary goals of israel in this war one is to dismantle hamas's ability to continue to govern gaza and threaten israel to and to bring all the hostages home it's not a hundred percent clear what is demanded from israel in return there are talks that the hostage deal includes and all for all in other words releasing all the hostages in phases and releasing all the palestinian prisoners in israel it's not clear to what extent the government of israel would be willing to engage on that basis but nonetheless the egyptians are a very important negotiator here they have a lot more experience in bringing about ceasefires between israel and hamas and islamic jihad they share a common border with us and with gaza and they have direct links to the underground hamas leadership of the military wing of al-qasam as well as the islamic jihad which is much more beneficial for us than negotiating through qatar which is the state that's clearly on the side of hamas there's also various reports coming out albeit in israeli media where the country is said to mul sparing hamas chiefs exiling them to free hostages and end the war how would this go down among the israeli public the prime minister and the government has vowed that what was will never be again that there will not be another war with hamas because it will be completely eliminated but it doesn't appear that this tactic would be cutting the head off the snake it appears that it would allow them to regroup and rearm well i i think it's also very unlikely that the hamas leadership would would agree to that this is not beirut of 1982 when the hama when the plo leadership was shipped out of beirut it seems to me that the characters involved here in the leadership of the hamas military wing are not going to surrender and are not going to board any ship to leave gaza to any other place i know that algeria has been suggested as well as perhaps tehran but it seems very unlikely to me that iris and war and his colleagues are going to surrender or lay down their weapons and go somewhere else if there's much more appropriate to look at their profile as people who are going to fight to the end and more likely than not will be killed by israel in battle while they're trying to kill israelis now gashon israel's ambassador to the united states michael heard songs said that washington shares jerusalem's goal of defeating hamas and that while israel is interested in a potential deal to release obviously as many of its hostages as it can is unclear if the teru group will agree it's not the first time that hamas has refused some kind of a deal why is international pressure so rife on israel but where is the international pressure the global pressure on hamas to agree to a ceasefire if it's so badly needs one well it's very little effective international pressure that can be applied on on hamas hamas is not a state not recognized and not part of international organizations they're already sanctioned in various ways of trying to block money to their top officials that has not been done enough and it should be done more but there's really no one who can effectively pressure hamas to do anything that hamas doesn't want hamas has stated following the last prisoner exchange hostage deal that they would not negotiate with israel again until there's a full cessation of the war this is not something that israel is going to agree to until the aims of the war have been met so we're kind of in a plunder of not knowing really how to proceed and perhaps the egyptian opening of a door to a possible negotiation is the way that we should go forward we definitely need to talk with the egyptians more and understand what they're proposing and understand whether or not there's any traction from hamas on the steel then we can talk about the different ends and while we're doing this remember that the war is continuing israel is entering the tunnels israel's conquering more land above ground and of course searching for the hamas leadership in order to find them and to kill them gashan baskin a key negotiator during the gilad shaled exchange deal back in 2011 and the middle east director of the international community's organization thank you so very much for joining me here this morning welcome stop with the conversation in studio jonathan i want to ask you because it does appear that there's an i would say tongue in cheek not really a new front but there is a new angle to this war occurring in the east in the west bank we know that there was heavy fighting and arrests in janin overnight how prepared is israel to deal with the fighting inside its borders it's one thing going into gaza and dealing with hezbollah that is outside of its borders but this is an internal domestic issue israel has left enough forces to deal not only with with that for let's remember there's also the northern front so so there are many forces on the northern border which are actually not taking part in the fighting gaza because they're waiting for anything that might come from lebanon and this is of course true for a for the west bank the activity in the west bank has not paused for a single minute since october 7th it has been going on perhaps even with more intensity we saw a very a strong operation in janin a few weeks ago night after night idea forces are operating especially in janin but not only there janin nablus and tulkar and it's sort of a triangle in in the northern west bank and that's that's where uh that's where the forces are mostly operating and yes there are enough forces to operate there of course the israeli army the idea is not a very big army but still it has to allocate forces uh the yes true that the massive force is in gaza but also west bank also a lebanon border even also syria border uh because these are these are all active arenas arafal in the last two minutes left of the broadcast a key question that continues to get asked is how the rotation works in terms of the soldiers that are currently in the gaza strip we know that apart from hundreds of thousands of acts of soldiers there's reservists obviously the conditions there in terms of their eating and their sleeping it's a war zone how is the rotation being kept to the point that they are staying alert and awake the rotation we know that after two months uh some of the reservists were sent back home they fought non-stop for 60 more even more almost 70 days non-stop before going home so this this batch has gone home other reservists have arrived the iftar brigade for instance is one example of paratroopers all from the reserve and there is a rotation we have to understand that this reserve a long time a call is a very very big problem for the reservists themselves offer the israeli economy many people have businesses that are in difficulty and the government is far from doing enough to help first of all the reservists himself financially but also the families the wife for instance left at home with the kids you know to have to deal with all this it is a very very big problem that is not tackled properly right now by the government considering the physical welfare in on the battlefield i think they're doing pretty well when we compared to the terrible images of the second lebanon war in 2006 where there was even a lack of food and soldiers had to take rice from the lebanese villages this is not happening now there is a proper we also had the the first few days of the war a lack of a basic equipment individual equipment such as bulletproof vests all this has been dealt with the americans have been very harmful in that way bringing us a lot of equipment so ammunition wise equipment wise food wise every also the main thing is there the the fuel that is needed all the all this is under control the really the real weight now is more onto the civilian side of all this all the economic effort behind all this you're talking billions of shackles that this is costing day after day and obviously there's also no telling at least right now the mental and psychological toll that this is taking on the soldiers as well rafael urshalmi jonathan regev thank you both very much we'll have more details coming up after this break on day 80 of war between israel and hamas stay with us you're watching special editions of mine 24 news well is in a state of war families completely done down in their beds we have no idea where she has our soldiers are fighting on the front lines but the general perception is something that certainly needs to to be fought as well come to the special news edition on i-24 news and by 11th or coming july from televive thanks for joining me it is day 80 of war between israel and hamas heavy fighting in the strip continues as the idea pushes on with its ground offensive to dismantle terror targets over the weekend the number of israeli troops killed in combat rose to 156 release for publication on sunday evening the idea revealed that earlier this month it found a large hamas tunnel network beneath the jubalia refugee camp near gaza city inside that tunnel they also found and uncovered the bodies of three israeli soldiers and two civilians meanwhile israeli prime minister benjamin itanyao continues to hold that the war will continue until victory over hamas is latest comments coming as the wall cabinet is said to examine an egyptian proposal for a new hostage deal following visits to cairo by both hamas and islamic jihad representatives here's more from itanyao israeli citizens we are deepening the war in the gaza strip we will continue to fight until complete victory over hamas this is the only way to return our hostages eliminate hamas and ensure that gaza will no longer be a threat to israel it will take time but we are united the fighters the people and the government we are united and determined to fight to the end war has a price a very heavy price in the lives of our heroic warriors and we do everything to preserve the lives of our warriors but one thing will not be done we will not stop until we achieve victory joining me here in studio is rafael urashalmi a former senior idf intelligence officer and our senior defense correspondent jonathan reggae of good morning gentlemen to you both rafael the idf struck sites overnight in central gaza we seem to be moving away from northern gaza into the center how long before israel does what it needs to do in the central part of the strip to the point that it moves to the south and when that happens what happens to all the civilians that it is told to evacuate further south so first of all we still haven't quite finished with the north and there's still some heavy fighting there we have the hanyones front that is right now the main one we're now starting to tackle the center of the gaza strip from where many launching pads uh shoot at israel this is at first like it was before first a pounding from the artillery and the air force before we start a real ground offensive there and and of course the as you just li mentioned the big problem that will stay on our hands is rafiyah area the very very south of the gaza strip with the philadelphia road which is on the border with egypt which are very very strategic points and will probably be the last stronghold of the hamas towards the end of this this war right now there is also a change in the aspect of the war on the side of the hamas the hamas until now behaved more or less like an army fighting another army and now we are really switching to guerrilla warfare and it's more smaller units are isolated cells trying to ambush israeli troops rather than really read confrontation from force to force which is becoming even more dangerous than before we might have unfortunately more casualties by before as we proceed in in the center of gaza there are still some elite units that are very dangerous and of course in hanyones we're far from finishing and of course the last front and which is probably the main front and the hardest one is the tunnels is the everything that is underground that we have to deal with which is very very problematic so that right now we have to we've said for a long time now that we should be patient keep our cool and brace ourselves for very very long war this is the start of this this phase i mean was still towards the end we have not quite finished the main assault ground assault of the idea but we slowly going into a routine a terrible routine that will last for a long long time before we can hope to see the end of the military resistance of the hamas unless some political now the only game changer that could be is a political deal that would entice the ramas to lay down their weapons to stop the fighting and just going to like a political mode if not it doesn't seem to be the case at all and mr sinewain is in total disagreement with his mates in doha who are already thinking of an issue on the political level but he seems to want to continue fighting and i'm afraid that in his mind every Israeli soldier that falls is for him a victory and gives him the feeling that he's still in control he's only in control of his troops he's not in control of gaza anymore he doesn't understand and doesn't want to understand that he has lost the war that he has lost gaza and now all this fighting that's going on is completely gratuitous it's not going to lead him anywhere right gentlemen stay with me i do want to continue this discussion but first i want to cross live to our correspondent pia klush and lo who is standing by for us in the south on the israel gaza border pier over the weekend rocket alert sirens were sounded in the border communities but there seems to be a little bit of a lull this morning right the last rocket attack targeted the two communities of of netiva asara and yard more the high which are on the northern facing the northern tip of the gaza strip it was at 6 17 p.m local time that means that over 14 hours have passed since the last rocket strike up here israel is reeling every weekend it appears as the fighting intensifies in the gaza strip there are more idf fatalities including two more over this weekend that were revealed to the public what more do we know about them right two more deaths amongst the israeli soldiers that were authorized for publication that died yesterday sunday during clashes in the northern sector of the gaza strip which means in an area which is nominally under full operational control of the idf although the idf controls the ground not the underground necessarily although the idf has neutralized networks of web of tunnels the latest authorized for publication in the jibalia refugee camp with two levels of tunnel the two soldiers died in two different circumstances one was a tanker and he was killed by an anti tank guided missile and the other one was an infantry soldier and he died in a close range clash with the with some isolated khamas cell now behind me is the thrust of the ground offensive in the three refugee camps of dir el bala nusera tel al morazi there were heavy bombardments overnight and this morning the palestine media affiliated to khamas speaks of 68 fatalities but they do not distinguish between civilian population and khamas terrorists and further south in khanunas on a crossroad each of khanunas palestine media is talking about 23 fatalities after an a strike in khanunas the five brigades that are operating in the area operate very cautiously first of all in order not to harm the hostages and the soldiers but also the civilian population and here i'm going to show you in the area of shejaya al muraqa and jucho redik you see a major head strike you see the pillar of fire that has been burning for the past hour and this pillar of fire is in an area which is still fought for south of the city of gaza our correspondent pia clash and they're giving us all the latest updates this hour from the south thank you for that still with me in studio rafael you're a show me and jonathan reggaev jonathan uh rafael mentioned earlier the fact that the fighting seems to be turning into guerrilla warfare a recent report by the wall street journal indicates that despite the losses and the sort of the broken command infrastructure that khamas has been dealt it's been three months of airstrikes two months of the ground operation and yet they're still able to fire rockets and they still using guerrilla warfare tactics that is true because uh we have to remember there's two gaza there's overground gaza and underground gaza as far as the overground especially in the areas which were just mentioned now uh jibalia sajaya bethanon all all of the northern gaza strip there's basically israeli control above the ground there's been a cleanse from terrorists but under the ground it's a different story they're they're still there and yes perhaps without a central and organized command but they're still there with uh with ammunition with rockets and with abilities so so yes not perhaps an organized not army but an organized organization as they were up until two months ago but still with the with abilities to fight with abilities to fire a rockets towards israel we've seen images of these launchers are under the ground only the tip of the tip of the launcher is is above the ground everything else is hidden in the tip of the tip appears for seconds the rockets are ready everything is ready the the the the rockets are fired and everything is hidden back under under the ground and taking care of all that ground infrastructure is difficult costly and especially takes time i want to touch on that subterranean warfare afoul perhaps some of our viewers don't fully understand so i'd like for you to break it down when the idea deals with these tunnels obviously we've got some of the released hostages saying do not into the tunnels there are traps you can't flood them out we can surely bomb them from the air once we know that they're sort of clear but also the idea obviously deals from an operational and a tactical front with entering these tunnels what exactly from a step by step or a play by play analysis here how do they enter these tunnels what is it that they do in order to make sure that no one's in them and then to dismantle them so first of all you have to detect the tunnels where where are they then you have to see how many entrances lead to those tunnels because in some cases you could bury alive those who are in the tunnel by blocking all the entrances or by injecting some gas into the tunnel but for that you know you need to be sure that you know where all the entrances are which is very difficult because we've seen all kinds of hidden places in the kid's room or somewhere in a in a mosque it's very difficult to find and then there is of course the no no of like avoiding as much as you can the entry physical entry of soldiers inside the tunnel where awaits them all kinds of traps booby traps and even ambushes by armed terrorists extremely dangerous and we've had casualties at the very entrance of the tunnels even before people went and went in hence the use of of dogs with cameras in them we send a dog with a camera to look at what's going on there are even mini drones that are being used there are many technological ways to tackle the tunnel problem today the real obstacle is if we do not have an intel that guarantees us a hundred percent there's no hostages held in a tunnel we will not we will not do anything we will we will stay there we will just guard the entrances that we know of to the to that tunnel on the country with operational tactical tunnels that we know are only used by armed terrorists there are no not places to hold hostages there is just to to fight retreat and fight then we can we can destroy the tunnel there are many different ways some of them are classified some of them are known like this famous gel that you pour at the entrance and that's slowly goes in flows into the tunnel and then you light it up and the whole tunnel will just burn for that you need an air vent on the other side that that will help the configuration and that's one of the now from the air and from by artillery most of tunnels today are not destroyable you can't destroy them they are too deep underground some of them you can pound with artillery in the hope that you create a kind of an earthquake and then the tunnel crumbles down but really most tunnels are deep enough not to be reachable by an a strike so it only leaves the technological aspect as I said the main progress that has been done since protective border is the detection we are much better at detecting through seismic measurements thermic measurements all kinds of sensors to detect where the tunnels are unfortunately the intel wasn't 100% on that I think we are all surprised by the extent of this underground city and the fact that it is a double war a war above ground and then a war underground and unfortunately this war underground will last for a long long time and will enable the Hamas to stay alive a long long time which would have been the case if it was just above ground and that's why I come back to the saying we have to now and think of some kind of a escape route politically for the Hamas leader Sinu or should be offered some kind of a face saving political future just to lay down their weapons the only solution now to this conflict is finding a way that the Hamas understands its interest to lay down their weapons they have lost Gaza they will never have Gaza back we will not let that happen but they can operate somewhere else in the world Rafael thank you for breaking down what is evidently as you described a very sophisticated and complex network and speaking of the politics in such a politicized society even in times of war and especially as it was arguably a part of the lead up to the ongoing conflict with Hamas internal politics in Israel are never far from the spotlight in many broadcasts here on i24 news in the past few months prior to the war the mass polarization was addressed numerous times with a recurring question are Israel's domestic troubles making it appear weak to its enemies that question is still being pondered today in a recent prime time address Israel's president Isaac Herndon who has long sought to quell be in fighting slammed several politicians over their division saying that especially now during wartime Israel's enemies are celebrating it take a listen the enemy is waiting to see chasms among us for us to start fighting with one another it sees the confrontations the ego battles and the political headbutting on the day before the war and the day after it it celebrates every time disagreement drives us apart we must not return to the discourse of october 6 we must not return to the discourse of us and them we must not return to toxic discourse online i want to tell you in a clear way anyone who returns us to the discourse of october 6 harms the war effort and citizen security well let's go now to Jerusalem where i'm joined by Gershyn Baskin a key negotiator during the gelatial exchange deal back in 2011 and the Middle East director of the international communities organization good morning and thank you for joining me good morning one of the big updates of the hour egypt submitted a proposal to free hostages in the war and to form a possible PA Hamas government in Gaza it talks to us a little bit more about their plan and exactly just how viable it is we know kathars put their hats in the ring for a possible or potential longer hostage deal and ceasefire what is egypt's plan exactly well we don't have all the details of the egyptian plan what we understand is that it's a three phase plan that would bring about a release of all the hostages a long-term ceasefire and some kind of more permanent arrangement in a post Hamas Gaza without knowing all the details it seems like the first comprehensive plan that's been put down on the table that addresses the two primary goals of israel in this war one is to dismantle Hamas's ability to continue to govern Gaza and threaten israel to and to bring all the hostages home it's not a hundred percent clear what is demanded from israel in return there are talks that the hostage deal includes an all for all in other words releasing all the hostages in phases and releasing all the Palestinian prisoners in israel it's not clear to what extent the government of israel would be willing to engage on that basis but nonetheless the egyptians are a very important negotiator here they have a lot more experience in bringing about ceasefires between israel and Hamas and islamic jihad they share a common border with us and with Gaza and they have direct links to the underground Hamas leadership the military wing of al-qasam as well as the islamic jihad which is much more beneficial for us than negotiating through Qatar which is the state that's clearly on the side of Hamas there's also various reports coming out albeit in israeli media where the country is said to mul sparing Hamas chiefs exiling them to free hostages and end the war how would this go down among the israeli public the prime minister and the government has vowed that what was will never be again that there will not be another war with Hamas because it will be completely eliminated but it doesn't appear that this tactic would be cutting the head off the snake it appears that it would allow them to regroup and rearm well i think it's also very unlikely that the Hamas leadership would would agree to that this is not beirut of 1982 when the when the plo leadership was shipped out of beirut it seems to me that the characters involved here in the leadership of the Hamas military wing are not going to surrender and are not going to board any ship to leave Gaza to any other place i know that Algeria has been suggested as well as perhaps Tehran but it seems very unlikely to me that Yerevan war and his colleagues are going to surrender or lay down their weapons and go somewhere else it it's much more appropriate to look at their profile as people who are going to fight to the end and more likely than not will be killed by israel in battle while they're trying to kill israelis now gashan israel's ambassador to the united states michael heard songs said that washington shares jerusalem's goal of defeating Hamas and that while israel is interested in a potential deal to release obviously as many of its hostages as it can is unclear if the terror group will agree it's not the first time that Hamas has refused some kind of a deal why is international pressure so rife on israel but where is the international pressure or the global pressure on Hamas to agree to a ceasefire if it's so badly needs one well it's very little effective international pressure that can be applied on Hamas Hamas is not a state not recognized and not part of international organizations they're already sanctioned in various ways of trying to block money to their top officials that has not been done enough and it should be done more but there's really no one who can effectively pressure Hamas to do anything that Hamas doesn't want Hamas has stated following the last prisoner exchange hostage deal that they would not negotiate with israel again until there's a full cessation of the war this is not something that israel is going to agree to until the aims of the war have been met so we're kind of in a plunder of not knowing really how to proceed and perhaps the egyptian opening of a door to a possible negotiation is the way that we should go forward we definitely need to talk with the egyptians more and understand what they're proposing and understand whether or not there's any traction from Hamas on the steel then we can talk about the different ends and while we're doing this remember that the war is continuing israel is entering the tunnels israel's conquering more land above ground and of course searching for the Hamas leadership in order to find them and to kill them Gershawn Baskin a key negotiator during the Gilad Shaled exchange deal back in 2011 and the Middle East director of the international community's organization thank you so very much for joining me here this morning welcome still with the conversation in studio jonathan i want to ask you because it does appear that there's an i would say tongue in cheek not really a new front but there's a new angle to this war occurring in the east in the west bank we know that there was heavy fighting and arrests in juneen overnight how prepared is israel to deal with the fighting inside its borders it's one thing going into gaza and dealing with hezbollah that is outside of its borders but this is an internal domestic issue israel has left enough forces to deal not only with with that for let's remember there's also the northern front so so there are many forces on the northern border which are actually not taking part in the fighting gaza because they're waiting for anything that might come from lebanon and this is of course true for a for the west bank the activity in the west bank has not paused for a single minute since october 7th it has been going on perhaps even with more intensity we saw a very a strong operation in juneen a few weeks ago night after night idea forces operating especially in juneen but not only there juneen nablus and tulkar and it's sort of a triangle in in the northern west bank and that's that's where that that's where the forces are mostly operating and yes there are enough forces to operate there of course the israeli army the idea is not a very big army but still it has to allocate forces the yes true that the massive force is in gaza but also west bank also a lebanon border even also syria border because these these are all active arenas airfail in the last two minutes left of the broadcast a key question that continues to get asked is how the rotation works in terms of the soldiers that are currently in the gaza strip we know that apart from hundreds of thousands of acts of soldiers there's reservists obviously the conditions there in terms of their eating and their sleeping it's a war zone how is the rotation being kept to the point that they are staying alert and awake the rotation we know that after two months some of the reservists were sent back home they fought non-stop for 60 more even more almost 70 days non-stop before going home so this this batch has gone home other reservists have arrived the iftar brigade for instance is one example of paratroopers all from the reserve and there is a rotation we have to understand that this reserve a long time a call is a very very big problem for the reservists themselves often the israeli economy many people have businesses that are in difficulty and the government is far from doing enough to help first of all the reservists himself financially but also the families the wife for instance left at home with the kids you know to have to deal with all this it is a very very big problem that is not tackled properly right now by the government considering the physical welfare in on the battlefield i think they're doing pretty well when we compared to the terrible images of the second lebanon war in 2006 where there was even a lack of food and the soldiers had to take rice from the lebanese villages this is not happening now there is a proper we also had the first few days of the war a lack of a basic equipment individual equipment such as bulletproof vests all this has been dealt with the americans have been very harmful in that way bringing us a lot of equipment so ammunition wise equipment wise food wise every also the main thing is the the fuel that is needed all the all this is under control the really the real weight now is more on to the civilian side of all this all the economic effort behind all this you're talking billions of shackles that this is costing day after day and obviously there's also no telling at least right now the mental and psychological toll that this is taking on the soldiers as well rafael you're shall meet jonathan rake if thank you both very much we'll have more details coming up after this break on day 80 of war between israel and hamas stay with us you're watching special editions of i-24 news well is in a state of war families completely done down in their beds we have no idea where is she as our soldiers are fighting on the front lines but the general perception is something that certainly needs to to be fought as well entrevistas exclusivas report es desde la zona de guerra la reacción de los países hispano parlantes through the special news edition on i-24 news i am batch 11th or coming to live from televiv thanks for joining me it is day 80 of war between israel and hamas heavy fighting in the strip continues as the idea pushes on with its ground offensive to dismantle terror targets over the weekend the number of israeli troops killed in combat rose to 156 release for publication on sunday evening the idea revealed that earlier this month it found a large hamas tunnel network beneath the jubalia refugee camp near gaza city inside that tunnel they also found and recovered the bodies of three israeli soldiers and two civilians meanwhile israeli prime minister benjamin ishanyahu continues to hold that the war will continue until victory over hamas his latest comments coming as the war cabinet is set to examine an egyptian proposal for a new hostage deal following visits to kaira by both hamas and islamic jihad representatives here's more from the tunnel israeli citizens we are deepening the war in the gaza strip we will continue to fight until complete victory over hamas this is the only way to return our hostages eliminate hamas and ensure that gaza will no longer be a threat to israel it will take time but we are united the fighters the people and the government we are united and determined to fight to the end war has a price a very heavy price in the lives of our heroic warriors and we do everything to preserve the lives of our warriors but one thing will not be done we will not stop until we achieve victory well let's cross now live to our correspondent pia klushan though who is standing by for us in the south more specifically the israel gaza border pia a quiet morning this morning but what is the latest on the ground where you are and also what we're hearing in terms of the fighting near the central part of the gaza strip right batia it's quiet on the israeli territory as the last rocket fire was yesterday evening at 6 17 p.m local time to be precise so it's over 14 or 15 hours that there hasn't been any rocket strike on israeli territory but the air is bruising with a lot of artillery pounding of presumed terror targets of hamas and palestinian islamic jihad i'll show you what's going on in the area of the south sector of gaza city in the shijaya churadik el el murkaka neighborhood there's been a heavy strike an hour and a half ago and you still see pillars of smoke in in the sky that's probably a strike either from the air or from the navy and further south there's been a pounding of presumed terror targets in the three refugee camps of the central sector of the gaza strip el borage el murazi and nuserat and the roads linking between them the palestinian media affiliated to ramassa reporting 68 fatalities and scores of casualties south of those central refugee camps there there is a slow progression by five brigades in the heart and out of hannouness there in a junction of strategic access there was a nest strike 23 casualties according to the palestinian media affiliated to ramassa but all this count is very difficult to verify especially the fact that there is no distinction between the non-involved palestinian population and the terrorists so it's very difficult to know who was killed in those strikes but in general there is an incessant pounding of the gaza strip even in jibalia we hear from palestinian reports that jibalia refugee camp is still targeted that means that even though the israeli army has full operational control on the ground that's not necessarily the case and the ground and they are still isolated ramassa squads of three to five people that are coming out of tunnel shafts that haven't been neutralized yet correspondent pia klush and they're giving us the latest on the ground near the gaza strip thank you very much for that and joining me now in studio is retired colonel amit asa a former member of the israeli security agency good morning to you obviously we are seeing a change in strategy a little bit in the sense that the idf is moving from the north toward the center and at some points obviously not now they are going to have to move toward the south what at that point then happens to the civilian population in the gaza strip of which they've instructed to move further south so that it could operate in the north and the center um yes i think it's not an esoteric it's more tactic okay you are moving to the south of the gaza strip it's because we ended one one move at the north and now we have to go to the central camps like albourage like noserat and what you said is right we have to deal with the rafa and especially the border between gaza strip to egypt the philadelphia area so we will see now moving to the south and as you said there is a problem of civilians um none um none of the idf willing is to to strike in a place that there is civilians but in the other hand hamas is not uh let the people go out from uh places that there is situation of war and they are holding the their population to be uh the shield for their own so we have the problem in another hand we know that all civilians in gaza are supporting hamas from the beginning so even if it's not somebody that is a member in hamas uh the civilians is uh opposing to uh to hamas and they are uh willing to have hamas to win so uh as we can see and it's my opinion um the population in israel the the um the society in israel is losing patience losing patience meaning we are getting a lot of casualties among our people our soldiers and meaning that there is a pressure on on the idf to make some big moves um and it's coming um across the they are the willing not to uh to hurt some civilians but it will we will see more pressure now on the gaza strip uh in my opinion and you mentioned briefly that this could move towards a different angle being the gaza and egypt border there is some criticism uh that this is a strategic failure in israel's part because that border has seen quite a lot of smuggling in particular with regards to weapons and arms just how much i mean is the responsibility really on israel to watch what happens on that border that is a border between egypt and gaza i think what we see now um especially egypt getting into uh pressure on israel to have any negotiation because they want to stop the war now that nobody will understand how much they helped hamas to get in equipment under the border of of egypt and the gaza strip it's not the israel responsibility and it's egypt's responsibility and if we will find out what happened there and i know and everybody knows that we will we will find out this we will see how much egypt was supported hamas supported this kind of organization of terror organization getting in this amount of ammunition this amount of of technology that got in it's not coming from the air it's not coming from the sea it's coming from the border of egypt and as we see egypt is getting in pressure the egypt knows that uh idf is going to go to the philadelphia and find out and especially expose their their um a help to the hamas so we know now that the egyptian will press more to have negotiation to stop the war that nobody will know this kind of event that they did and still on the topic of egypt israeli officials confirmed to several hebramedia outlets throughout the weekend that cairo has placed on the table a new proposal for retreats in the war with hamas and the release of more israeli hostages that are being held by the terror organization in gaza with some indicating that jr is not flat out rejecting the drafts and that it could lead to further negotiations earlier i spoke with gershan baskin a key negotiator during the gelad shaled exchange deal back in 2011 and the middle east director of international community organization on the plan and just how viable it really is what we understand is that it's a three phase plan that would bring about a release of all the hostages a long-term ceasefire and some kind of more permanent arrangement in a post hamas gaza without knowing all the details it seems like the first comprehensive plan that's been put down on the table that addresses the two primary goals of israel in this war one is to dismantle hamas's ability to continue to govern gaza and threaten israel to and to bring all the hostages home it's not 100 clear what is demanded from israel in return there are talks that the hostage deal includes an all for all in other words releasing all the hostages in phases and releasing all the palestinian prisoners in israel it's not clear to what extent the government of israel would be willing to engage on that basis but nonetheless the egyptians are a very important negotiator here they have a lot more experience in bringing about ceasefires between israel and hamas and islamic jihad they share a common border with us and with gaza and they have direct links to the underground hamas leadership of the military wing of al-qasam as well as the islamic jihad which is much more beneficial for us than negotiating through qatar which is the state that's clearly on the side of hamas still with me here in studio retired colonel amit asa amit i want to get your comments on on that specifically with regards to how viable you think you said that the israeli population is losing patience kata has already put their hat in the ring a few times for hostage deals some of the most recent ones being rejected flat out by hamas until there's a complete cessation of fighting but what about egypt egypt is long known as as a top mediator between israel and hamas is their plan viable i think this plane is this looks so good anyway egypt was inside the negotiation and last time last time when we did the post they they've been in kata with everybody that so they involved this is not a problem the problem is that israel will not go into negotiation from that kind of of a proposal because it's not a proposal that comes together with what netanyahu said now and in the other hand hamas is not going to get into this negotiation until israel will stop fighting so we have a problem that israel in one side and hamas is in the other side and it's not something that we can we can go together even if it is very very precise with what they say about about negotiation and um as we know hamas is with the back to the wall hamas is holding their forces for the last minutes now and they are trying to to get some some pressure but we know that they are with the back to the wall so israel doesn't have to go centimeter back from what netanyahu said and also the community in israel will not let netanyahu to go back from what he said he will he said that we will go war and fighting until the end of the hamas and we will not stop and hamas knows that and true egypt that trying to do some ceasefire but in my opinion it will not end at the as a ceasefire and negotiation one of the major questions around obviously the the play out of this war was how on earth this happened how we had thousands of terrorists crossing the border given the fact that israel's intelligence can detect when a feather and a bird lands on the border and i don't think that those answers a need to be addressed right now and b will be addressed until all of this comes to a head but another major question that is being asked with regards to the intelligence is the idea of cutting the head off the snake why the Mossad in previous years knowing that the political echelon of hamas is situated in turkey and qatar has not planned to take them out yes the 8 000 hamas terrorists that have been eliminated in the Gaza Strip by the IDF in the past two months of fighting no doubt takes a major knock to the organization but why have the top leaders not been taken out okay this is a big question because the top leaders knows that we are we want their head okay and it's not so easy okay they are putting themselves behind very good places like Qatar like in Egypt they know that that time is running out okay it's not a question a if they will be taking off it's a question of when and when is the best the best time for us the best time for the Mossad the best time for the shabak to do it i will not i will be patient with it because it will happen so it's not a matter of why it's a matter of if it's a matter of when and if you will be patient you will see that all of them will be will be dead at the end and especially we have to understand to to conquer some some kind of victory of hamas or a Palestinian way of thinking that they can hit Israel that way that they did in the 7 of October meaning getting all the commanders down they're getting the troops down and getting them on the knees so this is what will happen and also sometime will take it maybe at the end it will be more time but we have this time we are patient in one hand when another hand it will happen okay in the last minute that we have left with you i want to ask you in your opinion obviously there is no telling exactly when this war is going to come to an end the the war in 2014 was a matter of two months of fighting but then it took five years to stabilize but people are running out of patience on our requesting answers how much longer do you think that the actual war on the ground is going to continue for me first up we have to think about the hostages also okay it's one of the things that we have to solve the minute that we will solve this matter or hostages maybe we will go out with the reserve forces we will low down the flames but the war will not stop the war will not stop until Gaza will be empty of terrorists and be very very clean okay it will take time maybe month but this part of war this kind of action that we see now with a lot of forces i think will end the minute the all of the hostages will be on or in our side retired canola metas a former member of the Israeli security agency thank you so very much for your time and analysis here in studio this morning and speaking of the hostages in a heart-wrenching story that has captured the attention of the nation and i would argue many around the world the bebas family remains held hostage in Gaza their fate uncertain yarden sherry arielle and kfir were kidnapped from their home in near ores over 78 days ago now we're already on day 80 of the war meaning the hostages have been in captivity for 79 days as the days now turn into weeks in the weeks into months their relatives are left pleading for answers and desperately seeking their safe return more in the next report adapted from israel's channel 12 news so many days have passed not even my worst nightmares that i think i would still be sitting before you begging telling the story trying to understand just how terrible it is that an entire family and their babies are in captivity waiting for answers from those who are supposed to answer us but we haven't received any 38 children have been released from khamas captivity to have not really love tractors cars but i can't find anything here i think it was the last of the looters who did what they did to the house the bebas family is helpless walking through yarden sherry arielle and kfir's home in gathering the remaining items trying to make sense of this painful story arielle really loved batman we found the drawing he made in kindergarten he must have asked the teacher to write i want to be a hero fly and rescue people stuck in a hole it's chilling to think he wrote that before all of this batman pajamas a token of their family he tried to prevent them coming in i don't know i don't i admit for him to fire his gun and still make it out alive doesn't add up they fired incessantly without a care for the cries and the screams of children they were just hell bent on getting in and getting the family out 76 days into the war even though almost everyone knows the story it is our duty to retell it yarden and sherry together for nine years raised both their ginger haired children in sherry's childhood kibbutz on october 7th the entire family was kidnapped from their home to gaza sherry 32 years old arielle for and kfir nine months old were kidnapped together yarden was kidnapped separately yarden sherry arielle kfir they aren't just changers they aren't a symbol they are a family there were birthdays holidays that's the couch they climbed and breached the window with the drool it was here right here where she stood and they surrounded her in the last hostage deal sherry and the children did not return chamas using psychological warfare claimed that they had been killed the idf can still not verify or disprove the claim two weeks ago chamas published a cruel video of yarden in captivity in which he said his wife and children did not survive he looks very very thin i think he must have lost 35 pounds he receives the most horrible news a person can receive that his whole family was killed without us the family without support without knowing if it's true or false the video is like a noose constantly tightening its grip on his neck what have you heard about him from the release hostages we mainly heard he was not in a good state mentally and that is before the video was released one of them said he was depressed not sleeping day or night there were two captive women with him who saw he needed support and they took him under their wing at some point he received some pills which allowed him to get some sleep when the women were released they asked those who remained with yarden to be mindful of him help him they really tried to make sure he wouldn't be alone once they were released one of the women who was held with him said he had pains in his head that he had been hit on the head with a hammer this is my aunt margit's house and her husband jossy silverman 10 houses down is shiri's parents house jossy silverman 67 and margit silverman 63 who suffered from parkinson's disease they were both murdered after two weeks the idea found their bodies somewhere near the fence they took a wonderful couple who love each other good people my sister had a heart of gold the house was burnt to the ground here stood such pretty sofas there was dining table photos of kids and grandkids very gentle people very pleasant i can't see them resisting i tried to think why why them i tried to call her all day no answer suddenly at 4 30 p.m someone answers and say in arabic death death death so i said who is this who are you he said death again and hung up some arab took the phone to tell me what he had done death yes just unbelievable their dog's head was on this table they beheaded the dog and burned him did you see it i saw a photo of it yes with talks of another hostage deal in the works and the hostage family forum raising the pressure on the government yarden's father elie met this week with prime minister netanyahu it was a very good talk to the point and with emotion i believe they really want to do something but we understand there's also the other side making things difficult i really asked them to get your den out i fear he might hurt himself do you believe in god no but i'm willing to do anything to get my kids and grandchildren back i bought yarden to fill in a canokia what i can do just let them return safely i would say nesgador the miracle of all miracles to see the b-buss family that we may see our den sherry arielle and clear back with us along with all other hostages yesterday yarden and sherry's families the b-buss and silverman families gathered together for the inauguration of a Torah in neroz and from there they went to hostage square in tel aviv a jewish community in the united states wanted to strengthen them and donated a Torah that had survived the holocaust all of you came especially from united states to neroz yes the b-buss family hold a very special place in our heart ever since october the seventh we when we saw them on television we noticed the two boys with the red hair and we have two boys with red hair and it just they they they came deep into our heart and in our souls and we couldn't get them out and we pray for them every single day i await them i await them all i'm mad at everyone everyone the media the decision makers those who weren't there on october 7th i'm mad at all of them we're out for a short break but we'll have more at the top of the hour on these special editions of the i-24 news desk well is in a state of war families completely done down in their beds we have no idea where is she as our soldiers are fighting on the front line but the general perception is something that certainly needs to to be fought as well come to the special news edition on i-24 news i'm batch 11th all coming to you live from thanks for joining me it is day 80 of war between israel and hamas heavy fighting and the strip continues as the idea pushes on with its ground offensive to dismantle terror targets over the weekend the number of israeli troops killed in combat rose to 156 release for publication on sunday evening the idea revealed that earlier this month it found a large hamas tunnel network beneath the jubalia refugee camp near gaza city inside that tunnel they also found and recovered the bodies of three israeli soldiers and two civilians meanwhile israeli prime minister benjamin is now continues to hold that the war will continue until victory over hamas his latest comments coming as the war cabinet is set to examine an egyptian proposal for a new hostage deal following visits to kaira by both hamas and islamic jihad representatives here's more from the tunnel israeli citizens we are deepening the war in the gaza strip we will continue to fight until complete victory over hamas this is the only way to return our hostages eliminate hamas and ensure that gaza will no longer be a threat to israel it will take time but we are united the fighters the people and the government we are united and determined to fight to the end war has a price a very heavy price in the lives of our heroic warriors and we do everything to preserve the lives of our warriors but one thing will not be done we will not stop until we achieve victory well let's cross now live to our correspondent pia klushan though who is standing by for us in the south more specifically the israel guards abroad appear a quiet morning this morning but what is the latest on the ground where you are and also what we're hearing in terms of the fighting near the central part of the gaza strip right but it's quiet on the israeli territory as the last rocket fire was yesterday evening at 6 17 p.m. local time to be precise so it's over 14 or 15 hours that there hasn't been any rocket strike on israeli territory but the air is bruising with a lot of artillery pounding of presumed terror targets of hamas and palestin islamic jihad i'll show you what's going on in the area of the south sector of gaza city in the shejaya juchoradik el el murkaka neighborhood there's been a heavy strike an hour and a half ago and you still see pillars of smoke in in the sky that's probably a strike either from the air or from the navy and further south there's been a pounding of presumed terror targets in the three refugee camps of the central sector of the gaza strip el bourrige el morasi and nusserat and the roads linking between them the palestinian media affiliated to hamas a reporting 68 fatalities and scores of casualties south of those central refugee camps there there is a slow progression by five brigades in the heart and out of hannouness there in a junction of strategic access there was an a strike 23 casualties according to the palestinian media affiliated to hamas but all this count is very difficult to verify especially the fact that there is no distinction between the non-involved palestinian population and the terrorists so it's very difficult to know who was killed in those strikes but in general there is an incessant pounding of the gaza strip even in jebalia we hear from palestinian reports that jebalia refugee camp is still targeted that means that even though the israeli army has full operational control on the ground that's not necessarily the case and the ground and they are still isolated hamas squads of three to five people that are coming out of tunnel shafts that haven't been neutralized yet corresponding pia clash and they're giving us the latest on the ground near the gaza strip thank you very much for that and joining me now in studio is retired colonel amit asa a former member of the israeli security agency good morning to you um obviously we are seeing a change in strategy a little bit in the sense that the idf is moving from the north toward the center and at some points obviously not now they are going to have to move toward the south what at that point then happens to the civilian population in the gaza strip of which they've instructed to move further south so that it could operate in the north and the center um yes i think it's not an esoteric it's more tactic okay you are moving to the south of the gaza strip it's because we ended one uh one move at the north and now we have to go to the central camps like al-burej like noserat and what you said is right we have to deal with the rafa and especially the border between gaza strip to egypt the philadelphia area so we will see now moving to the south and as you said there is a problem of civilians um none um none of the idf willing is to to strike in a place that there is civilians but in the other hand hamas is not let the people go out from places that there is a situation of war and they are holding the their population to be uh the shield for their own so we have the problem in another hand we know that all civilians in gaza are supporting hamas from the beginning so even if it's not somebody that is member in hamas uh the civilians is uh opposing to uh to hamas and they are uh willing to have hamas to win so uh as we can see and it's my opinion um the population in israel the the um the society in israel is losing patience losing patience meaning we are getting a lot of casualties among uh our people our soldiers and meaning that there is a pressure on on the a the idf to make some big moves um and it's coming across the the uh the willing not to uh to hurt some civilians but it will we will see more pressure now on the gaza strip uh in my opinion and you mentioned briefly that this could move towards a different angle being the gaza and egypt border there is some criticism uh that this is a strategic failure on israel's part because that border has seen quite a lot of smuggling in particular with regards to weapons and arms just how much i mean is the responsibility really on israel to watch what happens on that border that is a border between egypt and gaza i think what we see now um especially egypt getting into uh pressure on israel to have any negotiation because they want to stop the war now that nobody will understand how much they helped hamas to get in equipment under the border of of egypt and gaza strip it's not the israel responsibility and it's egypt's responsibility and if we will find out what happened there and i know and everybody knows that we will we will find out this we will see how much egypt was was supported hamas supported this kind of organization of terror organization getting in this amount of ammunition this amount of of technology that got in it's not coming from the air it's not coming from the sea it's coming from the border of egypt and as we see egypt is getting in pressure egypt knows that uh idf is going to go to the philadelphia and find out and especially expose their their um a help to the hamas so we know now that the egyptian will press more to have a negotiation to stop the war that nobody will know this kind of event that they did and still on the topic of egypt israeli officials confirmed to several hebramedia outlets throughout the weekend that kairu has placed on the table a new proposal for retreats in the war with hamas and the release of more israeli hostages that are being held by the terror organization in gaza with some indicating that jr is not flat out rejecting the drafts and that it could lead to further negotiations earlier i spoke with agar shan baskin a key negotiator during the gelad shalit exchange deal back in 2011 and the middle east director of international community organization on the plan and just how viable it really is what we understand is that it's a three phase plan that would bring about a release of all the hostages a long-term ceasefire and some kind of more permanent arrangement in a post hamas gaza without knowing all the details it seems like the first comprehensive plan that's been put down on the table that addresses the two primary goals of israel in this war one is to dismantle hamas's ability to continue to govern gaza and threaten israel to and to bring all the hostages home it's not a hundred percent clear what is demanded from israel in return there are talks that the hostage deal includes an all for all in other words releasing all the hostages in phases and releasing all the palestinian prisoners in israel it's not clear to what extent the government of israel would be willing to engage on that basis but nonetheless the egyptians are a very important negotiator here they have a lot more experience in bringing about ceasefires between israel and hamas and islamic jihad they share a common border with us and with gaza and they have direct links to the underground hamas leadership the military wing of al-qasam as well as the islamic jihad which is much more beneficial for us than negotiating through qatar which is the state that's clearly on the side of hamas still with me here in studio retired colonel amit asa amit i want to get your comments on on that specifically with regards to how viable you think you said that the israeli population is losing patience kata has already put their hat in the ring a few times for hostage deals some of the most recent ones being rejected flat out by hamas until there's a complete cessation of fighting but what about egypt egypt is long known as as a top mediator between israel and hamas is their plan viable i think this plane is um this looks so good um anyway uh egypt was inside the negotiation then last time last time when we did the post they they've been in kata with everybody so they involved this is not the problem the problem is that israel will not go into negotiation from that kind of uh of proposal because it's not a proposal that comes together with what netanyahu said now and in the other hand hamas is not going to get into this negotiation until israel will stop fighting so we have a problem that israel in one side and hamas is in the other side and it's not something that we can um we can go together even if it is very very precise with what they say about about negotiation and um as we know hamas is with the back to the wall hamas is holding their forces for the last minutes now and they are trying to to get some some pressure but we know that they are with the back to the wall so israel doesn't have to go centimeter back from what netanyahu said and um also the community in israel will not let netanyahu to go back from what he said he will he said that we will go war and fighting until the end of the hamas and we will not stop and hamas knows that and true egypt that trying to do some ceasefire but in my opinion it will not end at the as a ceasefire and negotiation one of the major questions around obviously the the play out of this war was how on earth this happened how we had thousands of terrorists crossing the border given the fact that israel's intelligence can detect when a feather and a bird lands on the border and i don't think that those answers a need to be addressed right now and b will be addressed until all of this comes to a head but another major question that is being asked with regards to the intelligence is the idea of cutting the head off the snake why the Mossad in previous years knowing that the political echelon of hamas is situated in turkey in qatar has not planned to take them out yes the 8 000 hamas terrorists that have been eliminated in the gaza strip by the idea in the past two months of fighting no doubt takes a major knock to the organization but why have the top leaders not been taken out okay this is a big question because the top leaders knows that we are we want their head okay and it's not so easy okay they are putting themselves behind very good places like katar like in egypt they know that that time is running out okay it's not a question if they will be taking off it's a question of when and when is the best the best time for us the best time for the mosad the best time for the shabar to do it i will not i will be patient with it because it will happen so um it's not a matter of why it's a matter or if it's a matter of when and if you will be patient you will see that all of them will be will be dead at the end and especially we have to understand to uh to conquer some some kind of victory of hamas or a palestinian a way of thinking that they can hit israel that way that they did in the 7 of october meaning getting all the commanders down they're getting the troops down and getting them on the knees so this is what will happen and also sometime will take it maybe at the end it will be more time but we have this time we are patient in one hand when another hand it will happen okay in the last minute that we have left with you i want to ask you in your opinion um obviously there is no telling exactly when this war is going to come to an end the the war in 2014 was a matter of two months of fighting but then it took five years to stabilize but people are running out of patience on our requesting answers how much longer do you think that the actual war on the ground is going to continue for first um we have to think about the hostages okay it's one of the things that we have to solve the minute that we will solve this matter or hostages maybe we will uh go out with the reserve forces we will lower down the flames but the war will not stop the war will not stop until gaza will be empty off terrorist and be very very clean okay it will take time maybe month but this part of war this kind of action that we see now with a lot of forces i think will end the minute the all of the hostages will be in our side retired canola metas former member of the israeli security agency thank you so very much for your time and analysis here in studio this morning and speaking of the hostages in a heart-wrenching story that has captured the of the nation and i would argue many around the world the bibba's family remains held hostage in gaza their fate uncertain yarden sherry arielle and kfir were kidnapped from their home in near oars over 78 days ago now we're already on day 80 of the war meaning the hostages have been in captivity for 79 days as the days now turn into weeks in the weeks into months their relatives are left pleading for answers and desperately seeking their safe return more in the next report adapted from israel's channel 12 news so many days have passed not even my worst nightmares that i think i would still be sitting before you begging telling the story trying to understand just how terrible it is that an entire family and their babies are in captivity waiting for answers from those who are supposed to answer us but we haven't received any 38 children have been released from khama's captivity to have not really love tractors cars but i can't find anything here i think it was the last of the looters who did what they did to the house the bibba's family is helpless walking through yarden sherry arielle and kfir's home in gathering the remaining items trying to make sense of this painful story arielle really loved batman we found the drawing he made in kindergarten he must have asked the teacher to write i want to be a hero fly and rescue people stuck in a hole it's chilling to think he wrote that before all of this batman pajamas a token of their family he tried to prevent them coming in i don't know i don't i admit for him to fire his gun and still make it out alive doesn't add up they fired incessantly without a care for the cries and the screams of children they were just hell bent on getting in and getting the family out 76 days into the war even though almost everyone knows the story it is our duty to retell it yarden and sherry together for nine years raised both their ginger-haired children in sherry's childhood kibbutz niroz on october 7th the entire family was kidnapped from their home to gaza sherry 32 years old arielle for and kfir nine months old were kidnapped together yarden was kidnapped separately yarden sherry arielle kfir they aren't just gingers they aren't a symbol they are a family there were birthdays holidays that's the couch they climbed and breached the window with the droid it was here right here where she stood and they surrounded her in the last hostage deal sherry and the children did not return hamas using psychological warfare claimed that they had been killed the idf can still not verify or disprove the claim two weeks ago hamas published a cruel video of yarden in captivity in which he said his wife and children did not survive he looks very very thin i think he must have lost 35 pounds he receives the most horrible news a person can receive that his whole family was killed without us the family without support without knowing if it's true or false the video is like a noose constantly tightening its grip on his neck what have you heard about him from the released hostages we mainly heard he was not in a good state mentally and that is before the video was released one of them said he was depressed not sleeping day or night there were two captive women with him who saw he needed support and they took him under their wing at some point he received some pills which allowed him to get some sleep when the women were released they asked those who remained with yarden to be mindful of him help him they really tried to make sure he wouldn't be alone once they were released one of the women who was held with him said he had pains in his head that he had been hit on the head with a hammer this is my aunt margit's house and her husband jossy silverman ten houses down is sherry's parents house jossy silverman 67 and margit silverman 63 who suffered from parkinson's disease they were both murdered after two weeks the idea found their bodies somewhere near the fence they took a wonderful couple who love each other good people my sister had a heart of gold the house was burnt to the ground here stood such pretty sofas there was dining table photos of kids and grandkids very gentle people very pleasant i can't see them resisting i tried to think why why them i tried to call her all day no answer suddenly at 4 30 p.m someone answers and say in arabic death death death so i said who is this who are you he said death again and hung up some arab took the phone to tell me what he had done death yes just unbelievable their dog's head was on this table they beheaded the dog and burned him did you see it i saw a photo of it yes with talks of another hostage deal in the works and the hostage family forum raising the pressure on the government yarden's father ellie met this week with prime minister netanyahu it was a very good talk to the point and with emotion i believe they really want to do something but we understand there's also the other side making things difficult i really asked them to get your den out i fear he might hurt himself do you believe in god no but i'm willing to do anything to get my kids and grandchildren back i bought yarden to fill in a hanukia what i can do just let them return safely that we may see our den sherry ariel and clear back with us along with all other hostages yesterday yarden and sherry's families the b-bass and silverman families gathered together for the inauguration of a Torah in neroz and from there they went to hostage square in tel aviv a jewish community in the united states wanted to strengthen them and donated a Torah that had survived the holocaust all of you came especially from united states to neroz yes b-bass family holds a very special place in our heart ever since october the 7th we when we saw them on television we noticed the two boys with the red hair and we have two boys with red hair and it just they they they came deep into our heart and our souls and we couldn't get them out and we pray for them every single day i await them i await them all i'm mad at everyone everyone the media the decision makers those who weren't there on october 7th i'm mad at all of them we're out for a short break but we'll have more at the top of the hour on these special editions of the i-24 news desk well is in a state of war families completely done down in their beds we have no idea where is she as our soldiers are fighting on the front line but the general perception is something that certainly needs to to be fought as well come to the special edition on i-24 news and by 11th or coming to you live from our televised studios thanks for joining me it is day 80 of war between israel and hamas heavy fighting and the strip continues as the idf pushes on with its ground offensive to dismantle terror targets over the weekend the number of israeli troops killed in combat rose to 156 release for publication on sunday evening the idf revealed that earlier this month it found a large hamas tunnel network beneath the jubalia refugee camp near gaza city inside that tunnel they also found and recovered the bodies of three israeli soldiers and two civilians meanwhile israeli prime minister benjamin itzanyahu continues to hold that the war will continue until victory over hamas his latest comments coming as the wall cabinet is set to examine an egyptian proposal for a new hostage deal and it also follows recent visits to cairo by both hamas and islamic jihad representatives here's more from israeli citizens we are deepening the war in the gaza strip we will continue to fight until complete victory over hamas this is the only way to return our hostages eliminate hamas and ensure that gaza will no longer be a threat to israel it will take time but we are united the fighters the people and the government we are united and determined to fight to the end war has a price a very heavy price in the lives of our heroic warriors and we do everything to preserve the lives of our warriors but one thing will not be done we will not stop until we achieve victory and here with me in studio this hour is martin himmel a political and international security analyst martin good morning to you obviously one of the big issues at the moment is this idea that israel needs a hostage deal to bring the remaining over 100 hostages that are still being held by hamas palestinian islamic jihad and civilians as well in the gaza strip backed safely into israel but at the same time not messing with its plans of making sure as benjamin isanyao said that there's victory over hamas and that they eliminate the terror threat well this is why netanyahu has a bit of a trust problem because you can't defy gravity and at the same time flying free will you can't get the hostages without making a deal with hamas and hamas is not going to make a deal if the deal is their complete destruction so choices have to be made and that's up to the government i suppose but it would be nice if that situation was made more clarified and clear to the israeli public because there is a trust issue there's been various reports recently in particular in israeli media that the israeli government and those that are involved in the in the negotiations and the hostage will ceasefire deal are looking at possibly sparing the hamas leadership in order to bring all the hostages home that sounds to me like something that would not sit lightly with many in the israeli public left center right doesn't matter what area of the political spectrum you're on a promise was made to the israeli public of hamas will be eliminated the threat will cease to exist on the border and hundreds of thousands that are still currently displaced will be able to return home hence the probability the credibility problem you can't make bold wild statements of complete elimination and at the same time talk about what you're just saying that they're going to let the leadership go to fight another day as they say in return for the hostages not that that's not a good idea it might be a very good idea to let the leadership go for the hostages but you have to communicate the fact that life is a shade of different colors it's not black and white it's not absolute defeat absolute victory it involves painful compromise and that's not the message that's coming from the government speaking of some of the messages it's obviously come to the fore that there were a lot of security and intelligence failures around the actual event of october 7th being that so many terrorists were able to cross the border and detected the mass infiltrations that's something to the extent that we haven't seen in terms of a war with hamas in previous years more reports seem to be surfacing including one in the past hour by the haaretz daily newspaper in which apparently a key and senior idf officer had warned about the dangers of having a festival such as the nova festival of which was turned into a massacre of sorts so close to the Gaza border now the fear wasn't necessarily of infiltrations but rather of rocket fire how well is it in israel's interest to be producing to the public some of its failures does this bode well for them admitting that yes they are an army they have objectives but they also mess up sometimes or does it just feed into our enemies pr and those that are against israel as well well i think that in any war if you looked at world war two for example when minston churchell spoke to his people he told them the bitter hard truth of what was going on and i think that the bitter hard truth is very important for the israeli people very important to to come to terms that's what happens israel hasn't come to terms at all with october 7th because it hasn't been dealt with really everything is in abeyance because of the war but sooner or later and it might be sooner than later in all these issues are going to come to the front because like a volcano the pressures within the israeli society to come to terms of this and have accountability are growing all the time mightn't stay with me i want to continue this discussion but first i want to cross to our correspondent pia kloschenler who is standing by for us in the south of israel more specifically on the israeli Gaza border pia it's been quiet this morning but as we start moving towards noon has there been any updates recently where you are right we've seen an evacuation shopper who fled who flew very low above ground and it's obviously an evacuation shopper that was evacuating probably wounded soldiers from the eastern sector of the refugee camp of hanyunas in central gaza strip and that would prove that there are ground forces operating on the eastern outskirts of the el borage refugee camp in the central sector of the gaza strip we know from the idf spokesperson in arabic on friday that he urged the population the non-involved civilian population of el borage to evacuate south and this was in preparation of a potential ground offensive and now with this evacuation shopper we understand forces are really operating there on the eastern outskirts of the camp now in hanyunas the there are five brigades operating at the moment in and out of hanyunas it's a very slow progress because the idf has been surprised by the amount of underground tunnel that are lying underneath the city of 200 000 inhabitants 150 000 of them evacuated south according to palestinian media affiliated to hamas but all the displaced people came in and refilled the city we hear also from the kathari network al jazeera that the political leader of hamas whom according to the idf is probably hiding in shelters in the underground tunnels of hanyunas that he sent a letter to the political leader of hamas abroad ismail ania in which he said that five to seven thousand israeli troops were killed and wounded and that 750 vehicles were destroyed that's an amazing number and it seems that either yakhia sinua is not connected to reality right now or simply he wants to show the political leadership of hamas abroad that there is no way that hamas would accept a ceasefire in exchange for the liberation of hostages and of palestinian prisoners at this point correspondent pia clush and they are giving us the latest updates from the south this hour thank you very much for that and onto a different angle a spokesperson for iran's foreign ministry today being monday called the us claim that he ran and attacked a chemical ship near india quote baseless the pentagon said on saturday that a drone launch from iran struck a chemical tanker in the indian ocean that merchant vessel was linked to israel and comes on the back of similar attacks by one of iran's proxies in the region the huty rebels namely focusing on the red sea the attacks from yemen toward the southernmost tip of israel have prompted several major shipping companies to avoid the area which is having a knock on effect on global shipping there tends to be a lot of red alerts while we are live on air in fact there is one right now a red alert going off near the gaza border where our correspondent pia clush and la was just speaking to us live from no doubt heading towards a shelter still with me in studio martin himmel martin the other angle of this war that tends to be taking quite a bit of traction away from the main focal point being the actual fighting in the gaza strip is what's happening at the moment in the south or the most southern point of israel in the red sea that the shipping routes if i'm not mistaken i believe this is 12 to 14 percent of global shipping how is this having an impact on israel and just how dire is the situation to the point of possibly international pressure being put not just on the huties but iran and obviously all the players involved in this war to put an end to it well it's a very serious issue it's uh i think it's closer to 20 percent of shipping but this leads to higher oil costs worldwide higher shipping costs higher transport costs more inflation it's an international global problem it is a very serious problem for israel no one's talking about it that much here but it is a very serious problem and right for now israel has taken the position of working with the international community to solve it and it really is a problem in washington right now how much to exert military muscle which plays against the american interest of not globalizing or not expanding the conflict because the conflict will expand if they're going to be hitting the huties which makes it interesting to see why i mean iran is behind the whole thing so why is iran interested in this how far is iran interested in expanding the conflict obviously it's using it as a pressure point in what's going on in gaza but they face the risk of a conflagration that can engulf a lot of the middle east absolutely and obviously getting involved one of their other main proxies khizbole in the north to a larger extent which is clarifying exactly how far as you mentioned they're willing to go in this another interesting point here is having a look at Qatar that really did place itself or at least attempted to highlight its changed image if i can put it that way during the world cup that know they don't actually have slave labor that they are this wealthy country in the middle east that's open and even open to inviting enemy nations we know that israeli citizens were able to go to qatar to watch the world cup now they're in a situation where they are literally quote-unquote in bed with Hamas terrorists they're also playing the negotiating table with the united states how is their image going to be affected by this surely it's not going to be the bright image that they created just around the world cup time well so far they've actually created an image of being a quote-unquote honest broker and trying to solve this problem with the hostages but katar has been the chief financier of Hamas they have ideological affinity with Hamas as far as the muslim brotherhood goes along with turkey so they have clear interest in making sure that Hamas survives this war one of the ways they want to see him us survive the war is to deal with the hostage issue and try to get a long prolonged ceasefire in return and that's their leverage so in PR terms they're winning in the sense that they are trying to deal with the hostages in real terms it's dealing with the hostages but it's also trying to put Hamas keep influencing Hamas and keep Hamas alive speaking of turkey there's a lot of things that can be said about their incumbent president recep Tayyip Erdogan but one of the things that he is actually very well known for is how well he plays the game as well similar to that of katar in terms of playing both sides he's obviously a NATO member but then very much aligned with Islamist and I would say Palestinian and Arab causes in the Middle East but just how far can that game go in the sense of there's been a fortune of condemnation and critique coming from Erdogan and Turkey is still sending eight packages to Israel precisely Turkey you don't listen too much to what Erdogan has to say you have to see what he's doing and he has a key interest in seeing Hamas survive this war as well but he is a very stark realist he knows what the situation is and he's trying to play his influence with Israel, NATO and Hamas in order to come to some sort of conclusion that will leave Hamas somehow existing and in power in Gaza. Political and security and international affairs analysts thank you very much Martin Himmel for that. Moving on Israeli officials have confirmed to several Hebrew media outlets on Sunday that Egypt has placed on the table a new proposal for a truce in the war with Hamas and the release of more Israeli hostages that are currently being held in the Gaza Strip with some indicating that Jerusalem is not flat out rejecting the draft and that it could lead to further negotiations. Earlier I spoke with Gershon Baskin a key negotiator during the Gilad Shalit exchange deal back in 2011 and the Middle East director of the International Communities Organization on just what that plan is and how viable it is. What we understand is that it's a three phase plan that would bring about a release of all the hostages, a long-term ceasefire and some kind of more permanent arrangement in a post-Hamas Gaza. Without knowing all the details it seems like the first comprehensive plan that's been put down on the table that addresses the two primary goals of Israel in this war. One is to dismantle Hamas's ability to continue to govern Gaza and threaten Israel and to bring all the hostages home. It's not 100% clear what is demanded from Israel in return. There are talks that the hostage deal includes an all for all in other words releasing all the hostages in phases and releasing all the Palestinian prisoners in Israel. It's not clear to what extent the government of Israel would be willing to engage on that basis but nonetheless the Egyptians are a very important negotiator here. They have a lot more experience in bringing about ceasefires between Israel and Hamas and Islamic jihad. They share a common border with us and with Gaza and they have direct links to the underground Hamas leadership of the military wing of Al-Qassam as well as the Islamic jihad which is much more beneficial for us than negotiating through Qatar which is the state that's clearly on the side of Hamas. A major topic in this war which we have been discussing here in the I-24 news studios has been that of the active soldiers and the reservists. As we mentioned earlier in the broadcast over the weekend the IDF troop death toll has now risen to 156 and joining me now in studio is Zoe Bryan the founder of startup reserves for Israel. Thank you so very much for taking the time to be with me here this morning. Nice to meet you. Thank you for having me. I want to ask you a little bit about your organization. Tell us a little bit about what it is and where the idea came from to found it. Absolutely so startup reserves for Israel was founded on October 10th after the devastating news of October 7th you know became clear to all of us. My husband and I were reading an article about a founder who was nervous about the 30% loss of his workforce that he was experiencing and we just wanted to do something to help you know we had donated money to relevant organizations but wanted to be more hands-on so we created this organization that was aiming to you know place a couple of Americans in Israeli tech startups hoping that it would take off and you know amazingly enough 750 people signed up in the first tonight yeah through word of mouth entirely. So it's been really incredible to see the resolve of the global Jewish you know people supporting Israel right now. What is it exactly when people register and want to take part in this? How is it that they assist the high tech sector at the moment? So they sign up and they share what their areas of expertise are if they're marketers then they're paired with startups that are seeking marketing support. Sales individuals will support startups that are you know seeking support in sales. We've built a database of now we have almost 4,500 volunteers globally. They're not all Jewish they're what we're calling economic Zionists. They're people who believe in Israel and Israel's right to defend itself and you know they want to help and however they can so you know you can sign up to be a volunteer yourself and in support in Israeli startup in this time. Or you can also sign up sign up if you are a startup who could use the benefit of a couple of extra hands on deck right now. I do want to just point out to our audience that there are rocket alert sirens going off as we are currently on air at this hour around the Israel Gaza border communities. I want to ask you Zoe is this a manageable hiccup or how dire is the situation you mentioned that there was concern around what was going to happen the impact it was going to have on the economy as well as the startups but how explain a little bit to the audience about how dire of a situation it is to keep Israel's high tech sector afloat. The US and Israel's you know global tech relationship is incredibly intertwined not just in the US but globally and you know when the Israel startup ecosystem is suffering you know globally that landscape feels it as well. I believe the number is about 30% of the workforce here in Israel was called up to serve in the IDF reserve in the reservists and that has made your impact I think there's about you know 4,000 or 3,000 startups here in Israel a number of those are much smaller less than 10 people and a 20% 30% loss in hands is really significant especially when often there are CEOs themselves or founders who are defending Israel right now. Right it almost seems that with biggest startup companies obviously them taking a big hit to business as usual but as you mentioned with companies that have only 10 people it's hard to imagine how they can even survive something like this. Yeah yeah and you know we're not alone there's a number of organizations that are doing you know amazing work to help where they can. There's an initiative called wartime CEO that collects all these resources for smaller startup founders it includes our resource but there are a number of opportunities for smaller startups to seek help both in Israel and abroad right now. I'm really pleased that we're able to give you the platform here today to be able to explain what your what your idea was and I'd like to ask you if you could speak to a little bit the audience in terms of how they can get involved how is it that they can contact the organization or you and what is it that they would need in order to get involved. Absolutely we are you know welcoming all volunteers from all walks of life globally who are willing to donate you know 10 hours a week to Israeli startups that need the support right now and any Israeli tech startups that would like a couple of extra hands on deck we are here as a resource for you. You can go to startupreserves.org and follow the instructions for how to sign up if you're either a volunteer or a startup. And so just lastly obviously this was an idea that was born given the crisis at the moment as you mentioned 20 to 30 percent of the workforce a lot of them being reservists that put country before anything else including Korea which is a pretty remarkable thing for such a small state to do. Where do you see this going in the future is there a future like prospects in a sense for your idea or is it kind of just born to deal with the crisis. Yeah it's a great question and something that we think about a lot you know we of course want to be there while the crisis happens and God willing it's over you know in a few weeks and we never have to worry about this crisis again. I think that through this you know awful few months that we've all been living through we've really seen that the need for Israel and U.S. tech relationships is something that is everlasting and so there is a lot of opportunity to pivot the initiative into a more evergreen support channel for Israeli startups. Zoe Bryan the founder of startup reserves for Israel I take my metaphorical hat off to you kudos to you and your husband on doing such outstanding work. Thank you so much thanks for having me. And moving on to a different topic now the Christian world may be celebrating Christmas today being Monday the 25th of December but here in the Holy Land where Christianity was born the celebrations are overshadowed by the situation in the region and the lack of tourism pilgrims that usually crowd such towns as Jerusalem Bethlehem and Nazareth. Oriene Shapira has more on how Christmas was essentially cancelled this year in the Holy Land. It's supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year for Christians but here in the Holy Land Christmas looks a bit pale this year as opposed to previous years there are barely any Christmas trees and decorations around here in the old city of Jerusalem one of the most sacred places for Christians the Gaza war has overshadowed the celebrations. As on one hand we are very saddened by the loss of human life we're very sad that the Israel has to engage in a war against the evil of Hamas and at the same time we have something to celebrate so as it's been described it's a bit like perhaps the Jewish understanding of the Sabbath on the Sabbath even if you're in a time of mourning or sadness you don't fast and you don't mourn and so Christmas for us this year will be something similar. The Christ Church was one of the first Protestant institutes in the Holy City Reverend David Pillaghi tells his personal encounter with the situation. We're not doing anything special this year although we have quite an extensive aid program helping the victims of the Israel Hamas war and so that's taking most of our focus and our attention but as usual Ori will be having a open house we'll be receiving the public and then tomorrow we Christmas Day we also have a service as well. The current situation has also affected the tourism industry in Israel in general and Christian pilgrimage to the Holy Land in particular. Unfortunately Christmas New Year's we just ended Hanukkah this is the peak of the tourism season any year except for this year. This year is sad because we cannot celebrate Christmas Christmas has been canceled in most places people came here and went to see the lights in the Christian quarter the Christmas Bazaar the merchandising and Christianity basically was during that time. However with tourism zero following the attack by Hamas we have no tourism. This year is known as Jerusalem Santa for years he's celebrated the holiday in his small decorated old house in the Christian quarter the so-called Santa on a camel has a clear message to Christians around the world. This year it's not easy last year I have 25 000 people visiting me in my Santa house in all December this year I have a few like let's say around three to four thousand till now we have but because there's no tourists also there are no flights to come to all the way to Israel. My message this year is hope love and peace from Jerusalem to the Holy Land and to the world. But despite the tension and the atmosphere people of the Holy Land are still dreaming of a white Christmas and hope for a better time next year. In the meantime they wish everyone Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. We're heading out for another break but stay with us because at the top of the hour we'll have more updates around day 80 of the war between Israel and Hamas. You're looking at live images now of the Israel Gaza border just a short while ago after 15 hours of lull rocket fire being directed towards the Gaza border communities areas like where the Nova Music Festival massacre took place as well as in native Asara all these areas that were so badly impacted on October 7th many of the Kibbutz that were rampaged by thousands of Hamas terrorists where people were not only murdered and tortured but many kidnapped as well into the Gaza Strip. Heavy fighting in the Strip continues as the IDF pushes on with its ground offensive to dismantle much of the terror targets over the weekend the number of Israeli troops unfortunately rose to 156 this is the IDF continues to push from the north further into the center in order to continue with the Israeli government's plan of eradicating Hamas getting rid of the threats on their border and making sure that all hostages are brought back to Israel safe and sound stay with us we'll be right back with more Israel is in a state of war families completely done down in their beds we have no idea where is she as our soldiers are fighting on the front lines but the general perception is something that certainly needs to to be fought as well so we're seeing the first generation of solar panels now being recycled what's exciting is we're at the forefront what is about to happen is a tsunami of solar panels coming back into the supply chain come to the special edition on i24 news and by 11th or coming July from our Tel Aviv studios thanks for joining me it is day 80 of war between Israel and Hamas heavy fighting in the Strip continues as the IDF pushes on with its ground offensive to dismantle terror targets over the weekend the number of Israeli troops killed in combat rose to 156 release for publication on Sunday evening the IDF revealed that earlier this month it found a large Hamas tunnel network beneath the Jabalia refugee camp near Gaza city inside that tunnel they also found and recovered the bodies of three Israeli soldiers and two civilians meanwhile Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to hold that the war will continue until victory over Hamas his latest comments coming as the war cabinet is set to examine an Egyptian proposal for a new hostage deal and it also follows recent visits to Cairo by both Hamas and Islamic jihad representatives here's more from Netanyahu Israeli citizens we are deepening the war in the Gaza Strip we will continue to fight until complete victory over Hamas this is the only way to return our hostages eliminate Hamas and ensure that Gaza will no longer be a threat to Israel it will take time but we are united the fighters the people and the government we are united and determined to fight to the end war has a price a very heavy price in the lives of our heroic warriors and we do everything to preserve the lives of our warriors but one thing will not be done we will not stop until we achieve victory and here with me in studio this hour is Martin Himmel a political and international security analyst Martin good morning to you obviously one of the big issues at the moment is this idea that Israel needs a hostage deal to bring the remaining over 100 hostages that are still being held by Hamas Palestinian Islamic jihad and civilians as well in the Gaza Strip backed safely into Israel but at the same time not messing with its plans of making sure as Benjamin Netanyahu said that there's victory over Hamas and that they eliminate the terror threat well this is why Netanyahu has a bit of a trust problem because you can't defy gravity and at the same time fly free will you can't get the hostages without making a deal with Hamas and Hamas is not going to make a deal if the deal is their complete destruction so choices have to be made and that's up to the government I suppose but it would be nice if that situation was made more clarified and clear to the Israeli public because there is a trust issue there's been various reports recently in particular in Israeli media that the Israeli government and those that are involved in the in the negotiations and the hostage or ceasefire deal are looking at possibly sparing the Hamas leadership in order to bring all the hostages home that sounds to me like something that would not sit lightly with many in the Israeli public left center right doesn't matter what area of the political spectrum you're on a promise was made to the Israeli public of Hamas will be eliminated the threat will cease to exist on the border and hundreds of thousands that are still currently displaced will be able to return home hence the probably credibility problem you can't make bold wild statements of complete elimination and at the same time talk about what you're just saying that they're going to let the leadership go to fight another day as they say in return for the hostages not that that's not a good idea it might be a very good idea to let the leadership go for the hostages but you have to communicate the fact that life is a shade of different colors it's not black and white it's not absolute defeat absolute victory it involves painful compromise and that's not the message that's coming from the government speaking of some of the messages it's obviously come to the fore that there were a lot of security and intelligence failures around the actual event of October 7th being that so many terrorists were able to cross the border and detected the mass infiltrations that's something to the extent that we haven't seen in terms of a war with Hamas in previous years more reports seem to be surfacing including one in the past hour by the Haaretz daily newspaper in which apparently a key and senior IDF officer had warned about the dangers of having a festival such as the Nova festival of which was turned into a massacre of sorts so close to the Gaza border now the fear wasn't necessarily of infiltrations but rather of rocket fire how well is it in Israel's interest to be producing to the public some of its failures does this bode well for them admitting that yes they are an army they have objectives but they also mess up sometimes or does it just feed into our enemies PR and those that are against Israel as well well I think that in any war if you looked at world war two for example when Winston Churchill spoke to his people he told them the bitter hard truth of what was going on and I think that the bitter hard truth is very important for the Israeli people very important to come to terms that's what happens Israel hasn't come to terms at all with October 7th because it hasn't been dealt with really everything is in abeyance because of the war but sooner or later and it might be sooner than later in all these issues are going to come to the front because like a volcano the pressures within Israeli society to come to terms of this and have accountability are growing all the time mightn't stay with me I want to continue this discussion but first I want to cross to our correspondent pia kloschen though who is standing by for us in the south of Israel more specifically on the Israel Gaza border pia it's been quiet this morning but as we start moving towards noon has there been any updates recently where you are right we've seen an evacuation shopper who flight who flew flew very low above ground and it's obviously an evacuation shopper that was evacuating probably wounded soldiers from the eastern sector of the refugee camp of Hanyunas in central Gaza Strip and that would prove that there are ground forces operating on the eastern outskirts of the El Buraj refugee camp in the central sector of the Gaza Strip we know from the IDF spokesperson in arabic on friday that he urged the population the non-involved civilian population of El Buraj to evacuate south and this was in preparation of a potential ground offensive and now with this evacuation shopper we understand forces are really operating there on the eastern outskirts of the camp now in Hanyunas there are five brigades operating at the moment in and out of Hanyunas it's a very slow progress because the IDF has been surprised by the amount of underground tunnel that are lying underneath the city of 200 000 inhabitants 150 000 of them evacuated south according to Palestinian media affiliated to Hamas but all the displaced people came in and refilled the city we hear also from the Qatari network Al Jazeera that the political leader of Hamas whom according to the IDF is probably hiding in shelters in the underground tunnels of Hanyunas that he sent a letter to the political leader of Hamas abroad Ismail Aniyah in which he said that five to seven thousand Israeli troops were killed and wounded and that 750 vehicles were destroyed that's an amazing number and it seems that either Yahya Sinwa is not connected to reality right now or simply he wants to show the political leadership of Hamas abroad that there is no way that Hamas would accept a ceasefire in exchange for the liberation of hostages and of Palestinian prisoners at this point. Correspondent Pierre Clashendlayer giving us the latest updates from the south this hour thank you very much for that and on to a different angle a spokesperson for Iran's foreign ministry today being Monday called the US claim that Iran had attacked a chemical ship near India quote baseless the Pentagon said on Saturday that a drone launch from Iran struck a chemical tanker in the Indian Ocean that merchant vessel was linked to Israel and comes on the back of similar attacks by one of Iran's proxies in the region the Houthi rebels namely focusing on the Red Sea the attacks from Yemen toward the southernmost tip of Israel have prompted several major shipping companies to avoid the area which is having a knock on effects on global shipping there tends to be a lot of red alerts while we are live on air in fact there is one right now of red alerts going off near the Gaza border where our correspondent Pierre Clashendlayer was just speaking to us live from no doubt heading towards a shelter still with me in studio Martin Himmel Martin the other angle of this war that tends to be taking quite a bit of traction away from the main focal point being the actual fighting in the Gaza Strip is what's happening at the moment in the south or the most southern point of Israel in the Red Sea that the shipping routes if I'm not mistaken I believe this is 12 to 14 percent of global shipping how is this having an impact on Israel and just how dire is the situation to the point of possibly international pressure being put not just on the Houthis but Iran and obviously all the players involved in this war to put an end to it well it's a very serious issue it's I think it's closer to 20 percent of shipping but this leads to higher oil costs worldwide higher shipping costs higher transport costs more inflation it's an international global problem it is a very serious problem for Israel no one's talking about it that much here but it is a very serious problem and right for now Israel has taken the position of working with the international community to solve it and it really is a problem in Washington right now how much to exert military muscle which plays against the American interest of not globalizing or not expanding the conflict because the conflict will expand if they're going to be hitting the Houthis which makes it interesting to see why I mean Iran is behind the whole thing so why is Iran interested in this how far is Iran interested in expanding the conflict obviously it's using it as a pressure point in what's going on in Gaza but they face the risk of a conflagration that can engulf a lot of the Middle East absolutely and obviously getting involved one of their other main proxies Hezbollah in the north to a larger extent which is clarifying exactly how far as you mentioned they willing to go in this another interesting point here is having a look at Qatar that really did place itself or at least attempted to highlight its changed image if I can put it that way during the World Cup that know they don't actually have slave labor that they are this wealthy country in the Middle East that's open and even open to inviting enemy nations we know that Israeli citizens were able to go to Qatar to watch the World Cup now they're in a situation where they are literally quote-unquote in bed with Hamas terrorists they're also playing the negotiating table with the United States how is their image going to be affected by this surely it's not going to be the bright image that they created just around the World Cup time well so far they've actually created an image of being a quote-unquote honest broker and trying to solve this problem with the hostages but Qatar has been the chief financier of Hamas they have ideological affinity with Hamas as far as the Muslim brotherhood goes along with Turkey so they have clear interest in making sure that Hamas survives this war one of the ways they want to see him us survive the war is to deal with the hostage issue and try to get a long prolonged ceasefire in return and that's their leverage so in PR terms they're winning in the sense that they are trying to deal with the hostages in real terms it's dealing with the hostages but it's also trying to put Hamas keep influencing Hamas and keep Hamas alive speaking of Turkey there's a lot of things that can be said about their incumbent president Recep Tayyip Erdogan but one of the things that he is actually very well known for is how well he plays the game as well similar to that of Qatar in terms of playing both sides he's obviously a NATO member but then very much aligned with Islamist and I would say Palestinian and Arab causes in the Middle East but just how far can that game go in the sense of there's been a fortune of condemnation and critique coming from Erdogan and Turkey is still sending eight packages to Israel precisely Turkey you don't listen too much to what Erdogan has to say you have to see what he's doing and he has a key interest in seeing Hamas survive this war as well but he is a very stark realist he knows what the situation is and he's trying to play his influence with Israel NATO and Hamas in order to come to some sort of conclusion that will leave Hamas somehow existing and in power in Gaza political and security and international affairs analysts thank you very much Martin Hemel for that moving on Israeli officials have confirmed to several Hebrew media outlets on Sunday that Egypt has placed on the table a new proposal for a truce in the war with Hamas and the release of more Israeli hostages that are currently being held in the Gaza Strip with some indicating that Jerusalem is not flat out rejecting the draft and that it could lead to further negotiations earlier I spoke with Gershon Baskin a key negotiator during the Gilad Shalit exchange deal back in 2011 and the Middle East director of the international communities organization on just what that plan is and how viable it is what we understand is that it's a three phase plan that would bring about a release of all the hostages a long-term ceasefire and some kind of more permanent arrangement in a post Hamas Gaza without knowing all the details it seems like the first comprehensive plan that's been put down on the table that addresses the two primary goals of Israel in this war one is to dismantle Hamas's ability to continue to govern Gaza and threaten Israel to and to bring all the hostages home it's not a hundred percent clear what is demanded from Israel in return there are talks that the hostage deal includes in all for all in other words releasing all the hostages in phases and releasing all the Palestinian prisoners in Israel it's not clear to what extent the government of Israel would be willing to engage on that basis but nonetheless the Egyptians are a very important negotiator here they have a lot more experience in bringing about ceasefires between Israel and Hamas and Islamic jihad they share a common border with us and with Gaza and they have direct links to the underground Hamas leadership the military wing of Al-Qassam as well as the Islamic jihad which is much more beneficial for us than negotiating through Qatar which is the state that's clearly on the side of Hamas a major topic in this war of which we have been discussing here in the i-24 news studios has been that of the active soldiers and the reserves as we mentioned earlier in the broadcast over the weekend the IDF troop death toll has now risen to 156 and joining me now in studio is Zoe Brian the founder of startup reserves for Israel thank you so very much for taking the time to be with me here this morning nice to meet you thank you for having me I want to ask you a little bit about your organization tell us a little bit about what it is and where the idea came from to found it absolutely so the startup reserves for Israel was founded on October 10th after the devastating news of October 7th you know became clear to all of us my husband and I were reading an article about a founder who was nervous about the 30 loss of his workforce that he was experiencing and we just wanted to do something to help you know we had donated money to relevant organizations but wanted to be more hands-on so we created this organization that was aiming to you know place a couple of Americans in Israeli tech startups hoping that it would take off and you know amazingly enough 750 people signed up in the first tonight yeah through word of mouth entirely so it's been really incredible to see the resolve of the globe the global Jewish you know people supporting Israel right now what is it exactly when when people register and want to take part in this how is it that they assist the high tech sector at the moment so they sign up and they share what their areas of expertise are if they're marketers then they're paired with startups that are seeking marketing support sales individuals will support startups that are you know seeking support in sales we've built a database of now we have almost 4500 volunteers globally they're not all Jewish they're what we're calling economic Zionists they're people who believe in Israel and Israel's right to defend itself and you know they want to help and however they can so you know you can sign up to be a volunteer yourself and in support in Israeli startup in this time or you can also sign up sign up if you are a startup who could use the benefit of a couple of extra hands on deck right now I do want to just point out to our audience that there are rocket alert sirens going off as we are currently on air at this hour around the Israel Gaza border communities I wanted to ask you Zoe is this a manageable hiccup or how dire is the situation you mentioned that there was concern around what was going to happen the impact it was going to have on the economy as well as the startups but how explain a little bit to the audience about how dire of a situation it is to keep Israel's high tech sector afloat yeah the US and Israel's you know global tech relationship is incredibly intertwined not just in the US but globally and you know when the Israel startup ecosystem is suffering you know globally that landscape feels it as well I believe the number is about 30% of the workforce here in Israel was called up to serve in the IDF reserve in the reservists and that has made your impact I think there's about you know 4,000 or 3,000 startups here in Israel a number of those are much smaller less than 10 people and a 20% 30% loss in hands is really significant especially when often there are CEOs themselves or founders who are defending Israel right now right it almost seems that with biggest startup companies obviously them taking a big hit to business as usual but as you mentioned with companies that have only 10 people it's hard to imagine how they can even survive something like this yeah yeah and you know we're not alone there's a number of organizations that are doing you know amazing work to help where they can there's an initiative called wartime CEO that collects all these resources for smaller startup founders it includes our resource but there are a number of opportunities for smaller startups to seek help both in Israel and abroad right now I'm really pleased that we're able to give you the platform here today to be able to explain what your what's your idea was and I'd like to ask you if you could speak so a little bit the audience in terms of how they can get involved how is it that they can contact the organization or you and what is it that they would need in order to get involved absolutely we are you know welcoming all volunteers from all walks of life globally who are willing to donate you know 10 hours a week to Israeli startups that need the support right now and any Israeli tech startups that would like a couple of extra hands on deck we are here as a resource for you you can go to startup reserves.org and follow the instructions for how to sign up if you're either a volunteer or a startup and so we just lastly obviously this was an idea that was born given the crisis at the moment as you mentioned 20 to 30 percent of the workforce a lot of them being reservists that put country before anything else including Korea which is a pretty remarkable thing for such a small state to do where do you see this going in the future is there a future like prospects in a sense for your idea or is it kind of just born to deal with the crisis yeah it's a great question and something that we think about a lot you know we of course want to be there while the crisis happens and god willing it's over you know in a few weeks and we never have to worry about this crisis again I think that through this you know awful few months that we've all been living through we've really seen that the need for Israel and US tech relationships is something that is everlasting and so there is a lot of opportunity to pivot the initiative into a more evergreen support channel for Israeli startups Zoe Brian the founder of startup reserves for Israel I take my metaphorical hat off to you kudos to you and your husband on doing such outstanding work thank you so much thanks for having me and moving on to a different topic now the christian world may be celebrating Christmas today being monday the 25th of december but here in the holy land where christianity was born the celebrations are overshadowed by the situation in the region and the lack of tourism pilgrims that usually crowd such towns as Jerusalem Bethlehem and Nazareth Ori Shepera has more on how Christmas was essentially cancelled this year in the holy land it's supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year for christians but here in the holy land christmas looks a bit pale this year as opposed to previous years there are barely any christmas trees and decorations around here in the old city of jerusalem one of the most sacred places for christians the gaza war has overshadowed the celebrations as on one hand we are very saddened by the loss of human life we're very sad that the israel has to engage in a war against the evil of khamas and at the same time we have something to celebrate so as it been described it's a bit like perhaps the jewish understanding of the Sabbath on the Sabbath even if you're in a time of mourning or sadness you don't fast and you don't mourn and so christmas for us this year will be something similar the christ church was one of the first protestant institutes in the holy city reverend david pilaghi tells his personal encounter with the situation we're not doing anything special this year although we have a quite an extensive aid program helping the victims of the israel khamas war and so that's taking most of our focus and our attention but as usual uri will be having a open house will be receiving the public and then tomorrow we christmas day we will also have a service as well the current situation has also affected the tourism industry in israel in general and christian pilgrimage to the holy land in particular unfortunately christmas new years we just ended hannukah this is the peak of the tourism season any year except for this year this year sad because we cannot celebrate christmas christmas has been cancelled in most places people came here and went to see the lights in the christian quarter the christmas bazaar the merchandising and christianity basically was during that time however would tourism zero following the attack by khamas with no tourism issa kassisi is known as Jerusalem center for years he's celebrated the holiday in his small decorated old house in the christian quarter the so-called center on a camel has a clear message to christians around the world this year it's not easy last year i have 25 000 people visiting me in my center house in all december this year i have a few like let's say around three to four thousand till now we have but because there's no tourists also or there are no flights to come to all the way to israel my message this year is hope love and peace from jerusalem to the holy land and to the world but despite the tension and the atmosphere people of the holy land are still dreaming of a white christmas and hope for a better time next year in the meantime they wish everyone merry christmas and a happy new year we're heading out for another break but stay with us because at the top of the hour we'll have more updates around day 80 of the war between israel and khamas you're looking at live images now of the israel gaza border just a short while ago after 15 hours of lull rocket fire being directed towards the gaza border communities areas like reem where the nova music festival massacre took place as well as in native asara all these areas that were so badly impacted on october 7 many of the kibbutz that were rampaged by thousands of khamas terrorists where people were not only murdered and tortured but many kidnapped as well into the gaza strip heavy fighting in the strip continues as the idf pushes on with its ground offensive to dismantle much of the terror targets over the weekend the number of israeli troops unfortunately rose to 156 this is the idf continues to push from the north further into the center in order to continue with the israeli government's plan of eradicating khamas getting rid of the threats on their border and making sure that all hostages are brought back to israel safe and sound stay with us we'll be right back with more israel is in a state of war families completely done down in their beds we have no idea where she has our soldiers are fighting on the front line but the general perception is something that certainly needs to to be fought as well welcome to another special edition on i-24 news i'm bat 11th or coming to live from our televised studios thanks for joining me this hour it is day 80 of war between israel and khamas heavy fighting in the strip continues as the idf pushes on with its ground offensive to dismantle terror targets over the weekend the number of israeli troops killed in combat rose to 156 release for publication on sunday evening the idf revealed that earlier this month it found a large khamas tunnel network beneath the jabalia refugee camp in gaza city inside that tunnel they also found and recovered the bodies of three israeli soldiers and two civilians meanwhile israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu continues to hold that the war will continue until victory over khamas as latest comments coming as the war cabinet is set to examine an egyptian proposal for a new hostage deal which also follows recent visits to kaira by khamas and islamic jihad representatives here's more from benjamin netanyahu israeli citizens we are deepening the war in the gaza strip we will continue to fight until complete victory over khamas this is the only way to return our hostages eliminate khamas and ensure that gaza will no longer be a threat to israel it will take time but we are united the fighters the people and the government we are united and determined to fight to the end war has a price a very heavy price in the lives of our heroic warriors and we do everything to preserve the lives of our warriors but one thing will not be done we will not stop until we achieve victory well let's cross now live to the south of israel for an update from our correspondent pier clash and those standing by for us on the israel gaza border pier it was around a 16 hour lull and quiet on the border but around 50 minutes ago rocket fire headed towards the southern communities where you are the communities are largely evacuated so exactly what is the danger in these areas now and just how many rockets were being fired over the border yes absolutely but yeah there were three rocket launch emanating from the central refugee camps of nusera tell bourgeoisie which were bombed heavily overnight with 50 a strikes at least according to palestinian media affiliated to khamas and which caused 68 fatalities according to them difficult to confirm difficult to distinguish between non-involved population and hamas terrorists the rockets targeted rayim which is just very a few kilometers from where we are and then also the northern tip of the gaza strip nativa sara facing the northern tip and the southern part of the city of of vashkelon 10 kilometers away from gaza but no damage no casualties our correspondent pier clash and they're giving us an update from the south thank you for that moving the conversation to studio now where i am joined by reserve lieutenant colonels ron avital a former commander for the idf special forces good afternoon to you and thanks for being here um a little bit concerning at this hour as well that there are reports coming out from an israeli town you know to carum in the west bank that residents are again hearing digging this sort of reminiscent of the digging that was heard both in the south on the border with gaza and in the north of hezbollah over recent years could we be seeing another front popping up on the east well i'm not sure i mean the central command would look into it thoroughly and we shouldn't forget those territories are though there are eight territories and so on they're fully under our command and we all the time do those incursion inside so we can check it really thoroughly this is not gaza on the other side of the fence so this is a different scenario so i say not to get into panic where we can check we can verify it there's no question that they're creating in those refugee camps shelters underneath we saw a few things like this but if we think in terms of a tunnel system like the one we found in gaza it can't come even close to this but of course we have to careful i don't want to predict but i'm sure that i'll check it out and i'm sure it will be verified what the extent in which and if and what the extent of which there is such a thing israel is currently reeling after two more soldiers this weekend were pronounced dead killed in heavy fighting in the gaza strip bringing the total to 156 now undoubtedly this cannot be compared with the casualty numbers that are coming out of gaza again we're talking about a legitimate army versus terrorists a lot of the time that use a lot of guerrilla warfare tactics that don't engage in the international rules of war just how in terms of putting that number on a scale 156 to the israeli population is is heart sore every life is heart sore as we've learned in this country in particular looking at you know deals to bring back bodies let alone alive captives but just how big is that number in terms of overall casualties i mean they really are entering a war zone where there is a fortune of booby traps is that number relatively low or is that quite a high i wouldn't say it's low i mean we do it's hard to expect i mean in the beginning when we entered we were expecting high taller in terms of our soldiers getting killed and in the beginning was it's a little bit smoother it felt confident but like it is in guerrilla war sometimes you are being lured in and then you have to really engage with this guerrilla people coming from those spears from those tunnels they're hitting on our forces they're using explosive and so on so i think i don't want to in terms of number i mean this is the toll you have to pay in order to have a campaign like this and this is a serious campaign and we are talking about we found out that we have a real guerrilla army over there with this infrastructure that really makes this urban warfare a different magnitude of an urban warfare i'm a veteran of 82 lebanon berut urban warfare but with this kind of infrastructure underneath this is a different story add to it the hostage issue which limits our ability add to it the population that is really implicated in many respects with the Hamas and sometimes how to distinguish between Hamas and citizens you have a complexity that takes the toll and this weekend was a very hard in terms of the death i think 14 or two more death this is hard not easy absolutely and there's no doubt over the last 80 days of looking at just the complexities that are involved in fighting in in such a compact area and just the type of fighting again it's not against an army it is against a terror organization that doesn't play by the same rules speaking of Lebanon an interesting comparison that was being made that although there are so many soldier and troop casualties in Gaza at the moment as you mentioned that number keeps rising and fortunately given the difficulties but a difference is is that from a physical point of view in terms of their physical shape there is not a food shortage like there was during the war with lebanon they are being rotated all the time to the point that we've called up so many reservists that people are coming in and out of Gaza to the point that they are awake and alert what is the impacts it's it's impossible to even gauge with the civilians at this point the mental and psychological impact but we're talking about seeing images that are not normal in warfare looking bombs and weaponry and rockets being hidden in babies cribs i believe that the IDF just yesterday found a suicide vest that was fitted to children this is something that's not normal how how are the soldiers equipped to deal with this let alone during the war but after the war as well no i think the Israeli soldier is built up to such scenarios he's prepared we know that the Hamas was using kits to carry the explosive from door to door because he knew we wouldn't target them we know we're location of peers inside schools and inside the hospitals for sure we notice this is part of the logic the logic the complexity or the problem of this war i think we are trained to this we have to keep the the right restraint and then look for our enemy when we find it i think the army does it the complexity exists we shouldn't forget that this is a landscape of war that is very close to israel it's not that it's not Beirut it's not the the whole of Lebanon so of course people can come in out the soldiers and and you talked about the Israeli population the the fathers and the mothers that have their kids a few kilometers away from them fighting for their life and then coming back maybe after a few weeks this is a it pays a toll on the Israeli public in the Israeli society i see it among my friends that those soldiers say this is a big issue but the campaign has to continue and it continues i think right now it's a heavy campaign it takes time it's not it's a slow campaign in many respects but we have no other choice in the context of the complexity of this war absolutely and as israel has been trying to put forward this is an existential threat not just one that's you know netanyahu has previously said and keeps holding that there will never be another war with Hamas because they will cease to exist but moving from the south to the north what does that mean in terms of chizbola because the operational tactics and strategy of the IDF is to rid the threat on the southern border to get rid of Hamas but we still have a major threat in fact probably a scarier threat the big bad brother of Hamas on the northern border how is israel prepared to deal with that threat just this morning the idea of confirming that they were striking targets chizbola targets inside lebanon chizbola is a bigger force with a bigger weaponry can hit center televiv with much more directed missile this is a big challenge for us for sure but our aim there is really to push them away to the litany border to the according to the 1701 a un agreement from 2006 i don't we don't think on talks in terms of eliminating chizbola that's not our target our target to see them away from our border so we can bring out back ours our the people that live near the border and they can do their corpse is that a possibility though is a possibility to push them back the possibility what a military campaign so this is the question and it's not a possible possibility without a serious a military threat that can be exercised once we decide that there's no other choice so we have to use the diplomatic campaign and it's being in right now exercised by the u.s and the french because lebanon is a society in a very fragile state economically and otherwise and i don't think the lebanese themselves want to see a campaign in the in the in the land so the question whether we can use the diplomatic leverage to push them away but we have to exercise this military threat and maybe it will end with a military campaign nobody knows that we have to be prepared but we are prepared now we are we won't be surprised the way we were surprised in the 7th of october so it's a different the game will start in a different starting point from our perspective and i feel we are pretty strong sitting on the targets they are waiting and when the when the decision will come we can hit them as you mentioned a slow but very strategic campaign the reserve lieutenant colonel dronavital thank you so very much for taking the time to be in studio this afternoon and for your analysis also with me is professor omer moav a professor of economics at reichmann university here in israel and the university of warwick in the united kingdom thank you for being with me here this afternoon thank you for having me now hundreds of thousands of reservists have been called up a massive chunk of israel's workforce too explain a bit how a country like israel would be able to survive a prolonged war like this would there be a need for some kind of middle east marshal plan to help israel's economy well i the question actually depends on what the government will do if we had a responsible government that realizes the economic challenge and responds in a in the right way then of course this is this is a strong hit and of course we will all as citizens of israel pay a high price but i don't think there is any just the war itself is not a threat to the israeli economy the longer run the problem is we have a government which still continues spending money and just increasing more and more spending on the things that are unrelated to the needs of the country at the moment the coalition agreements so while soldiers are fighting and while businesses are collapsing they're just pouring tons of money billions of shekels with commitments to the futures of tens of millions of shekels to the ultra orthodox to the settlements again in normal times this could be a political decision that could be justified perhaps they are in power but in times of war this seems like really a lack of responsibility i could say also interestingly that the stock market is now higher than it was before the war started so you could see from that that the threat of the legal revolution that the government was pushing towards is is worse than the war itself for the economy right so and now the war has in a sense is good for the economy despite the huge huge price in life and in money because it reduces the probability that the israeli government will continue with this revolution well let's touch a little bit more on that because at first the shekel took a major hit people were panic buying dollars euros moving assets out but now it appears not only to have stabilized and as you mentioned the shekels actually strengthened against major currencies so how does one explain this peculiar financial trend depicting israel's embattled but insanely resilient economy yeah i think that one should not try to seriously explain the short run shocks to the shekel or the stock exchange you know people panic and i think that the experts that expose provide a rational explanation for everything or just you know expose rationalizing that it's not really anything serious but i think that now the things have stabilized and we see that the military is is functioning unlike what happened on the on october 7 where there was big question marks about the ability of the israeli army to actually win this war now things look better on that front and again i think that in terms of the economy as sad as it sounds and it is sad that we needed the war in order to when i wouldn't say i would be too optimistic if i would say to kill the legal revolution that netanyahu and his government is trying to do but the probability is much lower that they would do that so we have a government that is really damaging the economy in a terrible way and that's the big challenge of the state of israel not just the war of course the war as i said is the huge cost and every one of us would pay a high price over the years in higher taxes and less services from the government and or maria just briefly how exactly is the crisis that's unfolding now with the red sea the hooties as well as iran targeting the shipping and the vessels that are heading toward the red sea oil prices are going up delivery times are slowing down it only accounts for 30 percent of israeli imports but 15 percent of global shipping yeah so of course that's another hit to the economy but i think in the my my um i would evaluate this in the big picture of the israeli challenges to the economy as not something major i suppose the world would do something about that uh this is a threat that is worse for egypt than for israel so there is here uh joint interests to uh go back to norman uh and in a sense this is quite similar to something we have experienced with during coveted and then the another shock to the world economy the attack of russia on ukraine uh so all of these issues and now the hooties uh attacks i don't see that as a serious threat in the longer run to the israeli economy all right professor more of a professor of economics at reichmann university here in israel and the university of warwick in the united kingdom thank you so very much for your time thank you very much and on to the final story obviously the hostages heart wrenching that has captured the attention of the nation as well as many in the world the bebis family that remains held hostage in gaza their fate uncertain more in this report so many days have passed not even my worst nightmares that i think i would still be sitting before you begging telling the story trying to understand just how terrible it is that an entire family and their babies are in captivity waiting for answers from those who are supposed to answer us but we haven't received any 38 children have been released from hamas captivity two have not ariel really loved tractors cars but i can't find anything here i think it was the last of the looters who did what they did to the house the bebis family is helpless walking through urden shiri ariel and queers home in iros gathering the remaining items trying to make sense of this painful story ariel really loved batman we found the drawing he made in kindergarten he must have asked the teacher to write i want to be a hero fly and rescue people stuck in a hole it's chilling to think he wrote that before all of this batman pajamas a token of their family yabba's his dog they killed his dog he tried to prevent them coming in i don't know i don't i admit for him to fire his gun and still make it out alive doesn't add up they fired incessantly without a care for the cries and the screams of children they were just hell bent on getting in and getting the family out 76 days into the war even though almost everyone knows the story it is our duty to retell it yarden and shiri together for nine years raised both their ginger-haired children in shiri's childhood on october 7th the entire family was kidnapped from their home to gaza shiri 32 years old ariel four and kfir nine months old were kidnapped together yarden was kidnapped separately yarden shiri ariel kfir they aren't just gingers they aren't a symbol they are a family there were birthdays holidays that's the couch they climbed and breached the window with the drone it was here right here where she stood and they surrounded her in the last hostage deal shiri and the children did not return hamas using psychological warfare claimed that they had been killed the idf can still not verify or disprove the claim two weeks ago hamas published a cruel video of yarden in captivity in which he said his wife and children did not survive he looks very very thin i think he must have lost 35 pounds he receives the most horrible news a person can receive that his whole family was killed without us the family without support without knowing if it's true or false the video is like a noose constantly tightening its grip on his neck what have you heard about him from the released hostages we mainly heard he was not in a good state mentally and that is before the video was released one of them said he was depressed not sleeping day or night there were two captive women with him who saw he needed support and they took him under their wing at some point he received some pills which allowed him to get some sleep when the women were released they asked those who remained with yarden to be mindful of him help him they really tried to make sure he wouldn't be alone once they were released one of the women who was held with him said he had pains in his head that he'd been hit on the head with a hammer this is my aunt margit's house and her husband yosi silverman ten houses down is shiri's parents house yosi silverman 67 and margit silverman 63 who suffered from parkinson's disease they were both murdered after two weeks the idea found their bodies somewhere near the fence they took a wonderful couple who love each other good people my sister had a heart of gold the house was burnt to the ground here stood such pretty sofas there was dining table photos of kids and grandkids very gentle people very pleasant i can't see them resisting i tried to think why why them i tried to call her all day no answer suddenly at 4 30 p.m someone answers and say in arabic death death death so i said who is this who are you he said death again and hung up some arab took the phone to tell me what he had done death yes just unbelievable their dog's head was on this table they beheaded the dog and burned him did you see it i saw a photo of it yes with talks of another hostage deal in the works and the hostage family forum raising the pressure on the government yarden's father ellie met this week with prime minister netanyahu it was a very good talk to the point and with emotion i believe they really want to do something but we understand there's also the other side making things difficult i really asked them to get your den out i fear he might hurt himself do you believe in god no but i'm willing to do anything to get my kids and grandchildren back i bought yarden to fill in a hanukia what i can do just let them return safely that we may see our den sherry ariel and clear back with us along with all other hostages yesterday yarden and sherry's families the b-bass and silverman families gathered together for the inauguration of a Torah in neroz and from there they went to hostage square in tel Aviv a Jewish community in the united states wanted to strengthen them and donated a Torah that had survived the holocaust all of you came especially from united states to neroz yes the b-bass family hold a very special place in our heart ever since october the seventh we when we saw them on television we noticed the two boys with the red hair and we have two boys with red hair and it just they they they they came deep into our heart and in our souls and we couldn't get them out and we pray for them every single day i await them i await them all i'm mad at everyone everyone the media the decision makers those who weren't there on october seventh i'm mad at all of them in the end it's us who pay the price and that's a wrap for this special edition on the i-24 news desk but stay tuned for more news this afternoon on the 80th day of war is in a state of war families completely done down in their beds we have no idea where is she as our soldiers are fighting on the front line but the general perception is something that certainly needs to to be fought as well story to the world welcome to another special edition on i-24 news i'm back 11th or coming to live from our televised studios thanks for joining me this hour it is day 18 of war between israel and hamas heavy fighting in the strip continues as the idea pushes on with its ground offensive to dismantle terror targets over the weekend the number of israeli troops killed in combat rose to 156 release for publication on sunday evening the idf revealed that earlier this month it found a large hamas tunnel network beneath the jabalia refugee camp in gaza city inside that tunnel they also found and recovered the bodies of three israeli soldiers and two civilians meanwhile israeli prime minister benjamin itzanyahu continues to hold that the war will continue until victory over hamas as latest comments coming as the war cabinet examined an egyptian proposal for a new hostage deal which also follows recent visits to kaira by hamas and islamic jihad representatives here's more from benjamin itzanyahu israeli citizens we are deepening the war in the gaza strip we will continue to fight until complete victory over hamas this is the only way to return our hostages eliminate hamas and ensure that gaza will no longer be a threat to israel it will take time but we are united the fighters the people and the government we are united and determined to fight to the end war has a price a very heavy price in the lives of our heroic warriors and we do everything to preserve the lives of our warriors but one thing will not be done we will not stop until we achieve victory well let's cross now live to the south of israel for an update from our correspondent pier clash and loo standing by for us on the israel gaza border pier it was around a 16 hour lull and quiet on the border but around 50 minutes ago rocket fire headed towards the southern communities where you are the communities are largely evacuated so exactly what is the danger in these areas now and just how many rockets were being fired over the border yes absolutely but yeah there were three rocket launch emanating from the central refugee camps of nuserat el borage and al-mughazi which were bombed heavily overnight with 50 a strikes at least according to palestine media affiliated to hamas and which caused uh 68 fatalities according to them difficult to confirm difficult to distinguish between non-involved population and hamas terrorists the rockets targeted rayim which is just very a few kilometers from where we are and then also the northern tip of the gaza strip nativa sara facing the northern tip and the southern part of the city of of vashkelo and 10 kilometers away from gaza but no damage no casualties our correspondent pier clash and they're giving us an update from the south thank you for that moving the conversation to studio now where i am joined by reserve lieutenant colonels ron avital a former commander for the idf special forces good afternoon to you and thank you for being here um a little bit concerning at this hour as well that there are reports coming out from an israeli town near to carum in the west bank that residents are again hearing digging this sort of reminiscent of the digging that was heard both in the south on the border with gaza and in the north of hezbollah over recent years could we be seeing another front popping up on the east well i'm not sure i mean the central command would look into it thoroughly we shouldn't forget those territories are though there are eight territories and so on they're fully under our command and we all the time do those incursion inside so we can check it really thoroughly this is not gaza on the other side of the fence so this is a different scenario so i said not to get into panic where we can check we can verify it there's no question they're creating in those refugee camps shelters underneath we saw a few things like this but if we think in terms of a tunnel system like the one we found in gaza it can't come even close to this but of course we have to careful i don't want to predict but i'm sure that i'll check it out and i'm sure it will be verified what the extent in which and if and what the extent of which there is such a thing israel is currently reeling after two more soldiers this weekend were pronounced dead killed in heavy fighting in the gaza strip bringing the total to 156 now undoubtedly this cannot be compared with the casualty numbers that are coming out of gaza again we're talking about a legitimate army versus terrorists a lot of the time that use a lot of guerrilla warfare tactics that don't engage in the international rules of war just how in terms of putting that number on a scale 156 to the israeli population is is heart sore every life is heart sore as we've learned in this country in particular looking at you know deals to bring back bodies let alone uh alive captives but just how big is that number in terms of overall casualties i mean they really are entering a war zone where there is a fortune of booby traps is that number relatively low or is that quite a high i wouldn't say it's low i mean we it's hard to expect i mean in the beginning when we entered we were expecting high taller in terms of our soldiers getting killed and in the beginning was it's a little bit smoother it felt confident but like it is in guerrilla war sometimes you are being lured in and then you have to really engage with this guerrilla people coming from those spears from those tunnels they're hitting on our forces they're using explosive and so on so i think i don't want to in terms of number i mean this is the toll you have to pay in order to have a campaign like this and this is a serious campaign and we are talking about we found out that we have a real guerrilla army over there with this infrastructure that really makes this urban warfare a different magnitude of an urban warfare i'm a veteran of 82 lebanon berut urban warfare but with this kind of infrastructure underneath this is a different story add to it the hostage issue which limits our ability add to it the population that is really implicated in many respects with the Hamas and sometimes how to distinguish between Hamas and citizens you have a complexity that takes the toll and this weekend was a very hard in terms of the death i think 14 or two more death this is hard not easy absolutely and there's no doubt over the last 80 days of looking at just the complexities that are involved in fighting in such a compact area and just the type of fighting again it's not against an army it is against a terror organization that doesn't play by the same rules speaking of lebanon an interesting comparison that was being made that although there are so many soldier and troop casualties in Gaza at the moment as you mentioned that number keeps rising and fortunately given the difficulties but a difference is that from a physical point of view in terms of their physical shape there is not a few shortage like there was during the war with lebanon they are being rotated all the time to the point that we've called up so many reservists that people are coming in and out of Gaza to the point that they are awake and alert what is the impacts it's it's impossible to even gauge with the civilians at this point the mental and psychological impact but we're talking about seeing images that are not normal in warfare looking at bombs and weaponry and rockets being hidden in babies cribs I believe that the IDF just yesterday found a suicide vest that was fitted to children this is something that's not normal how how are the soldiers equipped to deal with this let alone during the war but after the war as well no I think the Israeli soldier is built up to such scenarios he's prepared we know that the Hamas was using kids to carry the explosive from door to door because he knew we wouldn't target them we know we're location of peers inside schools and inside the hospitals for sure we know this this is part of the logic the logic the complexity or the problem of this war I think we are trained to this we have to keep the the right restraint and then look for our enemy when we find it think the army does it the complexity exists we shouldn't forget that this is a landscape of war that is very close to Israel it's not that it's not Beirut it's not the the whole of Lebanon so of course people can come and out the soldiers and and you talked about the Israeli population that the the fathers and the mothers that have their kids a few kilometers away from them fighting for their life and then coming back maybe after a few weeks this is a it pays a toll on the Israeli public in the Israeli society I see it among my friends that those soldiers serve the this is a big issue but the campaign has to continue and it continues I think right now it's a heavy campaign it takes time it's not a it's a slow campaign in many respects but we have no other choice in the context of the complexity of this war absolutely and as Israel has been trying to put forward this is an existential threat not just one that's you know Netanyahu has previously said and keeps holding that there will never be another war with Hamas because they will cease to exist but moving from the south to the north what does that mean in terms of Hezbollah because the operational tactics and strategy of the IDF is to rid the threat on the southern border to get rid of Hamas but we still have a major threat in fact probably a scarier threat the big bad brother of Hamas on the northern border how is Israel prepared to deal with that threat just this morning the idea of confirming that they were striking targets Hezbollah targets inside Lebanon Hezbollah is a is a bigger force with a bigger weaponry can hit center Tel Aviv with much more directed missile this is a big challenge for us for sure but our aim there is really to push them away to the Litany border according to the 1701 UN agreement from 2006 I don't we don't think on talks in terms of eliminating Hezbollah that's not our target our target to see them away from our border so we can bring them back our the people that live near the border and they can do their corpse is that a possibility though is it a possibility to push them back the possibility of what the military campaign so this is the question and it's not a possible possibility without a serious military threat that can be exercised once we decide that there's no other choice so we have to use the diplomatic campaign and it's being right now exercised by the US and the French because Lebanon is a society in a very fragile state economically and otherwise and I don't think the Lebanese themselves want to see a campaign in the in the in the land so the question whether we can use the diplomatic leverage to push them away but we have to exercise this military threat and maybe it will end with a military campaign nobody knows but we have to be prepared but we are prepared now we won't be surprised the way we were surprised in the 7th of October so it's a different big the game will start in a different starting point from our perspective and I feel we are pretty strong sitting on the targets they are waiting and when the when the decision will come we can hear to them as you mentioned a slow but very strategic campaign the reserve lieutenant colonel dronavital thank you so very much for taking the time to be in studio this afternoon and for your analysis also with me is professor omer moav a professor of economics at reichmann university here in israel and the university of warwick in the united kingdom thank you for being with me here this afternoon thank you for having me now hundreds of thousands of reservists have been called up a massive chunk of israel's workforce to explain a bit how a country like israel would be able to survive a prolonged war like this would there be a need for some kind of middle east marshal plan to help israel's economy well the question actually depends on what the government will do if we had the responsible government that realizes the economic challenge and responds in a in the right way then of course this is this is a strong hit and of course we will all as citizens of israel pay a high price but i don't think there is any just the war itself is not a threat to the israeli economy the longer run the problem is we have a government which still continues spending money and just increasing more and more spending on the things that are unrelated to the needs of the country at the moment the coalition agreements so while soldiers are fighting and while businesses are collapsing they're just pouring tons of money millions of shekels with commitments to the futures of tens of millions of shekels to the ultra orthodox to the settlements again in normal times this could be a political decision that could be justified perhaps they are in power but in times of war this seems like really a lack of responsibility i could say also interestingly that the stock market is now higher than it was before the war started so you could see from that that the threat of the legal revolution that the government was pushing towards is is worse than the war itself for the economy right so and now the war has in a sense is good for the economy despite the huge huge price in life and in money because it reduces the probability that the israeli government will continue with this revolution well let's touch a little bit more on that because at first the shekel took a major hit people were panic buying dollars euros moving assets out but now it appears not only to have stabilized and as you mentioned the shekels actually strengthened against major currencies so how does one explain this peculiar financial trend depicting israel's embattled but insanely resilient economy yeah i think that one should not try to seriously explain the short run shocks to the shekel or the stock exchange you know people panic and i think that the experts that expose provide a rational explanation for everything or just you know expose rationalizing it's not really anything serious but i think that now the things have stabilized and we see that the military is is functioning unlike what happened on the on october 7 where there was big question marks about the ability of the israeli army to actually win this war now things look better on that front and again i think that in terms of the economy as sad as it sounds and it is sad that we needed the war in order to well i wouldn't say i would be too optimistic if i would say to kill the legal revolution that netanyahu and his government is trying to do but the probability is much lower that they would do that so we have a government that is really damaging the economy in a terrible way and that's the big challenge of the state of israel not just the war of course the war as i said is a huge cost and every one of us would pay a high price over the years in higher taxes and less services from the government and omer just briefly how exactly is the crisis that's unfolding now with the red sea the hooties as well as iran targeting the shipping and the vessels that are heading toward the red sea oil prices are going up delivery times are slowing down it only accounts for 30 percent of israeli imports but 15 percent of global shipping yeah so of course that's another hit to the economy but i think in the my my um i would evaluate this in the big picture of the israeli challenges to the economy is not something major i suppose the world would do something about that uh this is a threat that is worse for egypt than for israel so there is here uh joint interests to uh go back to normal uh and in a sense this is quite similar to something we have experienced with during coveted and then the another shock to the world economy the attack of russia on ukraine uh so all of these uh issues and now the hooties uh attacks i don't see that as a serious threat in the longer run to the israeli economy all right professor omer more of a professor of economics at reichman university here in israel and the university of warwick in the united kingdom thank you so very much for your time thank you very much and on to the final story obviously the hostages heart wrenching that has captured the attention of the nation as well as many in the world the bebis family that remains held hostage in gaza their fate uncertain more in this report so many days have passed not even my worst nightmares that i think i would still be sitting before you begging telling the story trying to understand just how terrible it is that an entire family and their babies are in captivity waiting for answers from those who are supposed to answer us but we haven't received any 38 children have been released from khama's captivity two have not really love tractors cars but i can't find anything here i think it was the last of the looters who did what they did to the house the bebis family is helpless walking through urden shiri arielle and queer's home in iros gathering the remaining items trying to make sense of this painful story arielle really loved batman we found the drawing he made in kindergarten he must have asked the teacher to write i want to be a hero fly and rescue people stuck in a hole it's chilling to think he wrote that before all of this batman pajamas a token of their family yabba's his dog they killed his dog he tried to prevent them coming in i don't know i don't i admit for him to fire his gun and still make it out alive doesn't add up they fired incessantly without a care for the cries and the screams of children they were just hell bent on getting in and getting the family out 76 days into the war even though almost everyone knows the story it is our duty to retell it yerden and shiri together for nine years raised both their ginger-haired children in shiri's childhood kibbutz niroz on october 7th the entire family was kidnapped from their home to gaza shiri 32 years old arielle four and queer nine months old were kidnapped together yarden was kidnapped separately yarden shiri arielle kfid they aren't just gingers they aren't a symbol they are a family there were birthdays holidays that's the couch they climbed and breached the window with the drool it was here right here where she stood and they surrounded her in the last hostage deal shiri and the children did not return hamas using psychological warfare claimed that they had been killed the idf can still not verify or disprove the claim two weeks ago hamas published a cruel video of yarden in captivity in which he said his wife and children did not survive he looks very very thin i think he must have lost 35 pounds he receives the most horrible news a person can receive that his whole family was killed without us the family without support without knowing if it's true or false the video is like a noose constantly tightening its grip on his neck what have you heard about him from the release hostages we mainly heard he was not in a good state mentally and that is before the video was released one of them said he was depressed not sleeping day or night there were two captive women with him who saw he needed support and they took him under their wing at some point he received some pills which allowed him to get some sleep when the women were released they asked those who remained with yarden to be mindful of him help him they really tried to make sure he wouldn't be alone once they were released one of the women who was held with him said he had pains in his head that he had been hit on the head with a hammer this is my aunt margit's house and her husband yosi silverman ten houses down is shiri's parents house yosi silverman 67 and margit silverman 63 who suffered from parkinson's disease they were both murdered after two weeks the idea found their bodies somewhere near the fence they took a wonderful couple who love each other good people my sister had a heart of gold the house was burnt to the ground here stood such pretty sofas there was dining table photos of kids and grandkids very gentle people very pleasant i can't see them resisting i try to think why why them i tried to call her all day no answer suddenly at 4 30 p.m someone answers and say in arabic death death death so i said who is this who are you he said death again and hung up some arab took the phone to tell me what he had done yes just unbelievable their dog's head was on this table they beheaded the dog and burned him did you see it i saw a photo of it yes with talks of another hostage deal in the works and the hostage family forum raising the pressure on the government jordan's father ellie met this week with prime minister netanyahu it was a very good talk to the point and with emotion i believe they really want to do something but we understand there's also the other side making things difficult i really asked them to get your den out i fear he might hurt himself do you believe in god no but i'm waiting to do anything to get my kids and grandchildren back i bought your dental fill in a canokia what i can do just let them return safely that we may see our den sherry ariel and clear back with us along with all other hostages yesterday jordan and sherry's families the bebis and silverman families gathered together for the inauguration of a Torah in neroz and from there they went to hostage square in tel aviv a jewish community in the united states wanted to strengthen them and donated a Torah that had survived the holocaust all of you came especially from united states to neroz yes bebis family hold a very special place in our heart ever since october the seventh we when we saw them on television we noticed the two boys with the red hair and we have two boys with red hair and it just they they they came deep into our heart and our souls and we couldn't get them out and we pray for them every single day i await them i await them all i'm mad at everyone everyone the media the decision makers those who weren't there on october 7th i'm mad at all of them in the end it's us who pay the price