 Israelis taking hostage in Gaza, gun battles continue to rage in the south as Israeli security forces try to mop up the Hamas invasion. Well in the north, the IDF exchange fire with Hezbollah forces and the terror spread into neighboring Egypt, where two Israelis were killed when a rogue policeman opened fire on a tour bus in Alexandria. We're seeing live rocket fire, I'll ask my producers where this is. What are we seeing on screen? Okay, that's live rocket fire over Gaza as IDF operations go into high gear there. Now our teams are on the ground down in the south and the north and in the center of the country will bring you all of those reports during the course of this hour. With me in the studio is reserves IDF Major General Eitan Dango, former military secretary to three Israeli defense ministers, former coordinator of government activities in the Palestinian territories. Eitan, let's just react to those pictures we just saw, pretty dramatic, live fire over the Gaza Strip. Are we now moving a little, maybe the IDF moving into perhaps a new stage or even the beginning stage of its operation? I think it's continuing before the IDF declared already that the main mission, I mean they're living now what is striking in Gaza, but the main mission is to bring back to Gaza and to clean the area of what is going around Gaza from those terrorist cabins that are there. We have to understand then hundreds, hundreds of terrorists enter to Israel and they divide to two groups, one is Hamas, a terrorist by themselves, the other are civilians that took some kind of arms. And it's very important to put them back and to see the situation and try to bring first of all, first of all, to bury those who passed away, secondly, to help people to come back to return their homes. Second is, and meanwhile together, we are making offensive strike towards Hamas under the goal that Bibi Gbenetanyahu declared yesterday is not to complete exchange of entities. We are talking on a screen, we are seeing it literally does look like some heavy airstrikes in Gaza. And this is the message. Today at Bet-Khanun, a very close area, three, four kilometers airline between the road and Bet-Khanun, that was the capital, the center of the special unit of Hamas to make their preparation and their post to leave when they enter to Israel. Today, all the area, all the street was destroyed. This meeting is Israel will do what IDF has to do to destroy and to damage Hamas in a way it will not be active, but it will take a time. Well, let me ask you about that ground operation. Clearly, the IDF getting ready, heavy movement on the roads today going south. We saw photos of tanks personnel carrier. How long does it take to prepare for what could be the most serious ground operation? I think since as you have left it, I think in this case, Israel is not to hurry as to be on readiness in a way the units are familiar with their missions. The maneuvering units are the reserve make their training. But we have to be with open eyes also towards the north because there is a timing that Hizballah can interrupt and to make what Hamas did or try to make what Hamas did around Gaza. This is, as we know, the main threat strategically that was coming from Israel. But there is another element here, Etan, and that is the hostages now confirmed by Israel. As at least a hug. We'll get back to that. But we do have there is a rocket sirens ringing out of the southern Israel, maybe coming after those airstrikes in Gaza. Let's go to what Nicole said that was down in Steroot, which has been of course a main target of those rockets. What's the situation down currently down there, Nicole? Well, Clev, we just saw a barrage of rockets fired here near Steroot and in fact more than a dozen iron dome interceptions being launched into the air right in our eyesight. So it is still a very, very active scene down here in the south as we continue to be just barrage with rockets from the Gaza Strip. And not only that, but as residents are being told to enter their bomb shelters, they're also being told to just stay indoors, lock their doors because along with the rockets in the air, there are Hamas terrorists still in the area. So as of about seven o'clock this evening, Israel called the residents into the city of Steroot. We're told to stay inside and lock their doors as Israeli troops and forces continue to patrol the area. We have seen countless armored trucks, vehicles, tanks all patrolling both the fields and the highways here. In fact, within the past hour, we've also seen flares being sent into the air overhead, kind of overlooking some of the fields here in Steroot to give the Israeli army a better look at exactly what's happening because as night falls here, it becomes a more difficult situation to see exactly everything that's happening. So we continue to see so many Israeli troops really patrolling the area. Not only those, but we also see so many different paramedics, Magendavida Dome, constantly coming back in here flashing their lights, carrying different people to different areas as this is such an ongoing situation. So as long with the rockets, as long with the terrorists that are actively in the area, so Clef, for everyone that is in the south right now, they are told to really stay inside because this is very much an active scene and an active situation. Right now, of course, the call, Steroot itself is seen of one of the fiercest firefights inside Israel in that police station. We were told upwards of 10 terrorists were killed in that fight of the police station. How concerned are the citizens? There is a curfew in effect, correct? In any way, they should be off the streets of the town right now. Exactly. No one should be in the streets of the town right now. Mainly for the most part, it is very deserted besides the few different Israeli police and the few different possible civilian vehicles that we do see. But let me tell you, they are just cruising to get to wherever their designation is because no one wants to be on the streets right now. In fact, these cars that you see all lined up and down the side of the road, they're here because they were shot earlier by gunshots. So they were completely pushed to the side of the road. They are riddled with bullet holes, Clef. So some of their tires, you have glass going through the windshield, glass shattering over the steering wheel into the back seat as well. The windows completely taken out of these vehicles. So this is what you see when you're driving through the streets of stay road right now. There is glass everywhere. There's bullet holes lining or bullet casing, shell casings all along the road. There's blood. There's personal items layered everywhere. This is a war scene, Clef. It's as simple as I can say it because it is truly, truly graphic images on the ground here in stay road. So hopefully no civilians are outside because they should be in their homes right now. All right. They should certainly should Nicole said that also we wish you the best and please take care of yourself down there in still wrote, which is still coming under rocket fire. And of course, as you say reports, even in the late afternoon of active firefights in and around that Gaza border area with Hamas terrorists, Nicole, thank you for that. Hey, Tony, it's simply unbelievable to see scenes like that inside Israel. Even the day after the day after reports of firefights with Hamas terrorists still roaming the South. The IDF still isn't isn't certain. It's too broad a subject to go, but something among the many failures here simply was a failure of intelligence. I think first of all, from my point of view, I'm after 36 years serving IDF in my worst dreamings. I didn't expect to watch and to see such a thing. It's unright. You've been down in that area. Yes. Of course. So tell us what you saw and what your assessment. What you see there is the easiest way that all the system around it that from intelligence, from the operational wing, from the old station that had to stop this kind of activities and have experience, how we stop a vehicle that entered from from Egypt a few years ago, 2010 or nine, something like this, we succeed to stop here. Nothing worked. The second issue, the easiest way to coming and to enter to the Kibbutz and the massacre that happened there. Everything is still you have when you are dealing about what to do, you have to put aside what is the feelings, the way they and they were very professional. They knew where to go. It looks like they knew exactly each one, its mission. Even I think the festival was quite known to them. Right. So they went there. They choose those Kibbutz that they were very active there in order to open the gates in defense, that it's become like going back and coming back and put take hostages, et cetera. This means the work for this kind of operation, in my opinion, more than you, if you ask me personally, because I didn't participate in any kind of investigation, it has started at May 21. And the last operation, while you see the cooperation between Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, it's not only strategic operation. It comes to the way of principles, arms, systems, how to do and how to work. All right. Well, Eitan, thank you. You mentioned that music festival, which is a scene, of course, many of the casual civilian casualties, also many of those who have been taken hostage in Gaza. We now have confirmation of at least 100 among the thousands of Israelis across the country concerned over the fate of still unaccounted for friends and family is Noy Levy. Now, one of her friends, Ofer Tsarfati, went missing during that outdoor music festival. After apparently he helped his girlfriend, Noy's other friend, Chauval Ghal, escape from Hamas terrorists who attacked that events. But unfortunately, we don't know his fate. Noy, just fill us in on what you know about that story. What happened to your friends down at that music festival? Actually, what happened is that they became, they came to the party. Everything was OK. Suddenly, all the music was shut off and the sirens began and all the alarms went wild and everyone started to run towards the cars and this exit and they were stuck in a like a line of cars that was both sided, like there's no way out, terrorists from the right, from the left, from each direction and he helped her to get into the car to escape and he was left behind and got on another car, which was in the middle of a shooting fight and that is the last thing we know. That he was shot and the other friends that was in the car with them was shot as well. That's the Chauval Ghal. Your other friend, what is her condition? Do we know, I mean, did she make it out safe? And of course, it must have been, it must be even physically, that just the trauma of having gone through that event. Yeah, she's at home and she's safe with her family and friends, but she's mentally broken. She saw things that we can't even imagine to see. She herself doesn't really know what she really saw and she's very, very, very, wanted to find him and know he's okay. He's alive. We have no clue. We have nothing about. Right. Well, let me ask you now about, I mean, do you know if the family or if your friends, family, the Ghal family have tried to get information from authorities about what may have happened to Ophir Tsarfati? No one has contact with us. Not the police, not the army, no one. We have no clue, nothing. All right. No, let me just ask you your view on how you, how do you feel about what kind of blow this has been for all of Israel, but especially for young Israelis like yourself, something happening like this, which I'm sure nobody ever imagined. It's intolerable. We can't, we can't imagine that this is the situation. We're demonstrated. We have a lot of missing friends, a lot of death people, friends, family, friends of friends. This is the situation we never dreamed that can ever happen. Okay. Noi Levy speaking us from Haifa. Thank you and we wish you the best for your two friends, Shavalin Ophir Tsarfati. Now some of the families of the, now we know over 100 Israelis being held hostage in Gaza are holding a press conference tonight in the Kfar Makkah Bia Convention Center outside Tel Aviv. Let's go to a bit of that. Our phone number is 05-4481-981. I'd like to, we have here today with us representatives. We have here with us today, representatives, parents of those who are missing. We have Uri who is the father of Odaya and Tahir David, Merav Leshem, the mother of Romi Gonen, but Sheva Ilouz is with us as well, the mother of Elia Ilouz and Malki Shemtov and his wife Shelly, who are the parents of Omer Shemtov. With your permission, they would each like to say a few words and then we will open up the floor for discussion and a few brief questions. Thank you very much. We will begin with Uri. Good evening, everyone. First and foremost, I would like to extend my condolences to all the families who are receiving some very difficult news. It is simply inconceivable what is happening. Inconceivable. I extend my condolences, all of our condolences, and we share the sorrow of all the families. What's happening is simply inconceivable. We demand of our government. And I understand that about two or three hours ago, they appointed a representative by the name of Gal here to be in contact with the families. And we demand to receive answers. Perhaps not all the answers will please us or will be happy ones. It's been almost 48 hours now since the beginning of this event. And there are many families that simply know nothing. They don't know anything, absolutely nothing. My two daughters, I was in contact with them yesterday morning. The phone was open. They were lying on the floor under extreme stress and pressure. And I could hear in the background, it was like a shooting range with ducks, with sitting ducks. I heard the screams in Arabic. And they kept saying, dad, there are Arabs around here. I keep hearing Arabic. I told them, you should lie down with your face on the floor. You should face each other, hold each other's hands. Try even not to breathe. Try to hold your breath. It wasn't easy. And it lasted for about 30 minutes that I was on the line with them until I heard four breaths like this. And that was it. After that, she didn't answer me anymore. I am asking for the whole world to see this. I want the whole world to see what I need to go through, what I'm going through. We have to bring these kids back home. And the sooner, the better. We want to meet with a representative tonight. Someone who will give us answers, perhaps not all the answers, but at least some of them. I haven't received any iota of information for 48 hours, not from the police, not from the hospital, not from anyone or anything. My two daughters are over there. I close my eyes, and I simply don't know where they are. They're either being raped in Gaza, or maybe they're thrown somewhere in a ditch. And I'm only 30 minutes away from them, and I cannot do anything. There's nothing I can do about it. Somebody has to stop this. I'll take a break for now. Now we will continue with Mirav. Good evening. We are all in the same boat. All the people who are here are exactly in the same place I'm at, or just near it. We all have children over there. My daughter is Romi. My name is Mirav. My daughter Romi. She is the middle of our house. I have five children. She's my third. And she's the light in our household. We call her the most beautiful girl, the most beautiful girl in the world, the most beautiful girl in kindergarten, wherever she goes. She has this great big smile, always positive, wherever she goes. Everyone remembers her. And just like that, as we had this very happy, joyous, and challenging life. Yesterday morning, just like all of you, we started living in nightmare. It started at 6.30 AM. And she was calling mom. They're firing Katyushas at us. We live in the north of Israel. We live at Kfar Vradim. She's already lived through a war. She knows what Katyushas are. And in recent years, she's also experienced that she always knows where to be. And the missiles are always after her. But this time, it was too much. So we were with her on the phone since 6.30 AM. Me and my oldest daughter, me and my oldest daughters, until at 10 AM, I was speaking with her. We were on the line together. They were in the car. Four of them drove together. This amazing young man who came in there to rescue them. Another good friend of hers and another lovely young man at about 10.15. She called me and said, mom, they fired at us. And the car was hit. We're all wounded. I'm bleeding, mom. I'm afraid I'm about to die. If they're going to take away, they wounded. I don't know what to do. I don't know how you all feel. But this nightmare of a parent who is sitting and hearing his daughter or son on the phone saying, mom, come and help me. And we cannot do anything, nothing whatsoever to just be with her on the line and to tell her, Romy, I love you. Romy, hide. Romy, don't breathe. Show them that you're dead. Romy, beat yourself. Maintain your good mood. You're going to live, Romy. It's going to be OK for an hour. That's how it went on. And then at about 10.50, we could hear the shooting very close to them. We heard people speaking Arabic. Romy was no longer speaking with me. And we heard these words. At 10.50, somebody disconnected the call. And from then on, we have no ID. Where is Romy? Where is Ophir? Where's Ben? Where is Gaia? There are four people in the car. We don't even know where the car is. We know where the location is, but they cannot find the car. It's an absurd situation. I'm not accusing anyone. I know there is terrible chaos here. We're all living through this chaos. The government, the military, the authorities. But we are asking for one simple thing. We need answers. It's been 36 hours that have passed. Nobody's speaking with us. There's no representative. There are all these lists and all these places. But none of them is efficient or helpful. There's so much disinformation. It's tough. It's so tough to keep reading this list and seeing that your child is not on the list. We are asking. We are expecting. We are one community. We're all on the same boat. We are asking the government to find a way to make contact with them. There should be a representative who will speak with us. There should be a way for us to get a little bit of information. We know that this government, this country, can contact with the leaders of the region because ultimately it should be a dialogue between leaders. We expect our leaders to contact powerful leaders in the region in order to impact this situation and what's happening now to all of us. Because what's happening here is a war crime to behave in such a manner within civilian population, including children, teenagers, the elderly, people who didn't do anything, people who aren't wearing uniform. It's simply a war crime. We expect our leaders to contact other leaders and to exert pressure on them in order to change this situation. We all want to know at least where our children are, what's happening with them, and that there is somebody who's truly taking charge here. And we expect this to happen tonight, 36 hours of such a nightmare. It's simply impossible. It's impossible. Thank you, Mirav. That is heartbreaking and devastating testimony from the parents of missing Israelis. Most of them youngsters taken at that music festival. Well, there are the missing, and then there are the wounded, over 2,200. Robert Swift is down at the Barzalai Hospital in Ashkelon, where many of the wounded have been taken. Robert, what has been the day there in Barzalai Hospital? It seems like the numbers keep growing, we're hearing, of the wounded. That's right. The numbers do keep coming, and casualties have been coming into the hospital here. The Ministry of Health has updated the figures to say that 2,243 people have been wounded and evacuated to hospital in general across the whole of this region, as well as the governments of France, Germany, Ukraine, Nepal, and Thailand have confirmed that their citizens have been caught up in events here, as well as UK and US citizens that are understood to have been casualties. Now, with me here to give a little bit more information specifically on the events here in Barzalai Hospital is the director of the hospital, Professor Professor Khevi. Now, first, I wanted to ask you a bit more information about the specifics of what you've had to deal with here, the casualties that have been coming specifically to this hospital. What can you tell us? First of all, this hospital is about 10 kilometers from the Gaza-Northbound border. So we are very close to Gaza, and we are kind of addressed to bombing and to shooting for Ashkelon and our hospital. Since yesterday morning till now, there were about 410 casualties. A lot of them were very complicated and severe wounded wounds, mostly because of bullets in the chest, in the abdomen, in the pelvis, in the legs. And it wasn't some of them were very severely wounded and should undergo operation immediately because of bleeding or difficulties of breathing. And we operated on more than 30 casualties in our hospital. Professor Khevi, thank you. And just to put this into context, this is one of several hospitals that are operating in the south of the country, dealing with casualties. All right, Robert Swift at the Baselai Hospital in Ashkelon, dealing with the wounded, also dealing with incoming rocket attacks since the start of this thing as well. Eitan Dango, I want to refer back to that devastating testimony we heard from those parents. You talked about systems breaking down. You heard them say, we don't expect the government to give us all the answers, but speak to us, say something. We still haven't heard anything from the government about the hostages. Even though we're seeing on social media, and the world is seeing these young people, many of them young people, older people, even children, they're in Gaza. We've been seeing clearly something is not operating here. Yeah, first of all, I may share with you. We were listening together to the words of those parents on their children. You have such a lot of private stories. If you were the other group, what happened in the Kibbutzim inside the shelters, it's something that I think that as we will go with the timetable, we will see how people what are facing here in Israel, concerning what they raised. Basically, they are right. After a few hours that we were surprised, and I have the experience, because I served as the chief of staff of the on-front command. And I was developing the system. I think it was a mistake not to open immediately, first of all, a center call that we'll receive from them all the requests, all the details, and then we'll centralize in another step some of the ministries of the government that will organize themselves, first of all, to organize data, secondly, to give them information. Only today, after a year, the prime minister decided to bring someone in order to be. Right, Gal Hershey from the on-front command. But basically appointing someone completely new. Before Gal is entering in the test, how can a country like Israel has allowed itself to stay one year without anyone who is functioning in this job? Secondly, now, after having one center shop, one place to bring your things, you will save them to run to hospitals to check in the list, give them on one place on the information. I spoke, by the way, myself yesterday, with colleagues from the on-front command. And they open immediately at the evening, at the night, with the police, a common center, and it has started to work. You can hear today the IDF spokesman give the details. It is a mistake. Second now is the question. Well, I'm going to come back to you. I am going to come back to you because we do want to jump up to the north because while violence raged on an Israel south, there was a flurry of fire across the northern Lebanon border today between the IDF and his ball of forces. Our correspondent Pierre Kloschandler is at Kibbutz-Khanita on the Israel Lebanon border. As I said, I don't want to exaggerate. A flurry of border shell shots, but maybe those are raising tensions that this could get worse there on the northern border, Pierre. I think that Hezbollah is testing the waters. On one hand, Hezbollah is studying the Israeli response to the Hamas invasion. Remember that most scenarios spoke of an invasion of Israeli communities and hostage-taking by Hezbollah, not by Hamas. Now, Hamas has used that scenario for itself, and the army is struggling after more than 24 hours to cleanse the area, which was the first order of mission stated by the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Now, on the other hand, it's testing the state of alertness of the Israeli army. And indeed, there was an anti-tank-guided missile that was fired at an Israeli outpost on the intersection of the borders between Syria, Lebanon, and Israel, provoking damage on an outpost, but no casualties. And Israel quickly responded with artillery fire, provoking no casualties, but that's the testing of the water. Now, the question is, what's next? And it will probably depend on Israel's response vis-à-vis Hamas. Now, here at Kibbutz Hanita, there have been recommendations issued by the Regional Council to leave the area and let the army invest the place. And that's what happened here. Two-thirds of the 200 families have already left. Joav Galam, the Minister of Defense, has instructed the Home Front Command to order the evacuation of all the communities adjacent, not only to the Gaza border, but also to the northern border. And that could happen very quickly. On the other hand, we cannot enter Kibbutz Hanita because it's almost like a closed military area. The army is inside. A third of the residents are still inside, but we cannot go inside. And we are told by the people, the security officers around here to leave the place because it's dangerous. They're saying that they're ready to absorb any shock, but the transfer of military to the northern border, the amount of reinforcements, is less than the kind of reinforcement that you see toward the Gaza border. All right, Pia Kloshander there on the northern border. There's 11 on border. Kibbutz Hanita, thank you for that. Eitan, it does sound like the army is concerned taking precautions that a shooting war with Hezbollah could break out if Israel moves ahead with a Gaza operation. Of course, after what happened in Gaza, first of all, I have to remind you that Hezbollah is still the main threat towards Israel from the north. They have a strategic, they work, they have a special unit or one that are preparing some of this unit is already deployed among the fence between Israel and Lebanon. So what happened today, first of all, by sheltering or the motor shells by Hezbollah to Dov Mountain, it's a sign. We, first of all, also participate in what happened with Hamas in the south, but it's a serious step from us for the beginning. They choose this area because it's more open space. It cannot damage Israel to react and to escalate the situation because in my opinion, Hezbollah is still not interested to escalate, but absolutely that we decrease and raise up the readiness in the border with Lebanon and what we are doing, we are taking measures in order to be in readiness. All right, Giladar, Daniels, Israel's ambassador to the UN is speaking, the Security Council will be meeting today to discuss the Gaza situation. Let's step into that. The Reds were butchered. Their bodies mutilated and defiled. And those who survived were taken to Gaza. Listen to this young girl screaming as she is kidnapped, separated from her friend, not knowing what fate awaits her. Try to comprehend the magnitude of this situation. Try to digest the ruthless inhumanity. I have seen shocking footage, graphic images that will forever be seared in my brain. What we are witnessing are war crimes, blatant barbaric war crimes, slaughtering civilians, abusing hostages, taking babies from their mothers. There are no words to describe such savagery. I don't want to imagine what is happening right now to all of those innocent Israeli civilians being held captive in Gaza. The horrors they are enduring. Look at this, look at this, and do not forget it. The horrors. This is Israel's 9-11. This is Israel's 9-11. And Israel will do everything to bring our sons and daughters back home. These images are horrifying. They are hard to see and they are impossible to fully internalize. But I'm showing you all of this for a reason. Today, many members of the international community are supporting Israel. Yes, but if history has taught us anything, we know that tomorrow that may not be the case. The international community, and particularly the UN and the Security Council, have a very short memory when it comes to Israel. The terror that we endure quickly becomes a side note. But this time will not be the same. We will not let the world forget the atrocities our country suffered. I want you all to remember what sadistic evil Israel is currently at war with. The world must not forget what I have shown you today. Hamas is a genocidal, Islamist, jihadist terror organization. It is no different than ISIS. It is no different than Al-Qaeda. There is no reasoning with genocidal jihadists. They do not want dialogue. They do not want conversation. They want one thing and one thing only. The annihilation of the Jewish state. This is a direct quote from their charter. All right, that was you Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gilad Ardan. The Security Council is scheduled to meet in about an hour and a half in New York in the UN headquarters for an emergency session on the Israel Gaza conflict. There were some political developments today spurred by this current situation. Benny Gantz, the former Defense Minister, IDF Chief of Staff, and now head of the Opposition National Unity Party announced this evening that he is willing to join Prime Minister Netanyahu's government. Here's some of what he had to say. This is a time that we need to join together as a leadership so that we can unite the people and win. This is why I informed the Prime Minister yesterday that I'm willing to discuss my parties joining and hopefully other parties from the opposition out of an intention to establish a war cabinet that will maintain this war arena versus Gaza and all other theaters if we are given a real chance to make an impact and participate in the war effort, we will take part until the end of the war. And joining us now is senior diplomatic correspondent Owen Altman. He joins us from Petah Tikfa and Owen Benny Gantz saying he's ready to join the government. He wants vowed he would never join again a government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu announcing this evening that he's going. He didn't set any conditions. The question is now whether Benjamin Netanyahu was ready to receive him and in what role? Yeah, that's right, Kaleb. Listen, I guess in a situation like this, promises are meant to be broken. Of course, Benny Gantz in a sense broke a promise previously right at the peak of the beginning of the pandemic when he said that that was his basis for going into a government with Netanyahu. Of course, we all remembered how that ended and how that would impact that had an Israeli politics. Obviously this situation much, much more dire from Israel's immediate perspective. Look, Kaleb, if Benny Gantz, unlike yet your Lapid, the opposition leader, is not putting down as a precondition, removing Bethel of Smotrich's religious Zionism party, Netanyahu Ben-Gveer's Jewish power party from the coalition, in a sense Netanyahu doesn't have much to lose by putting Benny Gantz in there. If anything, he has something to gain from the narrow lens of politics because Benny Gantz would be part of the government and would bear responsibility for whatever the results of the war are, right? And obviously this war is not going well. So in a sense, that would seem to be Netanyahu's political advantage, but of course Gantz would seem to want to enter where he could be in a position of influence. I don't know if he would be able to become defense minister, but certainly have some kind of senior ministry where he could be around the table of those making the most important decisions, presumably bringing along Kaleb Gadi-Eisenkott, another former and very well respected, former chief of staff of the Israeli military. Look, there is a certain logic to this and that would suggest that the sides could get to yes, but you're right, Netanyahu is clearly dragging his feet, has not responded, has not really made a public offers, made offers through briefings to journalists and sources close to Netanyahu and all kinds of avenues such as those, but hasn't really come out and frontally done what Benny Gantz did or for that matter, what Israeli President Isaac Herzog did as well. Right, and calling also for a national unity government. Don't stay with us because along with politics, there has been a flurry of diplomacy today centered around the Gaza conflict. Now Prime Minister Netanyahu did speak with several European leaders, including the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the Italian Prime Minister Georgio Maloney and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, all of whom expressed unreserved support for Israel's right to defend itself as necessary. As I mentioned, UN Security Council will be meeting shortly. And US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, who indicated today that more American military aid is on its way to Israel, also had this to say to ABC News. This is the worst attack on Israel since 1973, the Yom Kippur War, almost exactly 50 years ago. But there's a fundamental difference. That was a war that was state to state, country to country, army to army. This is a massive terrorist attack that is gunning down Israeli civilians in their towns, in their homes. And as we've seen so graphically, literally dragging people across the border with Gaza, including a Holocaust survivor and a wheelchair, women and children. So you can imagine the impact this is having throughout Israel. And the world should be revolted at what it's seen. Well, across the board supports. So far it seems we should mention some of these countries reports that among the hostages in Gaza and certainly perhaps among the killed are citizens from other countries. We've heard of a German citizen, young woman who has German citizenship. Her family's gone public. Israelis who have American citizenship. Also a British born new Israeli seems to have gone missing. So those countries have something invested and the question is how much of that support will stay solid once Israel escalates its operations in Gaza. And we do see, for example, civilian casualties there. Yeah, that's the big question. And even if this operation has a more far reaching objective, and maybe because this operation is presumably set to have a more far reaching objective. Of course, we're going to see what we've seen in rounds of fighting in Gaza in the past, which is the erosion of the initial international support. Of course, we have to note here, President Joe Biden will again spoke with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier today and said more health for Israel is on its way. Reportedly, American aircraft carriers, Kalev, set to approach Israeli waters with all of the things that that sends. But detention aggressors, particularly Hezbollah in Israel's north and sending, of course, a message to Iran and to its proxies. Really, I think Israelis are expressing a tremendous amount of support for Joe Biden across the political spectrum here. And from a narrow political perspective, I think it's extremely important for the relationship between the two countries that Israelis feel this way towards democratic president and that we see this kind of unbridled support from a democratic president. By the way, Kalev, two points, first of all. Number one, we also have seen support from countries that may not be at the top of people's list, but are interesting. Azerbaijan, for example, lighting up buildings in the capital Baku with the Israeli flag last night. The building of the European Commission being lit with the Israeli flag in Brussels last night. The European Parliament flying Israeli flags next to the European Union flags last night. So we're seeing support from those quarters as well and many, many others. One important exception, of course, is Russia, which in spite of the fact there have been 700 Israelis killed as far as I know, not published a condemnation. And we saw, as you mentioned, Benjamin Netanyahu speaking with Volodymyr Zelensky earlier today. And one possible outcome of this conflagration is actually a further crystallization of the American alliance in the Middle East and beyond the United States and Israel. I would argue, maybe counter-intuitively, the Saudi normalization as well. And yes, the Ukrainian peace as well. As we see Russia potentially taking sides in a sense with Iran and its proxies, maybe that's what really nudges the dial for Israel to become more fully supportive of Ukraine, worth watching that space, of course, in a very crowded news agenda, but still worth paying some attention to that at least, Kalev. Well, absolutely, Owen Altman. Thank you for that. Now, the Israel Defense Forces has prepared a scroll of the names of the nearly 100 soldiers who confirmed they've lost their lives over the past few days. And that will be showing on our site as we continue to speak. But I wanna stress, these are not the casualties which we've said, now risen to over 700. These are the confirmed soldiers and combatants who have fallen in battle from the IDF. I wanna go back to Tandango. We should mention among your service, you served as a military secretary to three defense ministers. Let's talk about Benny Gantz, a former chief of staff, a former defense minister, Gadi Isenkot, a former IDF chief of staff, the entering of this current government, what impact they have, what role could they have, what influence would they have in a government compared to previous Israeli governments short on that kind of military resume in its highest ranks? First of all, Kalev, I think that it's a necessary step to move this government to be in a place while it will get the support of the majority of the Israeli nation. And to relax both sides, the extremists from the right will be on the side. And the majority of this government will be a government which you can trust that can choose or decide their decision will be under discussions and not under ideology of extremist and not to say anything to the side. Secondly, the both figures that you mentioned, Benny Gantz and Gadi Isenkot, as both of them has been the chief of defense staff, they are bringing years of experience. They already served, Benny Gantz served as the minister of defense. They are understanding, they are connecting to the period, to the situation. And I hope also that one of them will be, I hope so, instead of Benghver. This is something you need an immediate and urgent operation. I'm going to interject there because Yael, we should mention and there was a reference in Owen's comments that all viewers may not have understood. Yael Lapid, the other opposition leader yesterday, said he would join the government, but he seemed to condition on it on the removal of Inamar Benghver. And I should say that the Likud party, not Prime Minister Netanyahu himself, but the Likud party responded saying we will accept the opposition parties coming under the conditions in which Menachem Begin joined the Labour-led government in 67, which did not involve any restructuring of the government. I accept it because I think situation in Israel is so sensitive, it's so to the under threats. This nation, it's need a strong floor, a strong base. And I think by joining the government, these people also, I hope Yael Lapid or maybe even Avigdor Lieberman are bringing with them a lot of political experience, a lot of policy, a lot of professional knowledge. And I think they will play a very important task in the cabinet, and this is the issue, a cabinet that you can trust it, a cabinet that will fulfill its decisions and missions, not with extremist people that has no any kind of experience and what they are making to Israel till now, like a Benghver and Smotrich, it's a big damage. One of the atmosphere that brought Israel to what happened to us now, I'm not telling the military field, is the fact those figure make a lot of, let's say failures to the present government and the country is not in a drive. The country is in a reverse in their vehicle and we should go up and I think together with them, it will bring us strong opportunities to Israel to decide well, to decide what is needed for the benefit of the population. All right, now Eitan, as you're speaking, our viewers are seeing on the screen the names of, as I said before, soldiers and police officers who have been killed, some of them very senior officers, commanders of some of the elite units involved, who would have been very involved in any operation in Gaza. How much of a blow is this for the IDF to have lost that core of talent as a preface for what could be an unprecedented operation? First of all, the people who lost their life, they give their life for the country and those people as commanders came immediately to lead their soldiers to be in the first place. This is the way the Israeli military and the police way are working. The commanders are leading the force and not on the back. Secondly, I think with their knowledge, with the issue that they are commanders of units that prepare for everything, it has to be immediately, they were put a new commanders instead of them. It's a heavy price, it's a heavy emotion, it's a heavy feeling for the people who work with them. But as a military unit, they have to be on readiness immediately. And what I know, and also there are some units like the break, such units like from Golani or from other, that a lot of casualties had to bring their forces in a speedway in order to be in readiness for their mission, said, but must be done. All right, Aitan Dango, by the way, there are some developments, there are reports now that the discussions, the political discussions to form an emergency government will begin tomorrow morning. So perhaps we might see. I think that the sign that you have in one evening a speech of the president, speech of Benny Gantz, speech of the chief of defense staff on the side shows you things are going to the center of the circle we have to be there. Okay, Aitan Dango, thank you for joining us. We will continue this special broadcast with a second hour. We'll be back at the top of the hour in approximately six minutes. Stay with us for the latest news from Israel here on I-24 News. We'll be back shortly. Big questions answered at the Edmund and the Lisafar Center in Jerusalem. Questions like, what makes us human? How come that my brain is so sophisticated? What makes it so sophisticated? Is it only the number of the cells? We have more, thousand times more than the number of them. Or is there something else in the brain that is beyond the big numbers? My answer is certainly yes. Some people feel that there is something else. Maybe mystical thing, you know, that it's not only the material, but there is something else that comes to the complicated machine, makes us human. I don't think so. It's a machine. A wonderful, wonderful machine. So if this is a machine in principle, I should be able to replicate it. Professor Idan Segev has spent his life mapping out the brain's base unit, the neuron. When you have a mathematical formulation of a biological phenomena, you build a machine that replicates the mathematics and the mathematics represent the biology. So we merge biology with technology through a mathematical understanding. If you want a complex machine to be able to do complex things like multiple tasks and general artificial intelligence, then you will need, for sure, more complex architectures that exist today. What Professor Segev is doing at ELSAC is building that new architecture, or at least the code for it, machines that transcend the limits of hardware. This other machine will be very much like us. It will feel. It will walk. It will be intelligent. It will be our frame. Israel is at war. Since the early hours of the morning, Israel has been facing infiltrations of terrorists, kidnapping of Israelis, and a barrage of thousands of rockets emanating from the Gaza Strip, the biggest and bloodiest attack in years. Tune in for our extensive and rolling coverage of the Hamas deadly attack on Israel. With reporters on the ground in depth analysis and most updated and accurate information, stay tuned with I-24 News. If you could travel to the Middle East right now without packing and without a plane ticket, would you? We are in Tel Aviv, Israel. Welcome to I-24 News Digital. We bring Israel and the entire Middle East right to your social networks, on your phone, on your desktop. Here, I-24 News creates videos especially made for social media. And believe me, we are out there working hard. Right here. Israel and Nepal, for the very first time, is how they begin making original content, streaming live, even in the hard moments. There are literally rockets going up in a bomb shelter. And filming docuseries. With us, you will find all the big stories you missed on television. So join I-24 News on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube and discover the Middle East with us. It's a Jewish Yemenite flatbread made of thin layers of pastry that are brushed with oil or another fat and then fried in a pan. Traditionally, Malawak has served with hard-boiled eggs, tomato salsa, and a spicy Yemenite sauce called shoo. Our Malawak has served as a sandwich with optional fillings such as hummus, tahini, eggplant, fried onions, everything that's delicious in Israeli cuisine. The Yahuda Market in Jerusalem, the most beautiful, vibrant market in Israel. We opened the Jachnubar 21 years ago to offer the late-night bar crowd a nighttime snack. A few years ago, we decided to open a kosher break, and that's how we ended up in the market. It's the perfect spot for our vibe. One of my main goals to make people happy through food and energy. This place is always vibrant, with people dancing and Malawak flying in the air. There's nothing better than having someone come here when they're sad and seeing them leave happy. Another Yemenite dish we offer is jachnub, a thinly-rolled pastry dough that's baked all night. In the early years, we used to prepare both the jachnub and the Malawak by hand. But as we expanded, they started to be made off-site, according to our recipe. All our pastries are authentic to the Yemenite kitchen. The twist is in the fillings. The result is a combination between the original and the old. And the wonderful Israeli flavors inside. Welcome to or back to this special broadcast on I-24 News. I'm Khaled Ben-Divide. A day after the unprecedented incursion by Hamas terrorists into southern Israel, the scope of the catastrophe is becoming more clear, even as the IDF prepares for a major operation into Gaza. Now, the death toll of Israeli soldiers and civilians is becoming more clear. Many of the latter youngsters killed at an outdoors music festival that became a bloody massacre. The number of confirmed wounded has risen to over 2,200, with at least 100 Israelis taken hostage in Gaza. Now, gun battles continue to rage in the south through the day, as Israeli security forces keep trying to mop up the Hamas terrorists. And the number of Israeli soldiers in Gaza, as Israeli security forces, keep trying to mop up the Hamas invasion. Well, in the north, the IDF exchanged fire with his ball of forces, and the terror spread into neighboring Egypt, where two Israelis were killed when a rogue policeman opened fire on a tour bus in Alexandria. Now, our teams are on the ground down in the south in the north and in the center of the country, and we'll be going to them during the course of this broadcast. Let's start by going to Robert Swift. He's at Barzalai Hospital in Ashglan, and the number of wounded just seems to keep rising through the day, Robert. That's correct. Just like the fatality count, the number of wounded keeps going up. It currently stands at 2,243 people, according to the Ministry of Health, people that have been evacuated to hospital. Now, from among this number, 22 of these people are in a critical condition, and with around 300, 334 are also in serious condition. Now, the scale of yesterday's events means that a number of foreign nationals have also been sucked up into events as well as the Israelis with citizens from Nepal, Germany, France, the UK, the US, among others, who have been involved in the casualties here. And as you say, events continue just moments ago. There was some loud explosions occurring here, and throughout the evening, ambulances and even at one point, a military transport helicopter arrived here at the hospital where we are in order to ferry casualties into here. This is very much still an ongoing event. Right, and we should note there was about an hour ago a rocket sirens in the south of the country. There are reports that one of the rockets on confirmed they have touched down in the city of Netty Vault, which is not too far from there. We'll bring you update on that as it happens. Robert Swift at Barzalai Hospital in Ashkelon. Thank you for that. With us in studio was Dr. Michael Orrin, the former Israeli ambassador to the United States and former Deputy Israeli Minister and Knessin member, also a noted historian. This is certainly a day for the history books. Michael, a dark day, some are calling it the darkest. Darker than the Yom Kippur War 50 years ago. Can imagine that. Right. The Yom Kippur War was fought far from population centers. The Yom Kippur War actually ended in a military victory. The Yom Kippur War Israeli leaders had ample warnings. They did not heed them. We don't know if the Israeli government had any warnings, any intelligence prior to this. And in long range, we don't actually know how the score is going to end. I would assume that when the Israeli incursion begins that neither Hamas in Judean subaria nor Hezbollah in Lebanon nor even some radical elements among Israeli Arabs will sit passively by and watch that we will find ourselves fighting a multi-front regional war. The consequences of which at this point are completely unpredictable. Right. Now I should note in about an hour the United Nations Security Council will begin a special emergency session on the Israel Gaza conflict. We heard in the previous hour that Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, call for the Security Council to condemn Hamas. We'll have to see if that happens. Of course, Russia has so far not made a comment. China may have a different view. You've just come back, I believe, from the United States. Give us a sense of how this is being received in the outside world also among circles that in the past have not been sympathetic to Israel in its struggle with Hamas. I took off the plane literally and I've been interviewing on the American media. And some of the coverage, I would say, is sympathetic and willing to listen to our stories. Some of the coverage is not. The narrative there is the Israel... Even with all the things we're seeing, the horrific images of abuse, and I would have to say barbarity that we've been seeing by Hamas to some of the killed and taken hostage in Gaza. Did you see the New York Times' first article, first headline, Netanyahu declares war. The headline right now, Israel battles militants as Netanyahu warns of a long war. Next headline, more than 900 dead after Hamas attacked Israel's retaliation. They have conflated the civilians in Israel killed along with the Palestinian terrorists killed together. It's like saying, 9-11, 3,019 people were killed after two planes that would be the equivalent of that. So that's the New York Times. New York Times is relatively at a time. Other news stations in the United States, the narrative is, well, you turned your back on peace. This is what you get. And the Palestinians have a right to defend themselves as perceived as some type of legitimate self-defense. The representatives and spokespeople for the Palestinian Authority, that is their narrative. The Palestinians have a right to defend themselves. They have a right to defend themselves by yanking civilians out of cars and vans and shooting them on the road and taking captive young people and old people in wheelchairs and terrorizing children and children. So that has proceeded to self-defense and to a certain degree, that narrative has taken hold. Fortunately, fortunately, the Biden administration has come out unequivocally on the side of Israel. I think the President gave a statement which I think could be stronger. And I think most important, the most important part of that statement was that we will give Israel exactly what it needs to fight this battle. Because in every single battle we have fought over the last, since 2006, since the Second Lebanon War, we have always run out of vital types of ammunition. Especially for, for example, the Iron Dome defense system, which is one of them and other of these air defense systems. But that's different. There's only a limited number of these interceptors. But underneath where we're sitting, there is some $2 billion in prepositioned U.S. military equipment. It's, theoretically, was put there by President Bush to serve American military forces in the Middle East. Not many of those left. Everybody knows this serves us as a sort of strategic reserve. Whenever we need this ammunition, we ask the United States for the keys to go into these warehouses. With only one exception, 2014, during that Gaza conflict, President Obama sort of delayed that request, you remember. And for the most part, we are allowed to go in. We can take what we need. We write it down. We pay for it. What I think was President Biden was signaling this, that as this conflict unfolds and it will unfold, we will be there to give Israel what it needs. That's a very, from my point of view, that was an extraordinary statement. All right, so we are also getting a report that the, from a senior, there's a senior Biden administration of us saying that a direct warning was issued by the U.S. government to his Bullah, not to get involved in it. And we're hearing that there may be some even demonstration of bringing some kind of American, at least show of potential force if that would be. How effective would a warning like that be to his Bullah? It could be effective. I think a more effective one would a message not to his Bullah, but to Tehran. And that if you continue this, and I think there's a direct Iranian connection, we can talk about this, would be, you make no mistake about it. If this war continues as Israel's security is in jeopardy, we will take measures against you, the Iranians. And also, I do have to ask you, you've been a member of Israeli governments, a lot of questionings about how the government, putting aside even the military side of it, how it's been handling the situation since it's, since this first erupted yesterday, also vis-a-vis the Israeli public itself. I think the Israeli public has been kept in a dark about a lot of this. I mean, some of it, I understand the security reasons for classification. But watching it from afar, again, I wasn't here for the last 24 hours. Many people are in the dark, and I'm talking to my children and grandchildren here, and they don't know what's happening. Everything is, everyone is being, you know, fed on rumors, and the rumors spread very quickly. But this has been the case in previous Israeli wars, certainly in 1973, even in 1967. Israel did not admit to having destroyed the Egyptian Air Force until like two days later. Okay, but I'm talking about to its own public. Sure, this is the own public, didn't. There are reasons. I think that at the end of the day, clarity and candor will be very important. It's too early to start pointing the fingers. There's going to be a lot of finger pointing here. There will be vestigative commissions afterward. Right. Dr. Michael won't stay with us. We're going to continue on broadcast. The Israeli Minister of Intelligence, Gila Gamiel, will be joining us in studio. Maybe we can get some answers, and we will continue our coverage. It's course, it's day two of a war. A war. Not right war now, as declared officially, and that was officially confirmed legally today between Israel and the terror group Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Stay with us. We'll be right back. Imagine being able to see into the future. We can take you there. Welcome to Israel Business Beat, your gateway to the captivating world of Israeli business and technology. Israel Business Beat. Sunday's in Wednesday's 9 30 PM GMT. It's a living, breathing organism that pulsates through millennia. Touch it. Listen to it. Smell it. Taste it. Experience the Holy Land like never before. Holy Land uncovered every Sunday only on I-24 News. Sometimes it's tough to get past all the noise and get to the heart of the story. Even tougher to make sense of it all. I'm David Matlin and each weekday I'll take on the most important topics, breaking down the issue so you can decide for yourself. Zoom in each weekday here at I-24 News. Expo Valley, your beautiful home designed to flow with nature. Enjoy the beauty of a nature reserve and discover local wildlife. This within a stone's throw Valoisal Plaza, the beating heart of Expo City, Dubai. Live in Expo Valley in the city we built for the world and now for you Expo City, Dubai. Welcome back to the special broadcast on I-24 News. Well, earlier the IDF chief Herzl Halevi spoke about the unfolding situation with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Let's take a listen to a little of what he had to say. The State of Israel and the IDF are now returning war to a criminal under brutal attack by Hamas. The intrusion of terrorists into private homes in the Gaza Strip taking women and children is murderous terrorism. That's why we are now attacking chasing after everyone who took part in this. We will continue with this. I know the last day has been difficult and the price is heavy. There are many questions and I know there is a lot of frustration, but the important thing is that we are now moving forward in solving the problem. We have our own civilians and soldiers who are killed, some fell into the hands of enemies. No round, time for war. Let's do with us Dr. Michael Lauren and Michael Ure, a student of certainly military history of Israeli military history. One big question always being asked by an army when it goes into a military, when it goes to a conflict, what is its goal here? And we haven't really heard that clearly yet from the IDF. There hasn't even been a declaration. We're going to bring every last Israeli home. We're going to topple Gaza, Hamas. What do you think the goal is here? What do you think it should be? The absence of a stated goal has been an endemic problem in our recent rounds of fighting with Hamas. The government has declared that the goal is to basically destroy Hamas and Islamic jihad so they can no longer threaten this release. But what does that mean? Does it mean reconquering the Gaza Strip? Does it mean chasing large number of Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip? And it begs the question at the end of the day who might take those keys with us. These are questions which we can discuss with the United States and other allies in the world the morning after. But right now it seems to be quite clear that the goal must be restoring security to the people of Israel to our border, restoring the captives, releasing our hostages, and certainly at the very least determining and diminishing Hamas' offensive capabilities. That's certain. In the past, in the distance past, going back to 2008, the cast-led operation, we had an objective of removing, of demilitarizing the Gaza Strip. Yes, I do remember demilitarizing the Gaza Strip. And you know, somebody asked, there were actually plans about how demilitarization could be effective with international actors, supervising, taking out the missiles. That could also be listed. But I think that the government now has gone beyond that saying we don't want to demilitarize the Gaza Strip, we want to de-hamas I think that's what the Israeli public wants. Back in 221, if I can go on just a second, I was involved in the negotiations about the ceasefire. On the ninth night of the war, when President Biden came to the Israeli government and said, okay, that's it. Right now you've got to stop. 80% of the Israeli public was against the ceasefire then. They were against going back to status quo ante then. Can you imagine the percentage of Israelis today, which refuses to go back to that status quo ante? Almost, I would say 100%. Certainly of the Jewish population. Michael, stay with us. We're going to go jump down to Sterot, which is the Gaza border town that has borne the brunt of a lot of the violence of the last two days, our correspondent Nicole Sedeck there. Nicole, we had reports. We had that flurry of rock of sirens a little over an hour and 15 minutes ago. Reports one may have landed. What's the situation down by you there in the middle of the night? What's the situation down by you there in the middle of the night? What's the situation out? Well, it is a constantly evolving and developing situation Kalev. In fact, within the past 30 seconds here, I did see a spew of light sliding up the sky behind me here. However, we didn't actually get a rocket alert or hear any of the actual explosions, but that's exactly what we're seeing here. We are still seeing that barrage of rockets have firing from Hamas. I still actually hear different explosions happening overhead, but like I said, nothing official from my phone as far as the red alerts. Now in the distance, what I can also hear is gunshots, and that's what we're hearing and there's an exchange of fire between different Israeli soldiers and Hamas terrorists now in the sky. Once again, I'm looking overhead because my cameraman says, you know, there are exceptions or explosions happening above us in the sky here. And so it is a very, very active scene what we have here on the road here. As I said, we're hearing you can hear some of those explosions happening overhead right now. Now we said I heard gunshots in the distance because we do hear that it is an active exchange of fire between Hamas terrorists and Israeli soldiers. All the citizens in state are still in the south. And so that's exactly earlier today why we saw some of these cars riddled with bullet holes. So still, as I said, a very, very active and dangerous scene down here. All right, Nicole Sedeck there and Stero. Thank you for that. Well, we're joined now in studio by Gila Gamliel. She is the Israeli Minister of Intelligence. Minister Gamliel, thanks you for joining us. First of all, all Israelis and all those who care about Israel and what is going on. What can you tell us about what the situation is both along the border area and with those Israelis that may be inside Gaza? Like since yesterday we saw a horror fire. It is a Hamas that came to Israel and killed, murdered hundreds of people, more than 700 murdering young people, women, old people and they didn't pay any kind of attention about who it is and they killed and murdered all the kind of mistake of these people that murdered that there were Jewish people in Israel. They came and fought a war against Israel and against our citizens. And what we did now, we will destroy the Hamas and the Jihad Islamic military capability and we will bring back the security for our citizens. I believe that anybody can see these pictures and all what we see in these days that they are taking kidnapped. A woman with her kids you see an old woman you can see young generation soldiers what they are doing, these animals that are coming we want to kill people and start to and they they have a enjoy for all these what about all what they are doing. So what we are doing now we are bringing back the security for the citizens of Israel and I want that all the leaders around the world will understand that they need to be against these terror attacks and this terrorism and these Hamas that it is a terror organization that all what we want is to kill innocent people with the rockets that we see that are thousands of rockets are coming to citizens, they are innocent citizens inside Israel and what we will do we won't keep any kind of power to these Hamas organization not about their control not about their enemies but you know that will have to come at a heavy price military price for Israel as well governments that you've been a part of have been talking about that for 15 years they've talked about demilitarizing Hamas even after in 2008 in the first generation but it's always been said that concern over the price that Israel as young Israelis in the military and Israel on the international stage will have to pay to achieve that. Now you will see that in this time if something will stay from this Hamas organization it will be nothing that they will get any power to control because now like we see the Hamas is start a war against Israel and this war that they did is to killing innocent people and only because they are Jewish people and what we need to do about this terror organization is to destroy the power their power the Hamas and the Jihad Islamic Jihad this organization and nobody in the world can bring this opportunity for anybody any terror organization can come to state and start to make horrifying against the citizen and start to murdering young generation that they were in a party in their holiday and this something that all of us must to understand that we must now to get this from all over the world from all the leaders to come and support like Biden did now we really appreciate that bringing us the security assistance and I believe that everybody that can see these pictures must be in front of all the world and say that they are against and they supported us. I want to ask you what you have to say what the government has to say to the parents of those young people they were just on television I'm sure you know in the past hour demanding dialogue with the government what do you have to say to them now they want to have some kind of information they understand the government wants to bring them back but they would like to have some kind of dialogue right now with the government. First of all Netanyahu today now it's appointed Gal Hirsch to be the leader of all the connection between the parents and the government and all their needs of course we got the option between all the ministries and all the needs that he needs to help them and since yesterday we are getting all the information that we can about the murdering the people who have been murdered and the people that are now nobody knows where they are exactly and when we get all this picture so we can say more but like I said he is in the front and all of us all the ministers will help him get all the information all the needs Now Minister there will be years of discussing how this happened whether it was wrong conception I don't expect you to give answers on that now but you are the minister of intelligence is this government starting to learn at least about what went wrong what kind of thing happened well beyond the scope anyone imagined the minister of intelligence is dealing with another issue another issue but like you said about intelligence in our army we are not dealing now about what happened who made a mistake it will be a time to do that after we will finish this war and after we will win this war we can ask the other question but now what we are doing is completely bringing the understanding for everybody we think that it was arguing between the people inside Israel but this is democracy and now in this time of war we are all coming together let's hope that I do have to ask you Benny Gantz leader of the national unity party said this evening he is ready to join the government is that something you would welcome bringing Benny Gantz into the government, into the cabinet maybe Gadi Eisenkart another former IDF chief of staff first of all of course I am always supporting unity government and especially in these days when we have a crisis of course in this war and I hope that all the Zionist leaders will come together now the leader of the Zionist parties in these Zionist parties to become together and have a unity government because it will help everybody to do all what we need and I hope that Gantz, Lapid, Lieberman all of them that spoke about that the door is open from our side to come together with this government and to do what we need to do all together to our citizen and to win this war thank you for joining us on I-24 news we'll be going out for a brief break but stay with us we'll be back soon with more of our continuing coverage of Israel at war in between don't miss Jewish World Weekly only on I-24 news and believe me we are out there working hard Israel and Nepal is how they begin making original content streaming live even in the hard moments and filming docuseries with us you will find all the big stories you missed on television so join I-24 news on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram YouTube and Discover the Middle East with us since the early hours of the morning Israel has been facing infiltrations of terrorists, kidnapping of Israelis and a barrage of thousands of rockets emanating from the Gaza Strip the biggest and bloodiest attack in years tune in for our extensive and rolling coverage of the Hamas deadly attack on Israel with reporters on the ground in depth analysis and most updated and accurate information with I-24 news into security, intelligence and strategic affairs our team brings the latest on the major international conflicts analysis of the major security issues right here in the Middle East and around the globe Saturdays only on I-24 news please and gentlemen welcome back to I-24 news while violence raged in Israel south throughout today even into this evening there was also a flurry of fire across the northern Lebanon border between the IDF and his Bollar forces along with threats from his Bollar our correspondent Pierre Kloschandler is in charge of I-24 news our correspondent Pierre Kloschandler is in the north in the town of Naharia and it looks like the army and the IDF is preparing for the possibility of involvement of his Bollar border conflict with his Bollar as they deal with the south of Pierre absolutely you cannot second guess what Hezbollah is planning and thus there's been reinforcements of troops up north although maybe not to the same amount as the reinforcements of troops toward the Gaza Strip nonetheless you can sense the tension here as well when we were in Kibbutz Hanita the Kibbutz was barely was empty basically two-thirds of the population left even here in Naharia you can see that the main street of Naharia where we are is quite empty businesses are barely surviving today people are expecting even a flurry of rockets overnight you know gut feeling of people the army is also in a state of in a heightened state of alert we've been told that it's dangerous to stand on the gates of Naharia of the Kibbutz Hanita sorry because there is no protective shelter around so we were asked to leave and the tension is palpable but it's quiet up until now it's relatively quiet except for the incident that you mentioned this morning right well hopefully it stays quiet there in Naharia in the north on the border with Lebanon thank you for that still with us in studio Dr. Michael Oren and Michael of course we have to talk about the possible involvement of Hisbala if you should go with the ground thing I do want to add there now as I'm seeing information that a US carrier strike group carrier strike group 12 has been sent to the eastern Mediterranean along with the USS Roosevelt and a guarded missile destroyer perhaps the US sending a message as you said to Hisbala and also to Oren not to get involved in this conflict it's an important message I know that carrier group well it's an important one has many many aircraft many many capabilities but you know it's one thing to show a pistol in other words to really convince the other person that you're really to use it right okay and that is yet to be seen there's such opposition in the United States to any further foreign entanglement certainly a foreign entanglement in the Middle East after the unsuccessful wars in Iraq and Afghanistan very it'll be very heavy lift for this president to do I think even the statement that he gave yesterday it was about in support of Israel that unequivocal support for the state of Israel promising Israel to give everything it needs as this conflict unfold would be very unpopular within his own parts of his own party within the progressive wing of the Democratic party I think that they would probably subscribe to the narrative which I have encountered in the American media rail as already interviewing which is hey Israel more or less had it that this coming to it this is Palestinian self-defense and it's going to be difficult for this president but I think if any Democratic president can stand up to it it's Joe Biden alright we'll see if he we'll see who he does he'll be tested here Michael stay with us now many residents of the Gaza border communities who yesterday were huddling in terror in their homes from Hamas terrorists are today being relocated away from that area now one of them is a del reymer from Kibbutz near near him who joins us now Adele are you with us alright I don't know if she's I am I am sorry we just got here okay where is there Adele we know you're from the we spoke with you before from Kibbutz near him on the Gaza border where are you this evening so we have been evacuated to Elat okay well that's for before so I just got here and I understand okay Adele I want you I understand I want you to tell us though about your experience yesterday on the Kibbutz what happened to you so yesterday morning at about 6 30 we started getting incoming rocket alerts which gives us from 0 to 10 seconds to get to a safe room so I got to my safe room where my son was because he was visiting and closed the door and we saw that there was an immense unusually high amount of barrages all over the place like from the center of the country to the south my take on it is that it was in order to be it was cover to sort of get everybody looking at the barrages and not paying attention to what was happening along the fence which as I read some place on my way down there were 15 places where the fence was through and at about 7 o'clock about half an hour after the barrage has started we got notification that we were to lock our doors close our shutters go into the safe room lock the door as much as possible and not go out so we did that and it was petrifying I have lived on Kibbutz Nireem on the border with the Degasah Strip since 1975 I have never feared from my life as I did yesterday and today we were able to hear people yelling in Arabic outside our windows people on the Kibbutz were messaging each other on the communal messaging program frantically saying there's shots outside they're shooting outside our door they're shooting on our door we hear Arabic outside come help us and the only people that could come help were the first responders which is a trained group from our own community but a small trained group there were only terrorists there were so we waited and we were not allowed to go out to the bathroom a safe room does not have a bathroom we didn't even have time to grab water when we got the notification that we had to be locked in securely at one point my son said that he heard Arabic outside and he heard them saying get away or something like that and after it quieted down I walked outside my safe room and I saw that the blinds on my window were broken were shattered they had tried to infiltrate my house if they really tried they wouldn't had a problem I don't know if it's lock or divine intervention a 90 year old grandmother could easily kick my door down they something kept them let me be here today telling this story let's put it that way unfortunately not everybody in my community was that lucky a father and his daughter were murdered and another young man was murdered as he was trying to keep the safe door closed and he was holding on to the handle and they shot through the door and killed him five people were abducted we have no idea what happened to them we have no idea if they're alive or dead in Gaza in some field some place hidden we don't know it was petrifying I as I said I've never experienced this kind of fear before we were that way until three in the afternoon we were on our own the army was so overwhelmed they could not get to our community for what was that seven hours finally the army arrived they started rounding up the terrorists they shot nine terrorists before the army came my son-in-law was in his house with my three granddaughters my three little granddaughters from age two to eight he heard that there was an infiltration luckily he's one of the first responders he grabbed his rifle and killed them he protected his children with his own two hands your son-in-law killed one of the terrorists yes two I believe two okay all in all nine terrorists and I heard another story of another family that were in their safe room and the father heard that there was an infiltration he peeked outside and managed to shoot dead one of the men one of the terrorists who stuck his head through the window and then they ran back into their safe room and those terrorists were were armed with also with a grenade they threw the grenade at the door and they smashed up their whole house and again they were lucky to come out of it alive they were really angry right the army once they came and once they killed all together nine terrorists went house to house sterilizing the area around each house and helping us evacuate to a central spot they took us to the members club the Mordone in order that everybody be in the same place that they could better protect us because they knew that they killed nine terrorists no idea how many terrorists had been there in the first place so we were all protected in this one place and that took a couple hours to get everybody to this one place and it wasn't transporting us it was walking outside knowing that there were terrorists all around and even seeing there was a terrorist body that luckily I did not notice they told me that we had passed it right so we were isolated like this for a few hours and then in the evening they separated us because there was no room for everybody in the one members area they brought people to people and their children to three other children's houses better rocket proof because we were also getting rockets at the same time in each of the children's houses of course they were protected by the first responders by the army and the whole time you hear artillery and rocket fire they kept you in that area even though they knew there were still terrorists roaming around that it was still being pummeled by rocket fire it was too dangerous to leave the kibbutz they couldn't evacuate us from the kibbutz we could not evacuate from the kibbutz until today wow and even today when we evacuated we stayed there overnight I slept about an hour because I tried to sleep on two chairs with a tablecloth for a blanket they had us there until one o'clock this afternoon that we were not allowed out of our safe areas finally at one we were told we could go back to our homes very quickly pack a suitcase and wait in the safe room until we got word to go out to specified areas where the buses would be waiting for us we got word we went to the buses we were in the buses for about 40 minutes until we were actually able to leave until everybody was able to get together and get on and get to the same place we left the kibbutz we were driving down the 232 and there's still there's still terrorists out there we passed a burning car and a charcoal body and it was in the middle of a war zone about half an hour after we left they stopped evacuation in our area because there was too much terrorist activity going on it was I got to Bersheva and they said I'll be completely calm when I get to Ailat and so now I can breathe anybody who has seen you in your previous appearances either on I-24 news and other media when we've come to you during time of rocket fire nose you come from hearty stock and you do really seem remarkable as usual for someone who had not only escaped death yesterday but how does a community like Nereem recover from this kind of kind of recover from this kind of shock from what happened yesterday this was unprecedented I can't say because I have no experience what I do know is that we were a very strong community is what builds resilience all right we're all here in the same hotel on purpose because it has been proven statistic shows that if a community is evacuated together it's much easier for them to build their resistance and pop back from it how we're going to be safe there after this we're going to have to work on that the army is going to have to work on that the country is going to have to work on that that's for sure I felt safe Nereem going out to the fields walking in the fields I want to thank you so much for joining us after what your experience was your family and the community the best thank you for joining us I want to go of course there are many people who are less fortunate one of them people who are still concerned about the fate of their relatives are still unaccounted for one of them is John Pollan he's an American immigrant father of the American born Hirsch Hirsch Goldberg Pollan 23-year-olds who were missing at that outdoor music festival that was attacked by Hamas Terrace yesterday morning John Pollan joins us from Jerusalem we wish you all the best and of course for recovery of your son first of all tell us how you experienced what happened yesterday yeah so we are a Sabbath observing family and I I went to synagogue yesterday morning on the holiday and on Shabbat there were sirens there were numerous booms to cut services way short I came home and my wife shared with me that because there were all the bombs and all the sirens she had turned on her phone to see a couple of messages from our son who we know is away with a friend of his and at 8-11 a.m. Saturday morning he sent two short messages the first one to both of us saying I love you and the second one to both of us saying I'm sorry and we didn't even know where he was because we subsequently found another friend of his who shared that arts on her and his friend on there were at this music festival in the south and since 8-11 a.m. on Saturday morning we have had no communication with him have you had any communication John with the government to try to establish communication with the government or any authorities about what may have happened to her so we filed a report with the police yesterday last night I was at my local police station at their request bringing in articles of Hershey's that would have his DNA on them and some pictures of him and be open to report I was at a different the central main police station today for the situation so yes we have been in some touch with the police as you can imagine and this has been publicized it's chaos all over the country and it's hard to get any clarity from any authorities we don't know what is going on with him let me just finally ask you what is your message to the government then as you deal with this situation what I would say right now is we've been highly politicized for a year at this point nine months I'm not going to get into that I would just say first and foremost that we need to take care of those like my son and his friend and the others who are missing and make sure that they know that we are doing our best to come and get them and I would call for unity across all of Israel all Israelis behind the mission of defending ourselves against this activity and I pray that we all should be safe reuniting with our families and minimize the loss of lives. We join you in that prayer John and also in the specific prayer that you may be reunited with your son thank you for joining us and sharing your story on I-24 News Thank you Michael what can I say on one hand the resilience of the Israeli people you see those two individuals dealing with situations that would break many people but on the other hand as the Dallas said this is just so unprecedented for what this country has to go through and what certain individuals have to go through within this country and I think both have been here for a long time we've lived through many wars we've lived through the Second Intifada we thought this country was almost almost destroyed we always think that that's going to be the hardest thing we're ever going to have to live through and this is your right it's a different magnitude and in contrast to previous wars most of which were fought on the border by soldiers this is the kicking place in our backyards in our communities our schools tonight are all in bomb shelters all of them so this is intensely personal it's a level of pain and a fear and anxiety I don't know if we've ever experienced it like this and it's going to be a long haul back starting certainly with rebuilding our deterrence power from practically nothing and I think we're in a very perilous position right now because our enemies and we certainly have no shortage of them must understand right now our deterrence power we're going to have to restore it and it's going to be a mighty a mighty goal to achieve right now that gentleman spoke about unity of Israel as a people I want to bring that on the political level we did hear Benny Gantz the former Defense Minister Chief of Staff now head of the Opposition National Unity Party speak just a few hours ago saying that he was prepared to join the government of Netanyahu something he had pledged not to do after having a previous bad experience of course his party also boasts a second the number two in his party is another former Chief of Staff Gotti Eisenkott how important is it or not do you think for Benjamin Netanyahu to try to bring that party maybe some of the other additional what we call the Zionist parties in Israel into a unity government crucial crucial crucial I've previously written according an old professor Asha Ariyan he was the late founder of Israeli political science the field I want to ask him in a one question what is the one rule about his really politics that I have to know and he responded sort of like the rabbi Hillel he says well standing on one foot he says Israeli politicians always prefer collective to individual suicide now for Benny Gantz before this crisis where he was basically neck and neck with Benjamin Netanyahu to go into a Netanyahu government and for a national unity government to resolve the judicial reform crisis it would have mean that his supporters would have abandoned him the people in the street the demonstrators would have condemned him and he would have lost I don't know how many mandates but this present crisis gives Benny Gantz and maybe your Lapid also is cover they can join this national unit government we've had two national unit governments in our in our past one was in of course 1967 when Menachem Begin and Moshe Diane joined a national unit government under Levia Scholl and was very effective in navigating that crisis and then in 1984 when Schumann-Paris joined with Yitzhak Shamir making a national government national unity government to deal with the runaway inflation that we had in this country if you remember 4% inflation and it dealt with it that's why we have the new Israeli shekel sort of the old shekel it's worked I think that it's absolutely crucial that we have that national unity government he's right we do need this and finally I want to ask you to talk about the 1967 war you wrote basically the broader picture of how it basically changed the Middle East is this a situation now because we know one of the motivations for Hamas they said it bluntly was to prevent that new Middle East from taking shape from Saudi Arabia making establishing relations with Israel they specifically said that's one of the motivations here are we looking at an event that could be a turning point in the Middle East either for good or bad I think the major factor here is not Hamas it's actually Iran it's Iran, Iran, Iran and the Iranians are afraid of that Saudi Israeli deal but they're not afraid of the peace they're afraid of Saudi nuclearization that might rise out of that deal they are afraid of the return to Donald Trump to the White House they're looking at the polls in the United States and seeing Biden trailing Trump involved in foreign entanglements they see a tremendous amount of opportunity I would not be a bit surprised if we find evidence of very deep Iranian involved in this both on the tactical level on the logistical level there have been rumors about people hearing some of these Palestinian terrorists speaking Farsi we're going to see on me social media suggesting there might be members of the Islamic Revolution but I want to say that's unconfirmed but what is confirmed is that 90% of the rockets they fire are actually made in Iran and the 5% that aren't made in Iran are made by Iranian train Palestinian engineers so there actually is deep in Iranian involvement they're not just financial but also logistical also tactical and Iran has every interest and having the Middle East to stabilize at this point finally let me just ask you how confident are you not how do you just very briefly see what is the next step going to be and what are we looking for I wouldn't count your confidence I see no way that the Israeli government can prevent a ground incursion this is what the Israeli people will demand we cannot go back to the status quo anti the only check on that will be the presence of these hostages and whether we can save the hostages I just spoke to a source to talk to me about the high number of casualties among these really special forces special forces of police these people have been killed by trying to rescue hostages that will be a check but I don't know whether that check will prove insurmountable I think that there's a tremendous pressure on this government to move into Gaza to change the status quo and that will then raise the question of his Bullah involvement Hamas in the West Bank Judean Samaria involvement certainly these are fateful days for as your tragic days I have to say what we've been through for the last few days but like I said before we've seen the resilience of Israelis we've just spoke with two of them this evening have gone through horrific circumstances that I say would have broken many people and it's remarkable just the fortitude that they demonstrate Dr. Michael Warren thank you for joining us thank you for joining us and for the special broadcast on I-24 News of course we will continue our rolling coverage of Israel at war with Hamas and the other terror groups in the Gaza Strip stay with our coverage on I-24 News thank you for joining us today we're going to make three plates from vegetables I'm working only with vegetables because I'm hosting in this house vegetarian and vegan meals in Israel there are so many vegetables and such a big choice of vegetables therefore it's here to use you can play with the colors and you can play with the shape I never ever have a plan before but once I see it baked or cooked I can imagine it's one shot from my head to the plate we're in Zichron Yaakov this neighborhood was built by the Baron of Ocet in 1882 some people say this is the first house of this neighborhood I have no proof but this is the first neighborhood of Zichron all my dishes are made of vegetables that are local because I believe people should use what the earth gives and not import it's very connected to the nature 100% from the nature to the table I started cooking in the 90's in Cordon Blanc Paris and it took me a lot of time to get rid of the meat it's a long way to come back to yourself and really minimize whoever you are on the dish I'm not an artist I can't paint but on the plate it comes very easy to me you can a lot with vegetables because it has different colors from the inside, from the outside it has different textures as long as you remember to keep each vegetable its character on the spectrum between appearance and flavor beauty is mostly important it has stages like in love beauty and then deeper and deeper so everything should be perfect but we cannot give up the first impression and believe me we are out there working hard Israel and Nepal is how they begin making original content streaming live even in the hard moments and filming docuseries you will find all the big stories you missed on television so join i24news on facebook, twitter, instagram and youtube with us special broadcast here on i24news as we continue