 Joining from Tel Aviv and welcome to I-24 News' ongoing coverage of Israel at war, IRL 11 Waldman ran out 27 days into that war, military officials declared Wednesday. The Israeli forces had breached Hamas' first line of defense and were approaching Gaza City. This is coming as rocket sirens go off in Ashkelon as Hamas fires rockets at Israel's south yet again. There are airstrikes eliminated last night. The commander of the group, terror groups, anti-tank missile array, that's Mohammed Assad. Last night, terror cells in northern Gaza were firing anti-tank missiles, detonating IEDs and throwing grenades from ambushed positions at Israeli troops. It was heavy fighting that saw the IDF utilize air support as well as artillery to dislodge Hamas from their fortifications and kill dozens of terror operatives. But this has come at a heavy price. Seventeen Israeli soldiers have fallen in the fight against this barbaric enemy since the fighting began inside Gaza, the latest named as Lieutenant Yvonne Zilber of the Jerusalem Brigade. And there were those rockets just a short while ago in the south and also the Rafa crossing area remaining open for foreigners and the injured to get out of Egypt. Turning to the north now as bullet terrorists fired a surface-to-air missile at an IDF drone on Wednesday night. The jungles unharmed, the IDF responded by striking the cell that fired the missile. And President Joe Biden saying there should be a humanitarian pause in the Israel Hamas' war to departure from the administration, who has previously been steadfast in saying they will not dictate how Israel carries out military operations. The President has faced intense fine pressure from human rights groups, fellow world leaders and leftist members of his own party. We are waiting now for the morning briefing from the IDF and we'll take that live as soon as it starts. But before that, we are going to go to the southern border where our correspondent Pierre Kloschen there is standing by. We just had the rocket alert sirens going off in Ashkelon, another barrage fired out. What is the latest going on on the ground there? Yes, as you mentioned, 10 minutes ago there was rocket fire launched toward the city, the southern city of Ashkelon. We don't know of any damage or casualty reports up until now. And here it's the war effort going on with Israeli fighter jets pounding Hamas' targets in the northern Gaza Strip where we are, which we are facing just behind me is Bethanun. There was a heavy explosion probably caused by an Israeli fighter jet. Now I want to give you an example of the ferocity of the fighting overnight between midnight and 3 a.m. local. There was an ambush by 30 Hamas terrorists equipped with uncrued aerial vehicles as well as anti-tank missiles. They tried to approach an armored personal carrier transporting Golan-y infantry units, the Battalion 13, which already at the onset of the onslaught on October 7 lost over 40 of their soldiers trying to repel the Hamas terrorists on Israeli territory. This fight overnight lasted for three hours. 20 of the terrorists were killed in close-range combat and 10 others managed to escape. There was no casualty amongst the Golan-y troop, but this gives you an example of what's happening all the time, be it at night or at day, suddenly 30 terrorists coming out of tunnel shafts approaching the army with all kinds of tools, deadly tools. And the army has to repel them, neutralize them, and they do that in coordination with the Israeli Air Force, with the tanks, with the artillery, with the Navy, in order to provide cover for the soldiers who are fighting on the ground. And Pierre, we're hearing reports from Egypt saying that they're going to be allowing 7,000 foreign passport holders through the Rafa crossing. What do we know about the situation there? Who's coming through and what are the criteria? Yesterday, there were something like 360 foreign national or dual nationals that were evacuated from the Gaza Strip, from Rafah city in the Gaza Strip to Rafah city in Egypt. Many of them Americans. We believe that today another batch will cross into Egyptian territory for a safe haven. Many of them are supposed to be Americans according to the Egyptian Foreign Ministry. There are 7,000 foreign foreigners or dual nationals that are in the Gaza Strip, so it will require many batches and the Israeli intelligence is checking every name on the list and that takes time. On the other hand, there is also anticipation for the evacuation of a severely wounded Palestinians in the fighting in the Gaza Strip and that also requires checking by the Israeli intelligence so that terrorists cannot escape. Well, thank you very much, Pierre, for those updates. We'll be coming back to you over the course of the day. We're now going to turn to our discussion panel in studio. We are joined by Rafael Yershalmi, former senior intelligence officer at the IDF, as well as our senior correspondent on Ultraman. I'm going to be starting with you, Rafael. Now, we just heard about this Rafa crossing, 7,000 people are going to be allowed through. Is anyone going to ensure this isn't Hamas terrorists, Hamas leadership escaping from Gaza? Well, I suppose there'll be some kind of a check, but on the other hand, is it really that bad if terrorists do go out of Gaza? We can always catch them later at a later date and that's less fighters against our troops. So I'm not so sure. So we know for sure that already a few of the minor terrorists of the Hamas have mingled with the civilian population, those who didn't want to confront the IDF, but just laid down their arms and their weapons, deserted the ranks of the Hamas, and just mingled with the civilian populations to go south. We're actually counting on more of those to do the same. We estimate that at least a fourth, if not a third, of the Hamas terrorists are not such brave heroes and that do not want to be martyrs and might just do that under the huge military pressure they're now under. So of course now the question remains of the leaders because the leaders are important to us in the so far as they hold the hostages and the hostages for these leaders are their life insurance. They need the hostages to save their own skin. But if they manage to escape, then they don't need the hostages anymore and then the hostages lose value, if you will, and it's much more complicated to ensure their deliberation. This being said, I really believe that the tunnels under Gaza do lead into Sinai and the Egyptians are more or less closing their eyes and people like Mr. Sinoir, the number one of the Hamas in Gaza, can easily, when he decides so, to go south towards Egypt. It could also be gradual and they could go south in the tunnels and take the hostages with them, in which case it would be good news because the hostages wouldn't be held in the north anymore, where it's dangerous for them because of even our fighting and being a safer zone in the south. So all this is very intricate. The fact that some people can leave the zone of fighting is a good thing. I think it's very unfair that just a few dual citizenship people can be treated that way and then the rest of the Gaza people are just left behind to cope with a war when they could also cross that crossing, that Rafa crossing and be in a humanitarian refugee camp in the north part of Sinai. I mean, one of the big questions we have to ask is, well, we say it benefits Israel if Hamas fighters flee the area of operations because it's less soldiers that are fighting against Israel. On the second hand, the more that flee, the more that can regroup later and it means Hamas is not destroyed, Israel doesn't accomplish its goals in this war. Yes or no? Our goal is that Hamas should not have power over Gaza. Gaza is the Islamic state of the Hamas. Our goal is we're not dreaming. We can't kill every Hamas guy to the last one. Remember that Hamas is not just fighters. It's also teachers, civil servants. There are many people affiliated to Hamas. There are tens of thousands, even though they don't hold a gun. You know, it's like the Nazi area. You had the soldiers and you had the SS, but you had all the other guys. So what we do want is the objective is the Hamas cannot go back into power over Gaza. Some other entity will rule Gaza. Hopefully an entity we can work with to rebuild and to work for peace. Now, if they go away, they will go away. Once we finish the Gaza war, you have Hamas presence and military presence in South Lebanon, in the West Bank, in other places in the Arabic world. They're there. Soon they will be also in Paris and Brussels. Don't worry about it. They're going to be everywhere. But they will not be in Gaza. That's our goal. We know that they're somewhere else. They also live in five-star hotels in Qatar. So we might reach them. We might not reach them. We have only that one goal. And the Hamas outside will, you know, like ISIS. ISIS lost its state, no more Islamic state. But ISIS is not dead. I'm going to turn first before we continue this discussion to an eye on the North, where our correspondent, Robert Swift, is standing by over there to tell us the latest updates from understanding there was an unmanned aerial vehicle strike on some positions in Lebanon. That's correct. So earlier in the day, sorry, overnight, there was a Hezbollah anti-air missile was fired towards Israeli drone. This is the second time in a week that this has happened. Hezbollah claiming to have shot down the drone, claims have been denied by the Israeli military. And this seems to be a step up in the attacks by the organization, whereas previously, it's been mostly focused on anti-tank attacks and now seem to be attacking Israel's drones also. And Robert, what else do we know about the developments in the North? Because we do have, as everyone's expecting, Nasrallah's speech tomorrow. Do we have any idea, any indications in Lebanese media of what position he is likely to be taking in the coming weeks? Right. So there's been quite a bit of speculation about what angle he will take, whether he will push for further confrontation with Israel, and also how much power he himself has over the decisions, whether Hezbollah will go forward or not. Now, it's understood from Lebanese media that the commander of Iran's coups force, this is the foreign arm of the IRGC group, he has spent most of the war inside Lebanon, presumably advising Nasrallah. But the word coming from Lebanese media is that the final decision itself will be with Nasrallah as to whether or not Hezbollah commits itself. While it is an Iranian proxy, it receives much of its funding and presumably orders to a certain extent direction to a certain extent. It receives them from Tehran. But at the end of the day, it is also an independent actor of its own. And so the question is, will Nasrallah follow direct orders from Iran? And if so, what will they be? Or is he likely to take an option which may preserve his organization? He may not want to directly confront Israel if that leads to the destruction of Hezbollah. Well, it's a very serious question how it's going to play out over the coming weeks. I guess we'll find out a little bit more tomorrow. Robert, thank you very much for that report from the north. And we will be back with you as the situation changes. We're going to return to our studio because there has been a breaking news update where Israeli security forces have uncovered a terror plot from the West Bank, uncovering and raiding an explosive labs in Shua Fa. I'm going to turn it back to you, Rafael Ushalmi. We know that the IDF and the various security forces have been trying to prevent the West Bank for becoming another area of operations, another front in this war. That's heating up now. How long can that really be prevented for? Well, hopefully it can continue as it's done so far and it's done very well. The central command of the IDF is having a very good hold on the West Bank right now. One must say that in spite of the Hamas appeals to go into the streets and start a new anti-fada, the Palestinian streets in the West Bank is relatively quiet. We don't see a prize, a popular prize. We see that the PLO and Mr. Abu Mazen in Ramallah have their usual ambiguous attitude. Like at the forum, the Hamas against the Hamas, we know that they're against because the Hamas is their arch-rival of the PLO and Mr. Abu Mazen. On the other hand, they have to show a good terrorist face to the Palestinian people, that the support. So it's very ambiguous all the way around. One thing is absolutely sure. All the cells, any single dormant or not dormant cell in the West Bank today has been activated and has received a clear order to go into operation with the atrocious, cynical order of march saying to perpetrate yet again massacres as those of the 7th of October to go into a settlement or an Israeli village and kill children and rape women. These are their marching orders. So of course, one of the problematic points is East Jerusalem, because from East Jerusalem it's easier to reach Jewish victims. And that's going to require a lot of work, especially from the Shin Bet, from the Shabbat informants and the police. Right now, fingers crossed, we are intercepting terrorists on their way to perpetrate attacks. We're arresting dozens every night. I mean, I don't know the exact number, but we're around 1,100 or so terrorists that have been arrested. So if we have to bargain for hostages with the Hamas in Gaza, we've got another 1,000 hostages. So far, so good for the Central Command in West Bank. Rafael, up until October 7th, everyone was looking at the West Bank as the biggest threat to Israeli society. Now it's been seemingly completely suppressed. Is it just that it's a matter of perception? Gaza looks like the bigger threat, or has Israel actually managed to pacify the West Bank for now? No, we haven't really pacified the West Bank. But I think that the security forces in the West Bank and the government in place in Ramallah are seeing here an opportunity that they shouldn't miss. Should we prevail and we will prevail in Gaza, they are looking at the day after as some kind of a very good opportunity for them to regain control of the Gaza Strip and to, if they do so, they will need and will get huge help from the international community, from the Biden administration, even from the Israelis, help to rebuild the financial help, more weaponsry and equipment for the security forces. So they're looking at this like they're getting rid of their arch-rival, as I said. And they have this opportunity to go forward. And also maybe to reach again the table of negotiations with people like the voice that we've heard really of late, of Mohammed Dahlan, one of the people we place some kind of hope for a better dialogue than with Mr. Abu Mazen. I actually want to bring you into this now, Owen, because one of the things we've been discussing is sort of this day after who's going to take over. And people are all looking at the Palestinian Authority to do that. For decades now, the Israelis have been largely playing Hamas and the Palestinian Authority off each other in order to keep them both weak. If Israel is simply going to endorse the PA, what's preventing them from escalating into the next form of Hamas or something just as dangerous? It's a great question. First of all, just to go back to a couple things that you were talking about before. In terms of the idea of Hamas fighters going into Egypt, pay attention to the fact that the Egyptians won't want that. So the Egyptian interest on that is aligned, if you will, with the broader Israeli interest, of course, taking into account roughly what you said is the fact that they're leading Gaza may actually be an Israeli interest, but the Egyptians will not want them to come across. So presumably, the Egyptians also have an interest in seeing to it that Hamas leadership certainly doesn't escape. That's number one. As for the West Bank and the Palestinian Authority, this is a difficult question. I think in the short term, the priority for Israel needs to be to continue to allow West Bank Palestinians and certainly Palestinians in East Jerusalem to continue to have the routine in their normal life and to have their economy function well. That's the one potentially positive story that can happen. The big challenge, of course, is that at least a part of the West Bank economy comes from workers from the West Bank working inside Israel proper or inside the settlements. And obviously, there's a lot of concern in the Israeli public about that right now. Of course, the vast majority of those people are not terrorists. They're people who want to earn an honest living. But the public mood is obviously very, very nervous, given what happened on October 7th. There's a divide and trust also among the government itself with how money to the PA should even be raised, if their tax money should go to them at all. And this is actually working this way through Israel's highest halls of power. Just describe what's going on there. That's right. And it gets to your longer term and very important question. The more establishment voices inside the government from the defense establishment up to the prime minister want this tax money to be transferred to the Palestinian Authority as it is routinely, right? It is, in a sense, their money. And it goes to fund their government services of the parts of the government that they run in the West Bank. Betzel Smoltrich, again, the leader of the Religious Zionism Party, finance minister, also minister in the Defense Ministry, of course, his core constituency is in the settlements and from Israel's hard right, has said he won't pass the money over. And he's finance minister. So he may have the power to block it. Arguing, as Rafael said, that the Palestinian Authority's position toward what happened on October 7th has not been to condemn it. And therefore, Smoltrich says, giving them money repeats Israel's mistake going back more than a decade of allowing Qatar to bring those cash suitcases to Hamas. Essentially, as Smoltrich argues, paying the Palestinian Authority hush money to keep quiet in a situation that will simply explode for Israel over the long term. It's a very, very tough debate for Israel over the long term. I don't think that Smoltrich's position should be dismissed. In the immediate term, and this is the argument that Defense Minister Yov Galant has essentially made, in the immediate term, Israel is a very, very strong interest in seeing to it that the security situation in the West Bank remains as calm as possible, that Israel continues to work with the Palestinian Authority. Security coordination with all of the ups and downs in the relationship has continued with the Palestinian Authority, has been a central element in why security in the West Bank has remained relatively stable. So tough questions, and certainly tough questions about the day after in Gaza. And actually, I need to break in, because there is a breaking news report. There has been a shooting attack near Natanya at the bait lead intersection. Reports, these are initial reports, reports of one seriously injured at the scene. There are more details coming out as we speak. We're going to bring you those details as they come in, as more information comes out. But the situation is starting to destabilize in multiple arenas, it looks like. We are going to bring another voice in first, just a little bit on the more positive side, given all the sort of dark stories and the sort of bad analysis of dark days ahead in front of us. And that is Uri Cohen, the founding CEO of Massa Israel. From what I understand, because so many people, so many children in Israel South have seen such nightmarish violence that over the past few weeks, especially those that survived October 7th, there's a need right now to try to rehabilitate them, to try to show them better things. Again, I understand that your organization is attempting to do exactly that, describe exactly what you're doing. So actually, the name is Massa Israeli. Massa Israeli, I belong to Israel in English. She's a ground-breaking educational organization that takes high school students, usually that's what we do with the high school students, soldiers, organizations. We take them on a six-day educational trips throughout the country. As part of the identity journey, these are, we have a discussion circles that encourage conversation, respect, and openness. And the goal is deepening the connection and belonging to the people, the land, and the state of Israel. So there is nothing more important to us than uniting the people and deepening the connection to the state of Israel. So that's what we are doing during the routine times. During these terrible times, we are focusing on assisting as much as we can with civil society's effort. You should know that there are about 60,000 youth in the settlements of the South on the line of fire were evacuated from the rooms, the hotels, and also those that were not evacuated but affected by the war, like in the Tivot, Ashkelon, and Ophakim. And Masai, slightly, I belong Israel, took on the task of strengthening the personal and national resilience of those youth. So in response to this ongoing situation, we'll launch a crucial initiative plan to support those teenagers and actually we take them to one day, we launch one day trips, serious, so one day trips for seven to 12 graders, transporting them to various destinations, including Elat mountains, Al-Negah, the southern Arva, the Daxi, and Gedi, and also Mount Carmel. The trips we are launching now, they include the outer walks or the activities guiding and also, of course, discussion circles that facilitate sharing and processing the difficult experiences that these young people went through and are going through. Can you walk us through what the exact needs of many of these young people are right now? You should know that those youth, they are facing a challenging situation with limited activities available for them. They have disrupted routines and the emotional and trauma resulting from recent attacks. So these young individuals, actually, they require moments of respite from the daily security concerns. So we actually, the need for those activities arose in a conversation that we had with youth coordinators and educational directors in this local municipalities that we should know that those young people and their families as well, they are in distress and difficult following these traumatic experiences that they went through. And all the reality and life routine that was completely disrupted, they're spending now too much time being idle at home or at the hotel or in front of screens. So all of this goes, these young people to get the stress, lost direction and to behave unusually. So that's why we came up with this initiative to take them to those one day trips just to get and feel that they are out from the scene, from the stress that they're experiencing right now. And what do you believe is the best way for everyone around Israel? The world is a whole to help these children right now. I think that as long as we will be able to bring those young children, those youth, we are working mainly with seven to 12 graders, but I think the elementary school students as well and the families and also all the adults, the old people, I think that what we need is to bring them some, to take them out from the situation that they are facing now. There are a lot to work on economically with all the stress, with all the, they left their own. They don't know if they will return. We want them to return, but they still, there is a long process, it's going to be a long time. We build all the communities. So what we need is to support those communities and to give them whatever we can. You should know, I just want to add that we have also- It's a long road ahead, Uri, and I am glad for the work you are doing. It's good that we have people out there helping. Unfortunately, we are out of time for now, but we will see everyone else again at the top of the next hour. Thanks for watching. Israel is officially in a state of war. This is a very active scene, and we need to get in the car as we're talking. More than 100 soldiers and civilians have been kidnapped. Help us, we don't want to do, we just don't know anything. Entire families, including babies and children and elderly were butchered in their beds. Awaken the giant, and we are ready and we are strong. Everyone is showing up. This is the unicycle. From Tel Aviv and welcome to I-24 News' ongoing coverage of Israel at about 27 days into that war, military officials declared Wednesday that Israeli forces had breached Hamas' first line of defense and were approaching Gaza City. This is coming as rocket sirens go off in Ashkelon as Hamas fires rockets at Israel's south yet again. There are airstrikes eliminated last night. The commander of the group, terror groups, anti-tank missile array, that's Mohammed Assad. Overnight, terror cells in northern Gaza were firing anti-tank missiles, detonating IEDs and throwing grenades from ambush positions at Israeli troops. It was heavy fighting that saw the IDF utilize air support as well as artillery to dislodge Hamas from their fortifications and kill dozens of terror operatives. But this has come at a heavy price. 17 Israeli soldiers have fallen in the fight against this barbaric enemy since the fighting began inside Gaza. The latest named as Lieutenant Yvonne Zilber was the Jerusalem Brigade. And there were those rockets just a short while ago in the south and also the Rafa crossing area remaining open for foreigners and the injured to get out of Egypt. Turning to the north now as bullet terrorists fired a surface-to-air missile at an IDF drone on Wednesday night. Jungle's been harmed. The IDF responded by striking the cell that fired the missile. And President Joe Biden's saying there should be a humanitarian pause in the Israel-Hamas war to departure from the administration, who has previously been steadfast in saying they will not dictate how Israel carries out military operations. The president has faced intensifying pressure from human rights groups, fellow world leaders, and leftist members of his own party. We are waiting now for the morning briefing from the IDF, and we'll take that live as soon as it starts. But before that, we are going to go to the southern border where our correspondent, Pierre Kloschen, there is standing by. We just had the rocket alert sirens going off in Ashkelon, another barrage fired out. What is the latest going on on the ground there? Yes, as you mentioned, 10 minutes ago there was rocket fire launched toward the city, the southern city of Ashkelon. We don't know of any damage or casualty reports up until now. And here, it's the war effort going on with Israeli fighter jets pounding Hamas targets in the northern Gaza Strip where we are, which we are facing just behind me is Bethanun. There was a heavy explosion probably caused by an Israeli fighter jet. Now, I want to give you an example of the ferocity of the fighting overnight between midnight and 3 a.m. local. There was an ambush by 30 Hamas terrorists equipped with uncrued aerial vehicles, as well as anti-tank missiles that tried to approach an armored personal carrier transporting Golan-y infantry units, the Battalion 13, which already at the onset of the onslaught on October 7 lost over 40 of their soldiers trying to repel the Hamas terrorists on Israeli territory. This fight overnight lasted for three hours. 20 of the terrorists were killed in close-range combat and 10 others managed to escape. There was no casualty amongst the Golan-y troop, but this gives you an example of what's happening all the time, beat at night or at day, suddenly 30 terrorists coming out of tunnel shafts approaching the army with all kinds of tools, deadly tools, and the army has to repel them, neutralize them, and they do that in coordination with the Israeli Air Force, with the tanks, with the artillery, with the navy, in order to provide cover for the soldiers who are fighting on the ground. And Pierre, we're hearing reports from Egypt saying that they're gonna be allowing 7,000 foreign passport holders through the Rafa crossing. What do we know about the situation there? Who's coming through and what are the criteria? Yesterday, there were something like 360 foreign national or dual nationals that were evacuated from the Gaza Strip from Rafa city in the Gaza Strip to Rafa city in Egypt. Many of them Americans. We believe that today another batch will cross into Egyptian territory for a safe haven. Many of them are supposed to be Americans. According to the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, there are 7,000 foreign foreigners or dual nationals that are in the Gaza Strip. So it will require many batches and the Israeli intelligence is checking every name on the list and that takes time. On the other hand, there's also anticipation for the evacuation of severely wounded Palestinians in the fighting in the Gaza Strip. And that also requires checking by the Israeli intelligence so that terrorists cannot escape. Well, thank you very much, Pierre, for those updates. We'll be coming back to you over the course of the day. We're now going to turn to our discussion panel in studio. We are joined by Rafael Yoshami, former senior intelligence officer at the IDF as well as our senior correspondent on an Ultraman. I'm gonna be starting with you, Rafael. Now, we just heard about this Rafa crossing. 7,000 people are going to be allowed through. How is anyone going to ensure this isn't Hamas terrorists, Hamas leadership escaping from Gaza? Well, that's supposed to be some kind of a check, but on the other hand, is it really that bad if terrorists do go out of Gaza? We can always catch them later at a later date and that's less fighters against our troops. So I'm not so sure. So we know for sure that already a few of the minor terrorists of the Hamas have mingled with the civilian population. Those who didn't want to confront the IDF but just laid down their arms and their weapons deserted during some of the Hamas and just mingled with the civilian populations to go south. We're actually counting on more of those to do the same. We estimate that at least a force, if not a third of the Hamas terrorists are not such brave heroes and that do not want to be martyrs and might just do that under the huge military pressure there now and there. So of course now the question remains of the leaders because the leaders are important to us in so far as they hold the hostages and the hostages for these leaders are their life insurance. They need the hostages to save their own skin but if they manage to escape then they don't need the hostages anymore and then the hostages lose value if you will and it's much more complicated to ensure their deliberation. This being said, I really believe that the tunnels under Gaza do lead into Sinai and the Egyptians are more or less closing their eyes and people like Mr. Sinoir, the number one of the Hamas in Gaza can easily, when he decides so, to go south towards Egypt. It could also be gradual and they could go move south in the tunnels and take the hostages with them in which case it would be good news because the hostages wouldn't be held in the north anymore where it's dangerous for them because of even our fighting and being a safer zone in the south. So all this is very intricate. The fact that some people can leave the zone of fighting is a good thing. I think it's very unfair that just a few dual citizenship people can be treated that way and that the rest of the Gaza people are just left behind to cope with the war when they could also cross that crossing, that Rafa crossing and be in a humanitarian refugee camp in the north part of Sinai. I mean, one of the big questions we have to ask is, well, we say it benefits Israel if Hamas fighters flee the area of operations because it's less soldiers that are fighting against Israel. On the second hand, the more that flee, the more they can regroup later and it means Hamas is not destroyed, Israel doesn't accomplish its goals in this war. Yes or no? Our goal is that Hamas should not have power over Gaza. Gaza is the Islamic state of the Hamas. Our goal is, we're not dreaming. We can't kill every Hamas guy to the last one. Remember that Hamas is not just fighters. It's also teachers, the civil servants. There are many people affiliated to Hamas. There are tens of thousands even though they don't hold a gun. You know, it's like the Nazi area. You had the soldiers and you had the SS but you had all the other guys. So what we do want is the objective is the Hamas cannot go back into power over Gaza. Some other entity will rule Gaza. Hopefully an entity we can work with to rebuild and to work for peace. Now, if they go away, they will go away. Once we finish the Gaza war, you have Hamas presence and military presence in South Lebanon, in the West Bank, in other places in the Arabic world. They are there. Soon they will be also in Paris and Brussels. Don't worry about it. They're gonna be everywhere. But they will not be in Gaza. That's our goal. We know that they're somewhere else. They also live in five-star hotels in Qatar. So we might reach them. We might not reach them. We have only that one goal. And the Hamas outside will, you know, like ISIS. ISIS lost its state, no more Islamic state, but ISIS is not dead. I'm gonna turn first before we continue this discussion to an eye on the North, where our correspondent, Robert Swift, is standing by over there to tell us the latest updates from understanding there's an unmanned aerial vehicle strike on some positions in Lebanon. That's correct. So earlier in the day, sorry, overnight, there was a Hezbollah anti-air missile was fired towards Israeli drone. This is the second time in a week that this has happened. Hezbollah claiming to have shot down the drone, claims have been denied by the Israeli military. And this seems to be a step up in the attacks by the organization, whereas previously it's been mostly focused on anti-tank attacks and now seem to be attacking Israel's drones also. And Robert, what else do we know about the developments in the North? Because we do have, as everyone's expecting, Nasrallah's speech tomorrow. Do we have any idea, any indications in Lebanese media of what position he is likely to be taking in the coming weeks? Right, so there's been quite a bit of speculation about what angle he will take, whether he will push for further confrontation with Israel and also how much power he himself has over the decisions, whether Hezbollah will go forward or not. Now, it's understood from Lebanese media that the commander of Iran's coups force, this is the foreign arm of the IRGC group, he has spent most of the war inside Lebanon, presumably advising Nasrallah, but the word coming from Lebanese media is that the final decision itself will be with Nasrallah as to whether or not Hezbollah commits itself. While it is an Iranian proxy, it receives much of its funding and presumably orders to a certain extent, direction to a certain extent. It receives them from Tehran, but at the end of the day, it is also an independent actor of its own. And so the question is, will Nasrallah follow direct orders from Iran? And if so, what will they be? Or is he likely to take an option which may preserve his organization? He may not want to directly confront Israel if that leads to the destruction of Hezbollah. Well, it's a very serious question how it's going to play out over the coming weeks. I guess we'll find out a little bit more tomorrow. Robert, thank you very much for that report from the North and we will be back with you as the situation changes. We're going to return to our studio because there has been a breaking news update. Where Israeli security forces have uncovered a terror plot from the West Bank, uncovering and raiding an explosive labs in Shua Fa. I'm going to turn it back to you, Rafael Ushalmi. We know that the IDF and the various security forces have been trying to prevent the West Bank for becoming another area of operations, another front in this war. That's heating up now. How long can that really be prevented for? Well, hopefully it can continue as it's done so far and it's done very well. The central command of the IDF is having a very good hold on the West Bank right now. One must say that in spite of the Hamas appeals to go into the streets and start a new anti-fada, the Palestinian streets in the West Bank is relatively quiet. We don't see a prize, a popular prize. We see that the PLO and Mr. Abu Mazen in Ramallah have their usual ambiguous attitude. Like they form the Hamas against the Hamas. We know that they're against because the Hamas is their arch rival of the PLO and Mr. Abu Mazen. On the other hand, they have to show a good terrorist face to the Palestinian people, that the support. So it's very ambiguous all the way around. One thing is absolutely sure. All the cells, any single dormant or not dormant cell in the West Bank today has been activated and has received a clear order to go into operation with the atrocious, cynical order of march saying to perpetrate yet again massacres as those of the 7th of October to go into a settlement or an Israeli village and kill children and rape women. These are their marching orders. So of course, one of the problematic points is East Jerusalem because from East Jerusalem it's easier to reach Jewish victims. And that's going to require a lot of work, especially from the Shin Bet, from the Shabbat informants and the police. Right now, fingers crossed, we are intercepting terrorists on their way to perpetrate attacks. We're arresting dozens every night. I mean, I don't know the exact number, but we're around 1,100 or so terrorists that have been arrested. So if we have to bargain for hostages with the Hamas in Gaza, we've got another 1,000 hostages. So far, so good for the Central Command in West Bank. Rafael, up until October 7th, everyone was looking at the West Bank as the biggest threat to Israeli society. Now it's been seemingly completely suppressed. Is it just that it's a matter of perception Gaza looks like the bigger threat? Or has Israel actually managed to pacify the West Bank for now? No, we haven't really pacified the West Bank. But I think that the security forces in the West Bank and the government in place in Ramallah are seeing here an opportunity that they shouldn't miss. Should we prevail and we will prevail in Gaza, they are looking at the day after as some kind of a very good opportunity for them to regain control of the Gaza Strip and to if they do so, they will need and will get a huge help from the international community, from the Biden administration, even from the Israelis, help to rebuild the financial help, more weaponsry and equipment for the security forces. So they're looking at this like they're getting rid of their arch-rival, as I said, and they have this opportunity to go forward. And also maybe to reach again the table of negotiations with people like the voice that we've heard really of late, of Mohammed Dahlan, one of the people we place some kind of hope for a better dialogue than with Mr. Abu Mazen. I actually want to bring you into this now, Owen, because one of the things we've been discussing is sort of this day after who's going to take over. And people are all looking at the Palestinian Authority to do that. But for decades now, the Israel has been largely playing Hamas and the Palestinian Authority off each other in order to keep them both weak. If Israel is simply going to endorse the PA, what's preventing them from escalating into the next form of Hamas, or something just as dangerous? It's a great question. First of all, just to go back to a couple things that you were talking about before. In terms of the idea of Hamas fighters going into Egypt, pay attention to the fact that the Egyptians won't want that. So the Egyptian interest on that is aligned, if you will, with the broader Israeli interest. Of course, taking into account what you said is the fact that they're leading Gaza may actually be an Israeli interest, but the Egyptians will not want them to come across. So presumably, the Egyptians also have an interest in seeing to it that Hamas leadership certainly doesn't escape. That's number one. As for the West Bank and the Palestinian Authority, this is a difficult question. I think in the short term, the priority for Israel needs to be to continue to allow West Bank Palestinians, and certainly Palestinians in East Jerusalem, to continue to have the routine in their normal life and to have their economy function well. That's the one potentially positive story that can happen. The big challenge, of course, is that at least a part of the West Bank economy comes from workers from the West Bank working inside Israel proper or inside the settlements. And obviously, there's a lot of concern in the Israeli public about that right now. Of course, the vast majority of those people are not terrorists. They're people who want to earn an honest living. But the public mood is obviously very, very nervous, given what happened on October 7. There's a divide and trust also among the government itself with how money to the PA should even be raised, if their tax money should go to them at all. And this is actually working this way through Israel's highest halls of power. Just describe what's going on there. That's right, and it gets to your longer term and very important question. The more establishment voices inside the government, from the defense establishment up to the prime minister, want this tax money to be transferred to the Palestinian Authority as it is routinely, right? It is, in a sense, their money, and it goes to fund their government services of the parts of the government that they run in the West Bank. Betzel Smoltrich, again, the leader of the religious Zionism Party, finance minister, also minister in the defense ministry. Of course, his core constituency is in the settlements and from Israel's hard right, has said he won't pass the money over, and he's finance minister. So he may have the power to block it. Arguing, as Rafael said, that the Palestinian Authority's position toward what happened on October 7th has not been to condemn it. And therefore, Smoltrich says, giving them money repeats Israel's mistake going back more than a decade of allowing Qatar to bring those cash suitcases to Hamas. Essentially, as Smoltrich argues, paying the Palestinian Authority hush money to keep quiet in a situation that will simply explode for Israel over the long term. It's a very, very tough debate for Israel over the long term. I don't think that Smoltrich's position should be dismissed. In the immediate term, and this is the argument that Defense Minister Yov Galant has essentially made, in the immediate term, Israel has a very, very strong interest in seeing to it that the security situation in the West Bank remains as calm as possible, that Israel continues to work with the Palestinian Authority. Security coordination with all of the ups and downs in the relationship has continued with the Palestinian Authority, has been a central element in why security in the West Bank has remained relatively stable. So tough questions and certainly tough questions about the day after in Gaza. And actually, I need to break in because there is a breaking news report. There has been a shooting attack near Natanya at the Bait-lead intersection. These are initial reports. Reports of one seriously injured at the scene. There are more details coming out as we speak. We're going to bring you those details as they come in, as more information comes out. But the situation is starting to destabilize in multiple arenas, it looks like. We are going to bring another voice in first, just a little bit on the more positive side given all the sort of dark stories and the sort of bad analysis of dark days ahead in front of us. And that is Erie Cohen, the founding CEO of Massa Israel. From what I understand, because so many people, so many children in Israel's South have seen such nightmarish violence that over the past few weeks, especially those that survived October 7th, there is a need right now to try to rehabilitate them, to try to show them better things again. I understand that your organization is attempting to do exactly that. Describe exactly what you're doing. So actually the name is Massa Israeli. Massa Israeli, I belong in Israel in English. She's a ground-breaking educational organization that takes high school students. Usually that's what we do with high school students, soldiers, organizations. We take them on a six-day educational trips throughout the country. As part of the identity journey, these are, we have discussion circles that encourage conversation, respect, and openness. And the goal is deepening the connection and belonging to the people, the land, and the state of Israel. So there is nothing more important to us than uniting the people and deepening the connection to the state of Israel. So that's what we are doing during the routine times. During these terrible times, we are focusing on assisting as much as we can with civil society's effort. You should know that there are about 60,000 youth in the settlements of the south on the line of fire were evacuated from the rooms, the hotels, and also those that were not evacuated, but affected by the war, like Nettigot, Ashkelon, and Ofakim. And Masai, slightly, I belong Israel, took on the task of strengthening the personal and national resilience of those youth. So in response to this ongoing situation, we'll launch a crucial initiative plan to support those teenagers. And actually, we take them to one day, we launch a one-day trips, serious one-day trips for seven to 12 graders, transporting them to various destinations, including Elat Mountains, Aranega, the Salton Arva, the Daxi, and Geddy, and also Mount Carmel. The trips we are launching now, they include all the wars, all the activities, guiding and also, of course, discussions, circles that facilitate sharing and processing the difficult experiences that these young people went through and are going through. Can you walk us through what the exact needs of many of these young people are right now? You should know that those youth, they are facing a challenging situation with limited activities available for them. They have disrupted routines and the emotional trauma resulting from recent attacks. So these young individuals, actually they require moments of respite from the daily security concerns. So we actually, the need for those activities arose in a conversation that we had with youth coordinators and educational directors in this local municipalities. We should know that those young people and their families as well, they are in distress and difficult following these traumatic experiences that they went through. And all the reality and life within that was completely disrupted, they're spending now too much time being idle at home or the hotel or in front of screens. So all of these young people to get the stress, lost direction and to behave unusually. So that's why we came up with this initiative to take them to those one day trips just to get and feel that they are out from the scene, from the stress that they're experiencing right now. And what do you believe is the best way for everyone around Israel, the world's a whole to help these children right now? I think that as long as we will be able to bring those young children, those youth, we are working mainly with seven to 12 graders, but I think that the mattress for students as well and the families and also all the adults, the old people, I think that what we need is to bring them some, to take them out from the situation that they are facing now. There are a lot to work on economically with all the stress with their houses, with all that they left their own. They don't know if they will return. We want them to return, but they still, there is a long process. And it's going to be a long time. We build all the communities. So what we need is to support those communities and to give them whatever we can. You should know, I just want to add that we are also- It's a long road ahead, Uri, and I am glad for the work you are doing. It's good that we have people out there helping. Unfortunately, we are out of time for now, but we will see everyone else again at the top of the next hour. Thanks for watching. Over 1,300 people murdered and more than 3,000 injured, and the war with Hamas continues. We bring you first-hand testimonies from the front lines, from those who survived, and all the records of the atrocities by Hamas. Follow us as Israel fights terror from the South and North. Get the inside scoop on what's going on. Only on I-24 News. Good morning from Tel Aviv. Welcome to I-24 News' ongoing coverage of Israel at war. I'm Ariel Levin Waldman. This war is now in its 27th day, and a new front is heating up, that being the West Bank. A terror attack being reported not too far from Netanya. A shooting with one fatality. This, after security forces find and dismantle another explosives lab in the West Bank. We're going to move down to the Gaza front, where the IDF says they have struck 12,000 terror targets since the beginning of this war. Now, the IDF is reporting as well for the first time how the ground forces target bank is being updated in real time, including with intelligence from the interrogation of Hamas operatives. There are some new details coming out now, how the Givati Combat Brigade repelled a midnight ambush. Terror cells in northern Gaza were firing anti-tank missiles, detonating IEDs, and throwing grenades from ambush positions. There was some heavy fighting, and it saw the IDF utilizing air support and artillery to dislodge Hamas from their fortifications and to kill dozens of terror operatives. This has unfortunately come at a heavy price. Since the beginning of ground operations inside Gaza, 17 Israeli soldiers have fallen in battle. The latest has been named as Lieutenant Yvonne Zilber of the Jerusalem Brigade. There was some rocket fire not too long ago from the Gaza Strip targeting Ashdod, and in some other grim news, the number of hostages being held by Hamas has now been confirmed to be 242. In the north, has bullet terrorists fired surface air missiles at an IDF drone on Wednesday night. The drone was reportedly unharmed, and the IDF responded by striking the terror cell which fired the missile. We are going to cross over now to our reporter, Pierre Kloschenler, who is standing by in the south at the Gaza border to tell us just what the latest developments on that front is. Well, the IDF is still pounding targets in the Gaza Strip at this moment. We hear, we just heard an artillery shell. There was rocket fire in Khalid, which is an Israeli community in the southern tip of the security fence facing Gaza, the Gaza Strip. Now, the IDF has published some interesting details, such as over 12,000 targets eliminated, belonging to Hamas, Palestinian, Islamic Jihad, et cetera, et cetera, over 12,000 targets, and in addition, over 1,200 targets that are being annihilated on real time. That means that intelligence about a specific target is transferred to the different branches of the army on real time, and as a result, those targets which are evolving all the time, and the ground forces are evidently very instrumental into detecting those targets. Those targets are being eliminated either by the Navy, the Israeli Air Force. We hear just now the roar of an Israeli fighter jet in this direction. We hear the artillery outgoing shells pounding the Gaza Strip. These targets on real time means that there is a combined effort over the branches of the Israeli army, be it the intelligence, its cyber units, the Shin Bet, interrogating Hamas terror operatives that have been captured. The ground forces that detect targets, you name it, and that is a very proactive offensive, a proactive offensive in the sense that everything that is on the way of the IDF forces progressing toward Gaza City is destroyed. The first line of defense of Hamas protecting Gaza City has been basically destroyed. We've heard that yesterday from the Brigadier General in charge of one of the divisions operating inside the Gaza City. Its IED explosives destroyed many tunnel shafts, destroyed tunnels as well, weapon depots, ammunition storage, anti-tank positions, sniper nests, everything that is on the way of those IDF forces is being gradually, progressively, but tactically eliminated. Now, when you also have the elimination of senior operatives such as the head of the anti-tank unit array over the Gaza Strip yesterday, all these midfield commanders, that provokes, obviously, disorganization amongst the Hamas ranks and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad ranks. And that facilitates also the IDF operation. Thank you very much, Pierre, for that update from the southern front. We are going to be joined in studio now by Avi Malamud. Founder of the Inside the Middle East Institute and one of our premier Middle East experts here. I want to talk about some of what we just heard about the advances on the southern front. 12,000 terror targets have been struck by the military since the beginning of this campaign. Ultimately, what does that mean? Because we're certainly not looking at 12,000 Hamas members eliminated. What are we talking about? Well, we are talking about the wide infrastructure that Hamas has been building for the last 20 years or so in Gaza Strip. One of the most significant things is to see how this whole intelligence is being accumulated while in motion, meaning the visibility constantly because of the presence of the IDF on the ground. And this is something that we talked about in previous meetings. That presence on the ground enabled the IDF to further produce more and more and more operational intelligence. And one of the most significant things is that that operational intelligence is being translated in a very short period of time into operational mode. In other words, when the Israeli forces on the ground are producing this intelligence, in a very short period of time there is translation of that into operational mode, which basically enables Israel to move and to eliminate those threats on the ground swiftly and decisively. Now, Avi, I want to talk about another front as well, because Gaza is something that's been discussed a lot for the obvious reasons. But there's also the West Bank starting to heat up. Just today, security forces dismantled an explosives lab as well as foiling an imminent major terrorist attack on Israel itself. We just saw a terror attack, a shooting not too far from Netanya. What are we making of this? Is this beginning to escalate or is this isolated incidents? Look, since the beginning of this war, one of Hamas' biggest dream and expectation is to see other arenas joining in. Obviously, one of them is, of course, the West Bank. Up until now, it didn't happen. It frustrates Hamas. And I hope that that will continue to be the situation. The Israeli forces in the West Bank are doing a lot of good work basically making sure that there will be no infiltration or no percolation of terror attacks coming from the areas of the West Bank into other parts of Israel. Yet we have to be tuned to the fact that Hamas is doing everything possible in order to incite and initiate such attacks from the West Bank. Up until now, he was unable and not successful in doing that. Let's hope that that will stay the situation as it is. Well, not just the West Bank, not just Gaza. One of the other big challenges is the idea that Hamas will bring in other factors in the region, such as Hezbollah on the northern border. We are expecting Nasrallah to make a statement tomorrow where he's likely going to address this. Do we know where they stand? Well, you may remember, Ariel, that we talked since the beginning, and I was talking about Hamas, Hezbollah's, and Iranian dilemma. And I was basically describing the dilemma of the Iranians whether to send Hezbollah to the war or not. That dilemma is still there, and that dilemma, to the best of my understanding, is increasing and deepening. And I think that I can read between the lines there is a growing hesitation of Hamas, of Hezbollah and the Iranians to basically move in proactively in a full scale. There are different voices within this axis of the Iranian regime, what we call the axis of resistance. And in between the line, I'm hearing from sources in Iraq. Iraq is a very significant component in the sense there are Iraqi Shiite militias that are part of this axis. In the Hezbollah, in between the line, you hear voices of them that are criticizing Hamas because in a way they are saying to Hamas, you have conducted something unilaterally, you basically presented up with our fate completely. You presented effect on the ground. You didn't really consult us, you didn't really coordinated us with us. And now we are expecting us to go into the fight. These are voices that I hear. And by the way, these voices are actually addressing the growing mounting disappointment and anger and frustration of Hamas leaders who are saying to the Hezbollah, it's almost a month into this war. Where are you? Why don't you join this war as we thought that you are going to do? So it's very interesting to see. Tomorrow, as you mentioned, is Nis Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah speech. There are different of things coming around this issue. I don't hold my breath. I don't care what Nasrallah says. It's important to see what he'll do. This is the significant thing. And I wanna actually bring this discussion to the Northern border where our correspondent, Robert Swift, is standing by, to walk us through just what the developments on the ground there actually look like. So the skirmishes that have been taking place every day of the war, almost, essentially have been continuing. So far this morning, it's been relatively quiet. With the last major incident being an exchange of fire in the Eastern end of Israel's Northern border, this was where Hezbollah fired a surface-to-air missile towards an Israeli drone, which is understood there was no hit there. And the Israeli military used its air assets to return fire at that squad, which made the attack. Now, it's worth noting that this appears not to be so much an escalation, but an evolution in the tactics used by Hezbollah. Towards the beginning of the war, they were mostly just firing anti-tank missiles at civilian vehicles, at Israeli tanks when they could find those targets. But as the conflict has continued, as the IDF have essentially removed the civilian population from the Northern border and they've adapted to the tactics that Hezbollah are using, Hezbollah has itself begun to adapt and is making more use of mortar fire rather than just launching anti-tank missiles. It's backing these up with mortars at the same time. And it also appears to be making more use of these attacks against drones. This was the second attack against a drone this week. And as these drones are providing not just important surveillance for the Israeli military from this guy, there are also many of them weapons platforms. As these are, essentially, this capability is curtailing Hezbollah's ability to operate on the border and its ability to attack IDF targets. And therefore it seems that Hezbollah is trying to remove that threat so that it can continue its operations against the Israeli military here on the border. And I'm going to thank you for that report from the front. I'm going to turn back to the studio now to Avi Malaman. We're just hearing how Hezbollah has focused their strikes on observation posts, on drones, on all kinds of surveillance equipment. Is there a legitimate concern amongst the Israeli security establishment that the ability to respond in the north is being curtailed, that our eyesight is being dimmed there? Well, one of the things that we talked about again, Arielle, was that we see this gradual escalation that Hezbollah is initiating in the northern border, but yet he is not crossing the specific lines. That reflects the inner dilemma and hesitance within Hezbollah in the Iranian weather to join the war fully or not. One interesting thing about what happened up until now with all this skirmish between Hezbollah and Israel along the northern border. Hezbollah is very disturbed by the fact that Israel was many times able to intercept its anti-tank units before they were even able to launch the missiles. And there are voices within the Hezbollah that basically calls for the need to some kind of like re-shaffling or re-changing the tactic on the ground. So that may explain what we just see in the last couple of days. Just the same as of now, the Hezbollah is basically staying more or less in the same level of this skirmish that we saw up until today along the northern border. We'll have to see what will happen next. Following Nasrallah's speech, Israel, in any case, Israel's basic position towards the story of Hezbollah right now in the north and the story of the potential evolving of this war to the north should be very simple. Israel should be basing its operation on the ground and preparing itself to a scenario that maybe this whole thing is really expending. Hopefully it's not going to happen. But from a military perspective, Israel must be on a full alert 24-7. And the northern front was something that was addressed by the IDF morning briefing. So let's take a quick listen to Daniel Agari on that. In the north, we continue to attack Hezbollah targets along the border and eliminate enemy squads that try launch anti-tank missiles, rockets, and water bombs toward Israeli territory. IDF forces also in the last hour attack positions from which rocket launchers were fired in the direction of Mount Dorf, Mount Hermon, and other directions. We attacked several squads who also fired in the last hour. Tonight, a ground-to-air missile was fired at an unmanned aerial vehicle. The vehicle was not damaged, and the squad was attacked. We continue to defend with high intensity the northern border and to attack from the air and on land any attempt to fire into Israeli territory. I'm going to turn back to the studio where Avi Malamud is still with us still. What's the message that we are taking away from this? It seems like the IDF is saying, we're strong, we're able to respond, don't mess with us, but is that really going to deter them? Well, look, at the end of the day, the final decision regarding that is in the end of the Iranians. And in the end of the day, I'm going back to what I've been saying since day one. The Iranian have a dilemma. Are they going to watch their Gaza-based arm cut off by Israel? Are they going to come to term with the loss of Hamas and Islamic Jihad rule in Gaza Strip? Or are they going to send Hezbollah into the war? As I said from the beginning, the more the Israeli ground operation, and it is expanding and moving forward forcefully, Israel by now more or less is kind of like completing some sort of like a siege over Gaza City, the more it happens on the ground, the dilemma of the Iranians and the Hezbollah is intensifying and they don't have really much time to make a decision. I think very consciously, I think that what we see right now from the Hezbollah side and from other elements of the Iranian-backed axis of resistance, like for example, the Iraqi Shiite militias that are backed by the Iranians, I think that I can detect some sort of like messages of the Hezbollah and the others that are basically some sort of like a PR campaign which is tuned to the day post the war, when maybe they will have to face a situation where they're going to be asked by their colleague, the Hezbollah Hamas and Islamic Jihad, why didn't you join the war? We'll have to listen very carefully to what Nasrallah will say tomorrow. Nasrallah is a master in belly dancing and rhetoric. We'll have to watch that and most significantly, as I said before, particularly, what's going to happen on the ground. Well, thank you very much. We are going to bring another interesting angle here and that's how terror groups get their money, how they get their funding and how they evade sanctions and cryptocurrency has been one of those methods. Well, to break that down for us, we're joined in studio by Batsala Etan-Raveev, CEO of Lionsgate Network. And I believe that you are going directly after these crypto wallets. Yes, basically what we do is a crypto analysis through blockchain forensic. That's what we do for individuals with the outbreak of the attack. We've got a message from the Ministry of Defense and we basically moved everything aside to be able to intercept Hamas wallets and terrorist group crypto wallets. And this operation has been extremely successful with over 100 wallets being frozen at this point. And this is basically just the beginning. How much money are we talking about on the crypto because we're talking about Hamas's funding. We're doing hundreds of millions of them with Qatar coming from Iran, from stolen foreign aid. How much does the crypto really amount to in the face of that? So basically the age of suitcase with lots of cash is kind of looming. So what's rising is crypto transactions that for most people consider to be behind the scenes when there's no one to see you. But the truth of the matter is that when you move a single dollar and you can move a billion dollar within just seconds on the chain, you have the spotlight right on you and everyone watches all the time. So a lot of terms group moving a lot of money or accepting donations from people that basically support their action. The truth of the matter is, and that's what we do is we put the recognition on who sent the money, okay, and who had received it. So basically this is not just to send crypto online but also to enable us to say who did that. So we have an entity for any transaction that is made online on blockchain. And that's something that gives us not only power to freeze money by major black hats like Hamas and Hisbola. And obviously without the capital running into their wallets they can't really continue their warfare, right? Because it is a game to them. The purpose is capital in the end of the day. So also to reveal the donors which is also a very significant part because they've enjoyed also the shadows and we want to also offer them the limelight, right? People that donate money to terror organizations according to France, a new regulation in Germany, it's illegal. So there's much to be doing in that arena and we're ready for the job. It's interesting cause crypto was always built as being completely untraceable, completely anonymous. How are you breaking through that? Truth, completely opposite. Once again, if you send a dollar from one end to another you can be found with the right means and tools. We'll be able to tell you who you are, where you live, what you do. That's forensic and that's our expertise. Like I said, we do it for Alliance Gate Network. We up until now we've done it for personal individual people that basically got hacked, lost their money. Various 13 scenarios and now we're completely dedicated to doing that and we believe and that's our major vision for Alliance Gate Network is if we are able to monitor and put that grand limelight or spotlight on blockchain transaction, we are far closer to having a safe environment for everyone to be using crypto onwards. And you said you'd been reached out to by the Ministry of Defense here. Before this point, were you just an entirely private organization? Are you working? We are a startup, we're just 13 months old and we are very much pumped to doing this job. It's our contribution to work with light and not with dark and I think the world is now is completely confused with what's going on. There's a lot of ignorance happening in the world and we want to kind of support it within what we know and I think everyone and that's a call out for everyone who is familiar with blockchain technology or forensic. It's their opportunity to rise up now and support what we do by basically contacting us and joining the journey to reveal as many terrorist group wallets and basically put a halt on that capital. This is a mission, not only this is not a solo performance, this is a concert and there's so much to be doing in this realm right now because this could lead the way to a better conclusion for all of us. I want to understand there was an inability to acquire Bitcoin recently due to the war outbreak, the demand, cryptocurrency as a whole. How has this entire situation impacted the other users not simply the terror groups? Well, I think a lot of people are looking at centralized tokens or the crown of the jewel Bitcoin as the way out of what we've witnessed in the past 10 years where there's not so much stress with fiat money. It has been very difficult for people to be able to rely on governments to give actual value to capital, to money. And therefore a lot of people have moved away from fiat to blockchain money, which is crypto and mostly to Bitcoin. I mean, it's a vote of confidence by 5% of the entire world's money. Crypto money in total sum is valued at $1.2 trillion. So it says much about how people would like to be treated with their money and obviously there are a lot of fluctuation, right? But people tend to understand that they prefer that fluctuation where they have their money in their wallet rather than having it with banks that have limitation that don't really support them to bank their money with them. I wanna bring Avi back into the discussion here because one of the things that we've been noticing this entire war is that it is very much a war being fought in the cyber realm almost more than the physical realm. Is this the first true digital war and what does that mean? Well, look, we've been engaged in a cyber war for some time now. In the war, you probably see some kind of like a jump in the level of this whole cyber war. And by the way, one of the things that the Iranian massively provided, both Hezbollah, Hamas and others is these advanced cyber capacities, including into the best of my understanding in the context of the Hamas orchestrated attack on Israel on October 7th. So the use of cyber war is something that has been around for some time now. Obviously in such situation it is making these significant jumps, so to speak. And we all know this is the upcoming evolving thing together with this whole issue of AI and other capacities that are being developed. For the same question back to you. I mean, what does it mean that we are in a generation of the digital battlefield? It means that we have to step up the game. We can't remain in the shadow of what's happening because we have a real world happening right now everywhere. This is not just on the ground. This is also in the backdrop of everything that we are familiar with from social media to internet, also with money, okay? So just to give an idea, imagine a world where you can actually detect, target, and monitor money that is going to organization that all they can do with that money is to pump the next war. I mean, that is what we're looking at as a potential to what we're engaged with, with other leading companies in the world right now. It's a very interesting situation. It's a new war, a new generation, a new battlefield. Thank you both for being in the studio with us and helping us understand all these very different angles. For everyone else, we are out of time, but we will see you again at the top of the next hour. 1,300 people murdered and more than 3,000 injured, and the war with Hamas continues. We bring you first-hand testimonies from the front lines, from those who survived, and all the records of the atrocities by Hamas. Follow us as Israel fights terror from the South and North. Get the inside scoop on what's going on. Only on I-24 News. Down to Elat, the southernmost city in Israel, where I'm joined by Jonathan Dekelchen, the father of Sagi Dekelchen, who is missing. I'm not even going to begin to ask you how your family is doing, because I can't begin to imagine the unfathomable pain and devastation all of you must be going through. But I would like you to tell us a little bit about your son and how you found out that he was missing. First, thank you for having me today. Sagi's 35-year-old father of the two beautiful little girls, aged three and six, and his wife is now seven months pregnant. He was brought up on the cubits with the rest of my children, cubits near Oath, and our cubits like so many others of the border communities was attacked on October 7th, early in the morning. Sagi was one of the first people to spot the infiltration and alerted our civilian security team and the rest of the community to go into the bomb shelters. We have attached bomb shelters, all the communities around Gaza. And then he and the other young men on the security team began to observe and engage the terrorists what Sagi didn't know at the time and took a little while to ascertain was that the few that the 10 or so terrorists that he first saw were actually part of a group of at least 170 heavily armed, well-trained terrorists that came to rampage through our cubits alone. And over the course of the next two hours, the handful of guys lightly armed on the cubits, as I said, observed and engaged in expectation that the Israeli army would show up within minutes. And handle this problem. It took nine hours for the army to arrive at our cubits. At around 8.30 in the morning, the surviving members of this security team decided that it pretty much all was lost and they kind of all went to their individual homes to defend their families, which is what Sagi did in between 8.30 and 9.30 in the morning last Saturday. He engaged in hand-to-hand combat outside the bomb shelter door with his wife and two little daughters behind it, engaged with Hamas terrorists in his home and slightly outside. That went on for about an hour and then all contact was lost with Sagi as contact was lost with all members of the security team by that time. At the time that the army, the Israeli army, swept through the cubits nine hours later. And there were many, many dozens of people on the cubits, including Sagi, who were absolutely there at the moment of attack who were missing. They were not amongst the murderers, but rather they were missing. Some were seen being taken hostage and others were seen on Hamas-generated clips, video clips, posted on Hamas social media websites. But there are many dozens who neither this nor that were identified, but we know for absolutely certainly that they are in Hamas custody. Has there been any visuals of Sagi that you've been able to identify of him being taken into the Gaza Strip? Do you just knowing your heart of hearts that he has been taken captive and has anyone from the government spoken to you about what's being done to A, bring your son home safe and B, the fact that he's missing in the first place? Well, we know not just Sagi, there are dozens of missing people from my cubits alone. Many of their cell phones were later geotracked into the Gaza Strip. They didn't walk there, they didn't evaporate. Clearly, they've been taken. We don't know in what condition, but honestly, I don't know if my son is alive or dead, wounded or caught or anything else. As far as contact is concerned, the government, we were notified that he is missing several days ago by an army officer came down here beyond that type of communication. I don't, yeah, our families have no communication with the Israeli government beyond that. I hope it's not too personal to ask, Jonathan, but you as President Joe Biden is in the country at the moment, obviously a series of meetings both with political and with military officials in the country, but no doubt also gonna be meeting with those dual citizens of both America and Israeli nationality that have got loved ones that have been kidnapped, missing, or perhaps have actually died at the hands of Hamas. Does your son have dual nationality and regardless of whether he does or doesn't, do you believe that Biden being in the region is somehow going to assist in bringing him home? Well, I was born in the United States and lived there until I was a young man who moved to Israel in 1981. So all of my kids not just said he had American citizenship. What I can say, which I don't know to what degree the intervention of an American president can influence the rate or the way in which all of the hostages, not just the Americans that have dual citizenship, but I'm absolutely certain North of 200 hostages in total being held by Hamas. I can say however that unlike my own government here in Israel, the United States government through the State Department, through the embassy, and even through conversations, video conversations with President Biden, I have absolutely no doubt that the president himself and the administration are entirely committed to the welfare of these hostages both the American, the dual citizens and those of other nationalities including the Americans. Or I'm sorry, including the Israelis. That of itself is a comfort, although we have not gotten any concrete information from the Americans or from the Israelis. Jonathan, I wish more than anything. I could tell you that I 24 years myself included are able to get a message out to your son. But unfortunately, I don't have that power. We don't know where he is if he's being held in the Gaza Strip. If there is by some miracle that your son is able to hear you right now, what is the one thing that you would tell him? Well, I know my son is in the Gaza Strip. That's not a question. And I wish you would stop questioning that. There are dozens of people that didn't go anywhere. They didn't go for a walk out in the fields. They, these missing people were taken in some conditions from Hamas or by Hamas in the Gaza Strip. What I would tell my son if he could see this is that we will get you out. We will get you out. We're going to turn heaven and earth over twice. And we will find a way to get you and all of the other hostages that dozens from our people is alone. And all of them will get you home. Jonathan, I just want to clarify by no means that I mean to offend you by insinuating that your son was not in the Gaza Strip. I think what I meant to put out was we don't know necessarily where in the Gaza Strip he is being held or whether or not he's being held by Hamas, the terror organization underground on top of ground or whether it's by some of these civilians that have actually taken a lot of the hostages into their own homes. I also want to thank you very much for taking the time to come on to I-24 News and to speak to us about a topic that is just gut-wrenching to say the very least. Well, I thank you for your concern. And we want now to take a listen to yet another dramatic recording from the Nova Musica Festival, the same one where Mia Hashem was at, to the minutes in which the young couple, Eden Azacharya and Afiq Khimchi together with their friend, Levenat, tried to call for help from the police or emergency services with non-stop gunfire in the background. Levenat was injured, but survived. Eden and Afiq, still a citizen. We want to turn now live to Ilan Azacharya, the uncle of missing Eden. Ilana, I'm sure that no matter how many times you've heard this recording, it is chilling every time I knew. How are you holding up? Thank you for your sympathy. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your sympathy. It's very, very difficult. Very difficult. I'm here, you know, behalf of my brother. I'm speaking from his throat. He is unable to talk, so I'm taking the front in this case. He's devastated because of the situation. And we are hearing this recording every day, several times, every day. And it's difficult. It's very, very difficult. Eden went to a party with her friends on 6th of October and in the 7th of October, the morning of the 7th of October, they were on their way home back from the party. They didn't really, you know, wanted to stay. They exhausted the party. And then 25 minutes after they left the party, around 25 minutes, they encountered the Hamas terrorists, these savages, and they chatted the car, the windshield of the car. Eden was wounded and so did Orfec. And their friend, if not in the back seat, they managed to somehow not get hit or anything because she was in the back. And she took the phone. She tried to call for help. She called the emergency services, trying to get anyone who could help her. She tried to work with the paramedics on the line to somehow point the ambulance directly to them using GPS through the phone. And she couldn't. She tried, she tried, she tried, but she couldn't. She moved to a different phone, trying to use a different phone. And all of a sudden, they saw that the terrorists are getting closer and closer. And she went down quiet. She started whispering. Her name is Livy, by the way. And both Orfec and Livy started whispering, asking for help. Police or someone who can come and help. And the police and the paramedics tried to guide her, be quiet, crawl under the car, find a bush, get some cover somehow. And this is what Livy did. And Eddyn is still lying there in the car, wounded, perhaps bleeding, but still wounded. Orfec also, together with Livy, went out and they hid in the bush for a while, for around two hours. They lost sight of the car and two hours afterwards. This is an amazing part. Two hours afterwards, they moved to another bush and then another two hours. Two hours. They were hiding there in the bushes. And then, suffering from pain, Orfec decided to somehow call for help because he thought he heard the emergency people trying to help them. He went out of the bush and he got shot again by the same terrorists. Somehow lurking in the area. And this same fire, gunfire, also hit Livy, which was there also in the bush, but she kept quiet. Both fingers, because of that, she was hitting the shoulder. But she kept quiet. She was sitting there. You know, it's amazing. We're hearing all those stories and it's just, it's striking how a decision in a split second was literally making the difference between life to death here. As you've said, they chose to leave early. They were already underway out. There was no right or wrong here. Everything was so chaotic that every decision led to a different hellish situation. And you know, Ilana, we were speaking with another aching family member yesterday whose sister is still defined missing similarly to your Eddin. And I keep on wondering in this hell of a choice between horrible and more horrible, certainty or uncertainty at this point in time, what is preferable? Depending on who you're asking. Yeah. You're asking me. I want, I don't want to hear the knock on the door. Yeah. Eddin is an extremely smart full of life woman that is taken after celebrating with her friends, celebrating life, celebrating freedom, celebrating. And it's amazing to see what level these people can go down to kidnapping women, children, beheadings. I don't know where, where is, where all of this is coming from? All this, where did all of this grew up? These people, I know I am a father for three boys, two boys and a girl myself. I'm teaching my children to excel in school, to become better at everything that they do, to be contributors to the community, to the world, to be Nobel Prizes. What? Who grows his child to become such a terrible, horrific killer? Where is this coming from? I don't know, Ilan. Honestly, I don't know. There is a line in the sand here now. There is societies, there are nations, democratic free nations, and there is this ISIS, Hamas. We cannot live together. It will not stay like that. We will make sure that it will not stay like that. We will come out of this misery, of these ashes, and we will strike back just like we did in the past. We'll do it again and we'll rise up. We are not going to give up. This is the only country we have. That's our home. We are not going anywhere. And what I'm asking from the Red Cross is to go to the kidnapped people. They're alive, they're dead, and bring us the status, the situation. This is by law, international law. They have to give it. They have to do it. Ilan, what can I tell you? As we've said at the beginning of the broadcast, it is a war against those who are trying to diminish faith in humanity. And the only response to that will be life. And all throughout our conversation we're seeing pictures of your niece of Eden smiling, loving, surrounded by dogs. She loves dogs. And hopefully, she will be back with you sooner rather than later with this big smile on her face. We're sending a big hug from here to you, to your brother, to the rest of the aching family. And yes, life, life will beat hatred and death. Thank you very much for speaking with us, Ilan. Many Israelis are trying to cope with the fear and pain of having had their family, friends taken captive into Gaza or unaccounted for, for Shira Chavron, a young woman. It's not one or two or three family members. It's 10 members of her family who are missing or, I believe, who are being held hostage by Hamas terrorists. We're talking young people old, elderly, all abducted on October 7th from their home in Kibbutz Berry. And Shira Chavron joins us now from Strasbourg, France. Shira, first of all, tell us a little about your family, maybe not all of the 10, family members who have been unaccounted for or believed to be taken hostage. Yeah. So, you're right, for me, the lease is very long, but I can tell you a little bit about them. My family is the most precious thing to me. We lost contact with 10 of the members on Saturday morning. The age range is between 67 to three year old, my cousin's daughter. My aunt, for example, she found an NGO called Fair Planet who helps people in Africa working to prevent to stop the hunger problem in the world. My other aunt, Lila, she works with people with PTSD who live in the south of Israel and suffer from the situation on a daily basis. My uncle is a handicapped man who has an auto immune disease. His caregiver, Paul, was murdered. We found out a couple of days ago in the attack and it's just... And you have a Holocaust survivor as well, correct, your grandfather, no? Yeah, my grandfather, who on these days I say I'm thankful that he's not alive to see this that happened to his home that he founded and to his whole family, you know. Right. Shira, was there any message from your family during the incident or it's just simply not known what has happened to them? They... We did know they're hiding in the shelters. We do know for a fact that one of the houses, there are two houses with my family in them, one of them you know, Hamas terrorists broke into and managed to get them out and kidnap them. We know that the houses were burned down and bombed actually and we know that from just videos that was seen after but we have, as I said, no info, we just like, you know, try to gather the pieces and build the picture because we don't have a clear one yet. Right. I want to give you a chance to say what message you might have for the Israeli government and also since we're an international channel and we've just been discussing some of the disinformation that's being put out there about the conflict in Gaza. What is your message to the world, to the international community? Yeah, so for me, you know, I can say that my family are also European citizens. They're German, Austrian, Italian. We consider this situation to be a humanitarian crisis and therefore the world is also responsible. This is why I'm here in Strasbourg at the moment. We're talking to a representative at the EU and we try to ask them to put pressure on the right leaders to get the sign of life, to get them to see the Red Cross, to get them to see a doctor and eventually to get them out and to keep this at the agenda eventually and don't lend to spaces before gotten. Right. Could I just match in your shirt? We showed the picture but I see that is the photograph of your family. Is it right now that you're wearing on your shirt there? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. It unfortunately is now in a whole different context because almost third of the people you see or maybe more are not with us right now at the moment and we don't know if they're safe. This is just shocking to hear this Shira Chavron, thank you for joining us. We wish, of course, the safe return of your family and we wish you the best there as you go abroad trying to get them to tell the truth. The term displaced people is often used in the context of the Gaza Strip but we need to update our terminology because there are about 500,000 Israelis from south north that have been displaced. Yeah, refugees in their own country, many of them left with nothing, among them many children left not just with nothing but without parents and now receiving, of course, the warmest embraced by the relatives who did survive this hell but what will happen the day after? We want to turn now to Mr. Yoni Boget, CEO of the Summit Institute and a clinical psychologist. Thank you very much Mr. Boget for joining us. Try to illustrate the situation. How many kids in need at the moment? Good evening. The Summit Institute is in charge and responsible of foster care in the southern part of Israel. We have 300 foster children in the southern part of Israel and between 60 and 80 children who are living in settlements in cities around Gaza. A foster children is a child that has gone through a traumatic childhood and he can't live with his biological parents. So he moves to a foster family and now they're going through another traumatic experience. So we have foster families scattered all around Israel in hotels not at home, living at relatives. We have tragedies that happened in our foster care. We've lost a foster family with the two foster children. We have a foster father who's been kidnapped and my staff has lost many, many relatives and many relatives have been also taken to Gaza. This is a crisis. In this respect Mr. Brigadier, are you seeing any increased interest to become foster families now that this crisis is just the beginning? No, we're not there yet. We're trying just to gather the families, gather the children. There will be orphans in the southern part of Israel by their relatives and we'll also be in charge of them. We're not even at the stage right now we've just in Summit Institute we've formed a task force a psychological task force and we started to send professional people to meet every family and every child just to see to listen to their story to listen to their trauma to see what they've gone through and to see what their needs are. We're not at the point even to tell families exactly the day after we will have to be treating the orphans some this tragedy, some last Shabbat. So Mr. Brigadier in this respect it's not just these kids who are obviously in severe emotional distress that's an understatement an entire young generation profoundly scarred forever and the Summit Institute is doing a lot to help in this respect as well in A. easing the pain and B. developing