 Made For Me, a unique concept in Israel. Custom made men's fashion to your measurements. Made For Me, designer of all your events. Schedule your appointment at www.madeforme.co.il. Made For Me, official dresser of I-24 News. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Come back, you're watching I-24 News. We're coming to you live from Tel Aviv on this day 25 of Israel's war with Hamas. Israel is at war in both the South around and inside Gaza and on its northern front against Palestinian groups and the Iranian-backed terrorist organization Hezbollah, where a barrage of rockets was fired from Gaza at Central and Southern Israel this afternoon and this evening in Ashdod, three people injured, one of them seriously after shrapnel fell after one of the rockets was intercepted. There's fierce clashes continuing inside Gaza between IDF forces and Hamas terrorists. Tragically, the IDF says two Israeli soldiers were killed in the fighting. Meanwhile, Yemen's Iranian-backed Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for a rocket. They fired at the Red Sea city of Elat earlier. That was intercepted and the number of hostages being held in Gaza has been revised upwards. It now stands at 240. Let me introduce to you our studio guest this hour, Colonel Dr. Jacques Neria. He's the former Deputy Head of Assessment at the Israeli Military Intelligence and former Foreign Policy Advisor to the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Great to see you as always, Jacques. Also with us, Ambassador Yoram Ettinger. He's the former Israeli Ambassador and Congressional Affairs Liaison at the Israeli Embassy in DC. And an expert of regional politics is about great to have you with us, both of you. So let's talk, then, about the latest fighting. Tragically, Jacques, two Israeli soldiers have been killed. And as we have been told repeatedly, most recently by Tzaki HaNegbi, the National Security Chairman tonight, this will be a long and costly war for Israel. Well, yes. And I think that the price of what Tzaki HaNegbi has been alluding is not exactly two soldiers killed. So let's wait for the IDF spokesman and hear what happened yesterday in the Gaza Strip. As far as I mean, we are talking about an urban warfare. Urban warfare demands first lots of personnel, lots of military people, lots of the units involved. And it has to be, I mean, very gradual. You have to just eliminate every presence of enemy, be it in every building, in every story, in every elevator, in every yard. You have to advance very easily. And be careful not to fall into ambushes and not to fall on minefield and not to fall under the fire of snipers. So this is very, very, very demanding. And we know from past experience, certainly in Iraq, for instance, the Mosul battle demanded and heavy toll on the allies. More than 1,000 soldiers were killed there. And I'm not talking about the Daesh. Daesh had in the thousands were killed. And we are facing here a very special situation where most of the enemy, most of our enemy, is underground. Is underground, underground the Gaza City, fighting in tunnels. And this is a real challenge that we have. Right now, I can say that more or less, we can understand from what's happening on the ground what is how the IDF is conducting its war in Gaza. There's two main thrusts into Gaza, one in the northern part and one south of Gaza City, meaning to just chop the Gaza Strip in three. The north, the center, and the south, where most of the Palestinians have find refuge in the camps. And starting a siege on Gaza City after we finish with the northern border. And according to Tzachar Enegbi, the national security advisor, most of the area in the north has been lost to the control of Hamas. And it's under Israeli control. And Israel is pouring inside more and more units in order to prepare for a second effort south of the Gaza City. Yeah, an awful lot of military challenges facing the Israeli forces, the tunnels, the hostage situation, and all the while the international community breathing down Israel's neck, trying to get it to agree to a ceasefire. Some in the international community, not all. Well, first and foremost, we should realize there are no free lunches, especially in the Middle East. And if you want to maintain your independence, you have to pay price. At the same time, the last thing that we should do is subordinate our national security to international public opinion. International public opinion has not been ally of Israel. And we should stick to our requirements. And more than that, we have to resurrect, to restore our posture of deterrence, which was injured gravely on October 7. And in order to resurrect the posture of deterrence, we have literally to obliterate Hamas political infrastructure and military infrastructure. Anything less than that is not going to restore our posture of deterrence, which is a precondition, a precondition not only for our national security at large. It's a precondition for expanded cooperation with the US. The US cooperates with Israel because of our posture of deterrence. Saudi Arabia is interested in expanded ties with Israel because of our posture of deterrence. And the peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan and the Emirates and Bahrain and Morocco and southern Sudan are all byproduct primarily of Israel's posture of deterrence and Israel's posture of deterrence on the one hand. And international public opinion on the other hand basically our contradiction in terms. OK, all right. We'll pick up on those points in a moment. I want to bring in what's happening in the north. Our correspondent, Mary McAuliffe, is at the border with Lebanon. Mary, some developments in the last hour. Can see a fire blazing behind you, I believe. That's absolutely right, Laura. So this is an observation post that we've been talking about really for weeks now as we continue to see Israel and Hezbollah trading forces across the border. But we've been here the past few days and we continue to see just mortars and rockets being fired at this observation post. It's an Israeli military post. Normally I wouldn't point out an Israeli military post, but Hezbollah in recent weeks has been repeatedly showing visuals of these surveillance posts saying that they've successfully taken out a number of different Israeli military infrastructure on the border. The IDF, for its part, has not commented on any damage to its facilities. Of course, we've had injuries. We've had deaths among Israeli soldiers, as well as deaths among Hezbollah fighters, almost as many as 50 Hezbollah fighters who've been killed in this latest round of violence. But we just continue to see these cross-border raids, cross-border attacks between the two exchanging fire here. So the fire we're seeing there is inside Israel, to be clear? That's right. So this is a border right behind the hill. It's hard to see in the darkness. I know this is a hill that lies on the Israel-Lebanon border, just beyond that hill is Lebanese territory. So it's also the border post of Roshanikra, just further to the left of that fire. And so this is an area that we've routinely seen hit by mortar attacks, by different means that Hezbollah has wanted to try and target Israeli infrastructure along the border. But it's absolutely inside Israeli territory, but it's not an area that most civilians can go to. This is part of a military area. This border, of course, very heavily guarded, a very heavy military area where most civilians aren't allowed to go. And the communities just outside of it, of course, have already been evacuated, as we've just seen weeks of different attacks, rockets, mortars into Israeli communities, as well as attempted anti-tank missile attacks. The IDF today said it had launched an attack against a cell that they said were planning to launch anti-tank missiles against Israeli forces and that they already had early in the day launched an attack on two different Israeli outposts along the border. That's also in addition to rockets that were fired at the northern Israeli community of Matula. That's just really in the northern part of Israel. But Israel says those rockets landed inside Lebanese territory and nobody was injured on the Israeli side of the border. Okay, thanks a lot, Mary. Mary McCauley there in the north of Israel. And we saw that fire blazing behind Mary. The IDF hasn't confirmed exactly what happened. But just to pick up on Yoram's point about deterrents, I mean, how is the deterrents working in the north? Well, it is working. It is working. The fact is that, to now, Hezbollah has not dared the fire beyond the range of five kilometers inside the Israeli territory. This is one thing. The second thing that, I mean, we haven't seen a ground attack carried out by the Raduan units that are so much feared that they would try to jump over the obstacle and just get hold of all localities. Just exactly what happened in Gaza. The thing is that there is some success that Hezbollah can look at by saying, okay, we have forced Israel to evacuate all its inhabitants along the border. We have asked, because of our standing and our steadfastness, Israel has been compelled to direct some of its troops, or half of its troops that were mobilized into the northern area. And in doing so, we have assisted Hamas, even though we are not very happy about what Hamas did. Hamas surprised us. Hamas did not coordinate the timing of the attack against Israel. With us, had they coordinated the attack, we would be right now fighting in Safad. We would be fighting maybe in Haifa. We would be, I mean, the surprise would have been totaled completely. So right now, when Hezbollah, after three weeks of fighting with Israel, intermittent fighting over the border, he is really a loser. He has a riddle that he is not succeeding to solve. How to attack the Israeli system of defense? Every cell that he is pushing forward has been intercepted and killed. Most of his anti-tank missile squads have been eliminated either by direct fire or by drones. So he has more than 60 fighters of anti-tank missiles. This is a huge quantity in Hezbollah's armament. And it's very important for him to see how he continues the fighting with Israel. So we have to wait on Friday to hear what his excellency, his sanctity, Mr. Hassan Nasrallah, would tell us what is he going to tell. And in my view, he is going to, I mean, this is the day in combination of the 50 or 60 Hezbollah terrorists who were sent on the road to Jerusalem. So by the time he begins his talking on Friday, I hope that 60 more would have joined that. And he has, he will say very plainly that he has 100,000 of these people ready to do the same. What do you make of Hezbollah's actions so far? I mean, if we go right back to just after the attacks, they were warning weren't they? We are ready to respond to any Israeli aggression. That's what they said. And they have said that they are ready to join the war. Do you think they've been surprised by the level of American support, which has flooded to Israel? Well, in my opinion, we should not underestimate the sophistication of Hamas in the South and Hezbollah in the North. But equally important, we should not underestimate the capability to absorb Israeli bombing. We're talking about an apocalyptic enemy. This is not an enemy that shies away from martyrdom, especially Hezbollah, the Shiites. It goes back to the 7th century, the Karbala battle, which until this very day has become a role model for martyrdom. My own lesson is that we should have done it long time ago, namely, not to put emphasis on defense but on offense and to shy away from reaction and preempt. And the same goes for both Hezbollah and Hamas. There was an illusion in Israel, very self-destructive illusion, that we buy quiet on the border for quiet inside Israel. We never had quiet with Hamas and Hezbollah. We provided them with time to upgrade their capabilities, and we must not repeat that mistake, not with Hezbollah and not with Hamas. So would you like to see the IDF respond more forcefully to the provocations by Hezbollah and the attacks by the devil? As I said, any day we do not preempt is a net gain for Hezbollah. I'm aware, I'm aware of the price of fighting on both fronts. But that's the Middle East, and that's the reality of Israel. And the question is, having Hezbollah today in a preemptive manner on our watch would cause, certainly, would have a toll. But working on their watch would have dramatically higher toll than preempting their attack. Do you agree with that? I quite agree with the idea of preempting, that the problem is that we lost the momentum. We lost the momentum, because I mean, several times, the Israeli press reported that our Ministry of Defense had planned, and the military establishment had planned a preemptive attack on Hezbollah missiles in Lebanon. And our prime minister, because responding to an American pressure, said no. The Americans don't want it. Don't want the conflict to expand into a regional conflict. This is why he said, no, don't do it. I mean, the don't was also directed towards Israel. So this is one thing that we have to remember. So there is no surprise. There is no surprise. And certainly, Hezbollah has prepared himself in order to feel, to accept the strike from Israel and to respond in consequence. But I would like to go back to the deterrence idea. I remember very well, and since I followed Hezbollah for a long time, that the declaration of Nassala were that if Israel would trespass a red line, meaning that they begin a ground offensive, then we will respond in kind. We have been there for more than three days, and we are waiting for His Excellency, His Sanctity, to see what He will respond. We should wait here. What do you have to say on Friday? Yes. OK, but so far, no major escalation, you say, from Hezbollah. All right, let's go back to the south then to find out what's happening there. Our correspondent, Pia Steckelback, is in the south. And Pia, tragically, we've got the news that two IDF soldiers have been killed in the latest fighting. Right to Laura, the idea of confirming that two soldiers were killed inside Gaza, possibly last night, and two others are severely injured here as the Israeli military is intensifying its ground incursion into Gaza. Fighting has been taking place on the ground here. Behind me in Gaza throughout the day, the Israeli army saying that they have targeted squads who were on their way to launch anti-tank missiles and also several targets belonging to Hamas. We're also hearing that a couple of hours ago, an airstrike that is attributed to Israel targeted the Jabalia refugee camp. The numbers of victims and of killed vary from 100 to 400 according to sources in Gaza. The IDF is saying that this incident is under investigation, not providing any further details at this moment. Another incident happening in the neighborhood of Nuseirat, a bit further down south here, where a building was targeted, also killing dozens of people. That is what's coming out of Gaza at this moment. We're talking about northern Gaza. And the Israeli army has been continuously called upon people to evacuate that area and to move further down south. But we do know that not everyone has been following that call. And it estimates more than a million people have been displaced so far. But there are still civilians in northern Gaza there. And that strike on that refugee camp really showing that civilians are being caught in that fighting as the Israeli army is intensifying its strikes in Gaza from the air. And we've been hearing that really all throughout the evening we're hearing Israeli aircraft, helicopters, planes, as well as the artillery here targeting targets inside Gaza. We're here standing in front, basically only a few hundred meters away from northern Gaza from the neighborhood of Beth Hanun. Then we're hearing the Israeli strikes. And we're also seeing the rockets coming from the Gaza strip targeting cities in Israel, just the latest barrage targeting central Israel. We've been seeing how these rockets were coming out of the Gaza strip targeting Tel Aviv and the surrounding cities there. As I said, the Israeli army seems to be intensifying their strikes on Gaza. And that's what we've been here witnessing here on the ground also with our eyes and with our ears as he really the booms are intensifying from artillery and their strikes. Thank you very much, Pia. And Pia Stackleback there. And we should point out, of course, any information coming out of Gaza is from Hamas. Hamas controls Gaza. So we cannot provide any information. I would very much advise to stop quoting the Palestinian sources. What is the number? 100 or 400? Really, I mean, this is something incredible. We are being, I mean, the spokesman of Hamas. This is something that I cannot accept. Well, Pia is quoting figures. I hope so, that we have to underline and to stress the fact that this is Palestinian sources and not confirmed at all. But there will obviously be civilian casualties in Gaza. There are casualties in every war. In every war, we have casualties also. But we have to just check our numbers. As we always point out, none of these figures are. We saw the hospital. 500 were killed in five minutes. We know that 500. And then we realized that there were barely a few dozens. And in the parking and not at the hospital. And it was a misfire by the Islamic jihad. We at I-24 consistently point out that any numbers coming out of Gaza are Hamas numbers. Hamas controls Gaza. And no numbers coming out of Gaza can be verified. Yoram, I want to talk a bit about the international situation, given your experience as a former ambassador. There was a Senate committee hearing today. And the FBI director, Christopher Ray, said that Hamas now poses the greatest threat to US domestic security since ISIS. Your thoughts on that? Well, the war of Israel against Hamas is the war of the West against Islamic terrorism. And Israel is, in this case, a line of defense for the West. Neither Hamas nor Hezbollah or Iran consider Israel their utmost target. Their utmost target is to install Islam as the only religion, only legitimate religion in the world. They want to bring the so-called infidel West to submission. In that regard, Hezbollah and Hamas and Iran have expanded their ties with the drug cartels in Mexico, Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Brazil. Part of that collaboration has been training by Hezbollah and Hamas of the drug cartels in car bombing, which they expect and they try to bring to the US mainland as well. We're talking about the Iranians exporting to the drug cartels machinery to construct underground tunnels in order to infiltrate the US from Mexico. And therefore, the current statement by the FBI director is nothing new. It has been going on for a few decades for simple reason. Islamic terrorism considers Central America to be the soft underbelly of the United States. And the United States is the number one enemy. And we've got that border, of course, where lots of apparently many Iranian are getting through. Talking about countries further afield, according to China, Israel is no longer on the map. Leading online digital maps from Baidu and Alibaba don't name Israel or the Palestinian territories. But cities and borders and nearby countries are clearly named like Cyprus, for example, and Lebanon. Well, Beijing has, in the past, reacted with fury over maps, which it says do not reflect its territorial integrity over its own disputed areas. Well, to talk more about that, we're joined now on the line by Yuval Wain Rehm, you're a China expert. I'm sorry, I haven't been told the name of your organization. Tell me the name of your organization, if you would. I'm with Crystal Age. Crystal Age. Yeah, thank you. Good to have you with us. Thank you so much. Just then, what is going on with China? Is this a recent change? Is this since October 7th, or is this a long time policy? So there was an outroar about this in the last couple of days. And I first noticed this when I was told about it three days ago. But from everything that I researched, I see no clear evidence that this is something that happened recently. But it's definitely happening. I mean, you definitely don't see Israel's name on the map. What's more, the borders that are marked on the map are not the borders of the ceasefire in 1949, the so-called green line in Israel, but they are the borders of the UN resolution from 1947 that Israel accepted and the Arabs, of course, rejected. And that started the independence war. So China is not only not naming Israel, but it's also providing some kind of deceiving information as to what are the actual borders that are in dispute. Oh, OK. So China, going back in time with its history lessons. OK. Well, what is Beijing's official position then on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? So their official position, we have to say, has not changed much since the foundation of the People's Republic of China. They support the Palestinian cause. Since the foundation of the Israel-China official diplomatic ties, they've changed in New York state a bit. And they do support the two-state solution officially based on the 1967 line that, again, they don't really follow right now on the map. But they still clearly support the Palestinian cause due to a large amount of interest that I can elaborate on if we have time. Sure. Go ahead. So, first of all, historically, let's say China's position was based on its so-called anti-imperialistic stance, and they're seeing of Israel as kind of a proxy of the US, which is their imperial enemy, we can say. And that is the historical and so-called ideological reasons. But actually, there's many more reasons that are just pure economic and diplomatic interests. China imports most of its energy resources, fuel and natural gas and oil from the Middle East and from Arab countries. China invests vast amounts of money in different projects throughout the Middle East and in other Muslim and Arab countries. And of course, there are 50-something Arab and Muslim countries in the world, whereas there is only one Jewish state, and that really helps China in the international organizations to make sure that they're voting according to the China preference. And for example, you can see that clearly on Xinjiang, where there are no, all the Muslim and Arab countries are in an outcry now for the Palestinian justice, but you don't see any of them speaking about Xinjiang, let alone voting about anything against it. So that goes hand in hand. There is a combination of interests here. And all of that, of course, is tied to China's strategic goal, which is to increase its international influence and basically provide an alternative or counter to the US global leadership. So this is what drives China into these actions and to their stand on the Palestinian cause, specifically on this war, it was really outrageous because, yeah, sorry. So China basically doing what Iran has been trying to do for many years now, wiping Israel off the map, not physically, but on its maps anyway. We have to leave it there, Yubal. Thank you. We appreciate it. Yubal, why not over there at Crystal 8? Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. We're going to take a very short break. Do you stay with us? We'll be back with all the very latest right after this. So go away. Officially in a state of war, this is a very active scene and we need to get in the car as we're talking. Within a hundred soldiers and civilians have been kidnapped. Help us. We don't want to do it. We just don't know anything. Entire families, including babies and children and elderly, were butchered in their beds. Everyone, the giant, and we are ready and we are strong. Everyone is showing up. This is the unity. Welcome back. You're watching I-24 News. We're coming to you live from Tel Aviv on this day, 25 of Israel's war with Hamas. Israel, remember, still at war in both the south, both around and inside Gaza, and on its northern front against Palestinian groups. And the Iranian-backed terrorist group has Bala, a barrage of rockets fired from Gaza at central and southern Israel this afternoon with reports of a direct hit, sorry, with reports of injuries, I should say, in Ashdod, at least three people injured, one of them seriously, when a rocket was intercepted overhead. They were injured by shrapnel, just to be clear about that. Fears clashes continue inside Gaza between IDF forces and Hamas terrorists. The IDF has confirmed that two Israeli soldiers have been killed, two others have been seriously wounded. Yemen's Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have declared war on Israel and have claimed responsibility for a rocket that was fired at the Red Sea city of Elat earlier today. Meanwhile, the number of hostages being held inside Gaza has been revised upwards and now stands at 240. That includes babies, young children, women, and elderly people as well, all of them still being held by terrorists inside Gaza. The family is enduring an agony now for 25 days. With me in the studio, Colonel Dr. Jacques Nariah is the former Deputy Head of Assessment at the Israeli Military Intelligence and a former Foreign Policy Advisor to the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Ambassador Yoram Ettinger is the former Israeli Ambassador and Congressional Affairs Liaison at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C. Thank you to you both. So we were just having a discussion earlier because part of the pressure on Israel, of course, is to really reduce as much as possible the number of innocent civilian lives being lost in Gaza. Yes. Well, you know, we are not interested in creating a humanitarian crisis. We are conducting a war according to the laws of war. The international accepted the laws of war. We are not carpet bombing that the Americans have done in Iraq and Afghanistan. We are not using neutron bombs that can annihilate, I mean, thousands of people at a time. We are not conducting a war like the Russians in Afghanistan or the Americans in Iraq. We are trying to be very, very specific, very surgical and it has a price. It has a price because we are paying the price. Instead of bombing, carpet bombing and advancing rapidly, we have to go and fight our way, building after building house after house and yard after yard. And this will cost us a lot of lives. And this is a price, a heavy price that we have to pay in order to continue and conduct ourselves according to the laws of war. And we should be proud of ourselves because I believe that we are one of the best armies in the world that conducts itself according to the rules of war as they have been pronounced at the Geneva Convention. So this is something that we have to take into consideration. And we are facing disinformation. We are facing a wave, a tsunami of disinformation that, you know, and of course, the sympathy or empathy that the world has towards what is considered to be David and David is the Palestinians. Now, believe me, Ambassador, I think I said earlier about where we live here. We are living in a very bad neighborhood. If we stop tomorrow, if we stop tomorrow fighting and we accept the ceasefire, you will see all those who are now crying and suffering and say, we are suffering. We don't have food. We don't have nothing. They will go in the streets waving high, I mean, their hands and applauding the exploit of Hamas, throwing flowers and sweets at Hamas terrorists. And they would just shout very, very highly about their victory. But there are also many Palestinians and civilians who have suffered under Hamas as well, we should point out. Well, you know, they have voted for Hamas and they have chosen their government. So you must assume. And then allow me, on the 7th of October, after the first wave of Hamas terrorists invading Israel, who came and just looted the whole Kibbutzim? Who came there? But there are only the people of Gaza. There are no innocent lives in Gaza. Thousands of them. They were the ones who were just to butcher the people, they're living there, who captivated people. Absolutely. But we have to be clear, there are also innocent in Gaza who did not want Hamas and who have hopefully moved to the south. I don't agree with you. I don't agree with you. You say that the Palestinian people in Gaza are not Hamas. I say, yes, they are Hamas. They have voted Hamas. They have voted Hamas in 2007. It's more than voting Hamas. We're talking about people in Gaza and Judea and Samaria that have gone through hate, education, K through 12 since 1993. Namely, we're talking about almost two generations that have been urged by the education system, by the Friday sermons in the mosque to commit suicide or martyrdom for the sake of Allah, for the sake of holy war against the Fidel Jews. And therefore, the attempt to separate Hamas from the bulk of the population is, in my mind, oversimplification. Okay, but it is untrue to say there are no innocent people in Gaza. I think we need to make that clear. And Israel is doing everything it can to protect innocent life. We heard earlier from the National Security Council Chairman, Zaki Hanegbi. He spoke about the progress of the campaign inside Gaza, and he also spoke about Egypt's concern that displaced people from Gaza will rush the Rafa crossing if it's opened. The phase that is being carried out at this time is the phase of the ground activity that is taking place in the northern Gaza Strip. It is hard fighting. It involves fierce fighting. There's no fighting without a painful price. We are a warrior nation. We are determined, despite the pain, to win. Another supreme goal, as the Prime Minister defined, is to create conditions for the return of the kidnapped to their families. This is our sacred commitment as a nation to our citizens and soldiers. As revealed yesterday, the military move serves both the effort to return the kidnapped and the pursuit to destroy the enemy's military and governmental capabilities. Egypt is our friend. It has been with us in peace for decades. We understand that it is very important for her to prevent an influx of displaced Palestinians from the Strip. We are in dialogue with them. I am in dialogue with my counterparts in Egypt. It is important to us that even if this is what they are afraid of, that treatment will still be given to the wounded in the hospitals. There is a large hospital in Rafa on the Egyptian side of the border. There is a possibility to establish field hospitals on the border of Gaza and Egypt. There are many things with which Egypt can assist those uninvolved citizens. This is our common interest. The National Security Advisor, talking about Israel needing to work with Egypt to solve the humanitarian crisis. I think that this was a very bad advice given to the Palestinians to go and settle in the Sinai. This is totally wrong. But that wasn't the advice of Israel. No, this was the advice of one of the IDF spokesmen the first week of the war, asking the Palestinians to move from North to South and to go into Sinai. It's from a body which doesn't have any character. It's an advisory body. It was one source who suggested it. And I think that this was read in Egypt and read in Egypt and was criticized from the very beginning. And it became an issue, whereas we don't have an issue with the Egyptian. We want them to treat the wounded in Al-Araish, for instance, where Al-Araish is being used as an airport to channel... Al-Araish is an Egyptian territory. Yeah, to channel international aid into the territory. And by the way, about what I said earlier about the Hamas, I think that Hamas is doing a very bad thing to its own people. They are just sacrificing their own people. They have their... So cynically, they are using them as human shields. And this is wrong. This is totally wrong. And we see all those who have been hit and killed. And this is only because Hamas is doing what they were told. They looted warehouses of the UNR, why? Because they don't have food. And who's controlling that? Hamas. And so we have to remember that against whom we are fighting. We are fighting about brutal, bestial people, monsters, as our prime minister said. Hamas, yeah. Okay. Well, there are concerns about how a drawn-out conflict could impact Israel's economy in the long term. Some 300 economists wrote a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, urging him to reassess his economic priorities. We're joining us now. Professor Nealon Hashai is a dean at the Harrison School of Business at Reichmann University. Thank you very much for joining us, Nealon. So would you say you agree with those economists? Does the government need to reassess its priorities when it comes to the economy? I guess so. You know, our estimation says that both in 2023 and 2024, there will be an extra cost for the war of around, you know, a rough figure of $50 billion. And currently, the budget, you know, does not include these costs. And even worse, most of the budget is currently so sank into coalition purposes rather than to promote economic and growth factors. So in this situation of, you know, the Israeli economy has experienced a very significant shock. I think I'm one of these guys that signed one of the professors that signed the letter. This is something that the government has to do and has to do quickly. I emphasize very, very quickly because time is of the essence. Well, the foreign minister's outlined a $1 billion rescue plan for businesses who are hurting from the fact, you know, you've got so many reservists who've had to go and fight that, you know, that people can't operate their businesses. Do you think that's enough or is that going to have to be a lot more? I think it's a lot more. The numbers that I gave you are, you know, if I'm taking into account the extra security budget that will surely be, you know, we will need to increase it by a third, you know, renovation costs of all the area of, you know, in the south, you know, all the economic costs that those who are now at the level of absence, et cetera, et cetera. The things that have been done are in the right direction. I agree. But it's like a drop in the ocean. If much more needs to be done, some of the money exists. And this is why I think we signed a letter saying, yes, the Israeli, you know, the government budget will, you know, the deficit will definitely increase, but still you can resolve some of the issues by simply directing funds from one cost to a much more urgent one. We've seen a lot of aid coming from outside. Lots of private donations, for example. Is that helping the economy? Of course it does. So estimations are that, like, instead of a deficit of around, you know, 5%, this could decrease the deficit to 4%, which is good. But it's still much more than we expected. You know, we are expecting that on a per capita income, Israel will experience a negative growth in growth domestic products. So, you know, we expect like 1% even less, depending how the war will evolve growth. And this is very far from the 3% plus percent of growth that Israel has experienced. So of course the aid made from the U.S. and some donations is helping a lot. We should not, you know, we should be appreciative. This is important. But still the Israeli economy is getting into a very uncertain period. We have to remember that we do not really know how the war will evolve. And different scenarios of the war will differently affect the Israeli economy. Yeah, and of course, I mean, Israel's defense and high-tech industries are kind of the backbone of the economy here. I mean, how are they being impacted by the war? So you know, we say always that wars are good for the defense economy. And certainly the war between Russia and Ukraine has been good to our defense economy. So I think this, you know, in the short term, of course, it's good for the defense economy. I think it's less promising for the high-tech industry. And I'm not really talking about brain drain. I think it will, you know, it will take quite a lot to, for Israeli programmers, technicians, scientists, et cetera, to leave these all the high-tech geeks, et cetera, and, you know, all the companies. The problem will actually be, I think, in investor confidence. And, you know, he's already witnessed a shock in investor confidence following the judicial reform. And I think this will get worse now, again, depending on how the war will evolve when it is a country that, you know, you have rockets in Tel Aviv, et cetera. Yeah, investors don't like uncertainty, do they? That's for sure. Dr. Niran Hashai, we appreciate it. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you very much. Yes, you're welcome. You wanted to come in. I should be aware that this is not the first and this is not the worst crisis ever experienced by Israel. If we go back 1973 war, many Israelis assumed that we were on the verge of extinction, and they spoke about a crashed economy, crashed morale. We bounced back pretty rapidly to new heights. As we talk here, Israel enjoys unprecedented level of foreign exchange reserve, over $200 billion, which would enable Israel to overcome the most severe crisis. We're talking about our defense industry, which I was alluded to. We are talking about an all-time high defense export by Israel. And we're talking about a potential $10 or $14 billion special package of aid, defense aid by the U.S. to Israel, because the U.S. realizes that Israel is an irreplaceable ally in the Middle East. They know that they have to maintain Israel's posture of deterrence for the sake of America's own interests. And certainly, when we get the special package from the U.S., this would enable Israel to divert funds from defense to our civilian infrastructures. So you're not too concerned about the long-term outlook for the economy. Well, let's turn to another issue now, a very worrying one, because from stars of David scrawled on the homes of Jewish people in Paris to cries of gas to Jews and that famous one from the river to the sea being yelled on university campuses, there has been a massive uptick in anti-Semitic abuse around the world. The White House announced today a range of measures aimed at tackling anti-Semitism on university campuses. My next guest has been part of efforts to reassure Jewish students in New York State. Rabbi Mark Schneier, president of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding. Welcome. Great to have you back with us. We've seen shocking scenes, haven't we, over the past two weeks, mainly from university campuses. I mean, are these institutions still safe for Jews? They are safe for Jews, but we have launched an initiative of Imam Shamsi Ali and I. Imam is virtually the chief Imam of New York and I to address different filiales on college campuses and Muslim student associations reminding them that, yes, we cherish American values and freedoms of protest and demonstrations, but you cannot cross the line when it comes to violence, confrontation, intimidation. We can agree to disagree without being disagreeable and I think that my working closely with Chancellor Rodriguez at the Sydney University of New York, which is the largest urban university in the world. We need to realize that the universities can also only do so much and why it's incumbent upon us reaching out to Muslim leaders to begin addressing the youth of the American Muslim community in terms of conveying the message that we are now conveying on college campuses. Yeah, we're just looking at pictures of you now sitting alongside an Imam and you were both kind of delivering a message of peace to people. Really it's interesting, isn't it, Mark, because you hear from Egyptian Americans, Lebanese Americans, Iraqi Americans, they seem to kind of have not only a better grasp of history and what happened in the region, but you certainly don't see them joining chance for Israel to be destroyed. It seems to be the younger generation, bizarrely some of them are Jewish themselves and they just don't seem to have any grasp of history. They don't seem to know how Israel was here, what the region looked like about the Ottoman Empire or anything. There seems to be something problematic with the education system on these university campuses. Here's how long, but I often say that people fight for their own rights are only as honorable as when they fight for the rights of all people, why we must challenge American Muslim leaders to help protect and defend Jewish students on college campuses. When President Trump initiated the anti-Muslim ban that impacted on Muslims across the country, the number one champion of the American Muslim community was the American Jewish community, particularly myself. Well, now is the time that we need American Muslim leaders to help defend, protect Jewish students and it's time for them to rise to the fore because the door swings both ways. There needs to be equal pro quo and that's been my message that I've delivered these past few weeks across the Muslim world. For example, my visit two weeks ago to Kazakhstan, which is the grand prize of Muslim nations in Central Asia had a very, very lukewarm statement after the Hamas massacre. And I sat down with the leadership, reminding them that Hamas is not only laser focus on the destruction of Israel, it's hell bent on destroying the Jewish people. And the very next morning, President Tokim issued a statement unequivocally condemning Hamas towards barbarism, for its savagery. We need to break out Hamas from this Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to call Hamas for what it is. Well, I don't know if you know her, I interviewed Dalia Al-Aqidi. She's running to unseat Ilhan Omar in Minnesota and part of the squad have been termed the pro Hamas caucus in recent days. And she was talking about when you had immigration from the Muslim world in the 70s, people wanted to get away from those systems of governance and they wanted to live in a free country, whereas you've got more recently immigrants who are bringing those cultures and those customs with them. Do you see that as part of the problem? But I'm afraid that nothing is going to change in terms of this new dynamic of anti-Semitism until Muslim leaders begin to assume some responsibility. Whether it's here in the United States, whether it's countries like Iwa Ibrahim, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, they need to stand up to defend and protect the Jewish people. This is not an Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is not a conflict between Israel and the greater Muslim and Arab community. Now, as President Biden said, this is a war between the forces of good and the forces of evil. And we cannot do this without having allies within the greater Muslim and Arab community. Well, talking about those allies, of course, Rabbi, you have close ties, don't you, high-level officials in the Gulf states. What have they been telling you, and do they still want to pursue cooperation with Israel? Well, there is no question they want to pursue cooperation. Saudi Arabia is just on pause, but we're trying to get them to the next step. After the massacre, UAE and Bahrain did condemn Hamas, but we need to maintain that momentum, whether it's in the Gulf, whether it's in Central Asia. We have to let people know what Hamas is or what they represent. Rabbi Mark Schneier, great to talk to you. Always a pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you very much indeed and all the best for your efforts. Thank you for having me. Important work you did. Thank you. Thank you so much. Well, it's tragic, isn't it? I don't know about you, Jacques. I saw the scenes from Paris today, you know, stars of David drawn on people's homes to identify with Jewish people living, people who are going to tear down their mizuzas from outside their door. A very real risk to Jews around the world right now. Well, unfortunately, this is not new in France. I mean, I've been visiting France several in the past several years, and every time I was just stunned by the fact that the levels of anti-Semitism has grown and grown and grown, and people would just define the attitude towards Israel as an attitude towards Judaism. And this is how they understand Israel is being identified with the Jews abroad and the Jews abroad are being identified as pro-Israelis, all of them, even though there are some that are against Israel. And basically, you could see all over France and certainly in Paris and several in several areas that, I mean, real expressions of anti-Semitism. I mean, we had not just Paris, Lyon, Marseille. Yeah, and we had to lose the attack against the synagogue. We had in Paris, I mean, in the surrounding of Paris, the cruel death of Mrs. Achalimi and others. I mean, all over every now and then we have knowledge and notice of a brutal act of and a lynch that is conducted by Muslims in France against Jews. Yeah, and the government seems to be struggling to get a hand on it. And we've got a report now because just days after the slaughter at the Supernova Music Festival, where 260 people at least were killed, survivors have found a rehabilitation center. They're trying to get together and heal from the terrible trauma that they've been through. I-24 News correspondent Dixie Arvind has this report. Ronit Farm was established as a response to the attack that took place on October 7th after Hamas terrorists infiltrated into southern Israel, killing 1,400 people and taking over 240 hostages. Liana Orr, founder of the Rehabilitation Center, opened its doors for those who lived through and witnessed the horrors of the attack. We opened this immediately, not knowing exactly what we're going to need. Within the first day, we had many, many psychologists and psychiatrists and people came so frozen and it was so hard for them to be verbal. So we had them sitting on pillows and we had them doing reflexology or singing with a guitar and slowly, slowly, they opened up. Within the first two weeks, the center was able to treat over 2,000 survivors of the attack. Ronit Farm aims to serve as a safe space for young survivors to talk about their trauma and encourages them to open up about their harrowing experience to psychologists and therapists. Surrounded by nature, the farm allows young people to recoup and recover in a relaxing setting. It's hard. How do you carry on being normal after surviving one of the largest terror attacks in all of Israel? Although survivors are seeking help to overcome the atrocities of the attack, it will not be forgotten. After years and years. All right, Jacques Néria and Yaron Ettinger. Thank you very much to you both. We're going to end things there. Do stay tuned to I-24 News. Our live coverage continues. Kind of bend the vids. It's with you next. Thanks for watching. Goodbye. Is officially in a state of war. This is a very active scene and we need to get in the car as we're talking. More than a hundred soldiers and civilians have been kidnapped. Tell us we don't know what to do. We just don't know anything. Entire families, including babies and children and elderly were butchered in their beds. Awaken the giant and we are ready and we are strong. Everyone is showing up. This is the unity. As we speak, our soldiers are fighting on the battlefield, fighting with courage and heroism, engaging in fierce close-quarter battles in which they are eliminating terrorists. This type of combat endangers our forces and carries a heavy price. And it is complex, but it is critical to achieve the objectives of the war. Welcome to this special broadcast on I-24 News. I'm Khaled bin David. It is day 25 of Israel's war against Hamas, as it continues its battles from the south to the north of the country. Now the IDF's ground operation in Gaza intensified today, with heavy fighting reported between Israeli forces and Palestinian terrorists in the northern strips, urban areas. The IDF says dozens of terrorists have been killed. The Hamas-run Gaza ministry claims there has also been heavy civilian casualties. Israel too absorbing casualties. The IDF saying this evening that two soldiers, staff, sergeants, rowy, wolf and Levy Lipschitz have fallen in battle, may their memories be a blessing. Heavy rocket fire today from Gaza into Israel, most intercepted by Iron Dome, but four people injured in Ashdow from direct hits. Exchanges of fire also continued along the northern border, with the IDF striking his ball of posts. The Iran-backed Lebanese terror movement says that nearly 50 of its fighters have been killed by Israeli fire. Another Iranian proxy, Yemen's Houthi rebels, launched missiles at Elat that were downed for the first time by the Arrow air defense system. Now just before IDF troops entered Gaza and forced the commanding officer of the Southern Command, Major General Yaron Finkelman spoke to the soldiers going into battle. Here are those remarks. In the U.S. with us in studio, our senior diplomatic correspondent Owen Altman and Reserves Lieutenant Colonel Daron Avital, the former commander of IDF Special Forces. And Daron, you know what it's like, close combat, urban areas, face-to-face with the enemy. Israel has absorbed casualties. Give us a sense of what is happening now. What are the soldiers or experience there in Gaza now? First of all, I want to say that the words of Major General Finkelman Yaron and I personally speak for themselves, determination with one goal in mind, victory. And I think by now we can say that the early stages of the campaign, the last few days and today, are working according to plan. You see a new, I wouldn't say a new, but a professional army, strong army, dedicated, very well-crafted plan and very good intelligence that proved itself in the targeting assassination and the killing of 50 Hamas leaders. But this is the early stage. We have a long campaign ahead of us. But what we see right now, we can get the confidence that the IDF is back on track and it's going forward. All right, I'm just going to jump down now to the south in our correspondent, Pia Stacko-Bach in Stale Road. And Pia, give us a sense of what you're hearing down there. Some heavy fighting going on just across the border there in Gaza. Right, Kalev. We've been hearing the sounds of the Israeli airstrikes all throughout the evening. Israeli airstrikes here, only a few hundred meters behind us, lighting up the sky from time to time. We're also hearing the Israeli artillery targeting the northern part of the Gaza Strip. We've also been seeing the rockets being launched from the Gaza Strip towards central Israel there, that last barrage of rockets targeting Tel Aviv in the surrounding areas. We know that the fighting inside the Gaza Strip is intensifying on the ground. The Israeli army has just published this evening that two soldiers were killed and that fighting two more seriously injured. And that the Israeli army has been heavily targeting the Jabalia neighborhood in the north of Gaza in an attempt to take out the Jabalia battalion commander who played a substantial role in the October 7th massacres. Within that operation, the neighborhood, the refugee camp of Jabalia was also targeted. We're hearing about reports of dozens of people killed in that neighborhood. The Israeli army saying that they warned residents before that major strike, but that is an example of how civilians are being caught in the midst of that fire exchange as the Israeli strikes intensify from the air and also on the ground. The Israeli military has been calling upon civilians to leave the northern part of the Gaza Strip, but we do know that many civilians left to the south then later came back as the humanitarian situation in the south was also a dire and worsening day to day. And we do know that there are still many civilians in the north of the Gaza Strip and that attack or that a strike on the Jabalia neighborhood showed that taking out about 50 Hamas members, according to the Israeli statement, and that significant commander there, but also leaving an unknown yet unknown number of civilians dead in that attack. All right. Pia Stakubach instead wrote that Jabalia commander with Ibrahim Bieri supposedly was a major, played a major role in the October 7th massacre. Pia Stakubach. Thank you for that. Now, the National Security Adviser, Sakhi Anagbi gave a briefing to journalists today. Here's what he said about the Gaza ground operation. The phase that is being carried out at this time is the phase of the ground activity that is taking place in the northern Gaza Strip. It is hard fighting. It involves fierce fighting. There's no fighting without a painful price. We are a warrior nation. We are determined despite the pain to win. Another supreme goal, as the Prime Minister defined, is to create conditions for the return of the kidnapped to their families. This is our sacred commitment as a nation to our citizens and soldiers. As revealed yesterday, the military move serves both the effort to return the kidnapped and the pursuit to destroy the enemy's military and governmental capabilities. Now, when you were at that briefing by Sakhi Anagbi, some interesting points coming out of it, give us your impression of the National Security Advisor on this, the day when really the battle entered a new stage and we've got now Israeli casualties also that we've reported in the south. A lot of headlines, a lot of important information. We'll start with this issue of Egypt, right, and the issue of fuel and the issue of hospitals and how they connect. As we all know, Israel has been under a lot of pressure internationally to allow the humanitarian aid and especially to allow them fuel. And the Israeli government has stood steadfast against that. And what's the reason? Because the fuel it says, first of all, it says the Israeli government's position is that there's enough fuel in the Gaza Strip. It's just being held by Hamas and hoarded by Hamas instead of being given to the civilians who should have use of it. It's being hoarded by Hamas. The international community essentially says, that's all well and good. But at the same time, there are two million civilians living in Gaza and the hospitals need fuel because they're obviously patients in the hospitals who need it. So Israel, it's incumbent upon you as a kind of last resort to be able, at least to get enough fuel into the Gaza Strip to care for the patients in the hospital. What was the answer to that that Saqian Ebi gave? He essentially said, what we propose is to take the patients out of the hospitals, to bring them over the border into Egypt and put them into a large hospital in Rafakh on the Egyptian side, to put them into field hospitals that can be created on the Egyptian side, and even Kalev to put them on hospital ships that would come in from abroad, be docked offshore, probably on the Egyptian side for practical reasons, and then the patients would be cared for then. And that would take care of the issue of fuel because of the essential needs of fuel would be met by putting the fuel in those hospitals where the patients are. And it would take care of the patients themselves and it would take care of the hospitals because as we know, as the Israeli military has shown, Shefa Hospital, the main hospital in the Gaza Strip, is not only a hospital and an actual hospital for civilians who need hospitalization, but it's also the main command center for Hamas. Hamas's Pentagon is inside the hospital. Right, or underneath. Or underneath, and inside, according to the military. And so once the hospital were to be emptied, the military could then target the empty hospital slash command center, slash Pentagon of Hamas, right, without harming the civilians who are there. It's a complicated plan, obviously, it would take cooperation from the Egyptians, but maybe let on that in terms of the ships at least, there's some implementation that's already started. But of course, the Egyptians are very, very worried about even letting critically injured Gazans over the border, an extreme position, even given their national security concerns. So one wonders whether this will get off the ground, but at least that's Israel's answer to the international community, about how to manage the issue of fuel. All right. I wonder if we could bring up this map we showed earlier of the Gaza Strip. It shows where some of the fighting is taking place, if we could bring that up. Okay, and I'm going to ask Theron, these are the main areas where we're hearing reports of fighting. Give us a sense, why these particularly is, what's the, what is the strategy or the strategy? Well, I said that the policy of the IDF since it started, the ground campaign is to create as much fog of war as possible and nothing gets out. So we just have a clue here and there, some of them from reports of Palestinians. By the way, Hamas itself doesn't want reports to come out. It's an interesting predicament right now. So right now we are working basically in the refugee camps in the northern part of Gaza city, but there's also sighting in the Salahadin in the south. So the question is whether we want to really put Gaza Strip on the sea. Right. So that red line there is kind of the center of Gaza. Exactly, that's where we want the people. This is where we want the people. That's the line that Israel wants the civilians to go south of that red line on the map. That's where they went. And this is where we want the UN return aid to go and not up north. But this is part of the logic of the campaign. Right. Now, and in between those two green circles, which are these refugee camps, that's Gaza city. That is that dense area of... The heart of the problem and the heart of the Gaza population and the heart of Hamas, of course, the whole command structure, the tunnels, everything is there. So now that we get some idea, as you said, Israel deliberately, for various reasons, keeping a tight lid on the information coming out of Gaza, including its tactics. But give us a sense how you think they might go now. Once they start going into Gaza City, what are the tactics? The complexity is clear to our audience, but the first two or three days until today were designed in order to create some basis for our forces from where to work. And now we are entering and closing in. So this is the next stage when you go to the margins of those places, but really entering the center, inching in. The main thing would be, of course, what would be the next stage entering again. And it's all based on our successes. How do we make the progress? What tunnels we discover? And intelligence, intelligence, intelligence. I think the intelligence lately works out very nice. We close a loop in a very fast way between the ground forces, the aerial forces, and the location of the Hamas leaders. It's also vital in case, and this is where Ibn Bibi Netanyahu discussed, the possibility of opportunities coming on the ground for meeting hostages and rescuing them. As we saw on the other day with Ori Megadish and her rescue. This is possible because we shouldn't forget that all those hostages are scattered, different localities, not even the same organization. You don't know where they are. And who knows, we bet on this prospect, even if it looks sometimes slim, but it's a possibility. And of course, keeping the pressure on Hamas might be also a base from which to go to some negotiating a deal that right now doesn't seem really completely visible after the meeting in Qatar of the head of the Mossad, but it might come out along the way. There is actually a flaw to that argument. And we heard it from Ahnegbi at the press conference, and we have time to go back to that. I'll explain. Ahnegbi really said, but I think this is part of the strategy. In the meantime, we don't see the other side participating in our plan. All right, Jen. Okay, well, we've been going, we're discussing the South, but of course, the firing also continued across the northern border today. And Israel, very concerned, that could flare up to a full-scale, a much broader conflict, especially with Hezbollah in the north. Let's go to Mary McAuliffe in northern Israel. Mary, again, we see these actions throughout the day, this firing across. Hezbollah, again, taking some blows from the IDF and taking some losses from it. That's absolutely right, Kolev. We continue to see these cross-border attacks between Israel and Hezbollah. Ilirjay, Rocket Sirens bring out in Matula, this community in northern Israel. We did hear that those rockets landed inside Lebanese territory and did not cross over into Israeli territory. Important to remember, again, that Matula is one of the first communities that was evacuated since we began to see these attacks by Hezbollah into Lebanon. But Israel said it responded to the source of the fire, both from the rockets, as well as an anti-tank missile that was fired twice at IDF spots along the border, as well as they also attacked another terror cell that they say were trying to fire these anti-tank missiles. But you can see behind me, I think maybe the smoke has gone down a little bit, but we still have this fire burning in the distance. This is a fire that's right along the Israel-Lebanon border, and this is an area that we've seen hit numerous times by Hezbollah in the past few weeks that we've been here. Continuing to fire mortar shells and anti-tank missiles at Israeli infrastructure, military infrastructure that lies really along this border, so all that hill beyond that hill where you can see that fire burning, that's Lebanese territory, and there are obviously a large number of Israeli military infrastructure right along that border, right along that hillside, continuing to watch and continuing to be on high alert as we continue to see these attacks by Hezbollah into Israeli territory, targeting not just civilians, but also Israeli soldiers and the bases that they've been stationed at. All right, Mary McAuliffe there in northern Israel, just by the border with Lebanon. Thank you for that. Oh, and I was struck today, all of the Israeli figures that have spoken, Daniel Hungary, Joav Garlandt, the defense minister, Tzachin Agmi, did speak about achievements, but also preparing the public for losses. Oh, yeah. And we do have today the first confirmation of two names that were released, as we gave early in the program, but clearly it's getting ready for the public. The government already under pressure because of the situation of the hostages and now is also going to have to deal with pressure once. Of course, we see Israeli casualties in what, as Daron described, is going to be a very difficult, problematic operation. Well, first, we're expecting to hear from IDF spokesperson Daniel Higari shortly and we'll bring at least part of that briefing to you here on I-24 News with a paraphrase translation. But viewers outside of Israel need to understand how sensitive of an issue this is in Israeli society, the idea of casualties among soldiers. The IDF is a people's army. Remember, there is a mandatory draft in this country, of those who are 18 years old and many of the people there fighting and God forbid dying or getting wounded are people who are drafted as part of the mandatory draft or potentially reservists serving later in life. We've had 300 plus thousand reservists called up. So it's a sensitive issue here in Israel. I think the public understands the big picture, understands how important and how essential it is to win this war. It's true across the political spectrum here in Israel. There's no misunderstanding of what the stakes are. But nonetheless, obviously, the last thing people here want to see are the casualties among soldiers. But given what Daron was describing as experiences from IDF Special Forces, deserve a warfare. And obviously, we can sadly, I think, expect that there will be more casualties. And the public, I think, will be generally understanding and patient, even if it's painful. I think we have to acknowledge the public is ready for that. They understand the gravity of the situation. We saw the massacre that started the campaign. So the soldiers know that they are determined that you go to war. This is what's expected of you to win. Victor and Victor, it comes with a cost, as terrible as it sounds. As terrible as it sounds. But the Army is scoring up some achievements, as we mentioned. Today, killing the Jabalia battalion commander in the northern Gaza Strip, Ibrahim Beiri, apparently, was a major figure in directing the October 7 terror attack. Now, as the IDF continues with its coordinated ground air and sea operations inside Gaza, it will continue to target Hamas's top brass. The group's leaders are seen as the driving force behind this countless attacks, especially on October 7. Now, while Israel has vowed to eliminate every single leader and commander behind those attacks, Hamas's top leadership remains in hiding, whether beneath the ground, in Gaza, or abroad elsewhere. Middle East correspondent Ariel Osiron has more on that. Day 25 of Israel's war against Hamas. The IDF continues to expand its ground operation in Gaza. As the forces advance, they're met with resistance by Hamas fighters. Dozens of terrorists hiding in buildings and in underground tunnels have been killed in firefights and airstrikes. This includes the targeted elimination of Nassim Abu-Ajina, commander of Hamas' Baitlahi Battalion, on Tuesday morning. Abu-Ajina oversaw the October 7 attacks on Kibbutz-Erez and Moshev-Nativa-Sara. The army is focused on the goals of the war defined by the political echelon, the defeat of Hamas and the elimination of its leaders. After the massacre they carried out on October 7, this organization will not control Gaza militarily and politically. Abu-Ajina is the latest in dozens of Hamas commanders targeted in Israeli airstrikes over the past three and a half weeks. This includes Asim Abu-Rakba, the head of Hamas' aerial units, Shadi Baroud, deputy head of Hamas' military intelligence, and Joahad Abu-Shamale, Hamas' minister of economy, and Top Money Guy. That's in addition to four members of Hamas' political bureau eliminated since October 7. In total, Israeli forces have killed so far an estimated 2,500 terrorists. We are in the middle of a war for our existence. We have set two goals for the war, to annihilate Hamas by destroying its military and governance abilities, and to do everything possible to bring our hostages back home. We are reigning hellfire on Hamas. We have already killed thousands of terrorists, and this is only the beginning. But Israel has yet to reach the top leadership of Hamas. The terror groups leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, and the head of its military wing, Muhammad Def, are the IDF's top targets in Gaza. They're believed to be hiding deep underground in one of Hamas' hidden command centers, located under hospitals, schools, and mosques. While the groups exiled leaders such as Ismail Hania and Salah al-Rouri enjoy their refuge in Qatar and Lebanon. And so, as Israel's ground offensive continues to deepen, so will the efforts to eliminate Hamas' top commanders, whether above ground or beneath it. Of course, this war has regional consequences. And as we mentioned earlier, Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels today launched ballistic missiles and drones at Israel's Red Sea Resort of Alat. Those were intercepted by the Arrow Air Defense System. Here's the Houthi spokesperson taking responsibility for those attacks. Our armed forces launched a large barrage of ballistic and winged missiles and a large number of drones at various targets of the Israeli enemy and the occupied territories. This is the third such strike in support of our brothers in Palestine. We will continue to carry out attacks with missiles and drones until the end of the Israeli aggression. Daron, we mentioned the IDF being tested on the ground. It's infantry combat troops in new ways, but also with air defense systems. The U.S., of course, in decepting prior launches by the Houthi rebels, but the Arrow Defense System also being tested in real time today. Hold on, we're going to rear Admiral Daniel Hagaari. We'll translate with the paraphrase, not exact words. Good evening. Our forces are fighting in Gaza, are killing Kyrgyz of close range, and with a combined act from the land air and sea. In the late afternoon, ground forces took over an outpost of Hamas in the west of the city of Jabalia. This outpost was a place for training, for terror attacks from which terrorists went out for the massacre and go out to the beach area from where they went out to massacres. During the battle, many terrorists were killed. The infrastructure was destroyed. It was a difficult and complex war, sometimes face to face. During the battle, we lost fighters. We've relayed a message to the families of two IDF fighters who died during the fighting. We killed tonight the terrorist, the murderous terrorist, Ibrahim Be'eri. Be'eri was one of the main figures in the north of the strip, since he also played a part in the massacres of the 7th of October. Through his, through our act, as many terrorists were killed, and also underneath the building. When the building was hit, then underground facilities were also collapsed. And that was, they were that, the entire infrastructure collapsed and many terrorists were killed, underground. The massacres are still using the civilian population as human shields in an intentional and cruel way. We, Yahya Sinoir doesn't care about the residents of Gaza. He built his terrorist infrastructure and purpose. Under the, under a civilian's houses, he stands behind the massacre, not just of Israeli citizens on 7th of October, but also the massacre that has, the Gaza Strip collapsed on its residents. So we call it again today to the residents of the northern part of the Gaza Strip to go south. We will allow it through corridors, go beyond Wadi Gaza. It is a safer space. We will continue to hit with strength in Gaza city and the north of the strip. We will continue to act against every terrorist in the entire area of the Gaza Strip. In the area of the Red Sea, we shot down a ground, a surface-to-surface missile toward Israel through the long-range defense system, the Arrow. This is the first action of this, of the system during war, and it acted in a successful way. The IDF also shot down two hostile aircraft in the space. All were shot down outside the space of the State of Israel through the action of the Air Force. We also put out warships in the dead to the defense with air space defense, with all of the systems needed to defend the citizens of the State of Israel in the south and in all parts of the country. There are many actors in the region who are acting in the agency of Iran, including the Houthis, who are trying to challenge us and to try to divert our attention from the war in Gaza. We are staying focused. We are focused on the war in Gaza. We will know how to defend ourselves in every place as needed. We are acting in cooperation with the Army of the United States, with Central Command. Our move to SENTCOM, our move into SENTCOM two years ago has proved itself a lot, with a lot of the ability to pass information and intelligence with the United States Air Force to, through Central Command and the fifth elite, we are working with them in one unit to support the Israeli space. The IDF knows on its own to guard the secretaries of the State of Israel and knows to and will know to respond at the time and place of its choosing. In the north, the continued attempt to shoot at IDF forces across the border from Lebanon, there are no injuries to our forces. The IDF has just shot back at Yisbal infrastructure in south Lebanon. We are continuing to react in a determined way and an immediate way to all attempt to shoot the Bay Terrace that is coming to us on the fence or to shoot across it. Until now, we have passed information to 317 families of brief soldiers, of disay soldiers. We want to bring all the hostages home. In recent hours, there are a lot of rumors across the country. I ask everyone to stick to the official reports of ours. We will continue to update the public in a trustworthy and exact way while keeping to the security of our forces. We will report while guarding the security of our forces and I ask the public not to listen to rumors. Questions, please. Channel 14. You've asked the residents of Northern Shift to go to the south. What is your policy towards the citizens of the Northern Ghazder who have stayed? Are you treating them as terrorists and inagishable? Inagishion. I'd like to know whether the whether the laser system for air defense has gone into use. Our air defense, our multi-layered and there are still other projects in the Defense Ministry that they're continuing to try to move forward with them. And we aren't going to say what's battle ready and what's not. We're working with the Defense Ministry, the IDF, the military industries to try to add capabilities to the state of Israel. It doesn't need to be published in the media. As for your first question, we are acting against an enemy. We're killing terrorists. You are a sorrow. And this is our murderous enemy that we are working against it is using the civilians. It's using the shields. And many of them he didn't allow to it didn't allow to move to the South Ghazder. We acted in order to allow them to move to the south. We're still asking them to move to the south to be focused on the enemy. There are ghost areas where this population really did leave. No, he's in medical facilities. I'm sorry. And we're not going to allow we're going to have a civilized infrastructure inside hospitals because Hamas against international law. It's a war crime to use hospitals in this way. We will continue to gather all of the testimony so that the world can see. That is the IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Higari giving his nightly briefing on Israeli television. I just want to clarify a couple of the points he made. He did refer to rumors spreading throughout Israel. Those have to do with as possible Israeli casualties in the Gaza Strip. So far the army has only confirmed two fatalities, two casualties there. He's urging the public not to speculate beyond that. Another question relating to treating the civilian power the civilian or the population of northern Gaza is being treated. That's in response to reports coming from out of Gaza Strip of civilian casualties in the northern Gaza Strip. Again, we cannot confirm independently any of those numbers coming out of Hamas. I will note that earlier there was a report of several hundred people being killed in the Jabalia camp even as many as 500. That's out of Gaza. Those numbers were then lowered to less than 50 just about an hour later. So we cannot give you any kind of numbers without any kind of independent confirmation. Doron, I want to go back to you because any comments that you may have relating to what the Rear Admiral had to say. And also, of course, he mentioned, as we said, the arrow major, major step going into operational use today. When he talked about the defense mechanism that we had, we talked about the layers that we have. And he talked about that he was discussed or was asked about operational devices that are not yet operational and he didn't elaborate. But a great success in the interception in Elat. And I think we have a very solid defense mechanism right now against the missiles. And I think what he said that we are focusing on the Gaza Strip. So it's not like we're going to war now with the Khutim but we'll settle the account later on about those cynical attacks in fact people that were evacuated from Gaza into Elat. This is really unacceptable. The other question which was the other answer he gave which was interesting and it's important to emphasize was about civilians that stayed in the northern part of Gaza and don't go south. And I think it was clear as the major general the commander of the south said the IDF goes to war according to the values of the IDF, the values of Tzal. So of course we are only targeting enemy, Hamas operative. The consequences of collateral damage giving the structure the way they build this infrastructure and the new houses and the new houses of people and the new hospitals and things of those sorts sometimes caused this collateral damage which we of course are very sorry about but it was very clear there's no question that we're targeting civilians in purpose even if they stayed in the northern Gaza against our advice for them to go south. And he didn't take the bait from channel 14 in the question are you treating them as if they're terrorists? He did not say that Israel's treating them as if they're terrorists. Of course not but it's worth to emphasize he said we're treating them as if they're civilians but after two weeks of telling people to leave of course as he himself admitted some of them wanted to leave and couldn't because Hamas was stopping them from leaving and others are in hospitals and are infirm and can't leave of course there are many tragic stories. But he said and was determined that Israel's still going to be hitting the infrastructure it can of course as we have to emphasize to viewers Israel's actions on the ground and Duro knows this full well are vetted by lawyers who are applying the standards of international humanitarian law to everything that happens. Right and we have to note that that area in Northern Gaza is both where the hostages are believed to be held and in fact we had proof of that because the rescue of this young soldier the other day was in that area in Northern Gaza. I think that courage determination and the full intensity of the fires of course is essential but we have to also employ wisdom in the way we move and follow those targets it has to be very smart. We don't want we really don't want the window of operation to be open enough and we are very careful I think we'll be very careful in the way we move in and achieve our goals and I think this is the way the idea now works because civilian casualties are bad for Israel for exactly the reason that you're on just said. Oh and another interesting point he mentioned the cooperation with the United States with the Sixth Fleet and in other ways but he also stressed Israel is acting alone that could be a part of reaction there was a report in the New York Times this evening American commandos are in Israel helping to locate hostages there were earlier reports of support personnel mainly on the side of intelligence but perhaps assisting Israel in terms of locating hostages and guys remember there are many American citizens there Israelis who hold American citizenship this report suggests there are US commandos which would be something a new plus we should know yeah I don't want to admit we should know if the US itself though did confirm it sent 300 more troops to the Middle East that was earlier confirmation they but they stressed not within Israel those are in other areas and of course US forces in the region are coming under attack in other locations particularly in on the ground in Iraq and in Syria we know very well the American special forces I myself know them for my youth but of course in terms of our special forces in the way we conduct the war in our territories will be conducted by us by the IDF and we don't need this extra elf and I don't think the Americans think in this style but in terms of the overall regional context this is where America plays a role an important role we saw it through the interception of the Khutim missiles we saw it we see it with respect to the northern border and Syria and the whole context of Iran but this is the context in which we work hand in hand with the US but not on the ground in our territories in our fronts it was an essential statement because Israel's national security doctor and going back to the birth of Zionism and again as I always say it's it's such a cliche that we just map we just check it off our bingo card in our heads whenever we're listening to a speech from from Benjamin Netanyahu is that Israel defends itself by itself right and the whole concept of the Jewish state the whole concept of Zionism is we alone are responsible for our self defense because at the end of the day we are alone and we don't trust anybody else so he is sending a message in Hebrew to the Israeli public but of course also by extension but I think really have more to us than the rest of the world that don't worry we still can defend ourselves by ourselves it's important to have a relationship with the United States to work with the United States we thank the United States for its support and yes there are two US aircraft carrier strike groups parked in the Mediterranean but at the end of the day we are capable of defending our own country all right I want to go back to our Pia Stechelbach down in Sterot Pia update on any updates on the situation there also we heard we're Admiral Daniel Higari saying there's been heavy fighting in the Northern Gaza Strip he stressed is you're trying to avoid civilian casualties but saying right now it's a war zone there's a combat situation there and while the IDF is doing anything it can just as it's absorbing casualties it's expected they'll be on the civilian side as well right Kalev well the fighting has been intensifying here throughout the last hours we know that heavy fighting is taking place on the ground and from the air here we've been hearing the airstrikes we've been seeing the sky lighting up whenever an airstrike is happening here we are also hearing the Israeli artillery striking Gaza from here specifically the northern part of the Gaza Strip we are here looking into when during daylight at least to the northern part of the Gaza Strip we do know that specifically within the last hours the Israeli troops have been targeting the Jabalia area in the north of Gaza this is where that important Hamas commander was killed but also where dozens of civilians are believed to have been killed this is the area that the Israeli forces have been civilians have been calling upon those people to evacuate towards the south but we do know that an unknown number of people have not done that for several reasons people who cannot evacuate for many reasons health reasons children elderly people but we also do know that people who evacuated south and found themselves in die humanitarian conditions some of them even made their way back to the north because they have their houses there and they're now on the crossfire of those Israeli airstrikes and also those feasts fighting taking place on the ground between Palestine Islam Jihad, Hamas and the Israeli army the Israeli army also saying in a statement this evening that two soldiers were killed in that ground offensive and also two more are seriously injured there but we do see here that the Israeli Astaghfirullah intensifying as we hear from the ground that also the fighting that troops are engaged on the ground is becoming more fierce there Kalev right, Piaz Takobach there in the south near the Gaza border thank you for that now since October 7th the world has seen a surge of anti-Semitism and demonization of Israel from the web to the streets excuse me from verbal to physical assaults Israeli President Isaac Herzog addressed this issue today with this statement this is a message that must be heard loud and clear when they say from the river to the sea they say without any Jews when they demonstrate on campuses against Israel that means without Jews when they criticize Israel fighting for its defending its people and fighting against the most brutal attack that humanity has seen in last generation they mean no Jews this is a fight not only against Israel it's a fight by against anti-Semites all over the world and we are here to strengthen our brothers and sisters of Jewish communities all over the world to show solidarity with them because we are all in this together we support the Jewish communities we call upon world leaders and upon each state's leadership to make sure that Jews are protected and defended and that the fight against anti-Semitism is covered in all layers of the legal and law enforcement systems so that Jews will not be hurt Hamas Al-Qaeda and ISIS are all there together wishing to ban us all from the face of the earth and if it starts with Israel and it starts with the Jews it will never end there Europe will be next and that is why we are fighting a battle on behalf of the entire world Now anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian protests have been seen all over Europe despite the fact that many European citizens have been killed by Hamas who are being held hostage in Gaza since October 7th This includes Germany which two days ago learned like the rest of the world about the murder of German-Israeli citizen Shani Lok whose half-naked body was dragged into Gaza following the attack on the Supernova Music Festival Now there is a delegation of European parliamentarians visiting Israel today and joining us in studio is one of them Lisa Hildegard Badoum member of the Bundestag for the Alliance 90 or the Green Party perhaps a better known Lisa thank you for joining us Good evening First of all let me ask you about your trip here and also about Germany dealing how is it dealing with the fact as I said before that Germans are involved being both as victims as we saw by that unfortunate woman and the fact that there are German citizens being held in Gaza I think a lot of people in Germany are horrified by the massacres that we have been seen and that's why I wanted to come here I wanted to see with my own eyes what happened and how Israel is coping with the situation and so we have been to Kvaasa Wonky Butz which suffered an attack and we met with people who formally lived in Kvaasa and who have relatives who are held as hostages at the moment and so this yeah it was really for me it was a visit which brought a lot of impressions to me I can imagine now the German government has been relatively supportive of Israel in its military campaign you the Greens are part of the alliance the governing current governing alliance but give us a sense about that support Israel wants to carry out a military operation it knows and acknowledges that there will be civilians be killed as it tries to rescue its hostages and protect its civilians give us a sense of how you think the German government policy is to this the Israel's undertaking so far so German government is very clear that of course Israel has the right to defend itself and I think it's it's clearer that's also a battle of surviving battle that Israel can still exist in this region I think it's very clear to German government and also to our responsibility which we have for our history and we are very sure that Israel is of course handling the situation within the humanitarian law and I think it's it's a problem that repeatedly there are accusations from United Nations and other institutions that humanitarian law might not be so IDF might not be conformed to humanitarian law everything I saw and we spoke with a lot of people from the IDF is that the Israeli army is trying everything to protect civilians in Gaza and to attack the terror centers we have there and to attack Hamas and not civilians can I just ask you because the Greens party has been critical we have to say of Israeli policies in the past especially regarding the Palestinians is it viewed this situation somewhat differently I mean following the October 7th attack or you you speaking more personally or what's your sense of that so of course I'm a friend of Israel for many many years but also the Green Party isn't made the Green Party maybe it used to be before 20 30 years or something we have a majority of our party members we are in solidarity with Israel it's very clear for us that it's our duty as citizens and as part of the government to support Israel okay and let me ask you we heard the president Herzog speak and maybe I can add this and heard our foreign minister she spoke out very loud and clearly that the terror attack of Hamas is a massacre and that Israel has to do everything to defend itself okay in fact let me just ask you also about we heard president Herzog speak about concern over certainly there's freedom of expression and if those who want to support Palestinians be critical as you that's there but disturbing tones in some of these rallies support for Hamas incitement that go across the line into anti-Semitism and demonization of Israel and unfortunately more serious incidents such as the burning or torching of a synagogue in Berlin how concerned are you as the government about these manifestations of anti-Semitism we're seriously concerned we all think it's a shame it's a shame for Germany the Jews cannot live here in or can live in Germany and in peace and security and that they have to fear attacks and a lot of demonstrations were forbidden where those pearls occurred you mentioned and we have to think about further measures against terror organizations in Germany and a lot of them have too much space to to move around and yeah this will be part of our discussions in the next month what we can do against radical Islam all right well I just want to ask you the own ultimate our senior diplomatic correspondent interesting to hear because Europe has been a difficult position for Israel diplomatically in the past has conducted its military operations including in the Gaza Strip do you sense a change in tone coming here well two levels I think Kalev that the response from Europe's leaders the political center of Europe of UL has just been extraordinary including but especially at the European Union in Brussels remember the commission building being lit up with the Israeli flag the strong statements from Ursula Fonderline there obviously has been pushback especially over the course of time within the EU and its institutions but still I think even at this hour even at this date the support from the political center in Europe has just been extraordinary and I think that that has to be Israel's strategy politically going forward in western democracies to occupy the political center right not be connected with the far right or the far left but to be the home for people who are in the political center and this is a trend that I think I hope our our officials pick up the ball and run with but of course Germany is not Europe Germany is Germany just to make clear what the member of parliament said Anna-Lina Baerbach the foreign ministers from the Green Party so is coming from the Green Party and what she says represents the Green Party but Germany's post-holocaust culture you know I was listening to I was almost brought to tears the post-holocaust culture that Germany has built the German people have built not just lead but the German people have built over the course of three generations is just so extraordinary and maybe the greatest example and the most courageous example of reconciliation in human history and I think all of us in Israel just are in awe of it and oh the German people not just the leaders but the people at the popular level an incredible amount of gratitude that they have held so strong with this culture for so long over so many decades and I think I joined really millions of Israelis and just expressing an enormous amount of gratitude for that for your support at this hour but much more so for all that's been accomplished in the relations between our peoples over not just decades but generations yes, they're on yeah, I was an MK I was heading our delegation to the European Council and I think it was a philosophy of my part and I think in general this is where we stand right now Israel alliance is Europe, US, European Union and even NATO and I think we have to the rigid and conflict that we are within only strengthen the issue this is the alliance that we have to keep and maintain strategically as we look forward and I think it's also reminded to Israelis that sometimes I have to admit we're snobbing Western European countries for a while we are part of this alliance and this is how we go forward from this regional conflict forward. Amen. Well, I think this conflict has somewhat sharpened those views especially as we see the direction that for example Russia and some other countries have taken as well. Lisa Hildegard Badoum thank you for joining us on I-20. Thank you for having me. And thank you for coming to Israel. Now let's move back down south for two weeks Israeli news channel 12 has followed families of the missing and kidnapped as they work tirelessly to find any information they can about I'm sorry I'm going to backtrack there. Okay. No, I'm okay. I'm going to bring it I'm going to bring it back to studio. Daron, let me just ask you now we've heard about that you spoke about the Americans that lands for sure. And I know I'm saying it because I think there were there were moment of clashes between us and European in terms of the views that we have according to our conflict. But now that the conflict goes regional in Europe is part of the conflict in Samsung. We really have to think about it globally. And I say and emphasize our ties with European Union with the European Council also with NATO a cruiser for the existence of Israel. And I think we can contribute to Europe Europe can contribute to us and together with the U.S. umbrella we can try to get out of this regional conflict. Okay, at least they hold the God, but do them again. Thank you for joining us. And now we're going to move back down south. The local security chief of Kibbutz-Givim near the Gaza Strip gave I-24 news a rare look at life in the community after the October 7th attack and is the terminally optimistic vision for the future of the area despite the tragedy it has gone through. Ori Shapiro has that story. Kibbutz-Givim near the Gaza Strip adjacent to the southern city of Sderot was not severely hit by the brutal terror attack by Hamas on October 7th but things could have been very different. As Gil Schwartzman a member of the Kibbutz tells I-24 news about the dramatic moments. At around 7 a.m. I heard gunshots around the gate. I got a call from the local security coordinator. He said, I've been shot. I'm injured. I called the standby squad and we came to help him. Another car was shot at and the guy there was shot in his head but he survived. Another car was also hit by gunshots and grenades. We counted 45 bullet holes in the car. The local security chief got hit in his leg and I had to take his place. We also had a lot of luck perhaps even divine providence. I want to show you something special. This gate took a lot of bullets. When we open the gate look at the shape of the bullet exit hole. Kibbutz-Givim was established in 1947 a few months before Israel declared its independence. Over the years it's known many challenges due to its sensitive location. In the beginning people lived here in tents. In July 1947 this structure was built to protect the residents from attacks by Egyptians. Members of the Kibbutz lived in tents and small cabins. Schwarzman is one of 16 people of the standby squad. The only ones who remain in the Kibbutz out of its 617 members. When we walk around we see empty houses. But thanks to Schwarzman and the few people who were left here the Kibbutz is not neglected and even the local dairy is functioning. I was in Germany on a family vacation when the situation started. After a few days I came back. It's a bit strange to be here. I'm alone here except for a few people and soldiers. But what can I do? Outside the Kibbutz we visit Sauta. Which Schwarzman directs. This startup hub is home to dozens of high-tech companies which develop revolution inventions from 3D printers to FSMP platforms. We've been active for six years now. All the companies have told me that they are not leaving this hub. Other companies have been interested in participating in this project. It's the first high-tech hub in the negative and one of the biggest and most successful ones. High-tech always has a future. I have no doubt that in two years when you come back to visit we'll have expanded to 50 companies. Despite the horrific tragedy Schwarzman is still optimistic and says he believes that most of the residents will return to their home eventually and that Kevim and the high-tech scene will flourish. Perhaps a ray of hope in this dark time in the south. Owen, there's news coming out from Reuters releasing stories saying relating to something you spoke about earlier. According to Palestinian and Egyptian sources the Rafah crossing will be opened today for Wednesday, excuse me, tomorrow for a number of Gazans to complete their treatment in the Egyptian hospitals. Wow. How about that? So it seems that when Sakhi Anegbi was speaking he actually- He knew of what he spoke. Listen. He was giving foreshadowing and that is important development. Listen, I just want to get here for a second. He hinted at that and what he was saying and he hinted at the ships. So let's see exactly where they're going to be treated but a very interesting development. It emphasized the original aspect of the conflict. Egypt and Jordan we have to admit our allies in this context also I think the Palestinian Authority and as we go forward we have to maintain this alliance in order to really contain this conflict and win. I also suspect we'll have to learn more as this unfolds that there was a certain person with initials J.B. who might have been involved in this development as well. I would have to say Secretary Blinken we'll talk about this a little later in the program when we go to Washington. By the way, there's all life pictures you're seeing in the back there flares and smokes that is Gaza Strip the Northern Gaza Strip and clearly intense fighting continuing there through the evening with Secretary of State Blinken gave testimony today in the Senate regarding a foreign aid package that the Biden administration is trying to push through including $14 billion for Israel and he was stressed the need for regional cooperation including Egypt to come into Gaza when the fighting when the operation is over to help administer that. Yeah, I think it's part in the end of the initial so the initiative and I think once this conflict ends we'll be back on track I hope to this idea of strengthening this regional alliance and this is the only way out from the conflict but we're still in the early stages of this campaign and there's a lot of fighting going forward and a lot of obstacle going forward. All right, Daron Avital Owen Ultiman thank you for joining us stay with us those are life pictures you were just seeing there the Gaza Strip obviously fierce fighting still going on of course confirmation to Israeli soldiers who have been killed there during that battle stay with us we'll be back at the top of the hour with more on I-21 news our coverage of the Israel Hamas war mind is far more susceptible to damage than previously believed stress is power conferred upon something and when that power exceeds a certain level the something will break down at her lab in Hebrew universities Edmund and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences professor Hermona Sarek is proving just how permanent that damage is there's a major difference between our brain and other tissues in our body so muscle cells can be replaced blood cells are replaced on a daily basis but the nerve cells we have in our brain that's what we got born with and that's that's it for the rest of our lives we've examined recently what happens to a young mouse seven days old when it's stressed and a mouse that has been subjected to that type of stress will be an underdog forever what professor Sarek has discovered is that it alters the physical brain sometimes permanently we analyze those genes and we found genes that are modified these physical stress reactions can actually cause degenerative brain disease when they fail to vanish you get diseases when they accumulate over time without being removed from the cells this is when you get damage permanent damage so not only do the effects of stress accumulate forever they can then pass to future generations we need to pay special effort to avoid stress being inflicted on the young ones because it's much more dangerous to them 1,500 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 i24 news our soldiers are fighting on the battlefield fighting with courage and heroism engaging in fierce close quarter battles in which they're eliminating terrorists this type of combat endangers our forces and carries a heavy price and it is complex but it is critical to achieve the objectives of the war welcome to or back to the special broadcast on i24 news I'm Khaled Bindavid it is day 25 of Israel's war against Hamas a quick update air raid siren alert has just been issued for the Ashkelon region we'll give you any further information we have as we go along we're joined in studio now by Dr. Emmanuel Navon an international relations expert and the CEO of Elnit and reserves IDF Major General Etan Dango a former military secretary to three defense ministers former coordinator of government activities in the territories I have to tell you now we are getting sirens in Tel Aviv I'm going to try to keep broadcasting as we go sirens in Tel Aviv we're going to stay in the studio actually you can see some of the other employees running in the background there to the air raid shelter we're going to try to stay on air if we can to bring you a live feed if we have from the Tel Aviv skyline at this hour there have been this is not the first day time there have been Tel Aviv sirens in Tel Aviv during the day several interceptions by the Iron Dome Defense System there was a there was also rockets fired this afternoon at the city of Ashtold there were four people injured in that incident we're just now waiting for usually for the Iron Dome interception to interception system to operate Etan it seems as a lot of a lot of rocket firing today it seems as the Hamas is being under pressure in northern Gaza they're responding with some heavy rocket fire yes it started from yesterday that you can see that there is more intensive rocket attacks from Gaza towards the medium and the long range what does it mean it means that first of all Hamas has capacities and their capabilities and they have enough rockets and they're making I just want to say we just heard a boom and the studio did shake a little bit that was presumably the Iron Dome the deception or it landed at sea perhaps can be so what I said that Hamas is making a calculating launchering system by keeping more rockets for medium and long range what I think is this is way of response to try to press the Israeli public opinion and to create any kind of uncertainty in the by the population by launching towards the center okay I just want to say just a minute ago those are interceptions those lights that you see going up that's our feed from Israel's channel 12 news you saw a couple of interceptors go up that's the sky usually we see some flashes there so it looks like the way interceptions in the sky is right above the studio here in Tel Aviv so just to finalize this it will continue but this is the fact one of the failure of Israel during the escalations with Hamas that we didn't succeed to find any kind of a system to destroy these launches we missed the fact that if we would use attack at the beginning at the producing system at the storages and this kind of thing the damage would be much more than now try to catch the launcher or the those who are launching from the field so this is something that as more as we are going and have creating success in our offensive operation we will see this kind of lanchoring towards population we're seeing more interceptions in the sky this was us I don't think that's live that was a that was we saw before a couple of minutes ago yes and we have to explain to the people who are watching us that the orders in Israel is to wait 10 minutes from the Syrian till there is a allowing to move from their shelter because there are sometimes some pieces of the launchers or the missile that by the intercepted missiles the fragments from the missiles coming down and there have been injuries exactly from that and it looks like this was a series of missiles sirens ran across the whole Tel Aviv greater Tel Aviv metropolitan area cities like Ramat Gan, Ben-Ai Brak, Petah Tikfa, Ramad-e-Sharon, Baciam and Halon so a fairly widespread attack pretty much so this is the second time this day we've seen this kind of incident this kind of rocket fire in the Tel Aviv area and as we explained some of that has obviously a reaction to the intense fighting of the Israeli ground forces now in the northern Gaza Strip as Kamas finds itself on the more and more pressure and its rocket launchers on the more and more pressure they have to utilize their arsenal obviously before the idea for another few weeks or months to serve their purpose during the war so it still will be a problem that we will have to face with it and to try to they make the damage as little as we can right and Emmanuel a test of the Israeli public it's important to remind the viewers the entire Israeli public in a sense is on the front line of these attacks this is disrupting daily life disrupting the economic life social education in every way these attacks are a test of the Israeli public yeah and I think what's impressive about this war is how the how Israeli society has reacted to the war if before the war we had a very divided public arguing and fighting about judicial reform today we have an Israeli society that is united against the enemy that is fighting regardless of political opinions that is fighting regardless of people's opinion of the government and that are also helping each other we witness a lot of initiatives supporting civilians affected by the terrorist attacks of Hamas supporting their soldiers and that's I think where our enemies have been mistaken misunderstanding and misreading Israeli society the fact that we were arguing about politics a few months ago does not mean that we won't do everything to protect our country unlike our neighbors fighting here does not mean destroying our own country and killing each other it's a major misunderstanding and misreading of Hamas and other enemies in the region right and let's talk a little about the ground operation now going on in the Gaza Strip we reported earlier on the IDF confirming at least two soldiers falling in that battle but dozens saying dozens of Hamas terrorists including some major figures the Jabali battalion commander who directed much of the October 7th attack being killed but really now Israel is getting the IDF is getting into the if you want to call it the nitty gritty the really difficult stage of really fighting starting to move in those dense urban areas in Gaza absolutely I think that first of all this offensive operation now around Gaza is going more and more towards a higher stage and what we see now much more divisions or brigades are entered together the program or the plan is running but it's running and moving as it should be slowly we'll be with careful activities with a direct fire we have very important goal to kill and to destroy more and more people from Hamas and infrastructure and arms etc there is immediate intelligence that is coming also to the forces during their activities so we don't have to rapid we don't have to hurry we have to make it with the very patient steps around us but on the other hand let's set it very clearly this is one of the most difficult area to make urban war in the world in my opinion during the last thousand years that you watch it and because of it they organize themselves for the last years very deeply with the arms with the underground city they have in the tunnels in the large tunnels using a lot of anti-tank missiles using a lot of charges and making it flexible way a way when they identify the movement of the IDF so it's very very professional way of work very very patient and I hope it will continue in such a way we will continue to block and to surround the main strip of the Gaza city in order to move them by the way we left open area for the civilian who didn't left till now the area of the north part of Gaza it is in the southeast of the area that we entered all right I want to move away a little way from as you're now to the United States the Israel Hamas conflict continues to be a source of fierce debate at the United Nations and last night Israeli ambassador for the UN Gilad Erdan made the bold gesture in the security council of donning a yellow star like those that Jews were forced to wear under the Nazis here's Erdan some member states have learned nothing in the past 80 years some of you have forgotten why this body was established so I will remind you from this day on each time you look at me you will remember what's staying silent in the face of evil means just like my grandparents and the grandparents of millions of Jews from now on my team and I will wear yellow stars we will wear this star until you condemn the atrocities of Hamas and demand the immediate release of our hostages well for more let's go to our senior U.S. correspondent Mike Wagenheim in New York and Mike a dramatic gesture there by the ambassador not everybody in Israel feels this is the way to go but clearly he wants to make a point there in what is clearly a you could say an unfriendly variment that the U.N. to say the least I think there's good faith arguments to be made on both sides of this Kalev you know Erdan is on the ground there at the U.N. day after day deals with the absolute nonsense that goes on there the anti-Israel bias which is as prominent as ever and is quite frustrated with what he's seen as the U.N.'s unwillingness to unconditionally especially with the secretary general condemn Hamas and their massacre it shouldn't be that hard and so what he's basically saying is you guys want to be silent about this well it harkens back to a day when the world was silent as well and we saw the repercussions of that so he's putting on his yellow star and he says he's going to keep it on until the U.N. can find the moral courage and clarity to condemn Hamas meanwhile we've got folks like Danny Dayan the head of the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum who's criticized Erdan's gesture saying that it's actually a sign of weakness that Israel is a state where it can protect all the Jews if Erdan wants to show a pride in being a Jew he should slap on an Israeli lapel pin some unnamed foreign ministry officials are also saying that Erdan is not coordinating his messaging with the foreign ministry and Erdan getting undermined somewhat over the last few days he had come out after Antonio Guterres his controversial comments a couple of weeks ago possibly equivocating Hamas and Israel's reaction to them and Erdan said there would be no U.N. employees that would be granted visas starting with the humanitarian coordinator until something changed well that humanitarian coordinator Martin Griffiths was given a visa by the ministry of foreign affairs who said they would take it on a case-by-case basis listen there's some undertones to this I think that are fair to bring up Kalev number one Erdan is very popular in the Likud and is a potential challenger down the road for the for the premiership he's seen somewhat as a threat popularity-wise to Benjamin Netanyahu and we see what happens to those who are seen as a possible challenger even slightly down the road to the to the prime minister just like Danny Denone before him who was shuffled off to the U.N. he lared Erdan as well so there might be some good faith in saying Erdan is wrong here there is also something to be said that maybe he's being undermined for other reasons altogether Mike, stay with us because the Israel Gaza conflict also the subject of discussion and some discord in Washington today Secretary of State Anthony Blinken was testifying in the Senate on the Biden administration's request for supplemental funding that would include $14 billion in aid when an anti-Israeli protesters in the hall interrupted the proceedings with chants and shouts they were then removed by security Now, of course, today the Senate voting on the appointment of Jack Lew as the next U.S. Ambassador to Israel that's in the face of Republican opposition over Lew's prior support for the Iran nuclear deal Mike, some very interesting things going on there in the Senate over Jack Lew's nomination some Republicans at least one sort of breaking ranks with his party on this nomination That's right the vote is actually ongoing now earlier today there was a vote to cut off debate on the issue and it got the support of two Republicans Lindsey Graham and Iran Paul those are about as two as far as you can get on Republican philosophy Graham and Paul but they have also voted in the final vote now to confirm Jack Lew so it certainly looks like he will be the new ambassador to Israel Paul is an isolationist doesn't really care much about foreign policy to begin with but Lindsey Graham has made the rounds he's been essentially a shadow secretary of state trying to keep Israeli Saudi normalization in play after the Hamas massacre he's been to Israel Saudi Arabia Egypt as of late he said after the cloture vote today to cut off debate he said listen I was just in Israel being the Israeli government apparently though he didn't name names said they're okay with Lew he said he has some concerns about what he did as a treasury secretary especially in advocating for the Iran deal and his work there with possibly weakening sanctions and lack of enforcement but he says he's a guy that he can work with and so he voted to make him the new ambassador to Israel that vote is going to wrap up in the next few minutes and it certainly looks like Lew will be heading to Jerusalem probably much sooner than anticipated much sooner and of course he's got going to have a hell of a lot on his plate to when he gets you what a time to be coming to Israel as the US ambassador Mike Wagenheim thank you for that now over the past few weeks we brought your stories of tragedy and survival from the communities on the Gaza border attacked by terrorists but few are as improbable of those of Irith Lahav a resident of Kibbutz near Oz who on the morning of October 7th initially took shelter in her home's safe room with her daughter thinking this was just another round of rocket attacks which he soon realized the terrorists were breaking into her home and she had to find a way to seal the door of her safe room which had no lock she found the solution using some common household items well joining us now is Irith Lahav survivor of the Kibbutz near Oz massacre she's joining us from now relocated to Kibbutz Kramim Irith tell us about that morning of October 7th we woke up at 6.35 a.m. from the red alert the color red it's the missiles alert and I quickly jumped out of bed in my pajamas ran to the safe room and called my daughter lotus lotus come come come and she came quickly in we closed the door and we we need to wait 25 seconds and we soon we heard the missiles the bombs and right away we heard another color red so my daughter says let me go out get the dog in she ran outside got the dog in grabbed my phone luckily so we went inside and she says mama here shooting I said nah nah nah I can't be this is just you know bombs we used to bombs and then my neighbor text us a message in our neighborhood saying somebody's shooting my house and I was like no way no cannot be a second later my other neighbors sent a text message to all of us saying that he sees armed Palestinians lock your doors and I thought lock the door how do I lock the door these doors don't lock these doors are for missiles not for against human trying to break open the doors so I started to really panic because right away we started hearing automatic weapon from all corners of the kibbutz we are a small kibbutz kibbutz also only has 420 people that's all automatic weapon grenades everywhere at the same time endless shooting endless shooting and we start to shake from fear knowing that any minute they can come in with with time off the lights silent I I didn't even want to talk to my or whisper to my daughter from this fear so we just text to each other I wrote something on myself on gaver this upon and I'm thinking all the time the door doesn't lock if they coming to our house we're dead that's it so I sent a text message to our to the kibbutz we have our own messaging system how does one lock the door nobody knew nobody even thought that the boys don't lock so I said I started again and again no respond or people didn't know so I text the same question to my family and then I received this picture from my brother who leaves five kilometers away in moshab enab so this is how we did it and I saw okay that's an idea I can do something similar now we are we sit in the dark keep silent we hardly breathe from the fear if they hear us we are dead so I'm trying to think quickly in this dark dark dark what do I have that is that looks similar to broost sticks this is just my office I have books I have a desk I have computer but what do I have else that could resemble this and I remember that I have in awe a roaring stick for a boat for my childhood that I kept as a memory and took down and then I needed another piece of stick so thinking thinking thinking okay my vacuum cleaner the Dyson vacuum cleaner I took it apart and I used the hose of the vacuum cleaner and I I make jewelry so I told my daughter whispering open a drawer take the the leather string from down there and then she opens the drawer we don't even think about it it's just we just open and move things but in this time that you have to be quiet every name that you touch makes a sound that you think are they you will hear us they will come right away anyway she pulled out the string and I tied it strongly I realized that I cannot do like my brother's system because the vacuum cleaner hose doesn't go all the way through so I put it so that it will push the door handle so they won't be able to move it open um tied it really strongly the the heart is beating your whole body is shaking just so you hear all this automatic weapon a grenade all the time all the time all the time and they can come in every minute I finally finished thought it was strong enough piled a lot of books between the door and where we were hiding under the table and we curled under the table and then I realized from the shaking and the fear I we I bumped into the table and we sit on the table and it's uncomfortable you just move you go and it's so scary right you were you were in the effort for how long and they say from you read I 11 and a half hours under the table 11 and a half hours and of course they came in soon enough they they approached they shot the house and with the automatic weapon from all the sides they were shouting loud voices in Arabic we entered at 6 35 at 10 30 they arrived to our house as I said they shot from all sides they broke in broke the whole house we heard a lot of banging and banging and banging and all the little shouting and shouting loud voices in Arabic and they approached the door and they tried to open and tried to open and they banged and they get angry and they bang it and they try and try and try and we were sure that we will die I was sure that they will open and my daughter and I would just laying down on the floor holding hands started to say beautiful words to each other my daughter was saying how much she loves me and she appreciates everything I did for her I said to her many many loving words and we just laid down on the floor holding hands saying goodbye basically to each other luckily they couldn't open after eight longer minutes and they moved on breaking more of our house moved out moved to the next door next neighbor same thing shooting shooting shooting we heard a lot of breaking things moved to the other neighbors then when they moved to the neighbors that lives in front of me whatever using all this automatic weapon and I heard their daughters they have a two-year-old and a five-year-old daughter they were screaming and crying I was sure they took them out and killed them from screaming and crying what was the point in which you finally could come out of the safe room six o'clock in the evening six o'clock in the evening eleven and a half hours of despair really fear fear fear just what I just want to ask you after that experience are you ready to go back to the keyboards and near us which suffer terrible losses and live again in that community Sonia Tagaza well it's a good question I cannot even think about the next hour really we you know your whole world is is shattered suddenly you it's something that you want others think that they will face in their whole life so it's I'm at the stage now that I don't even believe that such a thing could have happened will I go back I don't know it's so scary why would I want to put myself in such a scary situation again it's terrible I really don't wish for anybody to be in such a terrible fear right sure well I could say all I could say is I do hope with the sacrifices being made that there will be a safer future for the residents of those communities there on the border with Gaza and let's I guess thanks to God saved by a vacuum pose and a rowing or miracle it's nice to hear some miracles and survival amidst all this terror and the morning that we're all going through and I'm sure also your experience and we wait for the hostages to come back and you know absolutely happy together you know Yvonne LaHavv thank you for joining us on I-24 News to tell your story thank you thank you so much for putting those stories out no okay thank you for joining us Dr. Manuel Navon thank you for joining us stay with us we'll be back in just a few minutes with more on our continuing coverage on I-24 News designer of all your events schedule your appointment at www.madeforme.co.il made for me official dresser of I-24 News good evening ladies and gentlemen to be in a state of war this is a very active scene and we need to get in the car as we're talking more than a hundred soldiers and civilians have been kidnapped 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 unity welcome back to this special broadcast on I-24 News now before October 7th there were some in Israel who doubted the fitness of female soldiers to perform in combat conditions but in the wake of the Hamas attack on the south some of the bravest accounts of heroism and sacrifice to emerge from that day were women serving as soldiers as police officers and as security personnel in those communities some of those stories are told in this report adapted from Israel's channel 12 news on that Saturday morning as they rampage through southern Israel dozens of terrorists also attack the city of Stiroat and tried to take over the police station one of the police officers at the station was Major Mora Shakuri she called me and said mom it's important for me that you know that if I don't survive I love you I love dad and take care of my sister when they realized that there were terrorists outside the station several police officers went up to the roof and fought them from there they remain there for eight hours fighting a non-stop battle while Stiroats standby squads fought the terrorists from the outside her commander came to me at seven o'clock and told me she let us said how many were injured she spoke with the paramedic with everyone and believe me I didn't even feel that she was in distress I know more she does not give up if she was a coward she would be alive with me Mora was supposed to get married in June to her partner David he's also a police officer she was killed during a battle she was leading and she shot terrorists and rescued the wounded and in the end protected the residents of the south it's not something that comforts us and brings her back but it is something giving us the strength that in the end she fought until her last minute and was a hero they found her with drawn pistols four cartridges on her do you understand and with all the pain I'm proud of her that she contributed and safeguarded us for four years we were on the same path she was simply a fighter the late captain Edda Neemri a squad commander in the artillery corps was supposed to complete her service as a swimmer but decided that she wanted to serve as a fighter on Saturday morning she was with her team at the base in Naha'oz when terrorists broke into it we got up on Saturday with the intention of having a picnic at the base at the outpost which is not her outpost she has been serving on the northern border for the past year she had just replaced a team that was there on holiday and we planned to come to her to have a picnic there when they realized that the base had been infiltrated she and her team jumped out of bed and barefoot in pajamas they went out to fight the terrorists Eden and her team ran to the protected area where they already found something like 30 terrified female observers she and four female warriors were the only ones with weapons she took the side that was closer to the entrance and everything was quiet and with the gestures she pointed where to aim drew the weapon terrorists entered and her female warriors and Eden eliminated them this is the last photo that Eden actually took as you can see that at first she was really with them on this side if you think it was a protected room well she was initially on the exposed side and then she jumped to the other side to cover the other opening Eden stayed fighting and was killed by terrorist fire only two and a half days later did her family receive the notification of her death she was always a fighter always wanted to be equal among equals whether in swimming whether in theater whether in school graduation ceremonies she didn't feel unequal she thought she deserved it she was always ahead I am angry with her yes she shouldn't have been there on Saturday morning 90 newly enlisted recruits were at the Zikim base at the gate Sergeant Eden Alon Levy a rescue fighter was with one of the Rookies she immediately understood the danger about 10 terrorists arrived there equipped with RPGs, grenades they started shooting at them and the staff the officers joined her in the battle her entire staff fell with her six including Eden along with another recruit were killed in this battle and managed to prevent the occupation of the camp and save the recruits I think that Eden's story undoubtedly proves how much female fighters can do and even more I'm just proud of her and hope I can be as brave as her yes she's simply a hero everyone's hero Eden had finished a military training course two months ago and was supposed to go on to officer's course in addition she was supposed to go to pilot training in a week after she decided that there were other targets she hadn't conquered what do you miss the most? that she came here to harass me even when I didn't have the strength to get out of the army sorry it's just you come here and just run out of energy get straight into bed and she just come yell at me like what's going on and this I miss her teasing she should come and tease big time in this war more and more heroic stories of brave women are being reported we know so far that 37 female soldiers were killed seven female police officers a shin bet woman and a paramedic on duty women who paid with their lives while others continue to fight even now and still with us Eitan Dancote and Eitan I'm also ashamed to say that as more and more women did enter combat roles in the Israeli defense forces in recent years there have been more and more voices questioning their ability their heart the appropriateness of having them and so many stories have come out of October 7th that show women heroically in many cases sacrificing themselves and to the point of rescuing many many more people either civilians or as we heard even in this case other soldiers new recruits absolutely there is no different between men or women I think we realize it's after years of that women joined to some of the court that they were not allowed and you see such hero stories we have already some signs about the way they are acting as commander as officers as fighters from small events near the borders especially in the south right but now what we realize from the stories you see the brave the certainty that first of all they should give what they can to save people life to fight for their soldiers to fight for the country and they put themselves on the side and you see it with the policemen as well the women that brought here the story it's something that shows us in a sad way in a tragic way how the women are involved today in many places as really equal fighters commanders and I think we all have to salute to those women to those stories not to forget them and to put them in the place they should get this kind of owner and I'm sure in the future the IDF besides the continuity will open other opportunities for women they are especially in these days when there are stories about what will be the size of IDF time of joining I think that after 7th of October it's clear to us that we need a large army with a lot of fighters we have to change the concept how to defend the borders and the female will have a very important task in such a case Right, I think there will be a renewed discussion about military service also involving other sectors the ultra-orthodox religious sector and by the way in this sector you have a lot of change at the atmosphere and you see such support that I think the country has been come to another situation and I think there should be a very deep leadership that will use the change of the Israeli society the unity female religious we are in a junction that we have to build a new society because the many important a thing for Israel future is the people and they vote by their legs and the way they are now behaving and giving themselves for the country All right, well I want to now go back to the fighting inside the Gaza Strip and I think we have a pretty good map that shows some of the locations you can see that there let's talk about that because we see there are two main focal points that area circled in green is where we see much of the which we see much of the fighting there let's talk about the strategy of choosing those particular locations by the way that red line which is right below the lower green circle that is the sort of halfway point of the Gaza Strip where the IDF has told residents to move south it calls the Gaza River the Gaza River it's of course it's not a river it's a river bed or it's not a river it's a wide it's a fairly wide for years it's separate between the north part of Gaza to the central part of Gaza and without getting inside the let's say the concept of the plan that was planned by IDF and running on the ground you see one very clear thing IDF identify that the part of the Gaza City is the main part that by destroying Hamas major structure by killing the murderers the terrorists themselves their infant structure the way when they are it's in the middle of Gaza right so I just clarified that's Gaza City it's busy area it's between the two two green circles it's in the middle but the green sides that you put the last point on the west side of Gaza Strip on the north side right near the middle Turinian and if you identify their IDF forces it means they succeed to surround Gaza and from there they can control what's going especially on the northwest part the green line on the top there because this was the part where a lot of terror activities by submarines and kind of terrorists are doing it from the sea towards the Israel area so this is one of the things that IDF succeed to stop now the corner that was very sensitive and used for commando activities by Hamas with a lot of efforts to create terror activities in the depths of Israel from the sea or from the ground area on the north a west side of this part IDF is on a way of surrounding Gaza right Gaza City and Gaza City and push it on a way to make the circle as smaller it can be all right stay with us I want to go now to a guest Michael Rappaport is an actor you would probably recognize from numerous movies and TV shows over the years but in recent years he's extended his fame as a popular commentator on social media and podcasting New York Jew born and raised Rappaport has been particularly outspoken on the Israel Hamas war and the anti-Semitism it has stirred up now he hasn't backed down in the face of some heavy blowback in fact he's pledged to donate a dollar to the Israel Defense Forces for every critical post on his platforms that include a Palestinian flag here's a bit of Rappaport from its Instagram page the loss of any innocent civilians on any side in any part of the world is always a tragedy peace peace peace everybody wants peace have you read the Hamas Charter you should read it have you read the Hamas Charter you should take a gander it's a maniacally written manifesto about killing all Jews the end of Israel also they don't like Christians read Google the Hamas Charter now and joining us from New York is actor and comedian Michael Rappaport Michael thank you for joining us now you've been outspoken on the years on any number of subjects be it sports at the entertainment world the U.S. politics why have you been so outspoken on the on the situation here the Israel Gaza war and of course the various issues that has stirred up for example anti-semitism well thank you for having me I mean there's not why I mean every everybody should be speaking up whether you're Jewish or not Jewish it's a harrowing I don't need to say what it is you guys know what it is the whole world knows what it is it's a a disgusting situation it's a frightening situation and you know it wasn't any question or doubt or hesitation to speak out since it happened on the 7th and you know I'm just trying to be as supportive as I can to everybody dealing with the horrible war that we're in now and the attack and the just the unmentionable things that people of Israel and the whole world are dealing with because the one thing that I think it's forgotten that they think it's just Israelis or Jews that were killed and that's just not the case so I had to say something and I'll continue to say something well Mike you should say watch everyone should be speaking out but the realities many entertainers are not speaking out including prom and some prominent American there have been those who have like Barbara Streisand but many prominent American Jewish said to things not only not spoken out some have spoken out taking a much different position some have even attacked you for your position John Kusak who I believe you you acted in a movie as known for support of leftist causes attacked you personally called you a clown they actually called you worse than that I can't say with your viewpoint on the on the conflict here what's your answer to that I mean my answer to anybody is is that if you support Hamas you support terrorists obviously nobody wants civilians to be killed and in Gaza and nobody wants civilians to be murdered raped and kidnapped in Israel or anywhere else this is a horrible horrible horrific barbarian group of savage animals the Hamas terrorist group it is a terrorist group and there was no hesitation to speak out and support America when we were attacked in 9-11 and this is the same thing and the anti-Semitism that has come since and that's coming every single day with swastikas and stars of David in Paris written on Jewish people's apartments it's these are not people that are about negotiating these are not people that want peace these are not people that are just going after Jews they're going after atheists they're going after Catholics LGBTQ and I don't understand what's gotten lost or how all of a sudden a group that can commit to horrendous acts of terror on October 7th somehow some way has gotten more popular since I've never heard it's like they're the Beatles of terrorists it's shocking it's people are misinformed of people are they're crazy I don't understand it because they're one thing and they're terrorists and it's not just the Jewish people the Jewish people and the Israeli people are the flavor of the month but if this continues they'll be attracted and be into other flavors if they get any inch further Right and so much shocking we're seeing some of this manifestation as you said in New York City this incident at Cooper Union these rallies this incident at Cooper Union where Jewish students had to be locked in the library to protect them also very disturbing these incidents of people going around ripping down the posters of the hostages that were done by the way I saw you you put on your social media this clip of this construction worker might be named Paul a confronting one of these people who could show it let's take a little bit of that clip because I saw that you also used it I'm not plusing Jewish he's not Jewish I don't know if he is or not does it fucking matter this is fucking the U.S. that's New York City you don't have a fucking right to touch that shit this is a free country you can wave your Palestine flag and say death to the Jews or America or whatever you want but we can put a fucking sign okay Michael your action also you know you're not someone who shies away from confrontation I wonder if you saw somebody in New York ripping down these hostage posters how how you would react I would be it would be it would be surreal because it's so surreal that people would forget what side you're on these are innocent children women civilians older people and and you it's just you never could have predicted it and the and the pathetic thing is that even Hamas couldn't have predicted anyone doing that like even they they must be going what's going on here so it's these it's just it's crazy the response from some people has been crazy it's been frightening but you know Jewish people aren't going anywhere Israel isn't going anywhere as Jewish people we've heard this before we've seen this before and we just have to keep our our our our heads calm you know we have to keep our our our you know our heads you know and our chest out tall and and and just you know you know deal with this the way it needs to be deal with it unfortunately they started a war it's a war it's a it's a war and and this is where we are all right just one last question has your pledge to the donate a dollar to the IDF for every one of these talkbackers that do a Palestinian flag is that costing you a lot of money or is that has that discouraged them them from using Palestinian flags as a response to you it hasn't cost me anything that I'm not happy to be spending honestly it hasn't cost me anything I'm not you know comfortable with and you know these people you know they they they you know if they want to be disrespectful that's that's how I'm going to you know come come back and make a nice donation to IDF all right Michael Rappaport thank you for speaking out and thank you for speaking with us on i24 news absolutely and I appreciate you guys and I'm sending love and strength to everybody in Israel and to the Jewish community all around the world all right thank you Michael thank you Michael Rappaport fairly well known actor in the United States it's good to see someone a celebrity like that speaking very important as more with as we can bring such people to to hear them to bring their voice because what's going in other places shows us how our situation is going on the time clock more and more closing our time to get the legitimation on one end we know for what we are fighting for our justice for our right to live in this country after the establishment of the the country by the way I'm not agreed from the fact to make a comparison to the Holocaust as it was doing the United Nations quite different right I'm coming here I will stay here I will be stronger I failed in protecting but I will succeed in winning Itan Dango thank you for joining us now the Hamas terror onslaught on October 7th was a massive shock to Israel and even if they as Israelis mourn the victims they are proud of the heroes in those southern Kibbutz for fought for their lives and their family and their communities until the security forces came to rescue them now Israeli volunteers with vast experience in security and defense are teaching others how to defend themselves more on that in this report on October 7th I was at home watching the news I saw what was going on in the south of the country at first the news was reporting a terrorist infiltration and there was no information about the horrors that took place there I started scrolling through social networks I felt horrified by everything that was taking place I used to fight in Ukraine for the Ukrainians but even in the war there I did not see anything like this in my whole life I have not seen anything like it I could never imagine that anyone would be capable of such atrocities decapitating people burning people Dennis Desyatnik and his friend Ariel Shapiro met each other over 25 years ago while serving in the Israeli border police they also had the chance to train abroad and used to instruct on battle tactics teaching shooting and Krav Maga but after the blood filled Saturday October 7th they felt it was the time to share their experience with other Israelis first of all we were scared for our families we don't want anything like this to happen again and unfortunately it might since the war is not over yet and the security forces and the army do not have enough human resources so Ariel and I decided to gather people who are against terrorism to unite them Dennis and Ariel formed INF the Israeli national force and aimed at everyone interested in learning about sport and martial arts first aid and also training dogs but what they do not teach is to use arms as their goal is quite different we don't teach people to fight we teach people how to protect themselves Dennis and Ariel tell people what they should have in their cars and in their shelters and also give guidelines on the steps to be taken in case of a terrorist infiltration along the lines of what happened on October 7th people should be prepared to make a WhatsApp group with their neighbors as nowadays we usually don't know who our neighbors are then if they hear shooting or find out about a terrorist infiltration they need to know how to act instead of locking themselves inside their safe rooms and in this case you don't need to know how to use arms in two minutes people should be able to put on comfortable clothes in which they can run if there's no option to take a car people need to escape the area together with their neighbors in the worst case they should be ready to protect themselves with anything available knives, sticks, pepper spray Dennis and Ariel do not only give practical lessons they also teach people to be disciplined and give them a sense of confidence the idea of that is that people won't stay alone in the first place they will know how to unite there are a lot of people texting on the social networks that they're panicking because nobody knows what to expect next whether the war against Hamas will end soon or whether it will lead to a bigger war on different fronts speaking about different fronts means different terrorist groups such as Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon but it's important for Dennis and Ariel and especially for Dennis who is Muslim to stress that the fight is never against any particular ethnic or religious group I want to underline we are not against the Arab population even in our movement we have Arabs you should know that there are Arabs enlisted in the Israeli army there are Arab doctors who save our soldiers there are Arabs Druze Bedouin who support the state of Israel for today around 1200 people joined the Israeli national force and though the main goal is to teach Israelis how to protect their homes Dennis and Ariel say that if needed they can join the Israeli security forces and can help in the way it would be required if the situation escalates we will pass all the information about our volunteers security forces and they will decide where and how to use the help of our people it's important to be prepared to any development but Dennis and Ariel still hope the skills they teach would not be needed in practice and that brings this hour of our broadcast to a close but still stay with i24 news and it's continuing coverage as day 25 of Israel's war against Hamas and also war in the north and other fronts come to a close thank you for joining us 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 but in 100 soldiers and civilians have been kidnapped help us we don't want to do it we just don't know anything entire families including babies and children and elderly were butchered in their beds awaken the giant and we are ready and we are strong everyone is showing up this is the unity news 24 strictly security a weekly look into defense technology and strategic affair bringing you life from the jaffa port at the end of the 25th day of the war in Gaza those other pictures from Israel's south and north as tensions remain high and the reports of the first idea soldiers killed in battle with terrorists we'll speak about Israel's scaled ground operation in Gaza that began this week and its first result an idea of soldier freed from the hands of Hamas in Gaza and discuss the evolving intelligence picture updating and changing in real time and Iran's regional proxies are sending out constant reminders that this currently local standoff in Gaza can easily turn into a regional war much to talk about let's begin in the last couple of hours Israel's national security council chairman Tzach Yannik B has spoken about progress of the IDF forces inside Gaza and about Egypt's concern that displaced people from Gaza will rush the Rafa crossing if it's opened the phase that is being carried out at this time is the phase of the ground activity that is taking place in the northern Gaza strip it is hard fighting it involves fierce fighting there's no fighting without a painful price we are a warrior nation we are determined despite the pain to win another supreme goal as the prime minister defined is to create conditions for the return of the kidnap to their families this is our sacred commitment as a nation to our citizens and soldiers as revealed yesterday the military move serves both the effort to return the kidnap and the pursuit to destroy the enemy's military and governmental capabilities Egypt is our friend it has been with us in peace for decades we understand that it is very important for her to prevent an influx of displaced Palestinians from the strip we are in dialogue with them I am in dialogue with my counterparts in Egypt it is important to us that even if this is what they are afraid of that treatment will still be given to the wounded in the hospitals there is a large hospital in Rafa on the Egyptian side of the border there is a possibility to establish field hospitals on the border of Gaza and Egypt there are many things with which Egypt can assist those uninvolved citizens this is our common interest and now I'd like to bring in our guests former Israeli area defense forces commander reserve Brigadier General Tzvika Chaimovich here in the studio and former Israeli politician and commander of the Seventh Armored Division General Avigdor Ka'alani thank you gentlemen both for joining me today Mr. Ka'alani I'll start with you looking at what's going on in Gaza it's going to be a tough battle a tough war how do you evaluate what's going on in there yeah you're right absolutely right it's to fight in town it's very complicated and you have many tunnels over there and to come with a tank in infantry the infantry should have the ability to move between the houses and some houses that are ready for us of course and tank it's more easier to make that to be near the beach very soon but this is a thick few days but after that to find all the tunnels in the in the town and to try to maybe to found out the forces of the Hamas and to kill them of course or to surround them this is very complicated it's more complicated that to fight armor against armor yes and you see the civilian front in Israel obviously we're looking at what's going on in Gaza Avigdo but there is a civilian front you know tens of thousands of Israel dislocated from their homes about 10,000 Israeli practically refugees because their houses were destroyed in the Gaza surroundings lots of people who were kidnapped into Gaza lots of killed lots of missing Israelis that's a huge front within Israel look I'm not going to apologize what's happened with Gaza I fought in 67 I was the first Israeli tank crossing the border at that time and then they hit my tank I jumped to the second one and they hit the second and I died into the third I fought all the day and I was in a year on the hospital look what happened from 67 until now we continue to fight again together in the 7th of October we it was like a peaceful at that time what we call peaceful of course and they killed so many people so Israeli so many Israeli without you know what you're talking about it doesn't feel guilty to shoot a child and his mother together and kill them they killed more than 1,400 people and of course many soldiers were killed that time this is the time that we are asking ourselves what's going on here are we are going to give up are we are going to spoil them we are going to continue to bring people to work in our country what we want to do we want to survive we want to stay here we don't have a spare country we're going to stay here forever and now is the question who is going to stay in the area we or them and we didn't we didn't start the war against the Gaza Strip we didn't start the war we asked them to have a peace treaty between us and them and we are many years ago we took all our forces from Gaza Strip and we are not there why they so hate us you know and everybody know and I can see the world that protests against Israel now and asking myself what the world what they want to see me in the cemetery and what happened after that they want me to move to another country and this is the reason that we are going to find fight until that we would achieve all our goals so you used to command the Israeli air defense systems within the Israeli air force you know in the last rounds Israel tried to rely on you attacking on one hand defending on the other hand this round became a war and it looks totally different first of all today we have kind of a daily reminder of the meaning of the multi-front threats or campaign officially we are in war with Gaza and Hamas but on the same time we are fighting with Hezbollah in Lebanon Syria or some militias in Syria and in the last few days I'm counting five different cases by the Houthis from Yemen so this is the meaning of the multi-front threats simultaneously by the way let's take for the air force for example where did the air force strike in the last 48 hours five different fronts of course Gaza the Red Sea West Bank the the mask in the Jenin case Syria and Lebanon so it's kind of a daily operational activities around the last 25 days so for the air force perspective and the air defense forces as well it's a multi-front threats simultaneously and if we'll take again the air defense forces example all the systems Iron Dome Davisling and Arrow intercepted operationally intercepted in these 25 days it's amazing so I want to touch what you've mentioned and those attacks from Yemen especially the current one the one that took place today the first ones were were fired directly at Israel the Americans intercepted them over Saudi Arabia in some places and then they learned the lessons and they make life more complicated for Israel so the Israeli air force had to intercept them in most cases in the last few days especially using the arrow today what exactly was fired how complicated it is to locate such devices and to intercept them the case that you mentioned that intercepted by the Americans wasn't a long range missile it was a UAV and the kind of a cruise missile it's a UAV but depends the velocity the speed and the size but the case today it is the first time and it should be mentioned kind of first times this morning first time a long range missiles more than 1500 kilometers from south far south to the state of Israel the first time that's the arrow to cooperationally successfully this threat since 2000 when we operated the arrow this is the first time and the first time that's we are dealing with the Houthis from Yemen so they launched this morning a long range missile for the category of the Shiavs fully Iranian technology fully Iranian knowledge and a fully Iranian proxy absolutely the Houthis they are a similar organization like Hezbollah the same same agenda same radical organization terror organization control the area in Yemen the same like Hezbollah in Lebanon absolutely and how often do you foresee it happening I mean is Israel going to be busy dealing with such threats from Yemen maybe from Iraq and maybe from Iran itself in the near future first of all the Houthis leader declared today by his voice very clear we are part of this campaign we are part of this war we will continue to use our weapons to help our brothers in Gaza the Hamas so I will suggest us to follow his to follow and listen his declaration and I unfortunately I do believe that once we will continue we'll continue deeply the ground maneuvers in Gaza we will see these two fronts south from Yemen by the Houthis and north from Lebanon by the Hezbollah they will be more actively than today this is my own assumption hopefully I'll be wrong but who knows Afigdor Kailan back to you give me you know it's a different war than the ones you fought in 67 and 63 obviously an Israeli true hero but this is more complicated since you do not fight army versus army but you fight within within many civilians which are being used by Hamas in order to put them at risk and to put the Israeli soldiers at risk and that's much more complicated obviously I agree with you in 67 we had to attack them after three weeks we waited near the border and they tried to destroy our country and not so he was the president of Egypt at that time and he decided to destroy our country we have been for two weeks in mobilization and after that in the fifth of June we start to fight against them in October 73 was completely different because they surprised us for many many reasons we didn't know what's going on and the government did start mobilization at that time now is something happened here it's going to be a revolution in our country now this is my feeling I'm so disappointed what happened but really what I care now it's about our soldiers our kids our grandchildren they are operating in Gaza Strip now is complicated because those people Hamas people they involved between the civilian people they hide themselves in many tunnels all over they use the hospital to protect themselves under the hospital and we have to find the way and we have the hostess of course we have to find the way how to operate between all our goals and we thought and we said that we are going to destroy the Gaza and to kill all of them and it's no we're not going to change our mission but it's complicated because we are people some kind of people they really care about civilian and we don't want to touch them thank you so much gentlemen for joining us today yes we will move on as the IDF continues with its coordinated ground air and sea operations inside the Gaza Strip it continues to target Hamas's top brass the group's leaders are seen as the driving force behind its countless attacks and brutality namely the October 7th attacks while Israel has vowed to eliminate every single leader and commander behind those attacks Hamas's top leadership remains in hiding whether beneath the ground in Gaza or abroad Middle East correspondent Arilo Serran has more Day 25 of Israel's war against Hamas the IDF continues to expand its ground operation in Gaza as the forces advance they're met with resistance by Hamas fighters dozens of terrorists hiding in buildings and in underground tunnels have been killed in firefights and airstrikes this includes the targeted elimination of Nassim Abu-Ajina commander of Hamas's Betlahi Battalion on Tuesday morning Abu-Ajina oversaw the October 7th attacks on Kibbutz-Erez and Moshev-Nativa-Sara the army is focused on the goals of the war defined by the political echelon the defeat of Hamas and the elimination of its leaders after the massacre they carried out on October 7th this organization will not control Gaza militarily and politically Abu-Ajina is the latest in dozens of Hamas commanders targeted in Israeli airstrikes over the past three and a half weeks this includes Asim Abu-Rakba the head of Hamas's aerial units Shadi Baroud deputy head of Hamas's military intelligence and Johad Abu-Shamale Hamas's minister of economy and top money guy that's in addition to four members of Hamas's political bureau eliminated since October 7th in total Israeli forces have killed so far and estimated 2,500 terrorists we are in the middle of a war for our existence we have set two goals for the war to annihilate Hamas by destroying its military and governance abilities and to do everything possible to bring our hostages back home we are reigning hellfire on Hamas we have already killed thousands of terrorists and this is only the beginning but Israel has yet to reach the top leadership of Hamas the terror groups leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar and the head of its military wing Mohamed Def are the IDF's top targets in Gaza they're believed to be hiding deep underground in one of Hamas's hidden command centers located under hospitals schools and mosques while the group's exiled leaders such as Ismail Hania and Salah al-Rouri enjoy their refuge in Qatar and Lebanon and so as Israel's ground offensive continues to deepen so will the efforts to eliminate Hamas's top commanders whether above ground or beneath it as negotiations to release 240 Israeli hostages held in Gaza stall and the ground forces slowly advancing to Gaza representatives of hostage families told the Israeli prime minister that they supported an all for all deal and believe this would have strong national support to release all Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails in return for the release of all hostages Israeli hostages kept in Gaza the former commissioner of Israel's prison service is with me in the studio today with Adato thank you so much for joining us today let's speak about this very delicate sensitive issue you know the worst terrorist that Israel had to deal with some of them's sentence not only to one life sentence but to multiple 20, 30, 40 ones even imagining their release give me goosebumps thank you Shiver I would tell you know me for years when the exchange of Gilad Jalit to over 1,000 terrorists I don't call them prisoners they are terrorists I was against it because I thought it's it's it's it's not reasonable and you know two of the heads of Hamas today Yeche Sanwa and Salah El-Aroi were two of these 1,000 and some prisoners that has been released not prisoners, terrorists but now it's a totally different situation because we have hundreds of civilians there and not only Israeli there are Israelis there are foreigners it's not an issue only between Israel and Hamas it's an issue between evil and we're supposed to be the good ones so if it was really an option and not a manipulation even though I was against any other exchange I would say at that time yes because we need them back we have the responsibility the state the government has the responsibility for bringing back all our so if you would open the jail's doors and send something like 6,500 or 7,000 prisoners 6,000 together send them together anywhere else just together but why Yeche Sanwa accept that he would say if you know try to get into his mind and I can't get into someone like him why accepting that he knows that if he gets into Gaza the next day Israel will start killing everybody kill him eventually why doing so if you were him that's what reason one reason but another reason is that now usually I would say that the prisoners or the terrorists or the security inmates whatever you want to call them a major issue within the Palestinian society and releasing them is really something that they are wishing for nowadays when you are looking at Yeche Sanwa what he is interested in is his survival his and his colleagues he doesn't care really now on the prisoners that's why I do not believe that if he says give us everyone and we'll give you everyone no they won't do that it's just a manipulation he knows how hard it is for the Israeli society he will ask more with further more than his or his own survival his own immunity no he will ask that's the basic he will ask a mosque he will ask a foot underground in the West Bank he will ask everything he will try to ask everything yeah but you know from the very beginning don't believe him because if really he wants that deal he should have done it at the first days when he was strong and the Israeli didn't get into Gaza he's talking about it now because he feels you know insecure things are changing he didn't realize what will be the reaction so what are you what you're saying what you're saying is that Israel should avoid the deal and try to push him as strong as possible and even maybe kill him before reaching a deal or should try both I would say that they are doing a parallel time both efforts but I can guarantee you that he by his own will not do that deal maybe maybe the mediators that are trying to speak for him and for us and I'm speaking about the Red Cross for example you know I don't know if you have heard but the Red Cross has written a letter to the Commission of the Israeli Prison today that he reminds her that we have to deal to work under international law and we need to give we are the problem yes that's that's amazing and they had some demands give them medical care of course we give them medical care Yihissan Rah has gone through an operation in his head and we saved him so of course so she answered them you know nowadays we cannot open our prison for your visits because it's a delicate situation but I am sure that you are doing your best to find out what are the situation what is the situation of the kidnapped and the cynicism is obvious I must ask you personally you know you've commanded those prisons and those people and obviously you were in charge of those people now we've seen what they've done in Gaza on October 7th you know beheading children raping women kidnapping elderly people killing in mess killings etc it's a burning people alive how can you deal with such people you can't you cannot deal with such people that's why the Israeli government and the IDF has decided that and and we just heard it here again and again we are gonna kill them all because these are not human beings these are animals and even though animals wild animals kills for food not for fun and what they have done changed the whole perception they are not any counterpart to deal with they are the enemy in the worst and they are not again it's not between Israel and Hamas it's between the evil and the I would say the the West values in in the world they are not to live anymore because who has command such a massacre does not have the right to live anymore and that's why we are fighting them you know Irresinois while in prison used to be considered as pragmatic someone you can talk to I even remind you that two or three years ago he wrote a note in his handwriting in Hebrew to Prime Minister Netanyahu of course he played the game he brought in prison he played the game with us sure he have learned us he had many years in prison he had he learned us he studies us he was looking from outside he was gathering information intelligence and he I'm not sure that he is only deceased us he has done it for his I would say for Egypt for Arab Israeli Arabs looking at him the driver that took him here was is a Bedou and he said we have never thought that people can do that it's not Islam it's not there are wild animals they have killed Bedou they've killed Muslims as well they didn't care they've killed Thais they've killed Nepalis they they didn't have anything to think about if it's a baby or an old woman with her nurse provider if you were to confront him wow Iqya Sinoar what would you do what would you say I wouldn't that time I did it in the past not personally but as you have said he wrote a letter he wrote a note he played us and we are naive and we have to live and win Orita Dato thank you so much for talking to us today a quick break for commercials and when we return Iran and its proxies are turning up the heat across the mid-list where could this lead us stay with us to find out Israel is at war make an investment in Israel bonds it is the most powerful and direct way to stand with Israel visit israelbonds.com and invest now 1300 people murdered and more than 3000 injured and the war with Hamas continues we bring you first-hand testimonies from the front lines from those who survived and all the records of the atrocities by Hamas follow us as Israel fights terror from the south and north get the inside scoop on what's going on only on i24news strictly security live on i24news thank you for staying with us let's go for some updates Mary McAuliffe is on Israel northern border Mary what is your update for this hour good evening Yako so here it's been quite a few hours since we've had any activity here on the northern border but we continue to see the pattern that we've seen over the past few weeks which is these limited attacks by Hezbollah reminding the Israeli army that they are there trying to fire anti-tank missiles both into Israeli communities but also soldiers in that military infrastructure which is stationed along that border with Lebanon this is what we continue to see throughout the day a number of different fires breaking out in this area on the hillside behind me these are observation posts by the IDF that have been routinely hit by Hezbollah in the past couple weeks we just continue to see that but on the Hezbollah side we know there are a number of their fighters dozens who have been killed so far and Israel is very much keeping a careful eye on this situation we have the military also on high alert especially as this operation is continuing in the south to keep an eye on what the Iranian-backed proxies in the region are doing and we do have another update from tonight from Syria that a U.S. base was once again reportedly attacked inside Syria one of the bases posing coalition troops so this is over the 23rd time that there have been attacks on U.S. forces in the region and it does come of course as the U.S. is positioning a number of its forces announcing today they're bringing an additional 300 troops to the Middle East saying those won't be going to Israel but they will be stationed in the area they're of course joining the two aircraft carriers which have been added to the region coming into the Mediterranean Sea along with their strike groups all as the U.S. are trying to keep a careful lid on the situation with Israel and careful negotiations also to try and prevent the situation in Gaza from spiraling into a larger regional war between Israel U.S. and Iran and its proxies in the region which are continuing to wreak havoc Yes and what do you hear about the civil front in the North Mary because we have been witnessing the evacuation of tens of thousands of Israelis are they about to come back are they about to remain away until when It's really the question Yankov many of them don't really know we talked to some residents here in the area over the past couple of weeks that we've been reporting here we know that some of them have at least been told to expect to brace for at least three months before returning to their homes but those could also refer to the communities in the south so it's really unclear right now for many of this residents and that's why we talked to one resident in the community who's evacuated last week there's some 49 communities which have been evacuated so far and one of those she told us she didn't know why she was going to evacuate because she understood the threat that was going on but she also couldn't bring herself to pack for a week a month three months and just really truly had no idea how long this situation will continue to unfold many of the residents also telling us that right now it certainly does not feel safe for them to return to the area these communities that were evacuated are just four kilometers from the Lebanon border so it's so near these fighters on the other side who continue to fire missiles rockets, anti-tank missiles into Israeli territory and they're saying it really does not feel safe for them to be so so we have seen thousands who have evacuated to safer parts of the country again that's difficult to save right now because all of Israel has been seeing rocket sirens over the past few weeks we also know on the Lebanese side of the border there have also been thousands of civilians who have also been evacuated due to Israel's retaliatory strikes in Lebanon Mary thanks so much for this report keep safe thank you the Arrow Defense System was used operationally for the first time by Israel shortly after the Iran-backed Khoutis in Yemen claimed to have sent drones intercepted by Israeli warplanes the IDF confirmed to also have down a surface-to-surface missile launched towards Israeli territory intercepting the projectile over the Red Sea region making it the first operationally use of the Arrow Defense System the Iranian-backed Khouti government in Yemen responsibility for sending drones and saying it will continue to do so I'd like to bring in our expert panel for this evening Behnambin Taleblu from the Federations of Defense of Democracies in Washington DC and here in Israel Kalinbar UAV and missile technology analysts thank you gentlemen both for joining us and Simon Schein former intelligence officer within the Israeli Mossad Sima thank you as well for joining us today Behnambin I'll start with you looking from you know the other side of the Atlantic how do the Americans look at this war what do you see what does it seem that the Israelis and the others are trying to achieve and do you see a chance that the Americans will have to practically intervene not only by intercepting missiles but practically by using force well it's a pleasure to be with you in the distinguished panel in essence it depends who you ask in America and especially in Washington within which flank of Washington clearly the administration the Biden administration that is it doesn't stand with Israel both in word and in deed but at the same time right now you've seen them absorb the vast majority of the Iran backs strikes in the region particularly in the hard land in Iraq and Syria there's been a reported 24 attacks against the U.S. positions in Iraq and Syria using groans and rockets the U.S. has only kinetically responded one time obviously Israel has a much better response ratio against Iran back militants be they in Lebanon or in Gaza but right now political fears of a wider regional escalation one that Iran is quite keen to play up with this kind of spreading this geographic spread I should say of its ring of fire with line attack cruise missiles ballistic missiles rockets mortars and drones against the U.S. and Israel that does seem to have in the very short term allowed the U.S. to move more assets into the region both protect itself as well as the signal was all against Israel's adversaries but the big question for Washington right now is is there an overt trigger is there a clear political and technical red line many assume it's a more overt entry of Hezbollah the conflict beyond using anti-tank weapons and select rockets gets 20 to 40 to 60 kilometer range radiuses but beyond that Olizer actually on the success of Israel's operation in Gaza and Iran both threatened to widen based on that success yes and and and and and I'm hearing that secretary Blinken is about to arrive again in Israel this coming Friday what is it going to say to his Israeli counterparts these are high profile political visits designed to make sure both the Israeli government and the Israeli public knows that the U.S. is keenly watching and standing with the Jewish state as it seems to be surrounded by an Iran backed ring of fire on all sides will these you know talking points as well as the moving of more infrastructure into the region be sufficient as Iran steps up that ring of fire I think time will tell but these are important political signals to send to our ally in the region yes Sima Shain once again thank you for being with us this evening so that's that's how it seems from Washington how does it look from Jerusalem this evening what are we trying to achieve what are we trying to prevent so as you have mentioned be at the beginning we are our main goal is now Gaza and Hamas we are concentrating on that other things are secondary if it's a Hezbollah in the northern border we of course retaliate and do everything we think should be done but that's not the main scene the same goes for the who is in from Yemen it was intercepted by us before it was intercepted by the Americans some some fell on the Egyptian soil so this is a and I heard this evening that they proclaimed war with the Israel so this is a scene where we don't put our emphasis now we are concentrating on Hamas and Gaza and it looks that we are achieving a lot of success on the ground quite paying heavy price for that but achieving a lot and as it was said before we will retaliate when and if it will be needed and I think what we see now is the decision of other militias in the region according to Iranian order to try and take some attention of Israel in order to say that they have come to support Hamas but no one and especially not the Iranians themselves are willing to fight really to fight for Gaza and this is this is an issue that will be part of the problem that Iran will face at the end when it comes to its end with its resistance from that it has established Yes, but Sima one more question you know I hear you analyze very clearly the situation but if there is something that was very obvious on October 7th is that it is that Israel mistread Hamas intentions it thought it is deterred it wasn't etc how can we be sure that Hezbollah won't act likewise I mean at one certain point today tomorrow within a week change totally and attack Israel in all fronts That's of course we cannot be sure and that's the reason that Israel has has brought such a big numbers of soldiers to the border has evacuated the Kibbutzimans and villages and is on alert on our nose from border my understanding really from me and we will hear in Asrallah for the first time on Friday in a speech but from what I'm reading from the Iranian side as well as from Hezbollah side I can say that they have a lot of reasons not to get into a full-scale war it's even it's one of the reason or is of course the American presence but it is also the Israeli awareness of the on the ground and the fact that civilians are not on the border the fact that the Lebanese people doesn't want a war and the we are following what is happening in Lebanon and we hear that people are saying we don't want Beirut to be like Gaza so I think there is a lot of pressure on Hezbollah not to open a full-scale war at the same time it's important for them to say that they have contributed to the war of Hamas and at the end of the day you know Hezbollah is the diamond from the point of view of Iran and I don't think they want to lose Hezbollah for Gaza and for Hamas Yes, Talin Bar joins us and now Tal we've mentioned now and before those attacks from Yemen by the Khoutis by a few different tools let's analyze them let's look at what they have what they fire at us and the complexities of intercepting those efforts Sure The hook is used several types of systems from long-range UAVs drones that are flying at a very low altitude and rather slowly so it takes them several hours to reach Israel they also used several cruise missiles with jet engine they are more speedy if you like we just saw several hours ago the remains of one of those cruise missiles that fell in Jordan and then we had the incident from this morning when the Khoutis fired a long-range or actually mid-range ballistic missile with a range of roughly 1,800 kilometers to the proximity of 2,000 kilometers and this missile they named it Tufan it is actually Gader an Iranian ballistic missile that we know for several years and it was just unveiled by the Khoutis in a military parade last month so we have slow flying drones we have more assets that they are using cruise missiles and at least one ballistic missile that was used today yes and let's talking about the interception itself the first one around last week those tools were intercepted by the Americans the Saudis over Saudi Arabia then you know the Yemenis the Khoutis changed the path to make life more complicated on the Americans so Israel has to has to deal with them closer to Israeli shores how complicated it is to locate them taking into consideration what you've mentioned at the beginning of your previous answer which is they're flying in a very slow on a low altitude etc well detection of slow-moving targets is rather hard and difficult because you have to use some radars that have the capability to to watch those slow targeting slow-moving targets as for ballistic missiles or cruise missiles it's a little bit easy to detect but then again the demonstration of interceptions successful interceptions by the United States via its Aegis ship in the Red Sea and Saudi Arabia assets on the ground and Israeli interceptors including the arrow it is a is a proof of the importance of regional missile defense system cooperation collaboration and some common language between the operators at least the Americans and Israelis and as you know we have practiced this for several years in joint maneuvers so it is joint effort and of course there is no such such thing as 100% defense but no target to us actually caused any damage on the ground in Israel this is not the case in Egypt so at least one drone was able to hit the Taba region last week but it's a it's a proof of concept of cooperation and the detection of ballistic missiles could start much earlier you don't need only radars but if you can use what the American is using forces is using the detection satellites in orbit yes see machine is there is is there anyway Israel can deter the whooties in Yemen it's far away it's complicated it will take attention from Gaza and Lebanon but still we're being annoyed from Yemen on a daily basis and you know one if God forbids they might succeed yeah eh you're right it's not a surprise like I can tell you that when we have been making different scenarios much before of course the events that are taking place now in different scenarios we have put the whooties as one of the players vis-a-vis Israel they have said it in the past and the this is one of their slogans and therefore it wasn't completely surprised what I think could be much more difficult I think as you heard before from Tal and Benam you the U.S. and the missiles we and Americans know how to end the lead when it comes to the Red Sea to see things that crossing the Babel Mander but others that could be an issue I'm sure that there is already cooperation with the fifth fleet of the Americans but still this is something to worry and to look look upon what also is interesting to notice is that after a year and a half of a ceasefire between the Saudis and the whooties part of which was also enabled also the renewal of diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia we saw in the last days for the first time a a whooty attack on the Saudis and four four soldiers that were killed I don't know if it's a beginning of a new round after the ceasefire but it is something that we didn't see before we have to see but that might also be one of the ways of the Iranians to put pressure on the Saudis and on others as you know one of the intentions of Iran within this event with Hamas is to prevent this normalization between Israel and the Saudis and of course the defense spent between the Americans and the Saudis so this is a just today we heard that during the visit of the Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia in Washington he has told the Americans that Saudi Arabia is continuing to be interested in normalization with Israel so this is something that might be developed from the Iranian point of view something that to put pressure on Saudi Arabia on one hand and of course on Israel on the other hand we have to look very carefully I must tell you the issue of more than 19 attacks on Americans in Iraq and in Syria is something to follow and we'll see if it doesn't escalate also to the Gulf in any way so we are in a delicate situation but I think for the time being it's a decision on the side of Israel to concentrate on Hamas and Gaza yes so Behnem thanks for being staying with us and being so patient how much concerned if at all is the administration of Israel Israel you know getting involved with the Yemenis and might getting involved with the Iraqis and even furthermore with the Iranians and maybe dragging the Americans into all those fronts we are seeing the U.S. having to attack in Syria in Iraq being attacked in Syria in Iraq and Americans might pay in with the lives for that so I believe this is a reason for concern within the administration well it could be a reason for concern many who would believe it's a reason for concern would not look to those theaters would not necessarily look to Iraq and Syria because they might believe that the U.S. could quarantine that off Yemen is a wild card the likely place they would look to for a potential red line or a threshold for greater American involvement would be this increasing the return of fire between Lebanese Hezbollah and Israel to Israel's north the potential for a geographically divergent fronts the potential restarting or the potential commencement I should say of a third Lebanon war does contain political ramifications for escalation but I did mention that the Yemenis were a wild card and I do want to go back to this and part of what the friend and colleague call was saying about the land attack cruise missile and the medium range ballistic missile capability deterrence by punt by denial meaning intercepting these systems is necessary but it's not going to be sufficient why am I saying that because since 2017 you've had multiple Houthi political leaders talk about wanting to more overtly drag in the Houthis into any prospective Israeli Palestinian conflict or Israeli Hezbollah conflict and finally as of last week as you know they acted on a more than a half decade year old threat and in essence the Houthis out of all of Iran's acts of resistance more than Lebanese Hezbollah more than Hamas more than the Syrian and Iraqi militias they are the only ones with medium range ballistic missile capabilities and land attack cruise missiles and they didn't even create this proxy they co-opted it so this really is a wild card if one of these systems does get through and that's why I could see Israel doing as they say in Italian a politica del car sciofi or a politics of the order show one at a time approach because the turns by denial again such an adversary in my view is going to be insufficient Behnem bin Taleblu Talin Bar and Sima Shein thank you so much for being with us this evening moving on and back to Gaza tens of thousands of targets valuable information flowing from the interrogation room to the troops on the ground more in this next report thousands of tons of explosives have been used on the Gaza Strip in the past three and a half weeks as the fighting progressed many new targets were added to the IDF intelligence target bank in most cases the information comes from here from the Shin Betz interrogation rooms hundreds of people some of the members of Hamas who possess a lot of information were caught on that Black Saturday a great deal of critical essential and life-saving information came from these investigations information that also serves the army right now sometimes you get information from the interrogated and within an hour a target is marked these are the faces of the killers on October the 7th but they also hold a lot of information that may save lives from the moment they were caught a race against time began interrogating a prisoner during a war is like a ticking time bomb since any sliver of information during war can save lives and that can affect the outcome of the battle or even the outcome of a battle in specific terrain for the investigator there's no time to sit around and to conduct an interview that might take days or even weeks the time element is critical and it's being treated appropriately each person when they're interrogated there's some kind of basic information about him or the unit he works in or the organization or the area he's working in he's not being interrogated blindly it can be confirmed by cross-checking everything he says with what we know and also according to what other prisoners are saying and here the shinbet speciality comes into play they sit in front of those that a minute ago murdered, burned and maybe raped and now they need to make them sing mentally break them in some cases there's a problem with identifying the people not knowing who they are those are people who were taught to hide their identity some terrorists when caught started singing almost immediately with no threats made by the shinbet it's not what it looks like in the movies these interrogations are held by law I would say that applying physical pressure won't necessarily bring the results needed no one just gives all the information they have especially not voluntarily you need to produce it in interrogations there's a saying that if a lemon was smart it would give up all of its juice without being squeezed saying goes for the interrogator they don't always give you everything and if they need a squeeze you must squeeze them most of the investigations are a chess game between the investigator and the interrogator the investigation is very manipulative and very psychological the investigators are excellent at reading body language and they can read the person being questioned they can tell what his movements mean what a hand movement means and what a drop of sweat means but some cases are exceptional on the first days of the war a video was circulating on social media where terrorists were forced to listen to an Israeli children song over and over again for hours this was deliberate playing loud music in interrogations is so they can't talk to each other on one hand and on the other hand it's to not let them become relaxed and calm but to be in a state of constant stress for the upcoming investigation the investigators saw the videos of the horrible crimes committed now they need to investigate the same people who did it