 Follow us as Israel fights terror from the south and north. Get the inside scoop on what's going on. Only on I-24 News. With this breaking news edition, I'm Bacha Levittor. Coming July from Tel Aviv, thanks for joining me. It is day 25 of war here in Israel. Rocket Alert sirens have been blaring throughout Israel's southern communities in recent hours. In the early hours of this Tuesday morning, the IDF destroyed the House of Salah al-Arori, the deputy head of Hamas's political bureau, who oversaw some of the terror group's activities in the West Bank. The Israel Defense Forces says its troops also killed numerous Hamas terrorists during ground operations in the Gaza Strip over the past day, as well as striking some 300 terror targets. In the north, IDF fighter jets destroyed a Hezbollah-fascinity housing weapons inside of Lebanon. Thus, as the exchange of fire between the Iranian-backed terror group and the Israeli military continues. Israel's police and Shin Bet Security Agency say three Israelis have also been arrested in the country's north on suspicion of having connections with ISIS. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday evening dismissing the idea that Israel would agree to a ceasefire with Hamas, saying that those calling for one are in effect calling for the State of Israel to surrender to terrorism. Something it absolutely will not do. With me here in studio is Reserve Brigadier General Amir Avivi, the director of Israel's Defense and Security Forum and the former deputy commander of the IDF Gaza Strip Division. Thank you for being here with me this afternoon. I want to start with the situation at the moment on the southern front. I understand that things are heating up on the northern front, but for the time being, these seem to be exchanges that are relatively contained, that hasn't broken out into a full-scale war. But there are now satellite images showing Israeli tanks well into Gaza and with a clear purpose to root out Hamas. The IDF has a clear objective. The government's objective as well is to position this to the international community of rooting out Hamas and being able to replace it with something else. What is that something else? What happens the day after? So let's understand what is then the game militarily first. To root Hamas and Palestinian Islamic jihad and to dismantle all of their capabilities in the Gaza Strip, this requires basically conquering the whole Gaza Strip. So we are doing that at the moment in the northern part. Eventually, a month from now, two months from now, we'll have to also maneuver to the south because there are very strong, strongholds. In the south, we might see also leaders of Hamas and even some of our Israelis who are hostages being moved to the south as we are maneuvering into the north. So eventually, we'll have to conquer the whole Gaza Strip. It will take a long time. And then it will take months and months to really clean up the Gaza Strip, maybe years. Then only then we can talk about what's next. But what's next, we need to look at it also first militarily, only then talk about civil issues. We cannot ensure the people of Israel, and especially the people who live in the south, that terror won't come back. If we don't do two things. One, control the Egyptian border. This is where endless amount of weapons, know-how, technology, money is going into the Gaza Strip from Iran through Egypt. We need to control this border now and maybe forever. And we need full freedom of operation in the Gaza Strip like we have in Jordan and Samara, the same thing, in order to prevent the buildup again. And then the question will be, how do we manage civility? First of all, we need to see what's left there. I mean, I don't know how Gaza will look the day after. We must understand that almost every single building and house in Gaza is connected to tunnels. And every building that is connected to a tunnel will have to tear apart and bring it down. So we don't have terrorists going out these talents that are attacking. Stay with me. I want to just go to our correspondent, Pierre Closh and Lois. We have him on the line who's joining us from southern Israel. Pierre, we know that there was a house hit in the Gaza border area from rocket fire coming from Hamas into Israel. And this also comes on the announcement by Israel that some 80 trucks of humanitarian aid will enter the Gaza Strip later today. Right. And half of those humanitarian trucks carrying water, food, and medical supply have already been checked and are entering the Gaza Strip. Half, that means about 39 to 40 trucks. And the goal is to reach the capacity of 80 trucks today, which is a big peak since the start of the hostilities carried out by Hamas against Israel. The goal is to reach 100 trucks a day, which is the full capability of the Rafar border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. Israel insists that no fuel will be sent to the southern part of the Gaza Strip in spite of US pressure at this moment. And we've heard already that there could be some sort of morricum of understanding between Israel and the US regarding fuel, if that fuel is indeed sent to the people in need and not to Hamas and only in the southern part of the Gaza Strip at this moment. Correspondent Pierre Klushenor, thank you for that update from the south. Still with me in Studio Reserve Brigadier General Amir Avivi. Amir, it's something that I want to talk about, because I don't feel that the viewers fully understand this. The Hamas leadership is currently sitting in their villas, in Qatar, in Turkey, and in other areas that are hosting them. But when we talk about the fact that the IDF has taken out terror leaders of the Hamas group, what exactly are they referring to? So they're referring to the company commanders, to the battalion commanders, to the brigade commanders. And there was one commander who was, like, let's say, a general in the Hamas terror army. But the political leadership, the ones who are leading all of that, they're hiding, probably, underneath Shifa Hospital. Many of them, as you said, are in Turkey or Qatar or Lebanon. And like we did with the Nazis, we are going to hunt every single one of them, even if it takes years. Nobody will be spared here. They are going to pay for what they did. And the same goes for all these terrorists inside Gaza. We are going in as we are doing now, and we're going to kill all of them. And there is only two ways to go. Or they will be killed or unconditional surrender. This is exactly what Europe faced with the Nazis. This is exactly what Churchill said when we had to start fighting the Nazis, unconditional surrender. That's it. There is no other option. And victory at all costs. Yeah, and at all costs. And we're willing to pay the cost for decisive victory. I think that the army is very, very professional. They are doing things in an amazing way. The Air Force is assisting dramatically. The ground forces, the Navy is assisting intelligence. We are doing things slowly, pace by pace. We are not taking chances. The fighting in the streets is fierce. We are not seeing pictures. There is no media. But our soldiers are fighting fiercely on the ground, eliminating threats, moving forward. And as we saw yesterday, this is something I've been saying in the last three weeks. The best chance to bring our sons and daughters back, the hostages, is the ground incursion. The more we go in, the bigger are the chances that we'll get to them, and we'll manage to free them. I want to get an update from our correspondent, Robert Swift, who is standing by for us in northern Israel. Rob, no doubt, plenty of reservists are getting ready to possibly battle with Hezbollah on the northern front. What's the situation like on the ground now? Over the last couple of weeks, there have been exchanges of fire between the Israeli military and Hezbollah. We've seen anti-tank missiles being shot over the border into Israel. But we've also been hearing sirens going off from possible drones and other kinds of aircraft crossing over as well. There could be a potential threat of infiltration to residents in the north that have also evacuated toward the center. Yeah, there's a fair bit that's constantly going on here in the background. Usually, we're talking about two, three, four incidents a day. The last one here took place about an hour ago, where we witnessed a small exchange of fire. It seemed to be between Hezbollah mortars with the Israeli military responding with artillery fire. And that's kind of par for the course here. Yesterday, there was about three incidents like this. Two of them involved artillery and mortar exchanges between the two sides. And the third was a launch of anti-tank missiles, which the Israeli military responded to with artillery fire. Now, overnight, the Israeli military used aircraft to hammer home its point that it has the fire superiority here by attacking Hezbollah arms depots slightly further to the north, inside southern Lebanon. But occasionally, these little skirmishes are taking place every day. Yesterday was no different to the day before. And today, we're likely to see more of these sorts of actions. And it's unclear when, if at all, they will either cease or escalate into something much larger. And no doubt that's what we're all waiting to see and obviously analyzing from the ground as well as studio correspondent Robert Swift giving us that update from the north, thank you for that. And joining me now from Raqovot in central Israel is retired Major Dan Fefferman, the executive director of the NGO Sharaka. Thank you very much for being with me this afternoon. Something that we've been discussing here in studio with Amira Vivi and what I want to bring to your attention as well is this idea of Israeli troops are now well into the Gaza Strip trying to wipe out the leadership of Hamas. And also anyone that either is part of the terror organization, pledges allegiance to the terror organization, once it does that because the indication is what was, is not what will be. They cannot leave a stone unturned when it comes to Hamas. What does that mean for the founders that are currently sitting in Qatar, in Turkey? Is Israel going to be able to get to them as well and essentially cut the head off the snake? I'm not sure if cutting the head off the snake is going to be the appropriate method to deal with those Hamas leaders who are sitting outside of the Gaza Strip right now. What I think we're going to see and what we're probably seeing behind the scenes is a lot of anger, a lot of anger from moderate countries in the region about with a clear understanding that Hamas instigated this conflict, Hamas dragged Israel, dragged the region into this conflict. And you're already seeing, for example, even from Hezbollah backers who are criticizing Hamas leaders for sitting in seven star hotels in Doha while they're fighting Israel on the front lines and while, of course, Gaza is under siege as part of the war. What I think we should see and what we should push for is a regional approach that brings together the Gulf countries, the modern actors and puts pressure on Qatar as well to finally, finally remove Hamas leadership from these countries, not give them a shelter, not give them a base and take away their avenues of political support. What that looks like in the end, I'm not sure, but that should be the strategy that Israeli leaders and the international community should be pursuing. Something that I'd like to speak to you about is the relations between Israel and Turkey. I can tell you that we have struggled to bring on a pro-government, pro-Turkish government interview at the moment because of the situation. Now, Israel and Turkey have recently rekindled ties and we know from past experience, watching Erdogan and analyzing him as well, that because the country is in a geostrategic position, he tends to play both sides and we've seen that from different scenarios throughout the world and different conflicts. But this is different. This is not playing both sides. This is taking a very clear side to the point of saying that Jews are not allowed in Turkey at the moment, where we're seeing anti-Semitism raging. What do we make in terms of the ties going forward? And is Israel being in a sense negligent for ever trying to return or go back to those rekindling of ties? No, I don't think Israel should question that course of action. Israel needs to have proper relations with all of the countries in the region. And Turkey has shown itself usually to be a pragmatic actor. I think what we're seeing is a combination of two things and that's one, is Turkey is trying to use this moment to galvanize support for itself to once again make itself the leader or trying to be the leader of public opinion in the region. And as it engages public opinion, it senses that being anti-Israel at the moment is in its interest if it's trying to stake that claim. Just a year ago, as the Abraham Accords and the new agreements were gaining steam around the region, you saw Turkey looking in the other way and trying once again to become friends with Israel, inviting our president and our foreign minister to Ankara and sending their foreign minister here. On the other hand, so Turkey will always play that kind of interest game and try to stake out a middle ground of whatever it feels serves its interests. What might also be happening here is we're seeing once again, the true colors of Turkish president Erdogan who may just be, and I think it's time, maybe the international community and in Israel certainly would admit it, he himself is quite anti-Israel and pro Hamas and those are his inclinations. I wanna shift the topic to more of the internal security and the internal politics at the moment by asking you generalizations we cannot use in this instance because of firstly, how sensitive this topic is and secondly because generalizations tend to form stereotypes and that's certainly not the case. Israel has a very large Arab population of which many of them identify and stand with the Palestinian narrative but many of them see themselves first and foremost as Israelis. There's been a fortune of criticism however that the community at the moment has been relatively mum when it comes to the situation in Israel and I'm curious to know if that comes from a place of perhaps some standing with the Palestinian narrative, excuse me or from the fact that they themselves may be threatened and their personal security may be threatened because of the fact that they are Arabs, many Muslim in the state of Israel. First of all, I think it's important to highlight and let's take a chance to use this plug from the highlight. The many, many individuals and organizations of Israeli Arabs who are standing proudly with the state of Israel, fighting for the state of Israel, serving as paramedics for the state of Israel. A number of initiatives have opened on the ground in Rahat, in villages in the north to pack a food aid for those harmed in the south. The Atidna youth movement, a youth movement of over 5,000 Arab Israeli youth just issued a very, very strong condemnation on a public billboard on the Islam freeway against Hamas, saying Israeli Arabs and Jews stand together against the terror of Hamas and this does not represent them. And they have been volunteering in a number of ways over the last two weeks to try to help in the south. We know many Bedouin Israelis were killed, were murdered by Hamas on the first day of this war, at least 40. We know that Bedouin drivers and paramedics risk their lives, especially at the music festival to run in and try to rescue as many people as they can. One young Bedouin man actually died in the process of trying to save fellow Jews. We know of Arab Israeli hotel owner, Samuel Karnawi, who opened his chain of hotels at no cost to those having to flee the fighting in the south. I think the dominant narrative and the majority of Israeli Arabs are standing proudly with Israel, definitely standing against Hamas. You also hear this from Ram Heideh Mansour Abbas, who came out against Hamas's actions and called to release the hostages. At the same time, and this should be expected, they are sympathizing with their fellow Arab Muslims who are the civilians who are being heard in the Gaza Strip and that is aligned. At the last point here though, of course, there are radicals within Israeli Arab society who are threatening, sometimes with violence, those who take such claims. And the state of Israel, the Israeli society, the broader society should stand with those who are voicing clear anti Hamas stances who are getting out there and risking themselves to support them. The state should do everything it can to support and bolster these voices. And I also point out that many Israeli Jews, obviously, also standing up for the fact that innocent civilians on the other side of the border are being put in harm's way. Unfortunately, it's not just the Arab Muslim population. Innocent life being lost in a time of war on both sides is absolutely horrific and should be stood up for as well. I want to thank you very much, retired major Dan Fefferman, the executive director of the NGO Sharaka for joining me this afternoon. Thank you for having me. And still with me here in studio is Reserve Brigadier General Amir Avivi. Amir, I want to bring you into the side of the conversation. I know not necessarily your expertise, but there's a massive fear around the world and we saw the war cabinet minister, Benny Gantz and also a former IDF chief of staff speaking specifically to Jews around the world because what happens in the state of Israel right now is, or I should put it this way, that Jews around the world are largely dependent on what happens in the state of Israel right now. Are they not? So we see the rise of anti-Semitism. It's not new, but now it's escalating dramatically. It only emphasizes our responsibility as the Jewish state to have here a safe haven for Jews. This is why we need to win decisively. And Israel has a responsibility also to defend Jews anywhere they are. And we have to not only be focused on what we are doing here to safe, to really make Jews in Israel safe, we need to be proactive in keeping safe also the Jewish communities around the world. We're all in this together. And I believe, and I've been saying that long before this war, that looking at the pace anti-Semitism is growing around the world, we will see hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Jews making Aliyah eventually. We need to make sure that the people of Israel are safe here. And it will take time. It might take a year, maybe more, but we have to decisively destroy our enemies and make sure that for the next 50 years, our closed environment is safe and Israel can live safe. When you keep mentioning it may take a year, do you mean the actual war in terms of rooting out the Hamas terrorist? Or do you mean the sort of what happens after, as in the war may take a couple of weeks or a couple of months, but once that's done, there's obviously still gonna be terror pockets. And again, people from the South obviously are petrified at going back there because of the fact that they feel perhaps unsafe and also perhaps because their trust in the IDF was lost in the sense that they felt alone when this happened because the state of Israel was surprised. Yeah, so rooting Hamas and Palestinian Islamic jihad can take many, many months and can take even years in the operation defensive shield, initial conquering of the Palestinian cities took a month and a half, but stabilizing the situation took five years. And I'm not saying that in Gaza it's exactly the same because they were operating with air force and artillery in a much more aggressive way, but still just finding all this underground infrastructure, destroying it, finding all the terrorists, apprehending, killing them, this is going to take a very long time, but this is just talking about Gaza. You mentioned the people in the South. What about the people in the North? Who is going to be willing to live 100 meters of Radoan force, which is Nukhban steroids? It's a much stronger force, much more equipped, much bigger. Really sitting like, you know, a few neighbors to all these towns with the same mission to conquer the towns and destroy them, exactly the same mission. I don't think people realize, you know, and it's hard to say that because we have suffered like a day of Holocaust. We were lucky in a way that Hezbollah didn't attack at the same time in the North. We would have been in a completely different reality if they had. So we cannot have this threat in the North, in the long term. So looking really in the long term, eventually, we love to also destroy Hezbollah. And Iran, we cannot have a nuclear Iran. So and it's not necessarily just us. We have a huge opportunity looking at the possibility of building a coalition with the US, with Europe, with the Sunni world. The more decisive will be our win, the faster we'll have peace agreements and a willingness of the Sunni Arab world, the US, Europe to join with us and defeat the Shia axis that is threatening the whole Middle East and beyond. Now, while we such and continue to analyze the conflict at present and also predict possible future scenarios, people tend to forget that we, as a state of Israel, are still counting our dead. Over 1,400 people, that number expected to rise even more because so many people have not yet been identified. There's many people that are still considered missing, not knowing whether they are actually dead or whether they have been kidnapped into the Gaza Strip. Joining me on the phone now is Steve, a volunteer from South Africa who is assisting Zaka, the official emergency response team here in Israel. Steve, thank you very much for your time today. Firstly, explains us a little bit about what you are doing here in Israel. This truly grueling and difficult task that you are doing. You've seen some of these communities totally devastated by such brutality. Thank you for having us. We've been in South Africa watching the news like everyone else from when the war broke out, when all the tragedy started. And as a team in South Africa, we decided that we'd reach out to our brothers from Zaka here in Israel. And we were put on standby right from the beginning. They were still trying to come to terms with what had happened. And then at some point, a week and a bit ago, we were given the green light to come through and assist our brethren here. And five of us boarded a plane and we arrived yesterday morning in Israel and have been working since the second we touched down. Part of that, the reason of reaching out is that Zaka is an international organization. And the second that we hear that our brothers are in trouble anywhere in the world, yet Ethiopia a couple of years back or Turkey recently with the earthquakes, wherever we can assist, we make an effort to guard and assist and that's what we're doing here today. I mean, that's really incredible from a personal note. There are many dual citizens here in Israel that are fighting the challenge at the moment as to whether to leave or whether to stay. You came all the way from South Africa to assist with an organization that is quite literally being hailed as angels on earth. But apart from putting yourself in danger, I mean, this work is truly, there's no sugarcoating it. This is hell on earth, what you guys are dealing with. You know, I was saying to one of the other volunteers yesterday and one of the kibbutzim on the South that, you know, you saw the news from overseas, you watched some of the videos, you read some of the articles, and then you come here and you smell the smells and you see the blood and you see the destruction and you see the terrorism and it paints for you like a full picture. I mean, yes, you get it you get a full picture without being here, but you get a much more fuller picture by standing in the exact kibbutz where these guys were running around killing Jews for no reason. And it really, it hits home big time. You know, thankfully we're a group of South Africans that are supporting each other, but a group of also a wider group from Zaka, you know, all reaching out to each other. They had an event last night in Ashdod, only for the Zaka volunteers, just to make them, just to add a bit of joy and happiness into the lives. They had a singer, they had different people from the ministry came through to show their support to the volunteers of Zaka. And yeah, it's really, it's been a crazy day and a half. You hear all the bombs going off in the background while you're working. Steve, I want to thank you so much for the work that you do and for joining me. Israel is officially in a state of war. This is a very active scene and we need to get in the car as we're talking. Within a hundred soldiers and civilians have been kidnapped. 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 unicycle. Esta semana, en el 24, Israel bajo ataque. El 24 en español trae el análisis y la información de los acontecimientos de la guerra. Espadas de hierro entrevistas exclusivas reportes desde la zona de guerra. La reacción de los países hispanoparlantes. News 24, el único medio en español que te mantiene informado y conectado con la comunidad latina en Israel. News 24, únicamente en I24 news. Es que sabes desde dónde viene. Ve acá y el paquete y copa cuándo. Y recargas que ya sabes hacia dónde van. En día, recargas internacionales altís a tu gente en R.D. Accede a nuestra página web, recargas.altís.com.gov. Selecciona recargas y digita el número al que deseas colocarle la recarga. Además, ellos reciben el doble de balance en recargas de 8 dólares o más. Altís, la red global de los dominicanas. Welcome to this breaking news edition. I'm Bacha Elevador, coming to you live from Tel Aviv. Thanks for joining me. It is day 25 of war here in Israel. Rocket Alert sirens have been blaring throughout Israel's southern communities in recent hours. In the early hours of this Tuesday morning, the IDF destroyed the house of Salah al-Arori, the deputy head of Hamas's political bureau, who oversaw some of the terror group's activities in the West Bank. The Israel Defense Forces says its troops also killed numerous Hamas terrorists during ground operations in the Gaza Strip over the past day, as well as striking some 300 terror targets. In the North, IDF fighter jets destroyed a Hezbollah facility housing weapons inside of Lebanon. Thus, as the exchange of fire between the Iranian-backed terror group and the Israeli military continues. Israel's police and Shin Bet security agencies say three Israelis have also been arrested in the country's North on suspicion of having connections with ISIS. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday evening dismissing the idea that Israel would agree to a ceasefire with Hamas, saying that those calling for one are in effect calling for the State of Israel to surrender to terrorism. Something it absolutely will not do. With me here in studio is Reserve Brigadier General Amir Avivili, director of Israel's Defense and Security Forum and the former deputy commander of the IDF Gaza Strip Division. Thank you for being here with me this afternoon. I wanna start with the situation at the moment on the Southern Front. I understand that things are heating up on the Northern Front, but for the time being, these seem to be exchanges that are relatively contained that hasn't broken out into full-scale war. But there are now satellite images showing Israeli tanks well into Gaza and with a clear purpose to root out Hamas. The IDF has a clear objective. The government's objective as well is to position this to the international community of rooting out Hamas and being able to replace it with something else. What is that something else? What happens the day after? So let's understand what is the end game militarily first. To root Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad and to dismantle all of their capabilities in the Gaza Strip, this requires basically conquering the whole Gaza Strip. So we are doing that at the moment in the Northern part. Eventually, a month from now, two months from now, we'll have to also maneuver to the South because they have very strong, strong holds. In the South, we might see also leaders of Hamas and even some of our Israelis who are hostages being moved to the South as we are maneuvering into the North. So eventually, we'll have to conquer the whole Gaza Strip. It will take a long time. And then it will take months and months to really clean up the Gaza Strip, maybe years. Then, only then we can talk about what's next. But what's next, we need to look at it also first militarily, only then talk about civil issues. We cannot ensure the people of Israel, especially the people who live in the South that terror won't come back. If we don't do two things, one, control the Egyptian border, this is where endless amount of weapons, know-how, technology, money, is going into the Gaza Strip from Iran through Egypt. We need to control this border now and maybe forever. And we need full freedom of operation in the Gaza Strip like we have in Jordan, Samara, the same thing in order to prevent the buildup again. And then the question will be, how do we manage civility? First of all, we need to see what's left there. I mean, I don't know how Gaza will look the day after. We must understand that almost every single building and house in Gaza is connected to tunnels. And every building that is connected to a tunnel will have to tear apart and bring it down so we don't have terrorists going out these talents that are attacking. Stay with me. I want to just go to our correspondent, Pierre Closh, and while we have him on the line who's joining us from Southern Israel. We know that there was a house hit in the Gaza border area from rocket fire coming from Hamas into Israel. And this also comes on the announcement by Israel that some 80 trucks of humanitarian aid will enter the Gaza Strip later today. Right, and half of those humanitarian trucks carrying water, food, and medical supply have already been checked and are entering the Gaza Strip. Half, that means about 39 to 40 trucks. And the goal is to reach the capacity of 80 trucks today, which is a big peak since the start of the hostilities carried out by Hamas against Israel. The goal is to reach 100 trucks a day, which is the full capability of the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. Israel insists that no fuel will be sent to the southern part of the Gaza Strip in spite of US pressure at this moment. And we've heard already that there could be some sort of modicum of understanding between Israel and the US regarding fuel. If that fuel is indeed sent to the people in need then not to Hamas and only in the southern part of the Gaza Strip at this moment. Correspondent Pierre Klushenor, thank you for that update from the south. Still with me in Studio Reserve Brigadier General Amir Avivi. Amir, something that I want to talk about because I don't feel that the viewers fully understand this. The Hamas leadership is currently sitting in their villas, in Qatar, in Turkey, and in other areas that are hosting them. But when we talk about the fact that the IDF has taken out terror leaders of the Hamas group, what exactly are they referring to? So they're referring to the company commanders, to the battalion commanders, to the brigade commanders. And there was one commander who was, like, let's say, a general in the Hamas terror army. But the political leadership, the ones who are leading all of that, they're hiding probably underneath Shifa Hospital. Many of them, as you said, are in Turkey, or Qatar, or Lebanon. And like we did with the Nazis, we are going to hunt every single one of them, even if it takes years. Nobody will be spared here. They are going to pay for what they did. And the same goes for all these terrorists inside Gaza. We're going in as we are doing now, and we're going to kill all of them. And there is only two ways to go, or they will be killed, or unconditional surrender. This is exactly what Europe faced with the Nazis. This is exactly what Churchill said when we had to start fighting the Nazis. Unconditional surrender, that's it. There is no other option. And victory at all costs. Yeah, and at all costs. And we're willing to pay the cost for decisive victory. I think that the army is very, very professional. They are doing things in an amazing way. The Air Force is assisting dramatically. The ground forces, the Navy is assisting intelligence. We are doing things slowly, pace by pace. We are not taking chances. The fighting in the streets is fierce. We are not seeing pictures. There is no media. But our soldiers are fighting fiercely on the ground, eliminating threats, moving forward. And as we saw yesterday, this is something I've been saying in the last three weeks. The best chance to bring our sons and daughters back, the hostages, is the ground incursion. The more we go in, the bigger are the chances that we'll get to them, and we'll manage to free them. I want to get an update from our correspondent, Robert Swift, who is standing by for us in northern Israel. Rob, no doubt, plenty of reservists are getting ready to possibly battle with Hezbollah on the northern front. What's the situation like on the ground now? Over the last couple of weeks, there have been exchanges of fire between the Israeli military and Hezbollah. We've seen anti-tank missiles being shot over the border into Israel. But we've also been hearing sirens going off from possible drones and other kinds of aircraft crossing over as well. That could be a potential threat of infiltration to residents in the north that have also evacuated toward the center. Yeah, there's a fair bit that's constantly going on here in the background. Usually, we're talking about two, three, four incidents a day. The last one here took place about an hour ago, where we witnessed a small exchange of fire. But it seemed to be between Hezbollah mortars with the Israeli military responding with artillery fire. And that's kind of par for the course here. Yesterday, there was about three incidents like this. Two of them involved artillery and mortar exchanges between the two sides. And the third was a launch of anti-tank missiles, which the Israeli military responded to with artillery fire. Now, overnight, the Israeli military used aircraft to hammer home its point that it has the fire superiority here by attacking Hezbollah arms depots slightly further to the north, inside southern Lebanon. But occasionally, these little skirmishes are taking place every day. Yesterday was no different to the day before. And today, we're likely to see more of these sorts of actions. And it's unclear when, if at all, they will either cease or escalate into something much larger. And no doubt that's what we're all waiting to see. And obviously, analyzing from the ground as well as studio correspondent Robert Swift giving us that update from the north, thank you for that. And joining me now from Raqovot in central Israel is retired Major Dan Fefferman, the executive director of the NGO Sharaka. Thank you very much for being with me this afternoon. Something that we've been discussing here in studio with Amira Vivi and what I want to bring to your attention as well is this idea of Israeli troops are now well into the Gaza Strip trying to wipe out the leadership of Hamas. And also, anyone that either is part of the terror organization pledges allegiance to the terror organization, once it does that because the indication is what was is not what will be. They cannot leave a stone unturned when it comes to Hamas. What does that mean for the founders that are currently sitting in Qatar, in Turkey? Is Israel going to be able to get to them as well and essentially cut the head off the snake? I'm not sure if cutting the head off the snake is going to be the appropriate method to deal with those Hamas leaders who are sitting outside of the Gaza Strip right now. What I think we're going to see and what we're probably seeing behind the scenes is a lot of anger, a lot of anger from moderate countries in the region about with a clear understanding that Hamas instigated this conflict, Hamas dragged Israel, dragged the region into this conflict. And you're already seeing, for example, even from Hezbollah backers who are criticizing Hamas leaders for sitting in seven-star hotels in Doha while they're fighting Israel on the front lines and while of course Gaza is under siege as part of the war. What I think we should see and what we should push for is a regional approach that brings together the Gulf countries, the modern actors and puts pressure on Qatar as well to finally remove Hamas leadership from these countries, not give them a shelter, not give them a base and take away their avenues of political support. What that looks like in the end, I'm not sure, but that should be the strategy that Israeli leaders and the international community should be pursuing. Something that I'd like to speak to you about is the relations between Israel and Turkey. I can tell you that we have struggled to bring on a pro-government, pro-Turkish government interview at the moment because of the situation. Now, Israel and Turkey have recently rekindled ties and we know from past experience, watching Erdogan and analyzing him as well, that because the country is in a geostrategic position, he tends to play both sides and we've seen that from different scenarios throughout the world in different conflicts. But this is different. This is not playing both sides. This is taking a very clear side to the point of saying that Jews are not allowed in Turkey at the moment where we're seeing anti-Semitism raging. What do we make in terms of the ties going forward and is Israel being in a sense negligent for ever trying to return or go back to those rekindling of ties? No, I don't think Israel should question that course of action. Israel needs to have proper relations with all of the countries in the region and Turkey has shown itself usually to be a pragmatic actor. I think what we're seeing is a combination of two things and that's one is Turkey is trying to use this moment to galvanize support for itself to once again make itself the leader or trying to be the leader of public opinion in the region. And as it engages public opinion, it senses that being anti-Israel at the moment is in its interest if it's trying to stake that claim. Just a year ago as the Abraham Accords and the new agreements were gaining steam around the region, you saw Turkey looking in the other way and trying once again to become friends with Israel, inviting our president and our foreign minister to Ankara and sending their foreign minister here. On the other hand, so Turkey will always play that kind of interest game and try to stake out a middle ground of whatever it feels serves its interest. What might also be happening here is we're seeing once again the true colors of Turkish president Erdogan who may just be, and I think it's time maybe the international community in Israel certainly would admit it, he himself is quite anti-Israel and pro-Hamas and those are his inclinations. I wanna shift the topic to more of the internal security and the internal politics at the moment by asking you generalizations we cannot use in this instance because of firstly how sensitive this topic is and secondly because generalizations tend to form stereotypes and that's certainly not the case. Israel has a very large Arab population of which many of them identify and stand with the Palestinian narrative but many of them see themselves first and foremost as Israelis. There's been a fortune of criticism however that the community at the moment has been relatively mum when it comes to the situation in Israel and I'm curious to know if that comes from a place of perhaps some standing with the Palestinian narrative excuse me or from the fact that they themselves may be threatened and their personal security may be threatened because of the fact that they are Arabs, many Muslim in the state of Israel. First of all, I think it's important to highlight and let's take a chance to use this plug from the highlight. The many, many individuals and organizations of Israeli Arabs who are standing proudly with the state of Israel, fighting for the state of Israel, serving as paramedics for the state of Israel. A number of initiatives have opened on the ground in Rahat, in villages in the North to pack a food aid for those harmed in the South. The Atidna youth movement, a youth movement of over 5,000 Arab Israeli youth just issued a very, very strong condemnation on a public billboard on the Islam Freeway against Hamas, saying Israeli Arabs and Jews stand together against the terror of Hamas and this does not represent them. And they have been volunteering in a number of ways over the last few weeks to try to help in the South. We know many Bedouin Israelis were killed, were murdered by Hamas on the first day of this war, at least 40. We know that Bedouin drivers and paramedics risk their lives, especially at the music festival to run in and try to rescue as many people as they can. One young Bedouin man actually died in the process of trying to save fellow Jews. We know of Arab Israeli hotel owner Samuel Karnawi who opened his chain of hotels at no cost to those having to flee the fighting in the South. I think the dominant narrative and the majority of Israeli Arabs are standing proudly with Israel, definitely standing against Hamas. You also hear this from Rahm Heideh Mansur Abbas who came out against Hamas's actions and called to release the hostages. At the same time, and this should be expected, they are sympathizing with their fellow Arab Muslims who are the civilians who are being heard in the Gaza Strip and that is a line. At the last point here though, of course, there are radicals within Israeli Arab society who are threatening sometimes with violence those who take such claims. And the state of Israel, the Israeli society, the broader society should stand with those who are voicing clear anti Hamas stances who are getting out there and risking themselves to support them. The state should do everything it can to support and bolster these voices. And I also point out that many Israeli Jews obviously also standing up for the fact that innocent civilians on the other side of the border are being put in harm's way. Unfortunately, it's not just the Arab Muslim population. Innocent life being lost in a time of war on both sides is absolutely horrific and should be stood up for as well. I wanna thank you very much, retired major Dan Fefferman, the executive director of the NGO Sharaka for joining me this afternoon. Thank you for having me. And still with me here in studio is Reserve Brigadier General Amir Avivi. Amir, I wanna bring you into the side of the conversation. I know not necessarily your expertise, but there's a massive fear around the world and we saw the war cabinet minister, Benny Gantz and also a former IDF chief of staff speaking specifically to Jews around the world because what happens in the state of Israel right now is, or I should put it this way, that Jews around the world are largely dependent on what happens in the state of Israel right now. Are they not? So we see the rise of anti-Semitism. It's not new, but now it's escalating dramatically. It only emphasizes our responsibility as the Jewish state to have here a safe haven for Jews. This is why we need to win decisively and Israel has a responsibility also to defend Jews anywhere they are. And we have to not only be focused on what we are doing here to safe, to really make Jews in Israel safe, we need to be proactive in keeping safe also the Jewish communities around the world. We're all in this together. All in this together and I believe, and I've been saying that long before this war, that looking at the pace anti-Semitism is growing around the world, we will see hundreds of thousands if not millions of Jews making Aliyah eventually. We need to make sure that the people of Israel are safe here and it will take time. It might take a year, maybe more, but we have to decisively destroy our enemies and make sure that for the next 50 years, our close environment is safe and Israel can live safe. When you keep mentioning it may take a year, do you mean the actual war in terms of rooting out the Hamas Terras or do you mean the sort of what happens after as in the war may take a couple of weeks or a couple of months, but once that's done, there's obviously still gonna be terror pockets. And again, people from the South obviously are petrified at going back there because of the fact that they feel perhaps unsafe and also perhaps because their trust in the IDF was lost in the sense that they felt alone when this happened because the state of Israel was surprised. Yeah, so rooting Hamas and Palestinian Islamic jihad can take many, many months and can take even years in the operation, defensive shield, initial conquering of the Palestinian cities took a month and a half, but stabilizing the situation took five years. And I'm not saying that in Gaza it's exactly the same because they were operating with air force and artillery in a much more aggressive way, but still just finding all this underground infrastructure, destroying it, finding all the terrorists, apprehending, killing them, this is going to take a very long time, but this is just talking about Gaza. You mentioned the people in the South. What about the people in the North? Who is going to be willing to live 100 meters of RAD-1 force, which is Nukhban steroids. It's a much stronger force, much more equipped, much bigger. Really sitting like, you know, a few neighbors to all these towns with the same mission to conquer the towns and destroy them, exactly the same mission. I don't think people realize, you know, and it's hard to say that because we have suffered like a day of Holocaust. We were lucky in a way that Hezbollah didn't attack at the same time in the North. We would have been in a completely different reality if they had. So we cannot have this stretch in the North in the long term. So looking really in the long term, eventually, we love to also destroy Hezbollah and Iran. We cannot have a nuclear Iran. So and it's not necessarily just us. We have a huge opportunity looking at the possibility of building a coalition with the US, with Europe, with the Sunni world. The more decisive will be our win, the faster we'll have peace agreements and a willingness of the Sunni Arab world, the US, Europe to join with us and defeat the Shia axis that is threatening the whole Middle East and beyond. Now, while we sit down and continue to analyze the conflict at present and also predict possible future scenarios, people tend to forget that we, as a state of Israel, are still counting our dead. Over 1,400 people, that number expected to rise even more because so many people have not yet been identified. There's many people that are still considered missing, not knowing whether they are actually dead or whether they have been kidnapped into the Gaza Strip. Joining me on the phone now is Steve, a volunteer from South Africa who is assisting Zaka, the official emergency response team here in Israel. Steve, thank you very much for your time today. Firstly, explains us a little bit about what you are doing here in Israel, this truly grueling and difficult task that you are doing. You've seen some of these communities totally devastated by such brutality. All right, thank you, thank you for having us. Yeah, we've been in South Africa, watching the news like everyone else from when the war broke out, when all the tragedy started. And as a team in South Africa, we decided that we'd reach out to our brothers from Zaka here in Israel. And we were put on standby right from the beginning. They were still trying to come to terms with what had happened. And then at some point, a week and a bit ago, we were given the green light to come through and assist our brethren here. And five of us boarded a plane and we arrived yesterday morning in Israel and have been working since the second we touched down. Part of that, the reason of reaching out is that Zaka is an international organization. And the second that we hear that our brothers are in trouble anywhere in the world. Ethiopia a couple of years back or Turkey recently with the earthquakes, wherever we can assist, we make an effort to God and assist and that's what we're doing here today. I mean, that's really incredible from a personal note. There are many dual citizens here in Israel that are fighting the challenge at the moment as to whether to leave or whether to stay. You came all the way from South Africa to assist with an organization that is quite literally being hailed as angels on earth. But apart from putting yourself in danger, I mean, this work is truly, there's no sugarcoating it. This is hell on earth, what you guys are dealing with. You know, I was saying to one of the other volunteers yesterday and one of the Kibbutzim on the south that you saw the news from overseas, you watched some of the videos, you read some of the articles and then you come here and you smell the smells and you see the blood and you see the destruction and you see the terrorism and it paints for you like a full picture. I mean, yes, you get it and you get a full picture without being here, but you get a much more fuller picture by standing in the exact Kibbutz where these guys were running around killing Jews for no reason. And it really, it hits home big time. Thankfully, we're a group of South Africans that are supporting each other, but a group of also a wider group from Zaka. You know, all reaching out to each other. They had an event last night in Ashdod only for the Zaka volunteers. Just to make them, just to add a bit of joy and happiness into their lives. They had a singer, they had different people from the ministry came through to show their support to the volunteers of Zaka. And yeah, it's really, it's been a crazy day and a half. You hear all the bombs going off in the background while you're working. Steve, I wanna thank you so much for the work that you do and for joining me. Over 1,300 people murdered and more than 3,000 injured and the war with Hamas continues. We bring you first-hand testimonies from the front lines, from those who survived and all the records of the atrocities by Hamas. Follow us as Israel fights terror from the South and North. Get the inside scoop on what's going on. Only on I-24 News. The past, but not only me. Just to separate the real, the standing Israel story to the world. I-24 News Channels. Welcome to this breaking news edition as we dive into the latest developments of the war here in Israel. I'm Nicole Zadik live in Tel Aviv. The commanding officer of the Southern Command has now ordered troops to go into the Gaza Strip, releasing a powerful message of strength to his troops. Powerful message comes as Israel continues to strike hard in the Gaza Strip, destroying some 300 Hamas targets in the past day, including rocket launch sites, tunnel entrances and Hamas military compounds. The IDF eliminated another Hamas commander Asin Abu-Ajina, who was responsible for organizing the October 7th attack in two of the Southern Israeli communities. The IDF is also targeting terror cells in the West Bank, demolishing the home of Saleh al-Aroori, deputy head of Hamas's political bureau and de facto leader of Hamas in the West Bank. Now as troops go deeper into Gaza, Israel successfully rescued their first hostage. Private Ori Megadish returned home to her family after being held captive in Gaza for more than three weeks. Now at least 240 hostages still remain in the hands of Hamas terrorists, including roughly 30 children as the IDF continues to gather intel on the kidnapped. Meanwhile, in the North, the IDF continues to hit Hezbollah targets in Lebanon following strikes on Northern Israel as the IDF promises to monitor all fronts in this war. Now that's where we wanna begin right now on Israel's Northern border, where our I-24 News correspondent, Robert Swift, is standing by. Robert, the IDF continuing to strike Hezbollah sites in Lebanon, what can you tell us about the latest operations? That's right, the Israeli military conducted airstrikes overnight on Hezbollah arms depots. This was in response to various attacks that took place yesterday, including anti-tank attacks in the center of the Northern border. And in the far Western end, there was mortar fire, which the Israeli military responded to with artillery fire. But just, I can just tell you that coming in right now, there's information regarding a possible rocket alarms taking place in Matullah. This is in the far Eastern end of Israel's Northern border. It's an area that has seen quite a bit of activity, including one or two IDF casualties from anti-tank fire. At the minute, we don't have information on what has caused the rocket alarms there, but we'll bring you updates as soon as we do get that information. We'll be continuing to come back to you later in the broadcast as well. Robert Swift, thank you for bringing us the latest on Israel's Northern border. Now I wanna bring in my guest in studio now. I'm joined by Lieutenant Colonel and Reserves Darone Abitel, former commander of Special Forces with the IDF. Darone, as we just saw at the beginning of this broadcast, a very powerful message coming out of one of the commanders of the Southern Command Unit, telling his forces, we're going in, we're attacking hard. It's going to be difficult, but we're going to be victorious. Is this the start of the ground operation that we have been hearing about for weeks now? I think it already started with the ground incursion that we had in the few days. I think the IDF was carefully and meticulously creating the base for him to inch in into Gaza. It's a powerful message. I think we are on the attack. I think Israel is back. The IDF is back after a terrible setback at the beginning, and it's very encouraging to hear. I know, impersonally, to general your own pinkelman giving this order to the troops, and we wish them the best. It's definitely a strong sign of hope right now. I want us to talk about another strong sign of hope right now. Just yesterday, the IDF announcing that they have rescued the first hostage in Israeli soldier. She is now back with her family. I'm curious, we don't know too much about the operation itself, but is this obviously seen as a positive sign? For sure. I think the army, not only the army, but also the political leadership, defined that the goals of the war, not only victory over Hamas, but also, of course, the rescue of the hostages. And the idea was that they can be executed simultaneously. And I think the idea is that while the forces are pressuring Hamas, there would be special forces, there would be intelligence gathering, and this can create an opportunity for rescuing, because we know that the hostages are in localities, not all of them under Hamas. You don't know where are they. So we don't think the idea is that there's no real contradiction between victory on Hamas and rescuing the hostages. And I think this was a very good, a very encouraging sign. Intelligence gathering, Shabbat, internal security, operational unit entering and closing on this rescue. A very good sign. Let's be optimistic about the rest. Let's be optimistic. And I think this is a one clear sign. However, also, as Israel continues to push further into the Gaza Strip, there's also the possibility that Hamas DRS continue to go deeper in these underground tunnels, possibly taking some of those hostages with them as well. I think the last 10 years or more, the IDF really prepared itself to the tunnel battlefield. It's a whole new terrain. We were never, my generation, we never practiced those things. I think the engineering aspect of it and the engineering soldiers are very important there in the forefront of this kind of battle. And of course the complication of the hostages being with Hamas. I want to insist that while we are fighting, there will be, of course, the diplomatic negotiation and maybe Hamas under huge pressure would be forced to some deal that we can accept. So all efforts work in tandem together in the field, trying to rescue the hostages while gaining victory, but also outside in the diplomatic sphere. And speaking of the diplomatic pressures, we're also continuing to see more Hamas propaganda because just hours before they did rescue that one Israeli soldier, they also released some propaganda footage of three other Israeli captives. It's not clear exactly what led to this video being released. However, it's very, very likely that they were pushed to say some of these things on air. Many of it blaming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the attacks on October 7th and urging the government to do a prisoner exchange. Yeah, I think we have to understand that our enemy as cruel as it is, it's also clever in its cruelty. And the way they operate, they really have knowledge about also the divide that Israeli society was going for in the last year or so, even more. So they were really targeting there. They're really doing it. It's modern psychology. It's really a diplomacy of war trying to create demoralization to our troops and to the Israeli society at large. And in the end, maybe force us to some negotiation in terms that we can't accept. But I think we have to get it in. It's a good sign that we saw the hostages. We don't care about this propaganda. We can set it aside. Right now, the society is united. The army is united and we're going to battle. And as we do continue to see the IDF clearly going in, ramping up forces, attacking Hamas in the Gaza Strip. They're also attacking Hamas on these other fronts as well. Even just last night, destroying the home of one of the leaders in the West Bank. So the West Bank is another major field for this activity. Definitely a front. We have in fact three major fronts and other mini fronts like Yemen, for example, what we had yesterday. But three main fronts. The West Bank is a front in many respects, the front because of which we didn't look at the south because we were all the time over the last year having some constant mini war with Hamas operatives. So we had to move very fast, capture, preventive arrest, and go over terrorist cells in the West Bank. We do it all the time with Hamas operatives in the West Bank, attacking in Gaza and look at the north. I think we stabilize the border in the north. Right now, Nautruch Hizballah wants to fight because we sit very well on the northern border. So I would say in general, we succeeded to stabilize after the setback, to stabilize all the fronts. And right now we are on the attack in the south. And speaking of the attack that's happening in the south, let's go live to our correspondent who's standing by in southern Israel right now, Pierre Kloschenler, Pierre. We continue just hearing this message of unity and strength from the IDF saying that they are going in continuing to ramp up activity in the Gaza Strip. What can you tell us about the latest you're seeing on the ground? Right, there was a radio message by the general of the Southern Command, Yaron Finkelman, who spoke to the soldiers entering the Gaza Strip. And he had some sort of Churchillian speech, motivation speech to the soldiers. We'll fight in the alleys and narrow streets. We'll fight in the tunnels, the generation of victory. The people that survived the massacres on October 7 are watching you and they support you. A message of motivation for soldiers that are very, very motivated. I spoke to quite a lot of soldiers and they're quite motivated with the challenges and the daunting challenges that they're gonna face in the Gaza Strip. Now, the offensive, the ground offensive is progressing. We've heard the IDF spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniela Garry speaking of over 300 terrorist targets eliminated during the night. We've heard that one chief of battalion from Hamas has been eliminated. He was the head of operations in two massacres in the Moshev of Netiba-A-Sara and in Kibbutz-Erez, in the northern sector of the security border with the Gaza Strip. We know that the artillery is still pounding. There is an artillery battery just nearby where we are. And as a result of that, nearby where we are and their pounding terrorist targets, we hear the roar of the air force right now as I'm speaking to you. So the intensity is still going on of this ground aerial and naval offensive at this point. Pierre, you mentioned something interesting. We're three and a half weeks in. Activity absolutely ramping up, but rather than being tired and exhausted at this point, it sounds like the troops that you've spoken to are prepared, eager and ready to fight back with increased energy. Absolutely, and there's also a clear consciousness that the waiting period of three and a half weeks and for some, especially for the reservists, is even longer. That waiting period is a challenging of itself. And a lot of these reservists that are still in the rear and have not entered the Gaza Strip because first the conscripted soldiers are entering the Gaza Strip. These reservist soldiers are still training at the level of companies and battalions and beyond. And as a result, they're keeping in shape just to face the daunting challenges that they could confront in the weeks and months ahead. Nicole. Pierre, clearly our main goal is on the military activity that's happening there, but also just as you're driving through some of these southern communities to get to where you are right now, what is the sense on the ground? Is it mainly deserted for these past three and a half weeks? Mostly people still evacuating and if they haven't yet with this increased activity, is this now a sign that more people might be moving? The only people that are in the localities that were attacked by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic jihad and even by civilians from Gaza on October 7th have left. The only one remaining are those in charge of the security and in handing with the army. So all those localities are close military area at this point. Two kilometers away from where we are, there is one kibbutz called Mefal Sim. There are troops over there, but we cannot be there because it's a close military zone. So basically these localities are still subject to rocket fire since this morning. A bad wind of rocket fires, sporadic rocket fire, has targeted the localities from the north to the south of the security border with the Gaza Strip. One impact on kibbutz Niroz, kibbutz Niroz is almost on the fence and it was the site of a massacre and it's also the kibbutz from which there's so many hostages now in Hamas' hands and others' hands. That's the highest amount of hostages. They're coming from Niroz now. There was an impact on the house. The house is abandoned, so only damage. There was also an impact on the Kaushed in kibbutz Kisufim, but that kibbutz also has been abandoned. So basically there's only damage, casualties among the animals, but no casualties amongst human being. Here, Klosin, the reporting from Israel's southern border. Thank you so much for giving us the latest update on everything that's happening near the Gaza border. I want to come back to my guest in the studio, Doron Avital. Doron, as we were talking about the three fronts in this war, you say that Israel is really prepared in monitoring those three fronts, but I want to bring up another possible front or activity that we've seen much further south just today near Eilat, actually, all the way on the southern tip of Israel, possible projectiles fired from Yemen by Houthis targeting Israel. Now Israel said to have intercepted those, but is this a sign that other Iranian proxies are getting more involved? For sure, it's not the first time, and now they're doing it. We have to not forget that we have much of the evacuees, the people that evacuated the villages in the south are in Eilat, so it's really a cruel and cynical attempt to target Eilat, and we succeeded to intercept it. I remind you that in the previous attacks, the U.S. Navy from Saudi succeeded to intercept those kind of attacks. Surprised attacks, I think we are prepared to those kind of attack, and I think in this context, we need the U.S. and we have the U.S. as our backup in this context, as they did in the previous attack. And we also have the militia Shiite in Syria that are trying to get up forces and we attack in Syria from time to time, so there are many fronts. The three major fronts, of course, Gaza, North and then West Bank, but then we have those other fronts, and of course they're all backed by Iran. All backed by Iran and certainly plays into the wider regional aspect of this as well. As we're speaking about what's happening on the ground, I think it's important to remember what sparked this in the first place, the horrific attacks on October 7th, and we continue to see just the repercussions of everything that has happened since then. I'm joined now, I want to bring in my guest, Avi Hartuva, psychotherapy and group facilitator in trauma and emergency for one family. Avi, thank you so much for joining me. You've been working with some of the victims of this attack. I can't imagine the help that they absolutely need right now, but it's incredibly difficult, even three and a half weeks since that attack. Hello, Nicole, and thank you for hosting me. And I'm talking to you from Al-Fakim, 25 kilometers of the Gaza border, town of 35,000 people, and I apologize for the background noise. So I want to point out the two main missions that we have as a community here in Israel. One is do everything possible to bring back home safely all the 228 hostages and captive soldiers and captive civilians from age zero to age 18, 90, and we need to do everything possible that we can. This is a humanity mission. If we zoom out and look at humanity as one, that's what every single one of us should keep in our hearts. The second mission that we have as a people is to gradually begin to claim back life, discern the degree of normality, certain degree of routine. And that's what we're doing, both individually and in groups. And one family has been known for decades to work with victims of terror in their families. And one of the aspects of terror and the victims of terror is the sense of helplessness, the sense of loneliness, the panic, the anxiety, and the alienation. And if we just look at the name, one family, we can see within it an intention for belonging. We are me, myself, not alone. In many colleagues, one family in another organizations, we are focused on the sense of belonging, on the sense of life purpose, on the sense of reclaiming, the sense of humanity, and restoring the faith that was working on October 7th. It's a beautiful message you're sharing. And I'm curious though, because you mentioned people coming together, regaining a sense of normalcy, but it's incredibly difficult as so many people's routines have completely been upended. Many of their loved ones either serving on the front lines, reserve soldiers, some of their loved ones, as you mentioned, still kidnapped, held in Gaza. So how do they work through this grief while there is still this unknown and the war rages on? Absolutely, absolutely. It's like a very open wound. And the work is on so many layers, and we need to remember that not everybody is in trauma. There is a whole spectrum of what we call trauma. Could be one extreme people who are completely incapacitated to do any clear thinking or any functioning or any relating. And on the other extreme, where people who continue to function and are relatively well. So we need to pay attention that the healing of trauma and the restoring of life and functioning in the sense of humanity is on the spectrum of individual responses. People that approach this with their individual strengths and weaknesses with their resources and resilience. And there are people who need more support and more help, people who need less. So on the extremes, we do one-to-one work. We have so many, so many different modalities of therapy. The society of healers and therapists in these countries in always curious and thirsty for knowledge. And we have received major world teachers who have come here even before Zoom and during Zoom to teach. And we have a very, very wide and rich repertoire of interventions you can do individually. And what I noticed now, there's a strong calling to keep supporting and work with individuals who are on the extreme side of the spectrum and also at the same time to cultivate the consciousness of working in groups. Working in groups could be a therapeutic modality and it could be men's circles, which I do and my colleagues do lots of men's circles today and it's very, very important including men's circles with soldiers. And it could be anywhere from dancing and artwork and playback and acting and theater and just a whole range of alternative care, yoga and singing and spirituals. We need to elicit right now all of us professionals in facilitators of any modalities that we can bring groups together because the connection and the relating are crucial to moving forward. So yes, some people do need the individual, maybe classic psychotherapy, maybe more alternative psychotherapy and there are many, so there are many within the psychotherapy, there are many options. And some of us, some people need something more organic to life and gentle. So I hope I'm answering what you asked me, if you can all ask me again or ask me again. Yes, no, thank you. I think all of the different resources that One Family offers is truly amazing. Avi, I'm curious because you said that you and those at One Family, you've constantly been working with different survivors, people, family who have been impacted by terror attacks. So you've seen this in the past but is there anything different about what's happening now that stands out to you? Yeah, I believe that the major difference is the sense of break of trust and break of faith which happened in the very beginning in a very sharp way. And it was a result of being completely surprised in the sense of pogrom, for some people it was a sense of returning holocaust. One of the preventives that I heard survivors say don't compare this to the holocaust because in the holocaust we had no safe harbour, safe haven to go back to in here. Next to the 1,400 people killed, 220 people hostages, hundreds of wounded. We have a country, we have a state that gives us a frame of reference and it's safe for the safe haven. Nonetheless, what is unique about this situation is that crisis, that break of trust and faith and gradually, gradually time is helping and therapies are helping and communities are helping and the magnificent work that is being done by the amazing open-hearted volunteers that have gathered together throughout the country, anything from food and medication and beds and linen and clothing and homes to hotels to give hospitality. It's been a tremendous engagement. You're cutting off a little bit from your connectivity but we so appreciate all of the work that you and everyone at One Family is doing. Thank you so much for talking about how we're going to continue to get through this atrocious attack. I'll be hard to thank you. Now, as Javi was mentioning just exactly what happened, it's now been three weeks after the Hamas launched a massive attack on southern Israeli communities and those who once lived there are still reeling. Our correspondent, Mary McCall, accompanied residents of Kibbutz near Oz as they visited their homes for the first time since October 7th on a tour organized by the Israeli government to show journalists and the world, the horrors that happened inside these homes as Israel continues to battle misinformation and denials. An idyllic community burned to ashes. This woman is visiting her family's house for the first time since the massacre of October 7th that turned southern Israeli communities along the Gaza border into enclaves of horror, where terrorists systematically broke into homes searching for civilians to kill or kidnap, burning down houses with families inside when they failed, where survivors hid for eight and a half hours locked inside safe rooms waiting for rescue. By the time help arrived, all the terrorists had already made their way back over the border. We are 400 people in this community. 100 people, they took a murder. So once or for every four people is not with us today. The devastation is apparent, as are the relics of the life that once was, traces of the families, of the children, of the grandparents who once tended their gardens. Everything was so set, now it's gone, nothing. They burn our souls, they really burn our souls. The Kibbutz of near Oze was one of the hardest hit by the Hamas incursion into Israeli territory. Located under two miles from the border, residents have a clear view into the Gaza Strip. From this house, Hadas' children fled from those who infiltrated their community. Last message I got from them, 8.30 in the morning, it told me they jumped from the window and hid in the bush behind the house. But with Hamas gunmen inside the Kibbutz, there's nowhere to hide. The last message I got from my son was, mom, be careful, be quiet. I love you. That's what he told me. And my daughter, she said, mom, mom, mom, this is the last message. They've been terrified. She hasn't heard from them since. Three weeks of agony, she says. We're going out for a quick break, but stay with us. 1,300 people murdered and more than 3,000 injured, and the war with Hamas continues. We bring you first-hand testimonies from the front lines, from those who survived, and all the records of the atrocities by Hamas. Follow us as Israel fights terror from the south and north. Get the inside scoop on what's going on. Only on I-24 News. Israel, Bajo Ataque. News 24, en Español, trae el análisis y la información de los acontecimientos de la guerra, espadas de hierro. Entrevistas exclusivas reportes desde la zona de guerra, la reacción de los países hispanoparlantes. News 24, el único medio en español que te mantiene informado y conectado con la comunidad latina en Israel. News 24, únicamente en I-24 News. 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. Welcome back to this breaking edition of I-24 News. As we come back on air now, there are red alert sirens happening in Israel's southern Negev desert region. 25th day of the war now and rockets continue to impact various different regions in Israel. Rockets fired from the Gaza Strip, sending thousands of residents into their bomb shelter. As I said, the 25th day of the war here in Israel. And the IDF says they are prepared to completely destroy and eliminate Hamas. However, it's going to be a long and tiresome effort. To talk more about the war efforts, I'm joined now by reserve major, Jerome Spielman from the IDF Spokesperson Unit. Jerome, thank you so much for joining us. Just earlier today, we actually saw the IDF release a new video from the commander of the Southern Command saying that troops are going into the Gaza Strip. They're going to be victorious, but it's going to be very, very difficult. Now, it was quite a powerful video release, but I'm curious, is this really the major ground operation, the start of it, that everyone has been talking about for the past three and a half weeks? Well, I'll tell you, as we know, the pain inflicted upon the state of Israel by the October 7th attack by Hamas was unprecedented completely. And the responses we've laid out the very beginning is also unprecedented. We declared war on Hamas and we've created a battle rhythm and very clearly said that we've used our aerial forces, we've used our naval forces, and now we also have ground forces deployed. And this is in really the staged campaign that we've begun since the very beginning. We've increased our ground operations as the chief of staff has said, and we have different units that are combined units that are operating Gaza as exactly according to the battle plan we've laid forth from the very beginning, which is needed to engage in that long road that you're talking to dismantle Hamas completely. Meanwhile, another very, very successful operation was launched by the Israeli soldiers yesterday after the first hostage was successfully saved, rescued from the Gaza Strip, a soldier. I'm curious, I know not a lot of information has been released so far, but by rescuing that first hostage, does this give the IDF indication of how to get the rest? 240, that still remain in Gaza. Do this give an indication of how to best proceed with that as well? Well, I'll tell you, this is definitely shows the importance, as we've been saying of having ground forces employed in this operation, we clearly acted on intel with special forces in a combined unit, and we were able to bring our Megadish home, which is in this very dark period an incredible ray of light, and it shows the professionalism of the IDF, our ability to move forward with really our core goals. The first goal is to completely dismantle Hamas, secure our border, and as we've said in the beginning, bringing home all of those hostages. Every one of which, whether they're from Israel, foreign nationals, dual nationals, we consider family, we're not gonna leave anyone behind. And this just shows our capabilities and really the spirit of the IDF in trying to bring everybody back home. Well, I'm also curious, because you said such a bright light definitely shows the success. However, it also indicates to Hamas that you guys are coming in, you're coming in strong. And so it also puts the pressure on them to possibly take more of those hostages and go deeper into the underground tunnels that we know they're hiding in. Well, you know, Hamas from the very beginning sees these hostages not as really people just like they don't view their own civilians as people, the way we do their bargaining chips. That's the way Hamas looks at everyone in kind of the theater of evil that they've set up. And this is really an orchestrated in advance theater of evil. All of the acts are right according to the ISIS protocol. Massacre Israelis received back in Taghaza with bargaining chips, hide behind civilians, try to divert the world's attention from Hamas' terror capabilities by putting civilians in the way of fire and taking hostages, I'm sure that they are and have been putting those hostages where we think that we cannot get to them. We are ahead of the game in many respects. We have excellent forces and I'm not gonna go into operational specifics but we are doing everything we can to bring these people home and we will continue to do so. And Hamas needs to know, as we've said from the beginning, the hostages are going to come home and at the same time, we're gonna continue with our military goals of dismantling them. It's not gonna prevent that from happening. Daron, you mentioned how Hamas continues to use their own civilians also as human drills really against the activity that the IDF is doing in the Gaza Strip. Do you know, have any intelligence as to how many Gazans actually remain in the North rather than taking the heating, the advice from the IDF and evacuating to the South? That 800,000 approximately, Gazans have managed to leave Northern Gaza according to our instructions and go to Southern Gaza. What we know is that Hamas is going against that advice completely and against the laws of armed conflict by forcibly keeping many of their civilians in the Gaza and we are doing everything we can and we call in the international community to do everything it can to let's move those civilians out of the way of fire. Again, we know why they're there. Everyone has seen the footage that we've released about with Shepa Hospital and numerous other locations that they're there in order to provide cover for Hamas but they are breaking international law and really the world needs to focus on this and demand from Hamas. Move those civilians out, get them out of harm's way and bring home the hostages as soon as possible. We here are here to bring home our hostages and protect Gazan civilians. Therefore, really this lies at the doorstep of Hamas to handle this. You mentioned some of the hospitals as well that I know earlier, the IDF has released. Those images and statements that the headquarters for Hamas is directly under Shepa Medical Center in the Gaza city. We've also seen reports that the IDF has encouraged the Al-Quds Hospital, anyone there to evacuate. Is the idea of going to be asking those residents or those people in Shepa Hospital to evacuate? And if so, how is it possible to evacuate the largest hospital in all of Gaza? As we know, this is a war, it's extremely painful, has a very high price for civilians. This all began because of Hamas's complete disregard for civil life. And Hamas is really the humanitarian problem of Gaza and reaching Hamas means we have to reach them wherever they are. And therefore we have encouraged in many of these cases for civilians to leave these areas. We know it's not simple, just like it's not eating 400,000 Israeli civilians to have left the North and the South because of Hamas, whatever the prices, it's a much better price to pay than being there when we are there eliminating Hamas. Again, this is war time, eliminating Hamas in the long run are going to help not only the Israelis, but also help the people of Gaza. And yes, they have to leave these conditions and move to a safer area, but it is much better than the alternative. And once again, we're calling on the international community to call out Hamas for what they're doing. It is against international law to use a hospital as cover for terror operations. And it is, again, the finger needs to be pointed out as possible. And they are putting those people in danger. Meanwhile, as we continue to hear everything that is happening out of the hospital, certain calls for a humanitarian crisis, lack of energy, lack of food, lack of fuel. However, the IDF releasing satellite images of Hamas tanks of fuel in the Gaza Strip. We continue to see these images saying they have hundreds of thousands of leaders of fuel to use at their disposal, but Hamas is taking it. So why has IDF not destroyed those tanks yet if we clearly know where they are? Well, as we know that Hamas is enough fuel to power Gaza for this wall in advance. They've confiscated not only medicine and fuel from even United Nations facilities. They've hoarded precious and really essential, such as medicines kept it from the civilian population, which is unbelievable, of course, because Hamas masquerades itself as being the champion of the Gaza people, which obviously it isn't. And operationally speaking, I can't go into specific operations, but we are doing what we can to enable the humanitarian situation to be eased in Gaza. There is a water pipeline that currently is operating Gaza. We have determined that in Southern Gaza, there's not a water crisis. Boot trucks are moving in, there's humanitarian aid moving in, but once again, the long-term humanitarian problem with Gaza is not just those fuel tanks, it is Hamas. And therefore our number one goal is the complete dismantling of Hamas militarily and also as a political organization so they can not interfere any longer. Certainly not in the lives of Israeli civilians, which they massacred, but also not in the lives of the Gaza civilians themselves. Major and reserve Doron Spielman, thank you so much for breaking down all of the latest developments and how the IDF continues to respond to Hamas terrorists and the enemy on this 25th day of the war. Thank you. Thank you. Now as the IDF continues with its coordinated ground, air, and sea operations inside the Gaza Strip, it continues to target Hamas top brass. Now 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' top leadership remains in hiding, whether beneath the ground in Gaza or abroad. Our Middle East correspondent, Ariel Osiron, 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' Baitlahi Battalion, on Tuesday morning. Abu-Ajina oversaw the October 7th attacks on Kibbutz-Erez and Moshev-Nativa-Azara. 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' aerial units, Shadi Baroud, deputy head of Hamas' military intelligence, and Johad Abu-Shamale, Hamas' minister of economy and top money guy. That's in addition to four members of Hamas' political bureau eliminated since October 7th. 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, Mohamed 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 group's exiled leaders, such as Ismail Hania and Salah al-Rouri, enjoy their refuge in Qatari in 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. I'm joined in studio now by our Middle East correspondent, Ariel Osiron, along with our I-24 News Senior Defense correspondent, Jonathan Raghive. Thank you both for joining me. Ariel, as we were just listening to your report about these top leaders hiding everywhere, but Gaza, really, when it comes to it. And so I'm curious, when Hamas says they're going to completely eliminate Hamas, they're going in, they're targeting some of these minor leaders in the Gaza Strip, but it seems like some of these operations might have to go abroad. Well, that isn't, I mean, if Israel reaches the decision that it's gonna take out the top, top leadership of Hamas, that will require targeted eliminations abroad. Indeed, Israel's tried this before, it hasn't with leaders who were released and exiled following the Gilad Shalit Prisoner Swap deal over a decade ago, but that's regarding the top leadership abroad. As for Hamas's top leadership within the Gaza Strip, the IDF has identified that many command centers are located underground under, the main command center of Hamas is under the biggest hospital in Gaza, the Shifa Hospital, as a matter of fact, in terms of the advancements of the forces, they're not too far away from there actually, even in what the IDF is saying. And so this is why a ground operation is required because the IDF could simply bomb all the schools, hospitals and mosques that it knows that Hamas commanders are hiding in bunkers that were placed under there, but it's not gonna do that because it does operate according to international law, even though the fact that they're placing their command centers under these civilian sensitive sites, that fact does make them legitimate military targets, but nonetheless, Israel believes and understands that in order to completely uproot the organization's leadership, they have to get on the ground to all these strategic command centers and that is indeed a challenging task to do and it is required to do so on the ground. You mentioned the civilians that are at risk in this and essentially we just saw a recent statement from one of the Hamas spokesperson stating that the civilians in Gaza, they're not claiming them as their responsibility, they said the civilians in Gaza are the United Nations responsibility. I think that's a very interesting statement for them to say and it really just proves their whole point that they do not care about their civilians. Yeah, this was in an interview with Musa Abomorzoq Hamas, key official, and basically he was asked, you have hundreds of kilometers of tunnels, why aren't you putting civilians there to hide? And Abomorzoq's response was telling, very indicative as to the strategy of the organization, of the terror group, saying that the tunnels are for us, they're for our fighters to protect them from Israeli airstrikes, from Israeli forces. As for the civilian population, that's not on us, that's on the UN, that's on Israel as their responsibility as an occupying force even though Israel disengaged from Gaza in 2005. So it's legal obligations while they may stand in the West Bank are irrelevant to the Gaza Strip. And this once again proves to us that not only Hamas are using the local population, civilian population in Gaza as human shields, but rather they simply don't care and aren't providing any safety, any shelter for them. All the cement and building materials that have gone in to the Gaza Strip rather than rebuild it, has gone to build Hamas's underground city, which is not for the entry of Gaza civilians. And what is the United Nations expected to do anyways, to look after these civilians? I mean, we were just talking about a report yesterday seeing how these Palestinian civilians, these Gazins ransacked the United Nations aid warehouse. So they can't even protect their own aid warehouse, how are they supposed to protect the civilians? That is a very big concern and we're starting to hear more and more calls by officials in the Gaza Strip, many of them in bodies that are run and controlled by Hamas, albeit, however, there are starting to warn of different critical material that is starting to run out. For Hamas, it's not running out. They have depots of stockpiles of whatever they need, whether it's fuel, medical, supplies, or ammunition and other weapons. But as for the civilians, the situation above ground for the civilian population, that is deteriorating. And as these convoys today, the biggest convoy, aid convoy so far, 80 trucks is expected to enter, about close to half of that, has so far entered following inspection also by Israeli forces. But yes, once the material goes in, there isn't really any assurances that they will make it to the civilians who desperately need it. And this also has the international community concerned, especially the United States, warning of chaos and lawlessness, a total collapse of Hamas rule in terms of the different ministries and running the day-to-day that is expected to collapse in the immediate future and that could have dire ramifications, not only for the civilian population of Gaza, but also could challenge a lot Israel's operation on the ground. Meanwhile, we mentioned how the idea of continuing to go into the Gaza Strip, going to these tunnels, take out any of the leaders in the Gaza Strip. It's not just the Gaza Strip, right, Jonathan? We also saw last night their activity in the West Bank as well, destroying one of the Hamas leaders' houses, demolishing it in the West Bank. So that's another field that they're trying to gain control of. Yeah, and there are various fields. There's the Gaza field, which of course currently is the main one. There's the Lebanon border, where every day we see incidents happening, still under a certain threshold and not a full-on war between Israel and Hezbollah, but Hezbollah is constantly harassing Israel on the border. There's the West Bank. There's Yemen, which we saw at least one, if not two UAVs fired towards Israel today. So various, various arenas all around Israel, which the idea has to take care of. You mentioned the threshold that we're seeing on the border. As you said, for the past three weeks now, we continue to see some firing back and forth. When does it break that threshold? When does it become more serious? It depends on how intense the fire is. It depends on how long the range of the rockets is. It depends on the number of casualties, because Israel has been able to basically avoid casualties. Apart from, I think it was in the first week, there were a few civilian victims, Israeli victims. There were soldiers and even a civilian that was killed on the border. But that's it, because there's still, if we would have said this a month ago, that constant anti-tank fire towards Israel is under the threshold, we would be crazy. But of course, everything changed now. As long as this continues to be, again, it's up to Hezbollah to decide at the moment, because Israel is constantly, is currently focused on Gaza. But as long as this continues to be anti-tank fire towards military installations on the border themselves, I think that would be under the threshold. If we start to see large barrages of rockets, which Hezbollah obviously is able to do that, towards Haifa, maybe even further afield towards central Israel, perhaps trying to invade by land, that would be over the threshold. We don't know where Hezbollah is heading. I don't know if Hezbollah itself knows where it's heading. We only know that the Tchasa Nasrallah is meant to speak on Friday. Will he say what their plans are? Will he not say it? We do not know. At least for now, if it stays like this, then Israel, for the moment, has an interest of keeping that specific arena on low fire as much as possible. But having said all that, if we've learned anything from October 7, it's the fact that Israel cannot live with such threats so close to its borders. Now Israel is taking care of Hamas sooner or later. Israel will have to take care of Hezbollah because we saw how dangerous a situation is. And everyone knows that Hezbollah is the greater military strength when it comes to that senior defense correspondent Jonathan Raghav, Middle East correspondent R.L.O. Saran, thank you for breaking down all of these ongoing developments when it comes to the war here in Israel. Now, for weeks now, Israeli News Channel 12 has followed families of the missing and kidnapped as they work tirelessly to find any information they can about their loved one's fate and advocating for those held hostage by Hamas in Gaza to be brought home. Here's more about some of the victim's harrowing stories in this report. The seventh floor of this prestigious Tel Aviv Tower looks like any other office. But the employees here are people whose worlds were turned upside down in the blink of an eye. On that blood-stained Shabbat, the people closest to them in the world were kidnapped by Hamas to Gaza. Since then, they've been alternating between despair and hope as they search for every scrap of information they can find out about their loved ones. Journalists were with them at the family's headquarters, demonstrations, ceremonies, and meetings, all for one goal, to bring the hostages home. My name is Merav Lishem Gonen, and I'm the mother of Romy Gonen. Romy was at the party on Saturday morning. At 10.15, I had my last conversation with her. I spoke to her, and she said, Mom, I think I'm going to die. I told her, you're not going to die, you're not. Romy, you're not going to die, you're going to live. We're going to get you out of there. I told her, Romy, I love you. Always remember this. I love you. You are a beloved girl. Then I said to her, Romy, then I heard her say hello. Mom, and that's it. And she didn't say anything anymore. The families of the kidnapped headquarters was established by volunteers as a small support group, but found itself replacing the state and becoming the most important organization in the fight for the hostages' return. I'm Natalia Benzvi, the mother of Sagiv Benzvi. My son, Sagiv, was kidnapped to Gaza, and the last time I spoke with him was on Saturday at 6.36 in the morning. At 9.42, the last signal was from Jabalia. That's when they took him, and my heart fell. When was the last time you saw him? Friday night, you said, Mom, I'm going out. I didn't want him to leave. I said, what, aren't you tired of parties already? You've done it all. I'm going out. I'm going out. I'm going out. I'm going out. I'm going out. I'm going out. Are you tired of parties already? You've done it all. If something happens to Sagiv, I will not live. I will not live for one second in this world, one second. Do you have any other children, grandchildren? I love my children. My children and my grandchildren are a great light in my life. But I will not forgive myself. I am his mother, and I did not bring him home safely. One of the most important things in our family is Friday night dinner. And Omer never misses a Friday night dinner, even on the day he went to this damn festival, before the whole family sat together. It's an unbearable pain. There are five of us, but now I realize that there are only four standing here. With Omer in the photo, he must be returned. He must come back. 21-year-old Omer Shemto from Herzliya is the youngest of Malachi and Shelley Shemto's three children. Now at least 240 people remain kidnapped, held captive in Gaza by Hamas terrorists, and the IDF is continuing to try and find out more information about those that are captive as they continue their ground operation in the Gaza Strip. All of these latest developments. Now on the 25th day of the war here in Israel, here on I-24 News, we will continue to break down all of the latest developments on all of the fronts and how it's impacting not only Israel, but the entire Middle East region and everywhere around the world. We're going out for a quick break, but stay with us. And the war with Hamas continues. We bring you first-hand testimonies from the front lines, from those who survived, and all the records of the atrocities by Hamas. Follow us as Israel fights terror from the south and north. Get the inside scoop on what's going on. Only on I-24 News. Only in a state of war. This is a very active scene, and we need to get in the car as we're talking. More than 100 soldiers and civilians have been kidnapped. Help us, we don't want to do 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. There are phrases you know from where you come from. Look here. And the package for when. And loads you already know where you're going. Send international loads to your people at NRD. Access our website. Recargas.altis.com.gov. Select loads and type the number you want to place the load. Also, they receive double the balance in 8 dollars or more. Welcome to this breaking news edition of I-24 News. As we dive into the latest developments of the war here in Israel, I'm Nicole Zadik live in Tel Aviv. The commanding officer of the Southern Command has now ordered troops to go into the Gaza Strip, releasing a powerful message of strength to his troops. This powerful message comes as Israel continues to strike hard in the Gaza Strip, destroying some 300 Hamas targets in the past day, including rocket launch sites, tunnel entrances, and Hamas military compounds. The IDF eliminated another Hamas commander, Asin Abu-Ajina, who was responsible for organizing the October 7th attack in two of the southern Israeli communities. The IDF is also targeting terror cells in the West Bank, demolishing the home of Saleh al-Awari, deputy head of Hamas's political bureau, and de facto leader of Hamas in the West Bank. As troops go deeper into Gaza, Israel successfully rescued their first hostage, Private Auri Megadish, returned home to her family after being held captive in Gaza for more than three weeks. At least 240 hostages still remain in the hands of Hamas terrorists, including roughly 30 children, as the IDF continues to gather intel on the kidnap. Meanwhile, in the North, the IDF continues to hit Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, following strikes on northern Israel, as the IDF promises to monitor all fronts in this war. Quite a lot of developments on this 25th day of the war here in Israel, what we want to begin in the South, where our correspondent Pierre Kloschenler is standing by near the border with Gaza up here. We continue to see the IDF striking hard in the Gaza Strip, sending in more troops, saying that they really are prepared for this continued war effort. What are you seeing down there? Well, we're not seeing much because it's the fog of war, but we hear a lot. We hear the roar of fighter jet planes from the Israeli Air Force. We hear the booms of the outgoing shells of the Israeli artillery. But we cannot show you what's going on simply because it's a closed military area. What we know is what we get from the IDF spokesperson unit, dozens of scores of terrorists eliminated this morning. Overnight, 300 targets stricken by the Israeli Army from the air, from the ground and from the sea. What we know is that the commander of a battalion in the northern Gaza Strip in the Betlahia village, which has been invested by the Israeli Army, has been eliminated. It was the operator of the massacres that happened in October 7 in two localities along the northern security fence facing the Gaza Strip. We know also from the message of the general of the southern front that there is great resolve and determination to reach victory over Hamas. You heard this Churchillian speech. And in the meantime, there is a trickle in inverted coma of rocket strikes from the north to the south of the Israeli territory bordering the Gaza Strip. There's been also two launching of once a drone or a few drones and once a ground-to-ground surface missile from the Houthi in Yemen, both were intercepted, one by the Israeli air force over the Red Sea and another one by the Arrow anti-missile defense system. First time it's been used during this war over the Red Sea as well. A lot of activity, as you said, a lot of defensive activities as well. And it's going on. It's going on with more and more intensity. The Interior Ministry affiliated to Hamas in the Gaza Strip is reporting that fighting is occurring on the outskirts of Gaza City on Salahadin access and close to Arashid Road which is a central access inside Gaza City. Our correspondent, Pierre Kloschenler, thank you for that updated coverage on what's happening in the Gaza Strip right now. Now I want to bring in my guests in studio. I'm joined by Iran Etzion, former deputy national security adviser and former head of policy planning in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as Yaniv Cohen Aviad, former analyst for the Israeli Sinbet Security Forces. Thank you both so much for joining me. Iran, let's begin with you as we were just speaking to our correspondent who is in the south right now. What do you think about these increased clashes that we're seeing in the Gaza Strip? As the IDF says, we're going in. We're going to keep ramping up activity and we're going to win. However, it's going to be a long journey. It's going to be difficult and tiresome. Yes. Well, we don't know enough about the real nature of the operation, nor are we capable at this point to assess the linkage or the relation between the strategic goals of the war as defined by the cabinet and the actual IDF operations, ground operations at least, at this point. We simply don't know enough. What we see so far is that there is penetration from several different points into northern Gaza and closing in on Gaza City. Obviously, fighting within Gaza City itself, a very densely populated urban area with allegedly multiple tunnels underneath is going to be extremely demanding. If indeed that is the plan, that is what we'll see next. In terms of international legitimacy, time is running out for Israel. There's more and more criticism in the American press and elsewhere about the number of civilians that are killed, 8,000 if I'm not mistaken, including 3,000 children. Israel is approaching a point when it will have to decide to what extent it wants to continue its current course or to enter it. If their main goal is completely eliminating Hamas, they're just getting started with some of those main efforts. It's a question what the main goal is. There are several interpretations and several manifestations of that goal are the total elimination of Hamas which is completely unrealistic and not viable to severely curtailing Hamas's military capabilities, which is more realistic and indeed is going to take months. But exactly how do you do that and to what degree do you have to penetrate Gaza in terms of ground operations are all questions that we simply don't know yet because Israel justifiably so is not revealing its operational plans. What happens next continues to be one of the main questions that people are asking. What happens next in the Gaza Strip? I mean, Yaniv, for the past years we've seen the whole idea of containment, that we can contain Hamas within the Gaza Strip, but it seems like now more and more people are coming out against that whole ideology. Yeah. Well, I think that the containment perception has quite collapsed after 7th of October. We are dealing with an enemy who his purpose is to destroy us. He's not thinking rational. We thought he's thinking rational. He doesn't really care about his people and their prosperity. This is part of the things we will have to change in mind and perception. The main goal of this war, and it was declared officially, is the destruction of Hamas and the Jihad. All their capabilities, especially the military ones. But it is not enough. We have to think about the day after. We have to think about our policy. The main thing is no more deals, no more agreements, no more containment. We always have to hold the initiative at ours. We have to initiate everything and not let them get stronger because once we let them they always think of their main goal. And their main goal is to destroy us, nothing else. And we have to take this in mind. And when we talk about what happens next clearly with all eyes from the international perspective on the Gaza Strip the international eyes will continue to be on the Gaza Strip following this and following exactly who runs it and who continues to look after the Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip. Yes, again, I think we don't know enough. The subtext of your question presupposes that there is a situation which Israel has already taken control of the entire Gaza Strip, has eliminated, decimated all Hamas military capabilities has annihilated Hamas civilian and military political rule of the Gaza Strip. And now the question is who will take it from there? I'm not sure we'll get to that stage at all. And if so it will take months, if not years. But yes, you're right, if at some point we do get to this stage there's going to be a question of who exactly will be willing if any, to replace Israel as the occupier of Gaza, something that Israel did for 40 years and then decided to change course. And unless we have very close coordination with Egypt, with the U.S., with several other countries that might under very, very particular circumstances, political circumstances, diplomatic circumstances be able to somehow be part of a political plan for the so-called day after, the planning of which needs to start yesterday and I'm not sure has started at all unless we do that, we're going to be sucked in into reoccupation of Gaza, which runs completely against all our national interests. I want to continue to talk about exactly what was happening before in the Gaza Strip. As you mentioned just the intel that we continue to have and the questions that continue to remain, not only going after, that obviously Israel will have a lot of questions to answer for, but October 7th definitely posed just a main big question how did this happen? And now we're learning more information that security forces specifically the former defense minister back in 2016 published something to the government saying Hamas is a major threat, they have plans and they plan to come into these Israeli communities, kidnap people outlining everything that happened in 2023 back in 2016. Why was nothing done? This is the $1 million question but still there are some facts we have to state. The security system did think about such a scenario not in such numbers, but I remind you after the 2014 operation the Tsukaitan, there was a very clear scenario about attacking tunnels. The security system did do some things, we did build an obstacle, we did build a fence quite of a clever one which are functionately now we know wasn't enough there was an elimination of the tunnels but there was a conception was a deep conception that this is enough that the obstacle will guard us. This is a very great matter to deal with now and we have to change our perspective looking up to the future. I'm curious, Iran, what's your take? I would divide it into essentially two parts, one is our concept and the other is the enemy's concept, at least the way we perceived it and still perceive it. In terms of our concept we believed multiple Israeli governments, especially the Israeli government believed that we can shove away the Israeli-Palestinian question at large and specifically the Gaza question and not deal with it in terms of conflict resolution, but rather in terms of conflict management. We entered into this routine whereby we essentially accepted Hamas as the sovereign not state sovereign but non-state actor as a sovereign within pre-67 borders that we essentially allowed and even cheered to govern 2.3 Gaza residents and whenever we needed to kind of nudge it back into the agreed course, we did it through those so-called rounds of violence every couple of years and this was the status quo and after each round of violence we went back to the so-called status quo and we now realize that there was an evolution, it was not a status quo and the evolution was in terms of Hamas's capabilities Hamas's intentions Hamas's understanding of our weaknesses, our vulnerabilities both strategically internally, socially, politically and militarily, operationally in terms of defense and all of that across all those domains so we were under a certain illusion a certain misconception Hamas unfortunately was not and read us better than we read it and then the question is why did Hamas decide what was exactly Hamas's strategic calculation that led to the decision to launch this strike at this particular point in time and here there are several possible propositions we don't know yet one has to do with the internal situation in Israel and the fact that we underwent ten months of excruciating internal crisis that exposed our vulnerability as a nation, as a society and was a temptation for Hamas for Hezbollah for others to attack us that's number one. Number two is the approaching so-called Saudi deal trilateral U.S. Saudi Israeli deal. That from Hamas perspective was possibly a threat both in terms of Saudi entering into a more considerable role in the region in a way that threatens Iran threatens potentially Hamas and Islamic Jihad's interests but also in terms of kind of pushing further away and further down the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the international stage which was the whole strategic frame that Prime Minister Netanyahu built from the Abraham Accords through the Saudi deal this alleged understanding that we can strike normalization with Arab countries and quote-unquote resolve the Israeli Arab conflict without touching the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which from Hamas perspective from an overall Palestinian perspective was a grave danger. So there was a mixture of all of those possibly plus more operational considerations looking at certain regiments that were shifted from the Gaza border to the West Bank for various kind of coincidental considerations. Certainly a lot of questions that will continue to be looking at as the days, weeks, months unfold following this war and really the aftermath that did happen on October 7th that's what's most important to focus on why this war is even taking place right now and it's because of the brutal attack on the southern Israeli communities on October 7th. I want to bring in now a survivor from one of those attacks, Yuli Ben-Ami a survivor from Kibbutz Bari. Yuli, thank you so much for joining us right now 25 days after that initial attack. I can't imagine what you've been through for the past three and a half weeks can you tell us your story? Let's go back to October 7th. Yes, so I woke up at 6 in the morning from bombing and syrians and then at 6 and a half we got a message that someone got into the Kibbutz and even Kibbutz Bari and then we started to hear Yel screaming in Arabic and a lot of shooting and I spoke with my father my mother and then at 7 20 in the morning they told me that there are stories outside the house and that they are trying to get in at 9 and a half they already told me that they got into the house and that they are breaking everything and at 10 in the morning we got a message from a father that said that they are in the shelter and that they are going to take them one hour later we got a photo of my father in Gaza and we didn't know nothing about my mother until one week later that we got a picture and a video from the 7th of October when the terrorists take her to a someplace the only thing we know is that there are both in Gaza we don't know their physical condition I just know that my mom she sick she needs medication I don't know how much longer she can survive without those medication right now we don't have nothing about them the Hamas is not cooperating and he gave us names or something so we don't know how are they what about from the Israeli government or Israeli officials have you been speaking to them and have they been updating you on any of their efforts to try and rescue your loved ones yes of course for now what the government told me that they are kidnapped they don't know where or how they are because nobody told them or us the Hamas is keeping it information for themselves as you continue as you recount your own story I'm curious about the emotions that you were feeling on that day I know as we learn more about the details of this attack we continue to learn more about the horror stories but as you were experiencing it did you have any idea that that's what was happening around you we have no clue we didn't know the whole that our people in my community in my kibbutz have true I mean we just learned it later the massacre that they did in my kibbutz the number of people that are gone the number of people that we don't know nothing about them even if they kidnapped or even if they did we still trying to understand everything we still hear stories about how our people died how our people murdered and it's hopeful and in that time we only felt scared but we didn't know how much it was dangerous for us and now as you continue to speak to other members of your community as you continue to work through this grief this pain how are you guys coming together and supporting each other right now I think we are a very strong community we are here for each other we help each other we have almost everything we need and what we don't have someone help us to get so I feel like my community is just get stronger and stronger everyday and we really love each other and we here to continue to do what we gotta do to just live and be stronger from the situation it's a beautiful message of strength that so many people need right now I'm curious how you're feeling after the news yesterday that the Israeli army was able to rescue one soldier from the Gaza Strip what emotions did you feel seeing that and knowing that your loved ones are still there and I felt happy for the family we feel happy for everyone that got out alive or we don't want to think about it but we we feel the hope and the strength and we trust our army to bring my father my parents save my life and healthy when you see your parents for the first time what do you expect to do what emotions, what are you waiting for to feel to hide them I really miss my parents I just miss them just feel them with me hide them and them, my love and my strength and I want them to know that we are here for them waiting for them and love them and we are stronger and here waiting just to hide them well thank you so much Yuli Ben-Ami for sharing your story and for sharing the story of your parents as well we so appreciate you coming on here and speaking to us about really what happened at Kibbutz Berry back on October 7th thank you now as we were just hearing from Yuli Ben-Ami her parents are just some of the 240 hostages that remain in the hands of Hamas terrorists now 25 days into the war since that initial massacre on October 7th the Israeli army continuing to go deeper into the Gaza Strip continuing with their operation both on land, air and sea as they continue to fight Hamas terrorists these are just some of the images that we continue to see out of the Gaza Strip daily as they are striking hard and Hamas continues to strike back Red Alert Sirens continuing to blare throughout Israel sending thousands of residents all throughout Israel constantly running into their bomb shelters into their safe place with their families for more than three and a half weeks now this has been the state here in Israel as the Israeli military continues to fight for its existence to defend its borders against those Hamas terrorists who committed that atrocious attack on October 7th the ongoing developments of the war continuing to be felt and we continue to break down everything on all of the borders as Israel continues to defend all of its borders we're going out for a quick break here on I-24 news is officially in a state of war this is a very active scene and we need to get in the car as we're talking within a hundred soldiers and civilians have been kidnapped 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 there have been countless memorable moments broadcasting with I-24 news in the past six years but for me the one that stands out the most was the first time that I had ever personally heard a rocket siren sounding in Tel Aviv and at that moment we were live on air in studio I will never forget the moment when a senior producer said to me in my ear the sirens are sounding in Tel Aviv the control room is going to the shelter with me in the studio at the time were Michael Herzog a former Brigadier General today the Israeli Ambassador to the United States and Arsena Strafsky an international human rights lawyer and their responses were completely different Michael Herzog was calm and composed and on the other hand Arsena Strafsky was trying to phone his family and check in to make sure that his loved ones were okay the camera that normally faces us was hoisted from above there was an overhead shot of the three of us in the studio you could see colleagues going to the shelter if you looked at the glass behind the studio and obviously we were in contact with our team on the ground our reporters in Ashkelon and all the witnesses that we were speaking to during that time when rockets are coming towards a residential area they don't distinguish between race, religion political views cultural views they just intend to harm civilians and that moment being in studio bringing those interceptions overhead was the most real coverage I've ever been involved in welcome back to this breaking edition of I-24 News as we continue to break down the latest developments of the war here in Israel specifically keeping an eye on our southern front as the commander of the southern command unit says a strong message to his troops operating in the Gaza border they're going in strong and although it's going to be a long and tiresome effort they are going to come out of this war with Hamas victorious after this strong message we continue to see a lot of action happening in the Gaza Strip we want to cross live now to our correspondent Pierre Kloschenler who is live near the Gaza border in southern Israel right now Pierre what can you tell us about the latest developments from where you are right now you heard the message of the southern front Yaron Finkelman who spoke in a very churchilian way we shall fight in the alleyways and the narrow streets we shall fight in the tunnels you're the generation of victory everyone in Israel is looking at you everyone amongst the people who suffered the massacre of October 7 is watching you we are together to win etc etc now the question is how long is it going to take and everybody speaks of weeks and months possibly there are intense fighting right now according to the IDF spokesperson unit of clashes close-range clashes between Hamas terrorists and Israeli forces on the ground the interior ministry of Hamas in Gaza is saying that there are clashes on the outskirts of Gaza city if that is true that means that the Israeli army the ground maneuver is progressing quite rapidly from north to south because Gaza city would be about 12 kilometers away from Bet Hanun and Bet Lahia the two villages on the northern tip of the Gaza Strip where the ground offensive started we hear that anti-tank squads have been eliminated anti-tank position neutralized launching pads of rockets neutralized we hear also that there have been overnight over 300 targets that have been neutralized there is an intense effort to intensify and at the same time to neutralize as many terrorists as possible and the IDF at the beginning at around 10am this morning spoke of numerous Hamas terrorists killed now they are speaking about scores of Hamas terrorists killed this morning so heavy fighting going on and in the meantime as usual a trickle in inverted comma of rocket fire from the northern tip of the Gaza Strip to the southern tip of the Gaza Strip on Israeli territory on localities that have been basically abandoned by their residents because of the massacres of October 7 our correspondent Pierre Kloschenler reporting from Israel's southern border with Gaza thank you as he is speaking right now in fact we continue to see rockets from the Gaza Strip targeting central Israel we are seeing red alerts in some major cities including Herzliya including the northern Tel Aviv Ramat Gan, Ranana all throughout central Israel red alerts blaring through those cities sending thousands of residents to run into their bomb shelters run into their safe places it's about 2.30 in the afternoon Israel time so this is happening in the middle of the day those long range rockets fired from Gaza once again targeting central Israel 25 days into the war now this is what we continue to see these developments happening from the Gaza border we also have to focus on the hostage situation what's happening with 240 hostages still held by Hamas terrorists I want to bring in my guest in studio right now I'm joined by Rami Sherman Rami you yourself served in the IDF you played a role in the 1976 operation in Tebe we're fraying more than 100 hostages that were taken kidnapped hijacked from a flight taken to Uganda what a critical operation I'm curious what you've learned from that 1976 operation and what you can tell us about what's happening now for a start anything to talk about something which happened 47 years ago I would like to say a few things for all the brutal massacre that happened in 7 of October I'm standing with all the family I've been living in the kibbutz all my life and understand so much I got a lot of friends in the kibbutz team some in Sderot I'm standing with all of you I feel how difficult it would be to be back home there is no home I'm standing with all the soldiers who kill all the young people and I would like to say one thing about the hostages I remember the eyes of the hostages when they went out for the terminal in Tebe the fear was on the eyes we couldn't believe that it happened but after 9 hours all the county they wake up to a miracle the airport in on those days called lord Gourion crowded by thousands of people we stand together and we were happy I dream every day that it will happen this miracle again for all the hostages for everyone from the babies for the young children for the women for all of them to be back home to their family that before any other world I can say I dream day and night about this picture which I remember from on Tebe night force of July and after seeing that experiencing it playing such a crucial role in getting those hostages back safely what did you feel when you saw that this happened again obviously in a different realm but we're still now left with 240 Israelis hostage by terrorists 40 years later I'm a second generation of holocaust survivors I was born 500 meters from the Syrian border like the Gaza Strip almost every week the Kibbutz bomb by Syrians I grew up and then children out and many days in the shelter one important thing keep the people my parents there we felt that the country stood behind us they gave not very much on the 50 on the 60 but the atmosphere on the country was so much to support everyone who decide to build his house on the border and that give power and that give us me personally understanding that we have to take the chance to fly 9 hours to unknown country unknown situation very little intelligent for one reason for saving life to see life is important and to give might be our life my life for other it was so clear on 76 for everyone it's not personally everyone felt the same we are going to unknown situation maybe not all of us will be back but for important reason to save life of innocent people something interesting I want to point out that happened in 1976 with the operation and with the hostages after two days we saw the non-Israelis those citizens were released whereas then you had to go in and rescue the Israeli citizens who were still being held hostage many people are worried that that same situation could happen with the hostages here where Hamas terrorists are going to start distinguishing between anyone who has dual citizenship anyone who is non-Israeli and the Israeli Jews 76 was a selection for non-Jews citizens from different countries and Jews from Israel which called the Israelis and Jews from other countries was a selection and it happened only 30 years after the Holocaust period many survivors were still alive and today when I hear it's a different way different selection but it's still a selection and I asked myself what is my position to that situation and I'm not sure if I very clear to myself but I said everyone that we could save their life that was the most important it's very difficult very much different 76 all the hostages hold in one big hall here unknown situation okay yesterday we were lucky and we were for some hours happy but it's one from 240 and we have to remember the most still underground holding by different militia who knows what the future tell us it's absolutely complicated so for everyone the other matter they hold a double passport American, Germany whatever for me the life it's the most important and I hope something will happen but I would like to more I think Israel standing in one of the most important point in their existence not because a military no doubt Israel will win the situation no doubt whatever cost we can't but the question is what will happen in the society in the civilian society what happened in the 7th of October it shake the belief of the country that they have a security force IDF and government which standing in the front and that was broken in a different way I never thought that that will be refugees in Israel in the kibbutz where I live there is more than 50 refugees from the north from the south in my house people slept on the floor and it was okay but it always remind me what happened in Europe when refugees, when Jews moving from one city one village to another to find place a safe place for their children what happened here in a state where we thought to the 7th of October it's the safest place for Jews who choose to live here and it was shake very strongly today and I hope we will know how to together each one of the civilian here the Jewish civilian should take part and take the country up from that bloodshed and sadness that we are still in and it continues to feel the ramifications of it but I think you bring up the best part of the Israelis coming together being with each other I think that's the most important Rami Sherman thank you so much for your insight into all of the developments happening here in Israel I'm so happy that you gave me a chance to share my thoughts in two minutes I would like if I can say one or two sentences we should stay together not only the Jews here in Israel all the Jews around the world all the Israeli around the world we should understand that we are in a chance to change our thought what is mean togetherness and Rami you bring up the great point exactly you're leading into our next segment about exactly what is happening here around the world and a lot of the hate that we are actually seeing targeting some of these Jews around the world Hamas supporters continue to target Jews on American college campuses and it's becoming a disturbing but unfortunately common sight in recent weeks as polls show a portion of the younger generation actually support the evil attacks on October 7th my 24 news reporter R.L. Levin Waldman takes a look at the anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist hate that has been brewing in universities madness and moral degeneracy across the world people uniting in hatred of Jews everywhere all settlers and all settlements are legitimate military targets here at the University of Pennsylvania calls for genocide Jews assaulted at the University of Berkeley Jews barricaded in a library at New York's Cooper Union as Hamas supporters try to break down the door yesterday on a Cornell online discussion forum someone threatened to slit the throats of Jews Jewish students were scared to leave their rooms and the kosher dining hall was locked down last week a mob of anti-Israel trapped Jewish students in the Cooper Union library American universities once centers of learning converted into factories for hatred my Jewish sisters and brothers and I are on the receiving end of death threats from our peers undergraduates who have filed reports about these incidents have been left with no emotional support no feedback and no consequences for the perpetrators of these hateful actions a shocking Harvard Harris poll this month shows half of Americans under the age of 35 support Hamas's crimes against humanity on October 7th the White House has been forced to act setting a two week deadline to draft policy to combat calls for genocide from America's thought leaders there's no place for hate in America and we condemn any anti-Semitic threat or incident in the strongest in the strongest terms we're also closely monitoring and concerned by the reports of anti-Semitic threats the trend is global in London weekly celebratory rallies have drawn tens of thousands out to support Hamas we've seen now tens of thousands of people take to the streets following the massacre of Jewish people the single largest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust chanting for the erasure of Israel from the map to my mind there's only one way to describe those marches they are hate marches still others in Berlin where plans to murder the entire Jewish race were written only 80 years ago really we feel very very safe in the past two weeks this feeling has been somewhat shattered we see a lot of the actions that are happening across the city in Israel's moment of weakness the people of the world are bearing their fangs for Jewish blood once again the pro-Palestinian and Hamas protests that we are seeing really around the world time and time again a lot of the time they are fueled by misinformation to talk more about this I'm joined by Daniel Pomerance legal expert and political analyst as well as CEO of reality check Daniel thanks so much for joining us thanks for having me Nicole when we see these scenes happening time and time again on American college campuses yet alone around the world there are a lot of this misinformation people unaware of what they're truly coming out and supporting yeah and it's not just at the student level you hear often times experts speak say things that are just flatly untrue there's one expert I often listen to who's just an expert at numbers and statistics and I used to follow him for events all over the world and he got on his podcast and he said well you know Gaza is the most densely populated place on earth which actually isn't true the density of Gaza is about 15,000 people per square mile Tel Aviv is 21,000 New York is 29,000 Paris is 65,000 it's nowhere even close another myth that comes up is that Gaza is lacking humanitarian supplies and this is a myth that has made it not just to experts but to the UN itself and to leaders of countries all over the world of course there is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza but there's no lack of humanitarian supplies it's just not getting to where it's needed which means that we have a problem which is that if you give more supplies but supplies isn't the problem that won't solve the problem so what exactly would be the humanitarian crisis that we're seeing? the humanitarian crisis is that Hamas which is the terror organization that rules Gaza takes almost everything for themselves a good example is we just heard a bunch of booms right now those are rockets over 8,000 have been fired at Israel so far now on October 11th Gaza's energy ministry announced that they've run out of fuel for their power plant every single one of those 8,000 rockets is powered by fuel we saw satellite images of Hamas's fuel tanks 500,000 liters dedicated entirely to Hamas's military machine and the same is true of food, medical supplies there's of course the Hamas headquarters that was built in the basement of the Shifa hospital all of this is taken from Palestinian people and that creates two problems that the world's now facing one is that if you bring in more humanitarian aid the people who need it for the most part are not going to get it but that's only the first problem the second problem is that all that humanitarian aid including food water including fuel is being used not can be used not would be used is being used as we speak right now we hear those booms to attack us which means these attacks are happening mostly because of Hamas's theft but also partly because of our naivete and I say ours because it's a naivete on the part of the world and sadly Israel has also been party to that same naivete supplying the very tools that are now being used to attack us I'm curious also to hear your legal expertise after we spoke we heard from a Hamas member in an interview saying that you know why are you using all these underground tunnels for your own members rather than helping your own civilians and his response was that these underground tunnels are for our own members the innocent Ghazan civilians are not our responsibility they're the responsibility of the United Nations yeah that's that's factually untrue and and it just points to the complete gap in understanding between the international community and the welfare state that is not only Gaza but the Palestinian Authority as a whole and this idea that the role of the government is to wage war against Israel and as President Biden put it not for dignity or independence for the Palestinian people but to annihilate Israel and to murder Jews whereas the responsibility for the welfare of the Palestinian people lies with the United Nations of course no governing body can abdicate responsibility for its own people but Hamas has and says that quite clearly and when we talk about the humanitarian crisis that we're seeing I want to remind our viewers that you wrote a fantastic article continuing to debunk a lot of these myths that Hamas continues to continue to put out and the media unfortunately picks them up one of them also being the fact that three weeks into the war it's not possible for these Ghazans to evacuate to the south and to help this humanitarian cause they're saying it's too densely populated oh yeah that's you know that's a common one I actually remember when I was in the store to usually I really like you know the comedian he once he showed a picture this was in a Gaza war a few years ago he showed a picture and he said Israeli say people in Gaza should evacuate and he goes the big punchline where are they going to go there's nowhere for them to go okay he's making a joke but it's untrue and it's just such a horrific thing to say Israel risks Israeli lives in order to announce this tax in advance and give people in Gaza a chance to evacuate in this particular case Gaza City is not Gaza Gaza City which is the evacuation zone just like Mexico City isn't Mexico Gaza City isn't Gaza Gaza City makes up about 12% of the land area of Gaza so the question where can they go the answer is the other almost 90% of Gaza now it's notable that the Arab countries surrounding have universally refused to accept any any refugees or evacuees from from Gaza but even so there is a large area where people in Gaza can escape to and the amount of time and logistics involved is actually significantly better than many of the hurricanes and tsunamis that we've seen lately residents have had much more time and also the number of people who need to evacuate is much less than than many hurricanes in recent years have required so logistically it's absolutely possible to do but the problem of course is that Hamas which has an interest Hamas's only way to win here is to get the international pressure Israel to stop so they have been setting up roadblocks to prevent evacuations there's even reports of them firing on the evacuation routes they're doing everything they can to increase the civilian casualties because it's their only possible path to some sort of what they see as success in this and we continue to hear these these myths that you yourself are debugging with facts I'm curious moving forward how do we continue to fight the propaganda that Hamas can use to put out as this war rages on with persistence you just have to talk and talk and talk you know the statistic that you saw just a moment ago that about 50% of people under the age of 35 believe that what happened on October 7 was justified in light of what they see as problems in the Middle East in order to believe that you would have to be completely unaware of what actually happened and awareness is something that we can work on now there's some people out here out there who will never agree with you they have an agenda they're doing what psychologists call gas lighting that exists but there are many more people who just don't know and they're going to be swayed by whatever they hear the most of and I was really encouraged to see that Israelis now are taking a role that they've never taken before there's so much Israeli activity on the social media platforms and I've been beginning to speak to Israelis there's cultural differences and you're seeing this engagement that Israel has never had before the attitude in Israel was always sort of the world hates us we're on our own we'll just do it but the world doesn't hate us and we're not on our own and the way to preserve that is for us to communicate and I'm encouraged to see that we are doing that and I think as we go forward it's more and more important to continue to communicate because it's also likely that as the war continues it's going to shift against Israel it can and you know what we're seeing right now is is increasing pressure for a ceasefire and Hillary Clinton said yesterday that anyone who's asking for a ceasefire now doesn't understand Hamas because it's not a ceasefire it's not a ceasefire it's not a ceasefire it's not a ceasefire it's not a ceasefire it's not a ceasefire it's not a ceasefire