 Welcome to the special edition on the I-24 News to Eskima Telemethal, thanks for joining me. It is day 74 of war between Israel and Hamas, today being Tuesday, marked the first time in a week where rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip towards central Israel. At around 1pm local time, rocket alert warnings sounded in southern Tel Aviv, Jaffa, Batyam, Rishon Lezion, Kfar Chabad and Beit Dagan. Hamas claimed responsibility for firing the latest barrage, there were no direct hits or injuries reported. The recent rocket fire comes as the IDF and Shin Bet Security Agency announced that a Gaza man involved in transferring tens of millions of dollars to Hamas' military wing was killed in an airstrike. Meanwhile, two more IDF soldiers were killed as Gaza ground operation continues, bringing the death toll now to 131. One of the more pressing questions is the fact that while the operation on the ground is continuing in Gaza, we are still seeing some sort of skirmishes happening over Israel's northern border with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Is there likely, once there would be a truce with Gaza, what would that mean in terms of the northern border, because Israel's got enemies on both its north and its south and just getting rid of one seems to be sort of missing the point if it's not going to get rid of both? Exactly, Batya. Everyone is talking about ending the war, the conflict, the crisis in Gaza as it stands for itself. But there is a linkage with the northern front, with Hezbollah. Hezbollah started the skirmishes, the crisis, the clashes with Israel because they wanted to help their Palestinian brothers. They wanted to rush to help Hamas. And as long as there is no ceasefire in Gaza, there won't be any settlement, any solution vis-à-vis Hezbollah. I'm not sure that even if there is an end to the hostilities in Gaza, Hezbollah would agree to return to all the lines before this, October the 7th, but at least as long as the war in Gaza continues, then I don't see any settlement with Hezbollah. So these two fronts are linked and no one is talking about it. Now while the overall war, no doubt, is focused on the Gaza Strip, as war comes into more days and that edges into more months, it tends to shift focus as well. And in the most recent of days, we're seeing that focus being shifted down to the southern tip of Israel being the Red Sea, where shipping, major international shipping has been halted as a result of the Houthi rebels targeting areas in the Red Sea, but also targeting or supposedly targeting Israel as well from there. Well, the threat from Yemen by the Houthis is very serious. It's on, as a result of two approaches. One, the Houthis have been firing almost 100 missiles, rockets, and drones in the direction of Israel. Luckily enough, most of them, almost all of them were intercepted, mostly by Saudi Arabia and above all the United States. Only 10, 15 percent were intercepted by the Israeli Air Force, by F-35 warplanes and the air defenses, Aero and Iron Dane. So that's one threat. This is a lesser threat because the flying time from Yemen to Elat is anything between 40 minutes to three hours. It depends on the type of the vehicle which is being launched against Elat. So relatively, there is enough time for the alerts, for the alarms, and to intercept them, which that's what happened. But the bigger threat is to the shipping, to the shipping lanes leading to, first of all, to Elat, but also to the canal, to the Suez Canal. It's an Egyptian problem as well. And this is, as a threat, it's very serious because the aim might be to suffocate Israeli economy. 30 percent of Israeli cargo, Israeli goods, are coming through the straits of the Babel Mandem, either going to Elat or to the Mediterranean ports via the canal. So this is a major threat. Luckily enough for Israel, the international community is even more concerned because they are hitting international, on-international, in-international water. They are hitting international cargo, international boats, ships, Norwegians, Germans, British. And therefore, the United States is taking it very seriously, together with France, Britain, and maybe other nations will join. Well, on that point, will it likely shift international pressure on Israel? So far, we've seen a fortune of the international community condemning Israel for its war in Gaza, but also making sure that the humanitarian part of it is always at the full. Now we have an issue where, as you mentioned, international shipping is being threatened. Will that start releasing at least some of the pressure being put on Israel and more of the pressure being put on Iran? No. Well, there is a growing pressure on Iran. That's for sure, because Iran is behind the Houthis. And the international community, the U.S. Defense Secretary was just this week in Israel, and he said that Iran is behind it, and Iran has to stop its support for the Houthis' aggression. However, I don't think it would decrease the pressure, would release the pressure, on Israel, on the Gaza front. But it's very important that the United States is now trying to form an international and maritime task force, which would deal with the Houthis' threat against international shipping. Already the insurance went up by almost 300 percent. It's huge. Many, many companies are saying we are not going to sell near Yemen and not even via the canal. It's also a very strong threat against Egypt. I'm a bit puzzled that the Egyptians don't talk about it. One of their major revenues, economically speaking, is the canal. I still want to continue on the international front and update the audience that the United Nations Security Council is set to vote, at least in the recent hours, on another ceasefire resolution. That vote was delayed until Tuesday morning, New York, local time. What's different about this vote is that the postponement and the now revised text were done with the aim of getting the United States, Israel's closest ally, to abstain or vote yes on the resolution. In the past, the United States has vetoed these votes. The Arab-sponsored resolution is calling for a halt to hostilities in Gaza that would allow for urgently needed aid deliveries to reach a massive number of civilians. But this language is expected to be watered down to a suspension of hostilities or something possibly weaker to satisfy the Americans. And still with me, our guest in studio, I want to just get a comment before crossing to our correspondents that are across the country. Is this likely to be pushed through as an actual resolution, or will the United States continue to veto it even if the language is watered down? Well, it would be a disaster for Israeli strategy. If United States sustained or not vetoed the resolution, that would be a clear, clear signal to the Israeli government, enough is enough. You don't understand the hints which we have been sending you by U.S. Secretary, State Secretary Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd and Austin Lloyd and others saying, please be much more careful about your ground incursion, your ground war in Gaza. Please be much, much more sensitive to the human coast, the Palestinian coast, to the humanitarian environment. And therefore, I think Israel is reaching the point in which maybe even United States would say you are outstretching the envelope. It's too much. And therefore, Israel doesn't have all the time in the world as some of our generals, or even our cabinet minister, and especially Prime Minister Netanyahu, is talking about like the war can go on until Passover, which is April. No, it won't go until not until but because also there is the economic situation in Israel. How long can you hold the reservists in military duty? It's very, very problematic. And therefore, I think the signal that is coming from the UN Security Council is very, very worrying. And as I mentioned, that vote is set to happen in the next couple of hours. Obviously, we'll bring you the latest updates with that. Yossi Malman, stay with us. I do want to cross now live to our correspondent, Pierre Clashendl, who's standing by for us in southern Israel, more specifically in Ashkelon. Pierre, good afternoon to you and thank you for joining us. Rocket Alert sirens going off in central Israel for the first time in a week. What is the situation in the south? Well, there was a day of lull for the southern communities facing the Gaza Strip because for the past 24 hours, before the rocket launching on Tel Aviv, there was no rocket at all for 24 hours on any site on Israeli territory. So that was the first time ever in that war that for 24 hours, the southern communities of Israel facing the Gaza Strip had not received their server of rockets. Now it's been more than 24 hours now. It's 23, 26 hours that the southern communities haven't been targeted, which is a plus. And as a result, Ashkelon is a green area like the field around me, a green area, which means that all the schools, the kindergartens, primary schools, secondary schools are gradually opening their doors until the end of the week. So that's one of the very important elements you spoke about the economic life. Ashkelon was probably the hardest city in that round of fighting, in that war, with over 1100 rockets targeting the city. And that's a figure that I remember for about three weeks ago. So this is a hardest hit city in Israel. And the fact that school is going to be opening, at least it allows the mothers and the fathers who have not been enlisted in the army to work more because their kids won't be at home, won't be staying at home. And that's a very important point for this city of 130,000 inhabitants. Now regarding the offensive, it's going on everywhere. It's going on from the northern sector, the northern tip of the Gaza Strip in Atatra. For instance, we heard that the army was calming the area and found weapons depot in Sheikh Radoan as well. They found a workshop with hundreds of rockets ready to be launched. Jebalia and the northern outskirts of Gaza City fighting going on for almost three weeks now. Shejahia, a little town southeast of Gaza City fighting going on for at least two and a half weeks now. And in the area of Hanyunas and the central refugee camps of Direl Balak, Nusserat, and El Burej, also a lot of air force strikes, a lot of fights on the ground, notably on the access road that leads to Hanyunas from the north and also in the eastern outskirts of Hanyunas. And in Rafah also a strike on a building targeting the money man of Hamas, Supri Farawne, who was laundering money for the Hamas war efforts even during this war. That would allow the Hamas operatives to be paid their salaries, that would allow Hamas to buy weapons and munitions. So this is a very important target that was annihilated by the Israeli army in an air strike. And fighting goes on on almost every sector of the Gaza Strip. And Pierre, speaking of those targets, the Gaza health run ministry has just released the numbers that 19,667 Palestinians have been killed in the war since October 7th. Again, I'll stress to the audience that these numbers are not verified and the Hamas run health ministry does not distinguish between civilians and terrorists. But just from that 19,000, how many of them, even from a rough estimate, are likely to be terrorists and those that are non-combatants? Is there a massive disparity? No, there is no massive disparity according to the IDF estimates. Indeed, we are getting close to 20,000 fatalities in the Gaza Strip with over 50,000 wounded. The army does not deny those numbers. But they say that the ratio is about one to three, one terrorist for three civilians. Now, the army operates within international humanitarian law, it argues. Also, there are lawyers, experts on humanitarian law, that are accompanying every strike by the Israeli Air Force, for instance, to make sure that these strikes are compatible with international humanitarian law. But given that, it's a very difficult place to fight because Hamas fights in civilian clothes, Hamas uses civilian population and sensitive sites as human shields. Hospitals, yesterday a hospital was just taken over, the El-Aouda hospital. And on Saturday evening, another hospital fell into Israel's hands, the Kamal Adwan Hospital. They found tens of terrorists hiding in the hospital, among them from the Nurba elite unit of Hamas, among them people who participated to the massacres of October 7. Now, it's very difficult, especially now in the southern sector of the Gaza Strip, because 80%, if not more, of the total population of 2.2 million inhabitants of the whole Gaza Strip are crammed into half of it. That means almost 2 million people displaced, living in 180 meters square with no real protection. And Hamas launches rockets from safe zones. It's very, very difficult, very sensitive. And in addition, maybe 20% of the rockets that Hamas is launching on Israeli territory falls into the Gaza Strip and brings about more fatalities. Right, and as mentioned, obviously, none of these numbers exactly verify, but you can see just the complexities in terms of the warfare. Our correspondent, Pierre Klushenda, reporting from Southern Israel. Thank you very much for that. And moving from Ashkelon to Israel's very southern front, as we were speaking about briefly here in studio, the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have escalated attacks on tankers, cargo ships, as well as other vessels in the Red Sea. Now, the attacks are imperiling a transit route that carries up to 12% of all global trade. As a result, the United States on Monday announced the formation of a 10-nation coalition to quell these repeated attacks. With more, here's our correspondent, Robert Swift. The United States and nine other nations are forming an international naval coalition. Their task? To counter escalating Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, a threat which is disrupting a transit route that accounts for 12% of global trade. We've lost Operation Prosperity Guardian under the umbrella of Combined Maritime Forces and under the leadership of Task Force 153. All countries have the right to move freely and lawfully in international wars. Canada, the UK, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles, Spain and Bahrain will participate, either by contributing ships or through intelligence assistance. Actions the multinational force may take range from intercepting Houthi drone and missile launches to striking the group's assets in Yemen, a move the US has so far appeared reluctant to make. Additional countries are involved in the formation but have declined to announce so publicly. States such as Egypt, Jordan, the UAE and Saudi Arabia are reportedly concerned with the blowback that could come from confronting the Houthis directly. Of course, we are concerned about the potential for escalation. Our region is very complex and we do not need any other conflicts to erupt, and therefore we hope that we will be able to avoid any further escalations in our region. The Houthis say they will continue attacking ships destined for Israeli ports as long as operations in Gaza continue. How the Yemeni group and its Iranian backers will respond to the naval coalition is unclear and may depend on how aggressively it confronts the Houthis. Still with me here in studio is Yossi Mellman, an intelligence and defense commentator and the co-author of Spies Against Armageddon. Earlier we spoke about the fact that you were surprised that Egypt was not directly involved in this, given obviously the importance of such a nation in the region and where the Red Sea shipping routes are. But it's also quite surprising what the interests of countries like the Seychelles, Norway and even Spain are in participating in a coalition like this. Well, Seychelles in their vicinity, I don't know what could be their contribution to the task force, but I'm sure they can contribute some sort of information. Spain is part of NATO and part of the Western Alliance. So Norway, she has a great interest, many, many of its ships. Norway is a well-renowned shipping state. So they have a very strong interest to prevent this, see piracy, terrorism. What really is surprising on top that Egypt is not talking about it. Maybe they are acting behind the scenes and helping the coalition that other countries also, which could be affected and had been affected like Saudi Arabia, the Houthis already hit in the past Saudi merchant ships and even naval ships. And they are hesitant as usual. They don't want to participate because they don't want to anger the Iranians. But then why India is not participating? A lot of these cargos and goods. It's interesting that you mentioned that because there's a push that's just come through that. Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, has just spoken to the Prime Minister of India about the shipping route. So Modi and Netanyahu are obviously concerned about this, meaning that India does have an involvement here. Exactly. I mean, India is a world power, economic world power. It produces a lot of the cargo that is going through the straits and through the Red Sea. Not to mention that what the world doesn't understand or maybe they understand, but they turn a blind eye to it, is that there is no such a thing as Israeli shipping companies. These are international companies. The cargo is international. The registration is international. And therefore, India can be a target, even if reluctantly, the Houthis don't want to eat India. Still, internally, they can eat it. And India still is sitting on the fence doing nothing, or China for that matter. It's becoming incredibly clear that the entire world is being brought into this. For Yossi Melman, thank you so very much for your time and analysis here in studio. And we end the broadcast on a personal story. Earlier, the I-24 News Desk spoke with Orferit Metzger, the granddaughter of Yoram, one of the elderly men seen in a recently published Hamas video. Such videos are often released as part of the terror organization's psychological warfare. Here's more. We were happy to get a sign of life, to know that he's alive. But on the same time, we know the time is running out and we know that I watched the video and he doesn't look good. He looks older and he got skinnier than he was before, so he lost weight. So yeah, we see that time is running out and you can see it on them in the video. Also Chaim and Amiram, we know them from the kibbutz. They don't look good. The video is a psychological terror like anything else that the Hamas is doing. And the video doesn't change the statement that we hear to say. And we said it before and we will say that today and until they will come back, that they need to come back fast and we need to return them as soon as possible because time is running out and in the last two weeks we just heard more and more names of hostages that were killed, murdered by the Hamas, most of them, and we don't want it to end like this. Of course. I can't imagine what you're going through, but it must be so much anguish when we have reports about a possible ceasefire deal, another one to try and get hostages back and then the reports are denied. Are you getting the information that you need? Are you getting the support that you need? We hear the information like everyone from the news. We don't get much more than that. And like you said, we hear all sorts of things and then we hear that it's not going to happen and it just changes all the time. So we're trying not to be overwhelmed by the news because we know that when something will be serious, then the army will let us know. But until then we can just say all over the news how much it's important and how much we need to hurry to bring them home because time is running out. Yeah, it's urgent. It's urgent. Now, listen, was it any comfort to you to see that he wasn't alone? He was with the two other guys from near Oz? Yeah, of course. And also I know because my grandma came back. I know that she was with him until she came back. So Yeah, remind us, your grandmother was also taken, wasn't she? But she was returned on to that deal? Yeah, she was returned on the fourth day of the deal. She was very nervous to hear about this video because unfortunately she heard about it from the news before the army sent us the message. So that was surprising and she was very nervous from this video. And that's all we have time for on this special edition. But make sure to tune in at the top of the hour for more news and updates on Israel as well as the Middle Eastern region. I'm batch 11thal. Thanks for watching. We'll see you again at the top of the hour. If anything you missed, check out our website. Israel is in a state of war. Families completely done down in their beds. We have no idea where is she as our soldiers are fighting on the front lines. But the general perception is something that certainly needs to to be fought as well. The I 24 News channel broadcasting from Israel with dozens of correspondence throughout the world brings the truth from Israel to hundreds of millions of people in scores of countries completely done down in their beds. The state of emergency and war in Israel bringing Israel's story to the world. I 24 News channels now on hot. Welcome to the special edition on the I 24 News to sky back to 11thal. Thanks for joining me. It is day 74 of war between Israel and Hamas. Today being Tuesday marked the first time in a week where rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip towards central Israel. At around 1pm local time rocket alert warning sounded in Southern Tel Aviv, Jaffa, Batiam, Rishon Nitzion, Kval Khabad and Beit Dagan. Hamas claimed responsibility for firing the latest barrage. There were no direct hits or injuries reported. The recent rocket fire comes as the IDF and Shin Bet security agency announced that a Gaza man involved in transferring tens of millions of dollars to Hamas's military wing was killed in an airstrike. Meanwhile two more IDF soldiers were killed as Gaza ground operation continues bringing the death toll now to 131. And with me here in studio to discuss all this and more is Yossi Melman, intelligence and defense commander and the co-author of Spies Against Armageddon. Thank you so very much for being here with me this afternoon. One of the more pressing questions is the fact that while the operation on the ground is continuing in Gaza, we are still seeing some sort of skirmishes happening over Israel's northern border with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Is there likely, once there would be a truce with Gaza, what would that mean in terms of the northern border? Because Israel's got enemies on both its north and its south and just getting rid of one seems to be sort of missing the point if it's not going to get rid of both. Exactly, Bathir. Everyone is talking about ending the war, the conflict, the crisis in Gaza as it stands for itself. But there is a linkage with the northern front with Hezbollah. Hezbollah started the skirmishes, the crisis, the clashes with the Israel because they wanted to help their Palestinian brothers. They wanted to rush to help Hamas. And as long as there is no ceasefire in Gaza, there won't be any settlement, any solution vis-à-vis Hezbollah. I'm not sure that even if there is an end to the hostilities in Gaza, Hezbollah would agree to return to the old lines before this October the 7th. But at least as long as the war in Gaza continues, then I don't see any settlement with Hezbollah. So these two fronts are linked and no one is talking about it. Now, while the overall war, no doubt, is focused on the Gaza Strip, as war comes into more days and that edges into more months, it tends to shift focus as well. And in the most recent of days, we're seeing that focus being shifted down to the southern tip of Israel being the Red Sea, where shipping, major international shipping has been halted as a result of the Houthi rebels targeting areas in the Red Sea, but also targeting or supposedly targeting Israel as well from there. Well, the threat from Yemen by the Houthis is very serious. It's on as a result of two approaches. One, the Houthis have been firing almost 100 missiles, rockets, and drones in the direction of Israel. Luckily enough, most of them, almost all of them, were intercepted mostly by Saudi Arabia and above all the United States. Only 10, 50 percent were intercepted by the Israeli Air Force by F-35 warplanes and the air defenses, Aero and Iron Dane. So that's one threat. This is a lesser threat because the flying time from Yemen to Elat is anything between 40 minutes to three hours. It depends on the type of the vehicle which is being launched against Elat. So relatively there is enough time for the alerts, for the alarms, and to intercept them, which that's what happened. But the bigger threat is to the shipping, to the shipping lanes leading to, first of all, to Elat, but also to the canal, to the Suez Canal. It's an Egyptian problem as well. And this is, as a threat, it's very serious because the aim might be to suffocate Israeli economy. 30 percent of Israeli cargo, Israeli goods, are coming through the straits of the Babel Mandem, either going to Elat or to the Mediterranean ports via the canal. So this is a major threat. Luckily enough for Israel, the international community is even more concerned because they are hitting international, on international, in international water. They are hitting international cargo, international boat, ships, Norwegians, Germans, British, and therefore the United States is taking it very seriously, together with France, Britain, and maybe other nations will join. Well, on that point, will it likely shift international pressure on Israel? So far we've seen a fortune of the international community condemning Israel forwards more in Gaza, but also making sure that the humanitarian part of it is always at the fall. Now we have an issue where, as you mentioned, international shipping is being threatened. Will that start releasing at least some of the pressure being put on Israel and more of the pressure being put on Iran? No. Well, there is a growing pressure on Iran. That's for sure, because Iran is behind the Houthis. And the international community, the U.S. Defense Secretary was just this week in Israel, and he said that Iran is behind it, and Iran has to stop its support for the Houthis' aggression. However, I don't think it would decrease the pressure, would release the pressure on Israel, on the Gaza front. But it's very important that the United States is now trying to form an international and maritime task force which would deal with the Houthis' threat against international shipping. Already the insurance went up by almost 300%. It's huge. Many, many companies are saying we are not going to sail near Yemen and not even via the canal. It's also a very strong threat against Egypt. I'm a bit puzzled that the Egyptians don't talk about it. One of their major revenues, economically speaking, is the canal. I still want to continue on the international front and update the audience that the United Nations Security Council is set to vote, at least in the recent hours, on another ceasefire resolution. That vote was delayed until Tuesday morning, New York, local time. What's different about this vote is that the postponement and the now revised text were done with the aim of getting the United States, Israel's closest ally, to abstain or vote yes on the resolution. In the past, the United States has vetoed these votes. The Arab-sponsored resolution is calling for a halt to hostilities in Gaza that would allow for urgently needed aid deliveries to reach a massive number of civilians. But this language is expected to be watered down to a suspension of hostilities or something possibly weaker to satisfy the Americans. And still with me, our guest in studio, I want to just get a comment before crossing to our correspondents that are across the country. Is this likely to be pushed through as an actual resolution or will the United States continue to veto it even if the language is watered down? Well, it would be a disaster for Israeli strategy if the United States sustained or not vetoed the resolution. That would be a clear, clear signal to the Israeli government. Enough is enough. You don't understand the hints which we have been sending you by U.S. Secretary, State Secretary Blinken, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd and Austin Lloyd and others saying, please be much more careful about your ground incursion, your ground war in Gaza. Please be much, much more sensitive to the human coast, the Palestinian coast to the humanitarian environment. And therefore, I think Israel is reaching the point in which maybe even United States would say you are outstretching the envelope. It's too much. And therefore, Israel doesn't have all the time in the world as some of our generals or even our cabinet minister and especially Prime Minister Netanyahu is talking about like the work can go on until Passover, which is April. No, it won't go until not until but because also there is the economic situation in Israel. How long can you hold the reservists in military duty? It's very, very problematic. And therefore, I think the signal that is coming from the U.N. Security Council is very, very worrying. And as I mentioned, that vote's set to happen in the next couple of hours. Obviously, we'll bring you the latest updates with that. Yossi Malman, stay with us. I do want to cross now live to our correspondent, Pierre Clashendl, who's standing by for us in southern Israel, more specifically in Ashkelon. Pierre, good afternoon to you, and thank you for joining us. Rocket alert sirens going off in central Israel for the first time in a week. What is the situation in the south? Well, there was a day of lull for the southern communities facing the Gaza Strip because for the past 24 hours before the rocket launching on Tel Aviv, there was no rocket at all for 24 hours on any site of on on Israeli territory. So that was the first time ever in that war that for 24 hours, the southern communities of Israel facing the Gaza Strip had not received their server of rockets. Now, it's been more than 24 hours now. It's 23, 26 hours that the southern communities haven't been targeted, which is a plus. And as a result, Ashkelon is a green area like the field around me, a green area, which means that all the schools, the kindergartens, primary schools, secondary schools are gradually opening their doors until the end of the week. So that's one of the very important elements you spoke about the economic life. Ashkelon was probably the hardest city in that round of fighting in that war with over 1100 rockets targeting the city. And that's a figure that I remember for about three weeks ago. So this is a hardest hit city in Israel. And the fact that school is going to be opening, at least it allows the mothers and the fathers who have not been enlisted in the army to work more because their kids won't be at home, won't be staying at home. And that's a very important point for this city of 130,000 inhabitants. Now, regarding the offensive, it's going on everywhere. It's going on from the northern sector, the northern tip of the Gaza Strip in Atatra, for instance, we heard that the army was calming the area and found weapons depot in Sheikh Radoan as well. They found a workshop with hundreds of rockets ready to be launched. Gebalia and the northern outskirts of Gaza City fighting going on for almost three weeks now. Shejaya, a little town southeast of Gaza City fighting going on for at least two and a half weeks now. And in the area of Hanyunas and the central refugee camps of Direl-Balach, Nusserat and El-Burej, also a lot of air force strikes, a lot of fights on the ground, notably on the access road that leads to Hanyunas from the north and also in the eastern outskirts of Hanyunas. And in Rafah also a strike on a building targeting the money man of Hamas, Supri Farahune, who was laundering money for the Hamas war efforts even during this war that would allow the Hamas operatives to be paid their salaries, that would allow Hamas to buy weapons and ammunitions. So this is a very important target that was annihilated by the Israeli army in an air strike and fighting goes on on almost every sector of the Gaza Strip. And Pierre, speaking of those targets, the Gaza Health Run Ministry has just released the numbers that 19,667 Palestinians have been killed in the war since October 7th. Again, I'll stress to the audience that these numbers are not verified and the Hamas Run Health Ministry does not distinguish between civilians and terrorists. But just from that 19,000, how many of them, even from a rough estimate, are likely to be terrorists and those that are non-combatants? Is there a massive disparity? No, there is no massive disparity according to the IDF estimates. Indeed, we are getting close to 20,000 fatalities in the Gaza Strip with over 50,000 wounded. The army does not deny those numbers. But they said that the ratio is about one to three, one terrorist for three civilians. Now, the army operates within international humanitarian law, it argues. Also, there are lawyers, experts on humanitarian law, that are accompanying every strike by the Israeli air force, for instance, to make sure that these strikes are compatible with international humanitarian law. But given that, it's a very difficult place to fight because Hamas fights in civilian clothes. Hamas uses civilian population and sensitive sites as human shields. Hospitals. Yesterday, a hospital was just taken over, the El-Aouda Hospital. And on Saturday evening, another hospital fell into Israel's hands, the Kamal Adwan Hospital. They found tens of terrorists hiding in the hospital, among them from the Nurba elite unit of Hamas. Among them, people who participated to the massacres of October 7. Now, it's very difficult, especially now in the southern sector of the Gaza Strip, because 80%, if not more, of the total population of 2.2 million inhabitants of the whole Gaza Strip are crammed into half of it. That means almost 2 million people displaced, leaving in 180 meters square with no real protection. And Hamas launches rockets from safe zones. It's very, very difficult, very sensitive. And in addition, maybe 20% of the rockets that Hamas is launching on Israeli territory falls into the Gaza Strip and brings about more fatalities. Right. And as mentioned, obviously, none of these numbers exactly verify, but you can see just the complexities in terms of the warfare. Our correspondent, Pierre Klushenda, reporting from southern Israel. Thank you very much for that. And moving from Ashkelon to Israel's very southern front, as we were speaking about briefly here in studio, the Iranian-backed Tuti rebels have escalated attacks on tankers, cargo ships, as well as other vessels in the Red Sea. Now, the attacks are imperiling a transit route that carries up to 12% of all global trade. As a result, the United States on Monday announced the formation of a 10-nation coalition to quell these repeated attacks. With more, here's our correspondent, Robert Swift. We've lost Operation Prosperity Guardian under the umbrella of Combined Maritime Forces and under the leadership of Task Force 153. All countries have the right to move freely and lawfully in international wars. Canada, the UK, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles, Spain and Bahrain will participate, either by contributing ships or through intelligence assistance. Actions the multinational force may take range from intercepting Houthi drone and missile launches to striking the group's assets in Yemen, a move the US has so far appeared reluctant to make. Additional countries are involved in the formation but have declined to announce so publicly. States such as Egypt, Jordan, the UAE and Saudi Arabia are reportedly concerned with the blowback that could come from confronting the Houthis directly. Of course we are concerned about the potential for escalation. Our region is very complex and we do not need any other conflicts to erupt and therefore we hope that we will be able to avoid any further escalations in our region. The Houthis say they will continue attacking ships destined for Israeli ports as long as operations in Gaza continue. How the Yemeni group and its Iranian backers will respond to the naval coalition is unclear and may depend on how aggressively it confronts the Houthis. Still with me here in studio is Yossi Melman, an intelligence and defense commentator and the co-author of Spies Against Armageddon. Earlier we spoke about the fact that you were surprised that Egypt was not directly involved in this, given obviously the importance of such a nation in the region and where the Red Sea shipping routes are. But it's also quite surprising what the interests of countries like the Seychelles, Norway and even Spain are in participating in a coalition like this. Well Seychelles in their vicinity, I don't know what could be their contribution to the task force, but I'm sure they can contribute some sort of information. Spain is part of NATO and part of the Western Alliance. So Norway, she has a great interest, many, many of its ships. Norway is a well-renowned shipping state. So they have a very strong interest to prevent this, see piracy, terrorism. What really is surprising on top that Egypt is not talking about it. Maybe they are acting behind the scenes and helping the coalition that other countries also, which could be affected and had been affected, like Saudi Arabia, the Houthis already hit in the past Saudi merchant ships and even naval ships. And they are hesitant, as usual. They don't want to participate because they don't want to anger the Iranians. But then why India is not participating? A lot of these cargos. Well it's interesting that you mentioned that because there's a push that's just come through that Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, has just spoken to the Prime Minister of India about the shipping route. So Modi and Netanyahu are obviously concerned about this, meaning that India does have an involvement here. Exactly. I mean, India is a world power, economic world power. It produces a lot of the cargo that is going through the straits and through the Red Sea. Not to mention that what the world doesn't understand, or maybe they understand, but they turn a blind eye to it, is that there is no such a thing as Israeli shipping companies. These are international companies. The cargo is international. The registration is international. And therefore India can be a target, even if reluctantly the Houthis don't want to eat India. Still, internally they can eat it, and India still is sitting on the fence doing nothing, or China for that matter. It's becoming incredibly clear that the entire world is being brought into this. For Yossi Malman, thank you so very much for your time and analysis here in studio. And we end the broadcast on a personal story. Earlier, the I-24 News Desk spoke with Offerent Metzger, the granddaughter of Yoram, one of the elderly men seen in a recently published Hamas video. Such videos are often released as part of the terror organization's psychological warfare. Here's more. We were happy to get a sign of life, to know that he's alive. But on the same time, we know the time is running out, and we know that we, I watched the video and he doesn't look good. He looks older and he got skinnier than he was before, so he lost weight. So, yeah, we see that time is running out, and you can see it on them in the video, also Chaim and Amiram. We know them from the kibbutz. They don't look good. The video is a psychological terror, like anything else that the Hamas is doing. And the video doesn't change the statement that we hear to say, and we said it before, and we will say that today and until they will come back, that they need to come back fast, and we need to return them as soon as possible, because time is running out, and in the last two weeks, we just heard more and more names of hostages that were killed, murdered by the Hamas, most of them, and we don't want it to end like this. Of course. I can't imagine what you're going through, but it must be so much anguish when we have reports about a possible ceasefire deal, another one to try and get hostages back, and then the reports are denied. Are you getting the information that you need? Are you getting the support that you need? We hear the information like everyone from the news. We don't get much more than that. And like you said, we hear all sorts of things, and then we hear that it's not going to happen, and it just changes all the time. So we're trying not to be overwhelmed by the news, because we know that when something will be serious, then the army will let us know. But until then, we can just say all over the news how much it's important, and how much we need to hurry to bring them home, because time is running out. Yeah, it's urgent, it's urgent. Now, I mean, listen, was it any comfort to you to see that he wasn't alone? He was with the two other guys from near Oz? Yeah, yeah, of course. And also I know because my grandma came back, and I know that she was with him until she came back. So your grandmother was also taken, wasn't she? But she was returned onto that deal? Yeah, she was returned on the fourth day of the deal. She was very nervous to hear about this video, because unfortunately she heard about it from the news before the army sent us the message. So that was surprising. And she was very nervous from this video. And that's all we have time for on this special edition. But make sure to tune in at the top of the hour for more news and updates on Israel, as well as the Middle Eastern region. I'm Batya Leventhal. Thanks for watching. We'll see you again at the top of the hour. If anything you missed, check out our website. Israel is in a state of war. Families completely gunned down in their beds. We have no idea where is she. As our soldiers are fighting on the front line, but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well. Welcome to the special edition on the I-24 news desk. I'm Batya Leventhal. Thanks for joining me. It is day 74 of war between Israel and Hamas. Today being Tuesday, marked the first time in a week where rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip towards central Israel. At around 1pm local time, rocket alert warning sounded in southern Tel Aviv, Jaffa, Batyam, Rishon Lezion, Kfar Chabad and Beit Dagan. Hamas claimed responsibility for firing the latest barrage. There were no direct hits or injuries reported. The recent rocket fire comes as the IDF and the Shin Bet security agency announced that a Gaza man involved in transferring tens of millions of dollars to Hamas's military wing was killed in an airstrike. Meanwhile, two more IDF soldiers were killed as Gaza ground operation continues, bringing the death toll now to 131. Well, we begin by crossing live to our correspondent Nicole Zedek, who is standing by for us in the south. Nicole, first time in a week that rocket and alert sirens went off here in the center of the country. But what is the latest there down south? Batya, I can tell you within the past two minutes, as we're coming on air, we did get some more red alerts in some of these border towns in Gaza, specifically in Sufa. All of this as I'm also hearing outgoing Israeli artillery firing towards the Gaza strip as well. So we are continuing to hear this. And as you said, 74 days into this war, and Hamas still has the military capability to fire these long range rockets towards central Israel towards Tel Aviv. So it's not just these border communities near the southern part of Israel, but also central Israel as well, causing millions of Israelis to run to their shelters. Now I want to tell you about within the past 30 minutes or so. We also just got another announcement from the IDF after they had arrested a hospital administrator, one of the directors of the hospital in Jabalia. They had rested him last week and after interrogations found out just about the military activity that was happening in his hospital. He said that this has been happening for years and and all of the operatives, many of them, the hospital employees themselves are also Hamas operatives. This is what the IDF has been saying. But now they're hearing it word for word from one of the directors himself talking about just how how embedded this Hamas military was into the hospitals because he said that these Hamas military militancy terrorists felt safe inside these hospitals. That's why they were there. And according to them, they even use private ambulances with different license plates, more unmarked cars to transfer different different soldiers and even at one point a kidnapped soldier, he said. Now also all of this was because their Hamas activity was more important than helping their own civilians in Gaza. At one point this this hospital director said he asked them to transport one of the wounded civilians to a different hospital to get critical treatment. But they said no because their activity using those private ambulances which is against international law to transport their own Hamas terrorists for their own military activity was more important than treating their own civilians. So this is just more about the activity that we're hearing about the exact exactly what's happening inside this civilian infrastructure. And that is why the IDF is continuing to go after many of these different Hamas civil the Hamas sites that are just happened to be under civilian infrastructure. All of this body I want to add we continue to hear just constant pounding happening right behind me here as well. And Nicole obviously not just sites that are being targeted but terrorists themselves as we've spoken about one of the top financiers of the Hamas terror organization was taken out in an airstrike. Is that likely the cause for some of the red alert sirens that have been sounding throughout central Israel? As you mentioned obviously there where you are in the south sort of as a retaliation. Explain to the audience because the thought is that many of the financiers are not actually located in the Gaza Strip itself but rather in luxury hotels in Qatar Turkey and even Iran. Yes and that's absolutely where they're getting their money from. But this specific person that you're mentioning he was killed in Rafa. This is where the IDF says they constructed an airstrike killing him. And for several years now he had been laundering money even during this ongoing war effort to continue to fund Hamas' military capabilities. And so with this specific strike and this just goes out to show how the IDF is really trying to completely dismantle Hamas. And with that comes the funding for how they're able to operate. Correspondent Nicole Zere giving us an update there from the south of Israel. Thank you very much for that. And joining me here in studios Neri Zilber journalist and a young fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Good afternoon to you and thank you for being with me here in studio. One of the I suppose a big question coming out now as the battle rages in the Gaza Strip is has Israel completely lost the media battle with regards in particular to the international media. There's more proof Nicole just spoke about it our correspondent as well of not only just speaking and accounts but actually seeing it on the ground for themselves the IDF dismantling certain weapons caches hospitals bunkers that they're seeing for themselves that was used for terror purposes. Why is the rest of the media silent. So I can't speak for the rest of the media but obviously Israel's you know information battle or battle for hearts and minds as it were internationally. Obviously it's much more difficult now two and a half months into the war than it was say the day after October 7th when there was a lot of sympathy worldwide for the atrocities and the savagery committed by Hamas in southern Israel. Now there are a lot of reasons as we know for why the information battle has gone against Israel and it's fair to say it has. We should also keep in mind and keep it in perspective that there are a lot of people around the world that are supportive of Israel's war aims that do feel that this is a justified war given what happened on October 7th and we also have to keep in mind that Israel really for the past 40 years it's never been a picnic when there's been a flare-up an escalation between Israel and the Palestinians. This time it's a lot higher the rhetoric and shall we say the hysteria on all sides a lot higher than we've seen in the past. There are probably reasons for that but it's not like the second of the father in the early 2000s or the first Lebanon war in the early 1980s or previous rounds with Hamas and Gaza. Israel has had a wholehearted and widespread international support that's never been the case and there's been widespread condemnation precisely due to the heavy death toll inside the Gaza Strip which as your correspondent mentioned there are a lot of very good reasons on the Hamas side for that very high civilian death toll. Absolutely and as you mentioned obviously this being a completely different ball game to anything that we've ever seen in the past but something that is also sort of spun out of control has been the level of anti-Semitism and targets are not just Jews but Israelis abroad. Something that I wanted to bring to attention was that South Africa is actually saying that any of its citizens that are found to have been serving or served in the Israel Defense Forces could face prosecution back home. We have a situation in Israel where we've got plenty of lone soldiers that fly out many of them Jewish from countries all around the world to serve in the IDF many of them coming back for reserve duty. Is Israel does it have the resources to be able to deal with what is going on abroad as well as what's going on in the Gaza Strip because it seems that the enemies are not just on Israel's very border? Well look that is a question and a very good question for after the war in terms of what say international legal ramifications may come down the pike vis-a-vis Israel and vis-a-vis serving IDF personnel. I don't know what will happen we also have to keep in mind that when we talk about you know the world or the international legal community and the like there are a lot of governments in the West primarily whether in Europe or especially in America that are still on site that still are supportive of Israel that will likely not let anything like prosecution of serving Israeli soldiers and officers come to pass but again that's nothing new that also was an outcome of the 2014 Israel Hamas war in Gaza a lot of at least attempts to sue Israeli officers and politicians for what they perceived as war crimes committed during that campaign but undoubtedly Israelis both by the way not just soldiers also civilians all over the world and Jews all over the world as we know from speaking to to many friends and family all across the world even in America and even in the UK and even in Europe and also I imagine in South Africa it's not an easy time to be a supporter of Israel and supporter of this war that we have to remember Israel did not choose to launch this offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip it was forced on Israel given Hamas's attack on October 7th right and with any kind of prolonged wars we've also seen with Russia's war in Ukraine it appears that the focal point of war tends to shift and although the main focal point is in the Gaza Strip another interesting focal point where a lot of attention is moving to is on Israel's very southern front where the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have escalated attacks on tankers cargo ships as well as other vessels in the Red Sea now the attacks are imperiling a transit route that carries up to get this 12 percent of all global trade as a result the United States on Monday announced the formation of a 10 nation coalition to quell these repeated attacks with more here's our correspondent Robert Swift the United States and nine other nations are forming an international naval coalition their task to counter escalating Houthi attacks in the Red Sea a threat which is disrupting a transit route that accounts for 12 percent of global trade we've lost operation prosperity guardian under the umbrella of combined maritime forces and under the leadership of task force 153 all countries have the right to move freely and locally in international wars Canada the UK France Italy the Netherlands Norway Seychelles Spain and Bahrain will participate either by contributing ships or through intelligence assistance actions the multinational force may take range from intercepting Houthi drone and missile launches to striking the group's assets in Yemen a move the US has so far appeared reluctant to make additional countries are involved in the formation but have declined to announce so publicly states such as Egypt Jordan the UAE and Saudi Arabia are reportedly concerned with the blowback that could come from confronting the Houthis directly of course we are concerned about the potential for escalation our region is very complex and we do not need any other conflicts to erupt and therefore we hope that we will be able to avoid any further escalations in our region the Houthis say they will continue attacking ships destined for Israeli ports as long as operations in Gaza continue how the Yemeni group and its Iranian backers will respond to the naval coalition is unclear and may depend on how aggressively it confronts the Houthis and nary zilber is still with me here in studio nary there was no doubt at the very beginning of this war on october 7th that the united states israel's biggest ally was going to stand steadfast behind the state of israel but as the war extends and more focal points and more avenues start opening up like what we see now with the Houthi rebels targeting shipping in the red sea 12 percent of all international global trade is this becoming more and more difficult or sort of like a weight on the backs of the Americans in terms of their support are we seeing it wavering at all i don't see it wavering at all and that's also not a given that the by the administration really from the first weeks and aircraft carriers and other military assets into the region president biden himself gave multiple speeches warning iran and its proxies in the middle east don't don't join in the fight against israel that hamas launched and on and on also diplomatic support at the un in particular that we saw the other week so it hasn't been wavering there have been disagreements in terms of how israel prosecutes the war in gaza and also trying to restrain israel from escalating in the north where his beloved also been attacking israel since the first day of the war and now the hooties and this has been a u.s. led international response to hootie attacks on shipping in a very vital part of the world and also israel itself for many weeks now has been arguing both the americans and others this isn't an israeli problem a lot of these ships the vast majority if not all of these ships have no connection to israel they just happen to be passing in the red sea you know north sometimes but sometimes even south having nothing to do with a lot the southern port of israel and now we're seeing finally this week a response by america it means to be seen what this naval task force will actually do whether it will just escort shipping through the babel mandib into the red sea and out of the red sea or whether it will actually launch strikes against hootie assets in yemen if the hooties keep attacking shipping i think what could be quite interesting is also to see how the united nations plays a role in this because not to compare you know apples and pears but if we have a look what's going on at the moment in ukraine with the grain shipping deal that was put forth that was brokered by the united nations because once again this wasn't just an issue that was facing ukraine and russia this was impacting a fortune of countries predominantly in africa that was so dependent on the grain and as you mentioned this is only i think if i'm not mistaken around 30 percent of the imports coming into israel that is a minority or the smaller end of the spectrum in terms of what's coming into israel from an importing point of view and so the united nation security council set to vote today in the next coming hour is actually on a possible another ceasefire watering down some of the rhetoric are they likely to get involved here or is the united nation simply always going to be hitting israel more from the other end of the spectrum i don't think we should put any stock or any hope in the united nation security council coming to any kind of consensus on active measures whether in yemen or even vis-a-vis the gaza strip it has to be us led with an alliance as uh loy dosten mentioned um that's nothing new i will say though that in terms of what's happening in the red sea vis-a-vis the hooties um yes they claim it has everything to do with the gaza war and to harm israel even though it's harming many many other states to give one example the suez canal and transit through the suez canal is a massive proportion of the egyptian economy if ships don't need the suez canal anymore going in and out of the red sea that's a major blow to the egyptian economy and egypt is not involved directly in this ten nation coalition with regards to the red sea at all it's not but again i'm sure there's tacit support by the egyptians as there likely is from other states friendly states in the middle east and we shall just keep in mind the the fact that the hooties haven't been struck hard just yet is the fear of retaliation not towards israel we've seen ballistic missiles and drones being fired at southern israel uh for many weeks now it's hootie retaliation against that arabia against the emirates against uh arab states in their near vicinity that's the fear so the escalation potential is still there and so the u.s will probably have to walk a very fine line deterring the hooties stopping the hooties while not uh seeing them escalate further on the arabian peninsula nary zilber thank you very much for both your time and your analysis here in studio with me this afternoon i want to cross now to our correspondent emily francis who is standing by for us in televiv emily i believe you're near the main entrance of the security headquarters a key position of many of the protests related to the hostages what can you tell us that's happening there this afternoon hi batia listen it's uh as you can see there's a lot of people here today they are not giving up hope in fact we're told literally they're gonna be at the 29th hour of every hour they're gonna they're gonna block the entrance to and from the main military idf headquarters here to read all of the names and to do it for literally 241 seconds which is the number of hostages that were originally taken on october 7th and here i am with a gentleman named moshay lavi whose brother-in-law is omri marmiran one of the hostages sorry to have to interview you under these circumstances i know it's not easy but please tell us about your brother-in-law omri is a 46 year old man uh an amazing father to his two daughters moninama dedicated husband to his wife lisha my sister she had two therapists gone uh love of nature uh spiritual man love sports as well we can't wait to have him back and which is why we're here which is why we do it everywhere we can whether in israel around the world uh because it's been uh way too long for them to be held hostage captive in gaza waikhamas we want to be certain that our government is doing what they can to ensure their safe release alive do you still have hope given the tragedy that we've had this week you know what happened and the video that was released yesterday i mean more our gut wrenching gut wrenching news for all of us but do you still have belief that you'll get him home alive if i didn't have hope i would not be speaking with you here i would not be standing here today we have to have hope so that other people will come and support us and uh continue advocate for omri and all the hostages held captive by khamas we have to keep fighting keep advocating as long as we can uh the tragedies are horrifying us and we're living in in a continuous nightmare but we're here for them and we want to make sure that those policy makers understand that time is running out every second in captivity is like eternity thank you so much for speaking to us thank you thank you that's all for now batia we'll have more there's a lot of family members here we'll have a more in the next hour more personal stories of the hostages who are all praying to come home emily francis our correspondent they are in the center of televiv just outside where the hostages have been demonstrating to bring their loved ones back home thank you very much for that update and still on the topic let's go now to dangle liftshirts the grandson of your chevet and or dead liftshirts who were kidnapped by khamas and taken into the gaza strip 85 year old your chevet was one of the first hostages to be released from captivity back in october her husband however remains in gaza thank you so very much um dangle for joining us this is still so difficult knowing that one of your grandparents has been released the other still in captivity have you heard anything from the government representatives in charge of this or know anything about when it's likely that your grandfather will return we have no no news about that we are extremely worried because the information we had is from uh one of the hostages that came back she told us that uh she was there with my grandfather and uh she was in a place where they are not getting medicine and my grandfather is uh 73 years old 83 years old and um he needs medicine for the blood pressure and um he has some lung disease so that's very that's extremely hard to know that he's there still now so many days after 74 days after that's really um horrifying us and uh you know hope dies last but this is what we have now and um we look forward to hear fast news about uh the release and uh next um uh deal well hopefully as the musad chief is meeting with the qatari prime minister some news of an imminent hostage deal another one in fact could be um at least on the table but daniel one of a lot of the hostage families feel toward obviously the feelings of anguish uh distrust uh even faith hope that there's a fortune of complexities with regards to how israel feels with its own government but the international red cross that is supposed to be aiding hostages aiding those captives non-combatants all throughout the world have been largely silent in the gaza strip is there some sort of disappointment in the way that they've been handling this would you like for them to be able to be able to visit your grandfather and provide him with medicine that he so desperately needs so in front of the icrc which i met also in uh new york i can say that uh again i will tell the same words for them they must stop being taxi drivers and they must act differently they must act in take actions they never took before because something that never happened before happened so they must take actions that they never took before that's what i'm saying about that it's uh worrying me they must take those actions and uh but you know we are here now and now we we can deal and be in front of our government and another international press uh for the release of the hostages as finally yeah the red cross they don't do their job they don't go to see their situation they don't know they don't give them medicine but they are not the ones that are releasing the hostages and they are not the ones that negotiating about that they need to do their work but now the most important work is to release the hostages which means that's the pressure we need to continue push on our government that need to take action and be creative and take out the prisoners of Hamas and put them on the border if they need or deal any negotiation they they can and they need to come with the offers the international ones have to press more power as much as possible press Egypt to make a deal press Saudi doing the work with the Arab countries harder the americans they just need to continue and do what they do i think we are very lucky to to have them i see things are moving here and i expect our governments to continue and take any deal and and do it fast there is no time we must understand the time is finished but as well Hamas needs to agree for the for the deal and bring it from their side as well they should stand out and bring those people those at 83 years old people many old people we saw in the video yesterday about Haim Peri and Cooper and Munder from they are all from my kibbutz from kibbutz niroz you see their situation it's just unimaginable that they kidnapped those elderly and so many others from their own beds and they are still there they should take them and release them now immediately as well absolutely and it's something obviously the international community continues to forget that we are not talking about IDF reservists or even those in active duty a lot of the men that are still there as you mentioned on non-combatants they are the elderly and Daniel i do apologize for the sensitive question that i want to ask you but obviously also that we've seen in the last couple of days unfortunately hostages being caught up with the IDF's military operation in the Gaza Strip is there a sense of concern a lot of the hostage families holding out hope and faith and as you mentioned pushing the pressure and making sure the government knows this is your top priority is there some kind of concern that the government's two priorities being getting rid of Hamas and securing the hostages safety might coincide in clash with one another i think you know the government the prime minister Netanyahu is the one that is responsible for as well for the things that happened and he is there responsible for releasing the hostages and he's the responsible of the life of the soldiers and he did to take everything in consideration and to work and do everything possible for the life of the hostages the life of the soldiers and i come to strength as well the soldiers that are fighting they are doing amazing work they are big they are brave they are courage and i can just strength them and i can strength the cabinet to take a deal and continue to something that will see the end of that coming soon of course their top issue top priority most important thing now they have to bring those hostages back home because they are dying there and the fighting is dangerous bombing is dangerous the danger of the hostages is huge now they have to do everything they need to stop stop now bring those hostages back home do whatever you need the life of the hostages is the responsibility of the cabinet and the prime minister Netanyahu and it must do everything for them to come back home safely Daniel Liftschitz the grandson of your chevitt and Oded Liftschitz who kidnapped by Hamas your chevitt returned home to israel shortly after the beginning of the war while Oded Liftschitz his grandfather is still in captivity by Hamas i want to thank you so very much for taking the time to be with me here this afternoon and tell our viewers that that is unfortunately the end of this broadcast but tune in again at the top of the hour for more updates on the 74th day of war between israel and Hamas will be right back israel is in a state of war families completely gone down in their beds we have no idea where is she as our soldiers are fighting on the front line but the general perception is something that certainly needs to to be fought as well This week on News 24, Israel under attack. News 24 in Spanish brings the analysis and information of the events of the war, sword of iron, exclusive interviews, reports from the war zone, the reaction of Spanish-speaking countries. News 24, the only medium in Spanish that keeps you informed and connected with the Latin community in Israel. News 24 only on I-24 News. SkyMatcher 11th Olm, thanks for joining me. It is day 74 of war between Israel and Hamas. Today being Tuesday marked the first time in a week where rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip towards central Israel. At around 1pm local time, rocket alert warning sounded in southern Tel Aviv, Jaffa, Batiam, Rishon Latzion, Kfar Chabad and Beit Dagan. Hamas claimed responsibility for firing the latest barrage. There were no direct hits or injuries reported. The recent rocket fire comes as the IDF and the Shin Bet Security Agency announced that a Gaza man involved in transferring tens of millions of dollars to Hamas's military wing was killed in an airstrike. Meanwhile, two more IDF soldiers were killed as Gaza ground operation continues, bringing the death toll now to 131. Well, we begin by crossing live to our correspondent, Nicole Zedek, who is standing by for us in the south. Nicole, first time in a week that rocket alert sirens went off here in the center of the country. But what is the latest there down south? Batia, I can tell you within the past two minutes, right, as we're coming on air, we did get some more red alerts in some of these border towns in Gaza, specifically in Sufa. All of this, as I'm also hearing outgoing Israeli artillery firing towards the Gaza Strip as well. We are continuing to hear this. And as you said, 74 days into this war, and Hamas still has the military capability to fire these long range rockets towards central Israel, towards Tel Aviv. So it's not just these border communities near the southern part of Israel, but also central Israel as well, causing millions of Israelis to run to their shelters. Now, I want to tell you, Batia, within the past 30 minutes or so, we also just got another announcement from the IDF after they had arrested a hospital administrator, one of the directors of the hospital in Jabalia. They had arrested him last week, and after interrogations, found out just about the military activity that was happening in his hospital. He said that this has been happening for years, and all of the operatives, many of them, the hospital employees themselves are also Hamas operatives. This is what the IDF has been saying, but now they're hearing it word for word of the directors himself talking about just how embedded this Hamas military was into the hospitals, because he said that these Hamas militancy terrorists felt safe inside these hospitals. That's why they were there. And according to them, they even used private ambulances with different license plates, more unmarked cars to transfer different soldiers, and even at one point, a kidnapped soldier, he said. Now, also, all of this was because their Hamas activity was more important than helping their own civilians in Gaza. At one point, this hospital director said he asked them to transport one of the wounded civilians to a different hospital to get critical treatment, but they said no, because their activity, using those private ambulances, which is against international law, to transport their own Hamas terrorists for their own military activity was more important than treating their own civilians. So this is just more about the activity that we're hearing about exactly what's happening inside this civilian infrastructure, and that is why the IDF is continuing to go after many of these different Hamas sites that just happen to be under civilian infrastructure. All of this, Badi, I want to add, we continue to hear just constant pounding happening right behind me here as well. And Nicole, obviously not just sites that are being targeted, but terrorists themselves, as we've spoken about, one of the top financiers of the Hamas terror organization was taken out in an airstrike. Is that likely the cause for some of the red alert sirens that have been sounding throughout Central Israel? And as you mentioned, obviously, they're where you are in the south, sort of as a retaliation. Explain to the audience because the thought is that many of the financiers are not actually located in the Gaza Strip itself, but rather in luxury hotels in Qatar, Turkey, and even Iran. Yes, and that's absolutely where they're getting their money from. But this specific person that you're mentioning, he was killed in Rafa. This is where the IDF says they constructed an airstrike killing him. And for several years now, he had been laundering money even during this ongoing war effort to continue to fund Hamas's military capabilities. And so with this specific strike, and this just goes out to show how the IDF is really trying to completely dismantle Hamas. And with that comes the funding for how they're able to operate. Correspondent Nicole Zedek giving us an update there from the south of Israel. Thank you very much for that. And joining me here in studios, Neri Zilber, journalist and a junk fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Good afternoon to you and thank you for being with me here in studio. One of the, I suppose, a big question coming out now as the battle rages in the Gaza Strip is has Israel completely lost the media battle with regards in particular to the international media? There's more proof Nicole just spoke about it, our correspondent as well, of not only just speaking and accounts, but actually seeing it on the ground for themselves, the IDF dismantling certain weapons caches, hospitals, bunkers that they're seeing for themselves that was used for terror purposes. Why is the rest of the media silent? So I can't speak for the rest of the media, but obviously Israel's, you know, information battle or battle for hearts and minds, as it were internationally. Obviously it's much more difficult now two and a half months into the war than it was, say, the day after October 7th when there was a lot of sympathy worldwide for the atrocities and the savagery committed by Hamas in southern Israel. Now, there are a lot of reasons, as we know, for why the information battle has gone against Israel and it's fair to say it has. We should also keep in mind and keep it in perspective that there are a lot of people around the world that are supportive of Israel's war aims, that do feel that this is a justified war given what happened on October 7th. And we also have to keep in mind that Israel, really for the past 40 years, it's never been a picnic when there's been a flare-up and an escalation between Israel and the Palestinians. This time it's a lot higher. The rhetoric and, shall we say, the hysteria on all sides, a lot higher than we've seen in the past. There are probably reasons for that, but it's not like the Second Intifada or the First Lebanon War in the early 1980s or previous rounds with Hamas and Gaza. Israel has had a wholehearted and widespread international support. That's never been the case. And there's been widespread condemnation precisely due to the heavy death toll inside the Gaza Strip, which, as your correspondent mentioned, there are a lot of very good reasons on the Hamas side for that very high civilian death toll. Absolutely. And as you mentioned, obviously this being a completely different ball game to anything that we've ever seen in the past. Something that is also sort of spun out of control has been the level of anti-Semitism and targets on not just Jews but Israelis abroad. Something that I wanted to bring to attention was that South Africa is actually saying that any of its citizens that are found to have been serving or served in the Israel Defense Forces could face prosecution back home. We have a situation in Israel where we've got plenty of lone soldiers that fly out, many of them Jewish from countries all around the world to serve in the IDF, many of them coming back for reserve duty. Is Israel, does it have the resources to be able to deal with what is going on abroad as well as what's going on in the Gaza Strip because it seems that the enemies are not just on Israel's very border? Well, look, that is a question and a very good question for after the war in terms of what, say, international legal ramifications may come down the pike vis-a-vis Israel and vis-a-vis serving IDF personnel. I don't know what will happen. We also have to keep in mind that when we talk about the world or the international legal community and the like, there are a lot of governments in the West primarily, whether in Europe or especially in America, that are still on-site, that still are supportive of Israel, that will likely not let anything like prosecution of serving Israeli soldiers and officers come to pass. But again, that's nothing new. That also was an outcome of the 2014 Israel Hamas War in Gaza, a lot of at least attempts to sue Israeli officers and politicians for what they perceived as war crimes committed during that campaign, but undoubtedly Israelis, both by the way, not just soldiers, also civilians all over the world and Jews all over the world as we know from speaking to many friends and family all across the world, even in America and even in the UK and even in Europe and also I imagine in South Africa. It's not an easy time to be a supporter of Israel and supporter of this war that we have to remember, Israel did not choose to launch this offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. It was forced on Israel given Hamas's attack on October 7th. Right, and with any kind of prolonged wars we've also seen with Russia's war in Ukraine, it appears that the focal point of war tends to shift and although the main focal point is in the Gaza Strip, another interesting focal point where a lot of attention is moving to is on Israel's very southern front where the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have escalated attacks on tankers cargo ships as well as other vessels in the Red Sea. Now the attacks are imperiling a transit route that carries up to get this 12% of all global trade. As a result the United States on Monday announced the formation of a 10-nation coalition to quell these repeated attacks. With more, here's our correspondent Robert Swift. It's a international naval coalition. Their task? To counter escalating Houthi attacks in the Red Sea. A threat which is disrupting a transit route that accounts for 12% of global trade. We've launched Operation Prosperity Guardian under the umbrella of Combined Maritime Forces and under the leadership of Task Force 153. All countries have the right to move freely and locally in international wars. Canada, the UK, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles, Spain and Bahrain will participate either by contributing ships or through intelligence assistance. Actions the multinational force may take range from intercepting Houthi drone and missile launches to striking the group's assets in Yemen a move the US has so far appeared reluctant to make. Additional countries are involved in the formation but have declined to announce so publicly. States such as Egypt, Jordan, the UAE and Saudi Arabia are reportedly concerned with the blowback that could come from confronting the Houthis directly. Of course we are concerned about the potential for escalation. Our region is very complex and we do not need any other conflicts to erupt and therefore we hope that we will be able to avoid any further escalations in our region. The Houthis say they will continue attacking ships destined for Israeli ports as long as operations in Gaza continue. How the Yemeni group and its Iranian backers will respond to the naval coalition is unclear and may depend on how aggressively it confronts the Houthis. And Neri Zilber is still with me here in studio. Neri, there was no doubt at the very beginning of this war on October 7th that the United States Israel's biggest ally was going to stand steadfast behind the State of Israel but as the war extends and more focal points and more avenues start opening up like what we see now with the Houthi rebels targeting shipping in the Red Sea, 12% of all international global trade is this becoming more and more difficult or sort of like a wait on the backs of the Americans in terms of their support? Are we seeing it wavering at all? I don't see it wavering at all and that's also not a given that the Biden administration really from the first week sent aircraft carriers and other military assets into the region. President Biden himself gave multiple speeches warning Iran and its proxies in the Middle East don't join in the fight against Israel that Hamas launched and on and on also diplomatic support at the UN in particular that we saw the other week so it hasn't been wavering there have been disagreements in terms of how Israel prosecutes the war in Gaza and also trying to restrain Israel from escalating in the north where Hezbollah has also been attacking Israel since the first day of the war and now the Houthis and this has been a US led international response to Houthi attacks on shipping in a very vital part of the world and also Israel itself for many weeks now has been arguing both to the Americans and others this isn't an Israeli problem a lot of these ships, the vast majority if not all of these ships have no connection to Israel they just happen to be passing in the Red Sea north sometimes but sometimes even south having nothing to do with a lot the southern port of Israel and now we're seeing finally this week a response by America it remains to be seen what this naval task force is shaping through the Babel Mandib into the Red Sea and out of the Red Sea or whether it will actually launch strikes against Houthi assets in Yemen if the Houthis keep attacking shipping I think what could be quite interesting is also to see how the United Nations plays a role in this because not to compare apples and pears but if we have a look what's going on at the moment in Ukraine with the grain shipping deal that was put forth that was brokered by the United Nations because once again there wasn't just an issue that was facing Ukraine and Russia this was impacting a fortune of countries predominantly in Africa that was so dependent on the grain and as you mentioned this is only I think if I'm not mistaken around 30% of the imports coming into Israel that is a minority or the smaller end of the spectrum in terms of what's coming into Israel from an importing point of view and so the United Nations Security Council set to vote today in the next coming hours actually on a possible are they likely to get involved here or is the United Nations simply always going to be hitting Israel more from the other end of the spectrum I don't think we should put any stock or any hope in the United Nations Security Council coming to any kind of consensus on active measures whether in Yemen or even vis-a-vis the Gaza Strip it has to be US led with an alliance as Lloyd Austin mentioned that's nothing new even though that in terms of what's happening in the Red Sea vis-a-vis the Houthis yes they claim it has everything to do with the Gaza war and to harm Israel even though it's harming many many other states to give one example the Suez Canal and transit through the Suez Canal is a massive proportion of the Egyptian economy if ships don't need the Suez Canal anymore going in and out of the Red Sea that's a major blow to the Egyptian economy Egypt is not involved directly in this with regards to the Red Sea at all it's not but again I'm sure there's tacit support by the Egyptians as there likely is from other states, friendly states in the Middle East and we shall just keep in mind the fact that the Houthis haven't been struck hard just yet is the fear of retaliation not towards Israel, we've seen ballistic missiles and drones being fired at southern Israel for many weeks now it's Houthi retaliation against Saudi Arabia against the Arab states in their near vicinity that's the fear, so the escalation potential is still there and so the US will probably have to walk a very fine line deterring the Houthis, stopping the Houthis while not seeing them escalate further on the Arabian Peninsula Neri Zilber thank you very much for both your time and your analysis here in studio with me this afternoon I want to cross now to our correspondent Emily Francis who is standing by the entrance of the security headquarters a key position of many of the protests related to the hostages, what can you tell us that's happening there this afternoon? Hi Batia listen, as you can see there's a lot of people here today they are not giving up hope in fact we're told literally they're going to be at the 29th hour of every hour they're going to block the entrance to and from the main military IDF headquarters here to read all of the names and to do it for literally 241 seconds which is the number of hostages that were originally taken on October 7th and here I am with a gentleman named Moshe Lavie whose brother-in-law is Omri Miran one of the hostages sorry to have to interview you under these circumstances I know it's not easy but please tell us about your brother-in-law Omri is a 46 year old man an amazing father to his two daughters Moni and Alma husband to his wife Lishaia my sister shiatsu therapist love of nature spiritual man love sports as well we can't wait to have him back which is why we're here everywhere we can whether in Israel or around the world because it's been way too long for them to be held hostage captive in Gaza by Hamas we want to be certain that our government can do what they can to ensure their safe release alive do you still have hope given the tragedy that we've had this week what happened and the video that was released yesterday more gut-wrenching news for all of us but do you still have belief that you'll get him home alive if I didn't have hope I would not be speaking with you here I would not be standing here today we have to have hope so that other people will come and support us continue advocate for Omri and all the hostages held captive by Hamas we have to keep fighting keep advocating as long as we can the tragedies are horrifying us and we're living in a continuous nightmare but we're here for them and we want to make sure that those policy makers understand that time is running out and every second in captivity is like eternity thank you so much for speaking to us thank you that's all for now Bhatia there's a lot of family members here we'll have more in the next hour more personal stories of the hostages who are all praying to come home Emily Francis our correspondent there in the centre of Tel Aviv just outside where the hostages have been demonstrating to bring their loved ones back home thank you very much for that update let's go now to Daniel Liftschitz the grandson of your Chevet and dead Liftschitz who were kidnapped by Hamas and taken into the Gaza Strip 85 year old your Chevet was one of the first hostages to be released from captivity back in October her husband however remains in Gaza thank you so very much Daniel for joining us this is still so difficult knowing that one of your grandparents has been released the other still in captivity have you heard anything from government representatives in charge of this or know anything about when it's likely that your grandfather will return we have no no news about that we are extremely worried because the information we had is from one of the hostages that came back she told us that she was there with my grandfather and she was in a place where they are not getting medicine and my grandfather is 73 years old 83 years old and he needs medicine for the blood pressure and he has some lung disease so that's very that's extremely hard to know that he's there still now so many days after 74 days after that's really horrifying gas and you know hope dies last but this what we have now and we look forward to hear fast news about the release and next deal hopefully as the Mossad chief is meeting with the Qatari prime minister some news of an imminent hostage deal another one in fact could be at least on the table but Daniel why don't a lot of the hostage families feel toward obviously the feelings of anguish distrust even faith hope that there's a fortune of complexities with regards to how Israel feels with its own government but the international red cross that is supposed to be aiding hostages aiding those captives noncombatants all throughout the world have been largely silent in the Gaza Strip is there some sort of disappointment in the way that they've been handling this would you like for them to be able to be able to visit your grandfather and provide him with medicine that he so desperately needs in front of the ICRC which I met also in New York I can say that again I will tell the same words for them they must stop being taxi drivers and they must act differently they must act in take actions they never took before because something that never happened before happened so they must take actions that they never took before that's what I'm saying about that it's worrying me they must take those actions and but you know we are here now and now we can deal and be in front of our government and another international press for the release of the hostages as finally yeah the red cross they don't do their job they don't go to see their situation they don't know they don't give them medicine but they are not the ones that are releasing the hostages and they are not the ones that negotiating about that they need to do their work but now the most important work is to release the hostages which means that's the pressure we need to continue pushing our government that need to take action and be creative and take out the prisoners of Hamas and put them on the border if they need or deal any negotiation they can and they need to come with the offers the international ones have to press more power as much as possible press Egypt to make a deal press Saudi doing the work with the Arab countries harder the Americans they just need to continue and do what they do I think we are very lucky to have them I see things are moving here and I expect our governments to continue and take any deal and do it fast there is no time we must understand the time is finished but as well Hamas needs to agree for the for the deal and bring it from their side as well they should stand out and bring those people those 83 years old people many old people we saw in the video yesterday about Haim Peri and Cooper and Mounder from there all from my kibbutz from kibbutz Neroz you see their situation it's just unimaginable that they kidnapped those elderly and so many others from their own beds and they are still there they should take them and release them now immediately as well absolutely and it's something obviously the international community continues to forget that we are not talking about IDF reservists or even those in active duty a lot of the men that are still there as you mentioned on noncombatants they are the elderly and Daniel I do apologize for the sensitive question that I want to ask you but obviously also that we've seen in the last couple of days unfortunately hostages being caught up with the IDF's military operation in the Gaza Strip is there a sense of concern a lot of the hostage families holding out hope and faith and as you mentioned pushing the pressure and making sure the government knows this is your top priority is there some kind of concern that the government's two priorities being getting rid of Hamas and securing the hostages safety might coincide and clash with one another I think the prime minister Netanyahu is the one that is responsible for as well for the things that happened and he is there responsible for releasing the hostages and he's responsible of the life of the soldiers and he did to take everything in consideration and to work and do everything possible for the life of the hostages the life of the soldiers and I come to strength as well the soldiers that are fighting they are doing amazing work they are big, they are brave they are courage and I can just strength them and I can strength the cabinet to take a deal and continue to something that will see the end of that coming soon of course their top issue top priority most important thing now is to have to bring those hostages back home because they are dying there and the fighting is dangerous bombing is dangerous the danger of the hostages is huge now they have to do everything they need to stop stop now bring those hostages back home do whatever you need the life of the hostages is the responsibility of the cabinet and the prime minister Netanyahu and it must do everything for them to come back safely Daniel Liftschitz the grandson of your chevet and Oded Liftschitz who were kidnapped by Hamas your chevet returned home to Israel shortly after the beginning of the war while Oded Liftschitz