 The I-24 News Desk, I'm Sarah Martinez, live from Tel Aviv. Today marks the 76th day of the war as Israel's ground operation to dismantle Hamas and Gaza intensifies. The IDF says it's nearing the end of its offensive in the northern part of the strip, and it has begun fighting in new areas adjacent to Shadjajia and Khanyounis, where Hamas leadership is believed to be hiding. These really army has also announced the death of three more soldiers killed in fighting, bringing the IDF's whole of slain soldiers to 137. A short while ago, rocket sirens sarned in the northern Galilee, following a Hezbollah rocket salvo fired at northern Israeli border community of Kiryat Shmona overnight. Meanwhile, Hamas has reportedly rejected an Israeli offer to temporarily halt fighting in exchange for the release of some of the 129 hostages still held captive in the war zone. According to the Wall Street Journal, the terror group wants Israel to first implement a ceasefire before beginning negotiations. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, US President Biden doesn't expect a new hostage deal between Israel and Hamas to come soon. Take a listen. Are we expecting a hostage deal anytime soon? Yes. Oh, really? Okay. Well, we're pushing it, there's no expectation at this point. Oh, we are pushing. And your reaction to 20,000 dead in Gaza, that death toll reached today, would I go to be reached today? Let's try. I-24 News correspondent Pierre-Claude Schenler is on the Israel-Gaza border. Pierre, what's the latest where you are? I'll show you what the latest just behind me on the border between Shejaia in the southeastern outskirts of Gaza City and the little town of Almoraka, which is south of Gaza City and which controls one of the main access roads to Hanyunas, which is now the focal point of the fighting. Although Palestinian media reports affiliated to Hamas have said that overnight there were heavy bombing and clashes in the Jebalah refugee camp, which two days ago was declared under operational command by the IDF, saying that the Gaza Brigade of Jebalah was dismantled with 1,000 terrorists killed and 600 and 500 taken prisoners, among them 70 who were basically who participated into the October 7 massacre. So it's not over yet in Gaza. The IDF spokesperson, Riyad Mirol Daniel Agari, said also earlier yesterday evening that there were some fighting in the Tufakh and Aldaraj neighborhoods of Gaza City. That means that although the overall operational control of the northern part of the Gaza Strip, which was invaded in October 27 almost two months ago, is evident at the same time there are still pockets of resistance with Hamas terror cells and the two soldiers whose deaths were announced today, the three soldiers, sorry, were all killed in the northern part of the Gaza Strip with eight additional soldiers and officers severely wounded. And Tia, a new chilling discovery following a military probe into the accidental killing of three escaped hostages in the Gaza Strip by Israeli soldiers. Right. About a kilometer from where the hostages were killed last Friday, there was a building in which there was a terror cells that was holding the hostages. And five days earlier, the commando unit of the Ghoulani Infantry Brigade entered a building, that building, they first introduced a sniffing dog equipped with a GoPro camera. And there was a clash, the terrorists were killed, the dog was killed, but they didn't check the GoPro camera. They checked the GoPro camera only after the three hostages were erroneously killed by the Ghoulani Infantry Brigade. It appears that on the GoPro camera, there is a recording of the voices of the hostages that are saying SOS were hostages, but nobody heard it really. Nobody was sure they heard it, and it appears only after deciphering the recording that was on the GoPro camera on the sniffing dog that these were the hostages. Five days passed after that clash, the hostages moved from building to building. At some point, they even left an inscription on a wall of a building made by some food products in which they said SOS hostages, but that building was discovered by the Infantry Ghoulani Brigade, but they didn't take it into account because they thought this was another trap laid by Hamas. And thus, five days later on Friday last week, the three hostages were killed by mistake. And only now it appears that there were signs that could have let the soldiers to rescue those hostages. Tragic accent. Thank you very much for that update from the Israel Gaza border. Joining me now is Yaakov Peri, former head of the Israeli security agency, Shem Betz. Thank you very much for joining me this morning. Hamas has rejected Israel's proposal for a week-long truce in Gaza in exchange for the release of some 40 hostages, including women, children, the terror group still holds. In your eyes, what should Israel's next move be? Time is running out for those 129 hostages still held in Gaza 76 days later. Yeah, absolutely. Israel should initiate and initiate, initiate till we'll come to a solution. Israel's promising to stop completely the war, but to squeeze and squeeze in the battlefield and to bring to a point Sinwar and his friend to release part of the hostages, of all of them. It seems to be that Hamas is not yet desperate because Hamas wants to achieve a long ceasefire and maybe even a declaration to stop the war. Israel will not do it, but from the other side we have to push without any calculation and to try and to bring as soon as possible the hostages back home. The situation is getting better and worse every day. There are elderly people, babies, and those who are still alive should come home as soon as possible. Hamas reportedly told Egyptian mediators Israel must free all Palestinian prisoners, and those are terror prisoners, for the release of all remaining 120 hostages. I want to ask you, how far is the war cabinet willing to go to secure the release of these hostages? Well, it will not be a very easy task, but my opinion is Israel has to negotiate and to say, well, we are ready to release the majority of the Palestinians that are jailed in Israel in order to bring the hostages. We have no time without the hostages. We have still time to continue the battle in Gaza Strip and outside Gaza Strip. So we shouldn't be stubborn if Hamas says, well, we want you to release a big portion of the Palestinian Chinese and to agree to it. In your eyes, how much did the Gilad Shalit's 2011 deal to secure the release of one IDF soldier in exchange for over a thousand Palestinian terror prisoners affect Hamas' leverage in these negotiations? No doubt that it affects. Shows the sensitivity. The Israel Republic has these hostages, and that's a very good example for the Hamas in order to press Israel and to release. They know that we will be ready to almost everything in order to bring back our hostages home. Yaakov, stay with me. I want to cross over to Israel's northern border with Lebanon where our correspondent Zach Anders is standing by. Zach, I understand. Hostilities continuing even this morning. They are in the last 24 hours has seen a variety of strikes across multiple borders, southern Lebanon with the IDF doing some preemptive striking against Hezbollah yesterday as they were apparently attempting to encroach on the border. These strikes were apparently quite sizable. The smoke could be seen from the cameras north of Haifa even billowing up over the border in several locations. The Hezbollah officials that are releasing information through Lebanese media channels brought the number last night up to 118 Hezbollah fighters that have been killed since the hostilities began here on October 7th. And the IDF says they struck positions inside southern Syria as well belonging to the Syrian army after four rockets were launched from southern Syria. And diplomatic efforts pardon underway to secure a buffer zone to push Hezbollah fighters past the Lattani River. Any progress there from the United States and France? In the last two days we have not seen or heard any reports coming out of Beirut, D.C., New York of there being any substantial progress on these talks. The talks did seem to have some movement three, four days ago with the U.S. saying that they are pushing for a six-mile buffer. This would not be the entire length to the Lattani River in some places, but at its most narrow point it would be. This is a buffer that would put some of the weapons out of range. The ATGMs would be out of range. These anti-tank guided missiles that Hezbollah has been firing with personnel on the ground at Israeli positions, at Israeli northern communities. However, this does not appear that the substantial, the meat on the bone of what this deal will need to be has actually come to fruition yet because the Hezbollah organization structures leadership is the ones that will ultimately need to be involved at some point, negotiated with them. And so far it does not appear that Hezbollah has at least said that they've been accepting these talks or party to any of these negotiations right now. Who is in the room is the Lebanese Armed Forces, the fractured political government of Lebanon, France, the U.S. and the United Nations. The United Nations has 10,000 peacekeepers in southern Lebanon that are caught in the middle of this. They apparently want to see some sort of agreement reached as well. To their benefit because Hezbollah has been firing from close to these U.N. positions, these U.N. bases, and the IDF has been striking back close to these bases. So the peacekeepers are in peril a bit here. Where does the LAF stand, the Lebanese Armed Forces, because in an agreement that would honor the original framework of UNSC 1701 that came after the 2006 Lebanon War, the LAF is the ones responsible for not just the security in southern Lebanon, but for providing both information and access to the others inside, others party to this deal to ensure that Hezbollah is outside the buffer zone. This is an agreement that was violated many times over the last decade. So it's unlikely to see the actual original framework upheld in its totality, but perhaps in principle there could be some elements of this security council vote that could be agreed to or at least attempted to be upheld. How does Hezbollah react? Do they pull any of their personnel or equipment out of a six-mile buffer anytime soon? The IDF has been operating under the assumption that they won't and are, again, continuing that rhetoric and stepping up the strong language that they are prepared for an offensive operation here and to push Hezbollah back by force. Zach Anders, thank you very much for that update from Israel's border with Lebanon. I want to turn back to my guest, Yaakov Peri, former Shinbechi Fyako. Before we turn back to the fighting in Gaza, I want to ask you a little bit about Lebanon here, because despite those diplomatic efforts to secure some sort of buffer zone, Israeli security analysts say there's no way of avoiding a direct confrontation between the IDF and Hezbollah. I want to ask what your take on that is. I don't believe that Hezbollah. Hezbollah became a political power in Lebanon, and they will not obey any agreement, which is political. From the other side, they are hesitating to open a open war. So we can be stuck with the tension in the northern border for a long time. And that's really a very, very problematic issue, because it will prevent the people to come back there to see Moshe Lim and other settlements. So the situation in the north is very, very problematic. I don't see any political agreement, either than an army solution. The IDF is intensifying its combat in Hanyunas, where Hamas military leadership, as well as the hostages, are believed to be. Talk to us about the intelligence difficulties on the ground in locating them. Look, we used to have used, before the 7th of August, a very, very good picture of the intelligence of Hamas leaders and the Hamas forces. Now we are in the middle of a war. And I'm not sure that the region of San Juan is hiding in Hanyunas. There are possibilities. She fled away from Hanyunas through Tunnels to Egypt and from Egypt to Iran. Oh, I'm not sure that she is still in the Gaza Strip. We have a lot of intelligence, and we are using it. You can see the wonderful job that the Israeli IDF is doing, but it's not enough. And we are doing it in a very careful manner. So the chances to catch the leaders of Hamas heading by Mr. Sylvard is not big, mainly because of all kinds of breaks she is ready to do in order to bring those to this. Every break gives Mr. Sylvard a chance to fled away by himself and to run away from his force. I want to ask you, I want to go back to the fateful day of October 7th. The question on everyone's mind here is how did these atrocities happen? Talk to us about the military and intelligence failures here. Well, that's a question that I'm also struggling with. It's amazing that nothing did work. The children didn't know the operational side was very bad. The technical side failed. So there was a colossal failure. And what I can assume that everyone was captured in the conception that Hamas is not interested in any war with us. And in order to give them the three ground resources by bringing more waters from the Gaza Strip to Israel with a calm situation. And we were wrong. And Yaakov, finally Israel's mission is to dismantle Hamas in the Gaza Strip. But the ideology will remain. In fact, support for Hamas among Palestinians has risen following October 7th. What will it take to truly weed out the seeds of the terror ideology? We cannot, to my sorrow, we cannot eliminate an idea. Can we eliminate people? And I'm sure that the Israeli IDF will do at most. And we will kill every Hamas follower, terrorist, or leader, if we can. But I don't, I'm not sure if we can eliminate the idea. And I'm not sure that after one, two, or three years, it will not come back. Yaakov, finally, former head of the Israeli Security Agency, Shin Betz. Thank you very much for your insight today. Thank you very much. With me here in studio is Senior I-24 News correspondent Owen Ultriman. What a pessimistic interview in a lot of ways. I mean, a remarkable interview, Sarah, and great job. But what a pessimistic interview. Of course, the last question, right? A kind of admission, at least by Yaakov Perry, as he sees it, that Israel is essentially returning to the mowing the lawn strategy, which we thought had been thrown in the dustbin, I guess, to continue that metaphor, right? That Hamas might be defeated, but the idea is going to come back and implicit, at least reading between the lines, that the organization is going to come back. I don't know if that's what he meant, but that's what I took him as meaning. Hopefully that the ideology remains and will remain. Right, again, don't forget going back to Benjamin Netanyahu over and over and over again in every public statement. I say that as a credit, because he's being very clear to the public about how he sees things, you know, refers to the three aims of the war. And number three is nothing to do with Hamas. It's about the Gaza Strip never posing a threat to Israel. And what Yaakov Perry seems to be saying is it's not a realistic goal. Obviously very pessimistic that Yahya Sinwar and his estimation could, and I think this adverb is right easily, I think I'm not putting that word in his mouth, have fled the Gaza Strip. And so the objective of killing the top Hamas leadership also not realistic as he sees it. And then Sarah, yet another senior Israeli security chief essentially saying the government should be opening the jails to let many, many Palestinian prisoners out in exchange for hostages. Which is an idea that many Israelis are extremely fearful of, understandably. Listen, there's so much sympathy, rightly so for the hostage families and for the cause of bringing them all home, which we all feel and we all share. And the families have been so eloquent and so well organized and so effective in making their case. And it is a holy cause. And there are obviously limits to how I think people feel in terms of taking a position about what red lines there should be in prisoner exchanges. That said, I'm struck. Again, last night Israel time, a Chinese Marom, former head commander of the Israeli Navy, who essentially came out, as I understood it, for an all for all deal, right? Letting all the Palestinian prisoners out. What Hamas is asking for? Okay, and as for from day one, that we see senior Israeli security chiefs, including the former head of the Shin Bet, someone who understands how much of a risk these freed prisoners can be and how many more victims and how many more hostages they can take. And you asked him about the Shalit deal and he said this incentivizes the next hostage taking. And yet comes out and says nonetheless, nonetheless that the jails should be opened. And you're right, there's opposition in the public. I suspect there will be more opposition from the politicians, even when a deal comes before the full government. But again, the professionals, many of them, maybe not all of them, but many, many senior professionals, people have been in the rooms, come out and take that position. We have to take it seriously, but I think it's extremely, extremely pessimistic position for what the consequences of this war and what the enduring consequences of October 7th are going to be. And speaking of that hostage deal, the United States continues its diplomatic efforts to broker a deal. I want to take a listen to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken who says the war has to come to an end as quickly as possible. It's a top priority for the Biden administration. In the year ahead, of course, ahead of those elections in the United States. But still voicing a strong support for Israel's mission to dismantle Hamas. Let's take a quick listen. Okay, and until we have that sound bite. You can hear it from me, I guess. Exactly, let's talk a little bit about that rhetoric that we're hearing from the United States. This new year and a very big year for the United States. Right, well, let's just set the scene. This all came during a press conference that Antony Blinken gave as a kind of end of year presser to sort of talk about what had happened in 2023 and how he sees the year ahead. And as always, there's a prepared statement at the beginning where he makes his comments and then takes questions and answers. Interestingly enough, in the prepared comment, the Israel Hamas war was preceded by the word fourth. It was the fourth item he was talking about. Okay, after Ukraine, after China, and after other elements of American diplomacy. So let's hear what he said during the question and answer period, yeah. One of the things that's striking to me is that, understandably, everyone would like to see this conflict end as quickly as possible. But if it ends with Hamas remaining in place and having the capacity and the stated intent to repeat October 7th again and again and again, that's not in the interest of Israel. It's not in the interest of the region. It's not in the interest of the world. And what is striking to me is that even as, again, we hear many countries urging the end to this conflict, which we would all like to see, we hear virtually no one saying demanding of Hamas, that it stopped hiding behind civilians, that it laid down its arms, that it surrendered. This is over tomorrow if Hamas does that. This would have been over a month ago, six weeks ago if Hamas had done that. And how could it be that there are no demands made of the aggressor and only demands made of the victim? So it would be good if there was a strong international voice pressing Hamas to do what's necessary to end this. And again, that could be tomorrow. Oh, and Blinken essentially calling out the international community's hypocrisy when it comes to Hamas again and again and again calling for Israel to negotiate a ceasefire, but no demands on the aggressor on Hamas. I was going to love that sound bite, Sarah, so obviously that will become his music to ears of many in Jerusalem and in the inner halls of power. But going back to what we were saying, so there's the prepared statement and the question and answer period. In the prepared statement, he put this as item number four. Clearly didn't want to emphasize it, wanted to emphasize Ukraine and China and other issues. And during the prepared statement, focuses a lot more on ending the conflict as quickly as possible as you said, minimizing civilian casualties and removing the threat of Hamas. That was the language he used. And again, this is a lot of this is consistent with the language you've heard from the Biden administration from the early days of the war and in recent weeks. But then in the question and answers, once he's challenged, once he's challenged, that's when he feels he needs to come back with language such as that. And it's interesting because the language removing the threat of Hamas is replaced in that answer by Hamas not being able to remain in place. Sarah, those are two different things that I think Israel will be very, very happy to hear that answer in addition or in some sense striking out what he had said in the prepared statement. Thank you. And that's the wrap for this hour's broadcast. Pardon, but don't go anywhere. I-24 News will be back at the top of the hour with this ruling coverage of the war here in Israel. I'm Sarah Martinez. Thanks for watching. We can get through the traffic faster. We can get across town quicker. Ultimately, it's cheaper for the folks who pay to use our services. The I-24 News Desk, I'm Sarah Martinez, live from Tel Aviv. Today marks the 76th day of the war as Israel's ground operation to dismantle Hamas and Gaza intensifies. The IDF says it's nearing the end of its offensive in the northern part of the strip and it has begun fighting in new areas adjacent to Shadazia and Chanyounis where Hamas leadership is believed to be hiding. The Israeli army has also announced the death of three more soldiers killed in fighting, bringing the IDF toll of slain soldiers to 137. A short while ago, rockets siren sarned in the northern Galilee, following a Hezbollah rocket salvo fired at northern Israeli border community of Kiryat Shmona overnight. Meanwhile, Hamas has reportedly rejected an Israeli offer to temporarily halt fighting in exchange for the release of some of the 129 hostages still held captive in the war zone. According to the Wall Street Journal, the terror group wants Israel to first implement a ceasefire before beginning negotiations. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, US President Biden doesn't expect a new hostage deal between Israel and Hamas to come soon. Take a listen. There's no expectation at this point, but we are pushing. And your reaction to 20,000 dead in Gaza that death toll reached today? I-24 News correspondent Pierre-Cleuchandler is on the Israel-Gaza border. Pierre, what's the latest where you are? I'll show you what the latest just behind me on the border between Shadazia in the southeastern outskirts of Gaza City and the little town of Almoraka, which is south of Gaza City and which controls one of the main access roads to Hanyunas, which is now the focal point of the fighting, although Palestinian media reports affiliated to Hamas have said that overnight there were heavy bombing and clashes in the Jebalia refugee camp, which two days ago was declared under operational command by the IDF saying that the Gaza Brigade of Jebalia was dismantled with 1,000 terrorists killed and 600 taken prisoners, among them 70 who were basically who participated into the October 7th massacre. So it's not over yet in Gaza. The IDF spokesperson, Riyad Mirul, Daniel Agar is said also earlier yesterday evening that there were some fighting in the Tufakh and Aldaraj neighborhoods of Gaza City. That means that although the overall operational control of the northern part of the Gaza Strip, which was invaded in October 27, almost two months ago, is evident at the same time there's still pockets of resistance with Hamas terror cells and the two soldiers whose deaths were announced today, the three soldiers, sorry, were all killed in the northern part of the Gaza Strip with eight additional soldiers and officers severely wounded. And to our new chilling discovery following a military probe into the accidental killing of three escaped hostages in the Gaza Strip by Israeli soldiers. Right, about a kilometer from where the hostages were killed last Friday, there was a building in which there was a terror cell that was holding the hostages. And five days earlier, the commando unit of the Ghoulani Infantry Brigade entered that building. They first introduced a sniffing dog equipped with a GoPro camera. And there was a clash. The terrorists were killed. The dog was killed. But they didn't check the GoPro camera. They checked the GoPro camera only after the three hostages were erroneously killed by the Ghoulani Infantry Brigade. It appears that on the GoPro camera, there is a recording of the voices of the hostages that are saying, SOS, we're hostages. But nobody heard it, really. Nobody was sure they heard it. And it appears only after deciphering the recording that was on the GoPro camera, on the sniffing dog that these were the hostages. Five days passed after that clash. The hostages moved from building to building. At some point, they even left an inscription on a wall of a building made by some food products in which they said, SOS, hostages. But that building was discovered by the Infantry Ghoulani Brigade. But they didn't take it into account because they thought this was another trap laid by Hamas. And thus, five days later, on Friday last week, the three hostages were killed by mistake. And only now it appears that there were signs that could have led the soldiers to rescue those hostages. Tragic accent. Thank you very much for that update from the Israel Gaza border. Joining me now is Yaakov Peri, former head of the Israeli Security Agency, Shin Betz. Thank you very much for joining me this morning. Hamas has rejected Israel's proposal for a week-long truce in Gaza in exchange for the release of some 40 hostages, including women, children, the terror group still holds. In your eyes, what should Israel's next move be? Time is running out for those 129 hostages still held in Gaza 76 days later. Absolutely. Israel should initiate and initiate, initiate, till we'll come to a solution. Initiate without promising, stop completely the war, but to squeeze and squeeze in the battlefield and to bring to a point, Sinwar is and his friend, to release part of the hostages, of all of them. It seems to be that Hamas is not yet desperate because they, Hamas want to achieve a long ceasefire and maybe even a declaration to have stopping the war. Israel will not do it, but from the other side, we have to push without any calculation and to try and to bring as soon as possible those hostages back home. Their situation is getting better and worse every day. There are elderly people, babies, and those who are still alive should come home as soon as possible. Hamas reportedly told Egyptian mediators, Israel must free all Palestinian prisoners, those are terror prisoners, for the release of all remaining 120 hostages. I want to ask you how far is the war cabinet willing to go to secure the release of these hostages? Well, it will not be a very easy task, but my opinion is Israel has to negotiate and to say, well, we are ready to release the majority of the Palestinians that are jailed in Israel in order to bring the hostages. We have no time without this. We have still time to continue the battle in Gaza Strip and outside Gaza Strip. So we shouldn't be stubborn if Hamas says, well, we want you to release a big portion of the Palestinian Chinese and to agree to it. In your eyes, how much did the Gilad Shalits 2011 deal to secure the release of one IDF soldier in exchange for over 1,000 Palestinian terror prisoners affect Hamas' leverage in these negotiations? No doubt that it affects. It shows the sensitivity. The Israeli Republic has these hostages and that's a very good example for Hamas, in order to press Israel and to release. They know that we will be ready to almost everything in order to bring back our hostages home. Yaakov, stay with me. I want to cross over to Israel's northern border with Lebanon where our correspondent Zach Anders is standing by. Zach, I understand. Hostilities continuing even this morning. They are. In the last 24 hours has seen a variety of strikes across multiple borders. Southern Lebanon with the IDF doing some preemptive striking against Hezbollah yesterday as they were apparently attempting to encroach on the border. These strikes were apparently quite sizable. The smoke could be seen from the cameras north of Haifa even billowing up over the border in several locations. The Hezbollah officials that are releasing information through Lebanese media channels brought the number last night up to 118 Hezbollah fighters that have been killed since the hostilities began here October 7th. And the IDF says they struck positions inside southern Syria as well belonging to the Syrian army after four rockets were launched from southern Syria. And diplomatic efforts pardon underway to secure a buffer zone to push Hezbollah fighters past the Lattani River. Any progress there from the United States and France? In the last two days we have not seen or heard any reports coming out of Beirut, D.C., New York of there being any substantial progress on these talks. The talks did seem to have some movement three, four days ago with the U.S. saying that they are pushing for a six-mile buffer. This would not be the entire length to the Lattani River in some places, but at its most narrow point it would be. This is a buffer that would put some of the weapons out of range. The ATGMs would be out of range. These anti-tank guided missiles that Hezbollah has been firing with personnel on the ground at Israeli positions, at Israeli northern communities. However, this does not appear that the substantial the meat on the bone of what this deal will need to be has actually come to fruition yet because the Hezbollah organization structures leadership is the ones that will ultimately need to be involved at some point, negotiated with them. And so far it does not appear that Hezbollah has at least said that they've been accepting these talks or party to any of these negotiations right now who is in the room as the Lebanese Armed Forces, the fractured political government of Lebanon, France, the U.S. and the United Nations. The United Nations has 10,000 peacekeepers in southern Lebanon that are caught in the middle of this. They apparently want to see some sort of agreement reached as well. It's to their benefit because Hezbollah has been firing from close to these U.N. positions, these U.N. bases, and the IDF has been striking back close to these bases. So the peacekeepers are in peril a bit here. Where does the LAF stand, the Lebanese Armed Forces? Because in an agreement that would honor the original framework of UNSC 1701 that came after the 2006 Lebanon War, the LAF is the ones responsible for not just the security in southern Lebanon, but for providing both information and access to the others inside others party to this deal to ensure that Hezbollah is outside the buffer zone. This is an agreement that was violated many times over the last decade. So it's unlikely to see the actual original framework upheld in its totality. But perhaps in principle, there could be some elements of this Security Council vote that could be agreed to or at least attempted to be upheld. How does Hezbollah react? Do they pull any of their personnel or equipment out of a six-mile buffer anytime soon? The IDF has been operating under the assumption that they won't and are, again, continuing that rhetoric and stepping up the strong language that they are prepared for an offensive operation here and to push Hezbollah back by force. Zach Anders, thank you very much for that update from Israel's border with Lebanon. I want to turn back to my guest, Yaakov Peri, former Shinbechi. Yaakov, before we turn back to the fighting in Gaza, I want to ask you a little bit about Lebanon here because despite those diplomatic efforts to secure some sort of buffer zone, Israeli security analysts say there's no way of avoiding a direct confrontation between the IDF and Hezbollah. I want to ask what your take on that is. I don't believe the Hezbollah. Hezbollah became a political power in Lebanon and they will not obey any agreements, which is political. From the other side, they are hesitating to open a open war so we can be stuck with attention. They're not on a border for a long time and that's really a very, very problematic issue because it will prevent the people to come back to see Moshe Lim and other settlements. So the situation in the north is very, very problematic. I don't see any political agreement either than an army solution. The IDF is intensifying its combat in Hanyunas for Hamas military leadership as well as the hostages are believed to be. Talk to us about the intelligence difficulties on the ground in locating them. Look, we used to have used, before the 7th of August, a very, very good picture of the intelligence of Hamas leaders and the Hamas forces. Now we are in the middle of the war and I'm not sure that the region somewhere is hiding in Hanyunas. There are possibilities. She fled away from Hanyunas to Tunis, to Egypt and from Egypt to Iran, or I'm not sure that she is still in the Gaza Strip. We have a lot of intelligence and we are using it. You can see the wonderful job that the Israeli IDF is doing, but it's not enough and we are doing it today in a very careful manner so the chances to catch the leaders of Hamas heading by Mr. Sylvar is not big, mainly because of all kinds of breaks which we are ready to do in order to bring those to this. Every break gives Mr. Sylvar a chance to fled away by himself and to run away from his force. I want to ask you, I want to go back to the fateful day of October 7th. The question on everyone's mind here is how did these atrocities happen? Talk to us about the military and intelligence failures here. Well, that's a question that I'm also struggling with. It's amazing that nothing did work. The children didn't know the operational side was very bad, the technical side failed so there was a colossal failure and what I can assume that everyone was captured in the conception that Hamas is not interested in any war with us and in order to size it, give them the free ground, free source by bringing more workers from the Gaza Strip to Israel with a calm situation and we were wrong. And Yaakov, finally, Israel's mission is to dismantle Hamas in the Gaza Strip but the ideology will remain. In fact, support for Hamas among Palestinians has risen following October 7th. What will it take to truly weed out the seeds of the terror ideology? We cannot, to my sorrow, we cannot eliminate an idea. Can't eliminate people. And I'm sure that the Israeli IDF will do utmost and we will kill every Hamas follower, terrorist or leader, if we can. But I don't, I'm not sure if we can eliminate the idea and I'm not sure that after one, two or three years it will not come back. Yaakov Perry, former head of the Israeli Security Agency, she invets, thank you very much for your insight today. Thank you very much. With me here in studio is Senior I-24 News correspondent Owen Alterman. What a pessimistic interview, in a lot of ways. I mean, a remarkable interview, Sarah, and great job. But what a pessimistic interview. Of course, the last question, right? A kind of admission, at least by Yaakov Perry, is that Israel is essentially returning to the mowing-the-lawn strategy. Right. Which we thought had been thrown in the dustbin, I guess, to continue that metaphor, right, that Hamas might be defeated, but the idea is going to come back and implicit, at least reading between the lines, that the organization is going to come back. I don't know if that's what he meant, but that's what I took him as meaning. I don't think that the ideology remains and will remain. Right, again, don't forget going back to Benjamin Netanyahu over and over and over again in every public statement. I say that as a credit, because he's being very clear to the public that he sees things, you know, refers to the three aims of the war. And number three is nothing to do with Hamas. It's about the Gaza Strip never posing a threat to Israel. And what Yaakov Perry seems to be saying is that it's not a realistic goal. Obviously, very pessimistic that Israel, that Yahya Sinwar and his estimation could, and I think this adverb is right easily. I think I'm not putting that word in his mouth, have fled the Gaza Strip. And so the objective of killing the top Hamas leadership also not realistic as he sees it. And then Sarah, yet another senior Israeli security chief essentially saying the government should be opening the jails to let many, many Palestinian prisoners out in exchange for hostages. Which is an idea that many Israelis are extremely fearful of, understandably. Listen, there is so much sympathy, rightly so for the hostage families and for the cause of bringing them all home, which we all feel and we all share. And the families have been so eloquent and so well organized and so effective in making their case. And it is a holy cause. And there are obviously limits to how I think people feel in terms of taking a position about what red lines there should be in prisoner exchanges. That said, I'm struck, again, last night Israel time, Chinese Marom, former head commander of the Israeli Navy who essentially came out, as I understood it, for an all for all deal, right? Letting all the Palestinian prisoners out. What am I asking for? Okay, and as for from day one, that we see senior Israeli security chiefs, including the former head of the Shin Bet, someone who understands how much of a risk these freed prisoners can be and how many more victims and how many more hostages they can take. And you asked him about the Shalit deal and he said this incentivizes the next hostage taking. And yet comes out and says nonetheless, nonetheless that the jails should be opened. And you're right, there's opposition in the public. I suspect there will be more opposition from the politicians even when a deal comes before the full government. But again, the professionals, many of them, maybe not all of them, but many, many senior professionals, people have been in the rooms, come out and take that position. We have to take it seriously, but I think it's extremely, extremely pessimistic position for what the consequences of this war and what the enduring consequences of October 7th are going to be. And speaking of that hostage deal, the United States continues its diplomatic efforts to broker a deal. I want to take a listen to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken who says the war has to come to an end as quickly as possible at the top priority for the Biden administration in the year ahead, of course, ahead of those elections in the United States, but still voicing a strong support for Israel's mission to dismantle Hamas. Let's take a quick listen. Okay, and until we have that sound by... Oh, I'll even hear it for me, I guess. Exactly. Let's talk a little bit about that rhetoric that we're hearing from the United States ahead of this new year and a very big year for the United States. Right, well, let's just set the scene. This all came during a press conference that Antony Blinken gave as a kind of end of year presser to sort of talk about what had happened in 2023 and how he sees the year ahead. And as always, there's a prepared statement at the beginning where he makes his comments and then takes questions and answers. Interestingly enough, in the prepared comment, the Israel Hamas War was preceded by the word fourth. It was the fourth item he was talking about, okay, after Ukraine, after China, and after other elements of American diplomacy. So let's hear what he said during the question-and-answer period. Yeah. One of the things that's striking to me is that, understandably, everyone would like to see this conflict end as quickly as possible. But if it ends with Hamas remaining in place and having the capacity and the stated intent to repeat October 7th again and again and again, that's not in the interest of Israel. It's not in the interest of the region. It's not in the interest of the world. And what is striking to me is that even as, again, we hear many countries urging the end to this conflict, which we would all like to see, I hear virtually no one saying demanding of Hamas that it stopped hiding behind civilians, that it laid down its arms, that it surrendered. This is over tomorrow if Hamas does that. This would have been over a month ago, six weeks ago, if Hamas had done that. And how could it be that there are no demands made of the aggressor and only demands made of the victim? So it would be good if there was a strong international voice pressing Hamas to do what's necessary to end this. And again, that could be tomorrow. Oh, and Blinken essentially calling out the international community's hypocrisy when it comes to Hamas again and again and again calling for Israel to negotiate a ceasefire, but no demands on the aggressor on Hamas. Yeah, obviously Israel's going to love that sound bite, Sarah. So obviously that will become his music to ears of many in Jerusalem and in the inner halls of power. But going back to what we were saying, so there's the prepared statement and the question and answer period. In the prepared statement, he put this as item number four. Clearly didn't want to emphasize it. Wanted to emphasize Ukraine and China and other issues. And during the prepared statement, focuses a lot more on ending the conflict as quickly as possible, as you said, minimizing civilian casualties and removing the threat of Hamas. That was the language he used. And again, this is a lot of this is consistent with language you've heard from the Biden administration from the early days of the war and in recent weeks. But then in the question and answers, once he's challenged, once he's challenged, that's when he feels he needs to come back with language such as that. And it's interesting because the language removing the threat of Hamas is replaced in that answer by Hamas not being able to remain in place. Sarah, those are two different things. And I think Israel will be very, very happy to hear that answer in addition or in some sense striking out what he had said in the prepared statement. Oh, and Ultraman, thank you. And that's a wrap for this hour's broadcast. Pardon, but don't go anywhere. I turn it for news. We'll be back at the top of the hour with this ruling coverage of the war here in Israel. I'm Sarah Martinez. Thanks for watching. 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 be fought as well. Welcome to the I-24 News Desk. I'm Sarah Martinez, live from Tel Aviv. Today marks the 76th day of the war as Israel's ground operation to dismantle Hamas and Gaza intensifies. A short while ago, rocket sirens sounded in Gaza border communities for the first time in over 40 hours. The idea says it's nearing the end of its offensive in the northern part of the Strip and has begun fighting in new areas. The Jason II Shirejiah and Hanyounis, where Hamas's leader ship is believed to be hiding. In the past day, the air force has struck over 230 Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli army has also announced the death of three more soldiers killed in fighting, bringing the IDF toll of slain soldiers to 137. Mimal Hamas has reportedly rejected an Israeli offer to temporarily halt fighting in exchange for the release of some of the 129 hostages still helped captive in the war zone. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Israeli air group wants Israel to first implement a ceasefire before beginning negotiations. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, U.S. President Biden doesn't expect a new hostage deal between Israel and Hamas to come soon. Take a listen. We're pushing it. There's no expectation at this point, but we are pushing it. And your reaction to 20,000 dead in Gaza that death toll reached today, like when you reached it. Mimal hostages also continue on Israel's border and the 11 onlets cross over to our correspondent, Zach Anders, who's standing by there. Zach, what's the latest where you are? Yesterday, Hezbollah took credit for five different attacks throughout the day and late last night in the 11 o'clock hour just before midnight, there appeared to have been another strike on Kierat Shemona. Hezbollah has not claimed responsibility for, but it was a sizable launch. It appears as many as eight rockets were fired on one of the largest communities here in the north, in the Galilee panhandle. Apparently not inflicting damage. One of the rockets did appear to fall into an open area into a field and ignite some of the brush. Otherwise, the interceptions did appear successful. The IDF and the local authorities here have not said that there were any injuries or major damage from yesterday's attacks here in the Galilee. Still working to put together some of the damage reports for these communities closer to the coast just north of Haifa that were under attack yesterday. These are communities that have been largely evacuated if not entirely evacuated. The ones that are just on the border, especially those that are closer to IDF outposts that have been under fire repeatedly since this conflict began here. Hezbollah has since late last night announced more of its belligerence have been killed, bringing the total to 118 Hezbollah fighters that have been killed since this conflict began. And Zach, as you mentioned over 200,000 Israelis have been displaced because of this conflict including those residents from the north. When are they expected to be able to go home? It's going to be a very long time at least that's what the IDF is telling us that it will be some time before there's resolution to the situation here. I've lost my attention a little bit because there's a low flying plane overhead and sometimes you have to reconnect with the situation here that there's still farmlands. Everyone's heart rate pumps a little bit considering how many drones we've had intercepted right about here. A soldier was killed last week as well by one of the drones but some of the farmland is still operating. The crop dusters, the planes, so they've been flying low overhead. Everyone gets a little nervous but the evacuation notice is going to be in place for a very long time at least until the IDF says this situation is secured and Hezbollah has pushed back several miles from this border. And Zach, as you mentioned that chilling nervousness on the border there where residents and soldiers have a mere seconds to run for shelter. Zach Anders, thank you very much for that update. A chilling discovery following a military probe into the accidental killing of three escaped hostages in the Gaza Strip by Israeli soldiers. One of the captives was recorded days earlier shouting for help during a gun battle between troops and Hamas terrorists. During the clash as the dog from the military's Oketz K9 unit was sent into the building, the dog was killed by the Hamas gunman but a camera mounted on the dog which continued to record even after the animal was killed caught the voice of a hostage apparently Alon Shamriz calling for help. The feed from the dog's body camera was not being monitored live and was only discovered on December 18th after the body of the K9 was recovered. Well Iris Haim the mother of Yotam Haim one of those three hostages accidentally killed in the tragic event sent a chilling recording in which she seeks to send a strengthening message to the soldiers from that very unit an inspiring message of compassion from the breed mother I would like to hear from you and think all the time that you are doing the best thing in the world that can help us and the people of Israel and all of us are grateful to you and do not hesitate for a moment when you see the battle do not think that you are just you are in a hurry, you need to tell yourself because just like that you can hear from us and in the first session you are willing to come to us, everyone and we want to see you among us and share with you and tell you how much it is to say such a thing and it was the most true thing that I see in that moment and I am not afraid of you and I do not and I do not fear and I do not fear and I do not fear and I do not fear and I do not fear and I do not fear and I do not fear also underground. That's the main problem. I mean above ground we do have more or less the intel as we proceed. In all these operations we saw it in the north. Every day that passes by brings us a lot of intel. So the terrorists that have been captured and are being interrogated. So the places that we've conquered and inside we found documents and information. So as we proceed we get a clear picture of what is waiting ahead. The real question mark is what is under, what is in the underground. If and where are Mr. Sinoir, Mr. Mohammed Def, are they hiding under Hanyunas? Under which neighborhood? In what kind of a bunker? How could we reach that bunker? So this is the difficult part. The fighting with the armed terrorists of the Hamas is becoming more or less of a routine, as we have more or less understood how they function. As we proceed also and we go nearer the high leaders of the Hamas, the fighters are more trained, equipped than those that we encountered in the north. It's the hard nuts, I'd say, on the branch of the Hamas. So it's very dangerous fights, very tough fights. I'm afraid we are going to wake up every morning with more names of IDF soldiers being killed or wounded by these people. But the objective right now is clearer. It is to put our hand on the leaders. This war has to stop because it's ridiculous to continue it on the part of the Hamas especially. The Hamas has lost the war. Even if it takes us weeks and months to finish the job, the Hamas has lost the war. The Hamas has lost Gaza, the control of Gaza. The Hamas has lost the support of the Palestinian people and even of the leaders living in Doha who are already speaking of a political solution, whereas Mr. Sinoir keeps insisting on fighting militarily. So the goal is, as we cannot stop every soldier of the Hamas and force him to lay down his weapons is to reach the leaders and to force them to give the order to stop. When the Hamas says they want a full ceasefire, we agree. We also want a full ceasefire. All they have to do to obtain it is lay down their weapons. On that note, I want to cross over to I-24 News Correspondent Pierre Clauchandler. He's on the Israel-Gaza border. Pierre, what's the latest where you are? Well, you can see behind me there's a pillar of fire burning for about an hour and a half in the little town of Al-Mugraqa, which is south of Gaza City, just on the border with Shejaia. And it's probably a presumed terror target that has been hit there, or maybe a compound. We don't know. It's far away from where we are. But this town is strategic in the sense that it's the main access road, the Salahadin access that leads to Hanyunas, which is right now the main thrust of the ground offensive of the Israeli army since December 7th, December 2nd, sorry. But in the northern sector of the Gaza Strip, further to the north from where we are, there are still fighting, although the Israeli army has stated a number of times that it has the operational control of the northern Gaza Strip. And yet you have isolated clashes with isolated Hamasers in Jebalia, for instance, or even in Shati, which was declared cleansed of terror infrastructure and presence already three weeks ago. That shows you the difficulty to fight in a urban area, because even if in Jebalia two days ago it was announced that the whole brigade of Hamas there was annihilated with 1,000 terrorists killed, 500 taken prisoners, 70 of them participated in the massacres of October 7th. There are still boundings of targets in Jebalia as well of clashes. The army there enabled the evacuation, the organized evacuation of civilians in a school where they found weapons depots as usual in sensitive sites. And all in all, the IDF says that in the past 24 hours, 230 air strikes, navy strikes and artillery strikes on presumed terror targets were performed by the IDF in the past 24 hours, as I said. But the main thrust of it was in Hanyun as the city, which is about 20 kilometers to the south of where we're standing. You mentioned the difficulties of urban warfare there, the UN agency's warning of a toxic mix of disease, hunger and a lack of hygiene and sanitation. Talk to me a little bit about what's happening in terms of the aid coming into Gaza. Well, there's many efforts at this point. Some of them depend on Israel, some of them do not depend on Israel. For instance, the United Arab Emirates set up a desalination station in the Sinai Peninsula close to the border with Rafah in the Gaza Strip. They laid a pipeline and already now a water is being provided to over 150,000 displaced people in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. They're located in a safe humanitarian zone, the Al-Muassi humanitarian zone, which is between Hanyun as to the north and Rafah to the southern tip of the Gaza Strip, a safe zone which was dedicated by the IDF as a no-bombing zone, although in the past terrorists have launched rockets from that zone. There are also two crossings, one to Gaza, one to Egyptian territory, which allow right now the passing of about 200 humanitarian trucks carrying medicine, carrying water, food, material to build tents for the displaced people. We know that over 80% of the total population of 2.2 million inhabitants in the Gaza Strip are now crammed into half of it into 180 square kilometers. That creates also a lot of problems for the fighting of the IDF because the IDF evolves in its ground operation between civilians and terrorists in civilian clothes. Nonetheless, those humanitarian trucks are crossing now. One of the passage is from Israel straight to Gaza that facilitates the bringing of aid to the Gaza Strip. The other crossing passes through Egypt to the Rafah terminal, which has the capacity of only 100 trucks. The problem is that we've seen many videos of looting those trucks by the population, but also the hijacking of trucks by armed Hamas terrorists that provide those supplies to the war effort of Hamas against Israel. So not all that humanitarian aid is orderly distributed by the UN organizations. In addition, there are field hospitals that have been established. There is one by the Jordanian Hashemite Kingdom in the northern Gaza Strip. We know that material for that hospital is being channeled via Israeli territory straight into the northern part of the Gaza Strip. And there is also a field hospital by the UAE that has been established in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. There is a major effort that might not be enough at that stage of the fighting, but it's a start and it's gathering steam. Thank you very much for that update from the Israel-Gaza border. Let's do with me here in studio. I want to ask you a little bit about the revelations that we've heard, especially notably this week of this Gaza hospital chief who also is a Hamas member is saying that Hamas regularly used his hospital as a military command center. Did Israeli intelligence have an understanding of just how embedded Hamas was within civilian areas specifically like hospitals? We know that they had been warning us for years about this, but did they have an idea of the extent of it? I think they did. The information was there. It just was misread, misinterpreted, but most of the information, the tunnels, the fact that the Hamas uses schools and hospitals, the fact that the UNRWA infrastructure is a complete terrorist infrastructure. UNRWA employees are working hand in hand with the Hamas terrorists, hiding weaponry inside UNRWA warehouses. All this was known. It was just misinterpreted to the extent that they didn't see the attack of the 7th of October coming. Why would people dig so many tunnels? Why would people buy so many weapons, produce so many missiles if not to attack Israel? What is it for? The same with the Hezbollah. There are 150,000 missiles at the hand of the Hezbollah. The address is simple. It's here. They're going to hit us. So this is a misreading on part of the intelligence services, but mostly on part of the political level. After this war, it will be made very clear and very quickly with an inquiry that the political level is hugely responsible for these years of doing nothing. I mean, the most simple common citizen of any village of the south of Israel knew what the score was. He knew that it was in danger. He improved the government to do the job. Many rounds before of fighting with the Hamas were stopped halfway through. The job was never finished. And people in their roots, they knew exactly what danger they were in. So the idea wouldn't. So that's the problem. What also is very important to understand with this example of the director of the hospital, chief of hospital is that once we wipe out the military branch of the Hamas, we have still a huge job wiping out the white color terrorists to wipe out all the people, the civil servants that occupy key positions in Gaza of the Hamas. This director of the hospital is zero director of zero hospital. He's a Hamas member working for the Hamas. He's a Hamas officer. He was an accomplice. He knew exactly what was going on. He allowed this hospital to be taken hostage by terrorists. It's shameful, but he's really a Hamas person, a Hamas member. So this means that once we finish with the military part of the operation, we have this cleanup of thousands of civil first servants of the Hamas that we also have to neutralize or get rid of in some way because they control too many things in Gaza and it's still like a kind of a rule of the Hamas over the Gaza people. You mentioned Israel wiping out Hamas, being near, finishing its mission to dismantle the terror organization. But can Hamas truly be eradicated? I mean that in the sense that the ideology will remain and in fact Hamas support has only grown since October 7th. Are we just mowing the lawn here? The ideology will remain and even the military power of Hamas will remain. We only want it not to remain in Gaza. So it will remain. It is there. Hamas is there and militarily present in the south of Lebanon in Palestinian refugee camps. It's still active, very active in the West Bank. It could be active in Algeria, in Libya. We don't care. We just don't want it at our door. That's it. We are not killing ourselves. We cannot eradicate Hamas completely. We cannot kill them to the last one, unfortunately. But what we can obtain is some kind of a political solution after the war effort that will make sure that the Gaza Strip falls under the rule of another Palestinian entity that is not affiliated to a Jihadist movement. It might be Ramallah, the PLO. It might be another entity. Mr Dahlan, for instance, it doesn't really matter. All we want is to have the threat taken away. And we want to have this Gaza as a serene, peaceful place next to us, which will be the way to also reach a peace between us and them. Short of that, we will be back to square one, which is, of course, out of the question. The main thing is we are very happy that anybody, anybody takes care of Gaza, the Egyptians, the Saudis, the Emirates. I mean, everybody is speaking a lot, but they're doing nothing. They're leaving the problem in our hands on our plate. I mean, we would be only too happy to give it to the Chinese, to whoever wants to take Gaza. But nobody, unfortunately, nobody wants Gaza. Everybody has an opinion, but they don't want to take care of it. And the Gazan people are abundant to their own fate. And honestly, by right now, the only hope they ever have of a better future lies with us, is the Israelis. And you mentioned the West Bank earlier, the IDF conducting a large-scale operation through the West Bank overnight. Talk to us about the complexity there on the ground and what's happening. Complexity, yes. But on the other hand, you have to see that since the beginning of this war, the Central Command of the IDF has done very well. It makes you wonder, why haven't we done this before? How come we have such a good clump on the West Bank right now, and we managed to limit very, very much the attacks? Why didn't we do that before? So the answer is that it's an intensive night after night action of the IDF, arresting people, eliminating people, discovering armed cash, but a larger-scale intensive way that was done before. The same as I said before, each time it brings us more intelligence. The more people you arrest, the more places you discover, the more you get a better picture of what's going on. We also had prepared the terrain. In Jenin, the terrain had been prepared. It's much easier today for IDF troops to enter Jenin to do what they have to do and get out. The same thing with Naples. There are other pockets in the West Bank that are not so well prepared. It's a bit more difficult to go in and out and do the job. But all in all, I think I said the IDF got the knack of it. They understood how to operate, how to come at night at a certain time with the right amount of troops, do what they have to do, come out with really every night very, very, very successful operations. Rafael Hamas rejected Israel's proposal for a week-long truce in Gaza in exchange for 40 hostages, including women and children. In your eyes, actually, before I say that, instead, wanting Israel to agree to a complete satire before any negotiations and wanting Israel to release all Palestinian terror prisoners. In your eyes, what should Israel's next move be? We are now in just a battle of wits with Hamas. We're in the bargaining. So, of course, Hamas puts the bar very high. Also, because Mr. Sinouar is a little disconnected from what's going on, he doesn't realize how bad his situation is. The guys in Doha, they are more realistic about this. But he continues to think that he's got the upper hand, that he can dictate his conditions. He's the guy who lost, and he's losing, and that's why now he wants to negotiate. Otherwise, he wouldn't negotiate. We have to be very strong, the Israelis. We have to keep our cool. We have to be a little patient, even if every day that passes by is a horrible danger to our hostages. We have to stand strong. And we have also to make sure it's all the hostages or nothing. At this point, it's not like the first truth where we could save women, children, etc. Now, every hostage that is liberated, it will be at the expense of those who stay behind. It will be less chances for those who stay behind to liberated. So, we should insist on that. But then, there is a problem. We don't know if the Hamas can deliver, because we don't know how many hostages are still alive. We don't know how many the Hamas actually holds. Because some are in Palestinian-Islamic jihad, including those in al-Hani. And the mafia organization. Right, absolutely. But on the ground there, doesn't Hamas have control of the street, control or oversight over these separate terror entities? It has control over the Islamic jihad. It might have some kind of a control over moral ISIS affiliated or al-Qaeda affiliated factions. But it doesn't have the control of the mafia. And right now, after the beginning of the war, what happened, which is very strange, but there is a kind of dispute now. The mafia was making money with the Hamas. They were the guys who were smuggling, for instance, weapons from the Sana'a into Gaza for cash. They were being very nicely paid for that. Well, it seems that there is a disagreement now between the mafia and the Hamas. And that's a loss of control, because the mafia in the Gaza Strip is very strong. Al-Fanio, Shami, thank you very much for your insight today. That's a wrap for this hour's broadcast. Don't go anywhere. I 24 News, way back at the top of the hour. I'm Sarah Martinez. Thanks for watching. Trail is in a state of war. Families completely done down in their beds. We have no idea where she is. Our soldiers are fighting on the front lines, but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well. The I-24 News Desk. I'm Sarah Martinez, live from Tel Aviv. Today marks the 76th day of the war as Israel's ground operation to dismantle Hamas and Gaza intensifies. A short while ago, rocket sirens sounded in Gaza border communities for the first time in over 40 hours. The idea says it's nearing the end of its offensive in the northern part of the Strip and it has begun fighting in new areas. The Jason II Shiragia and Hanyounis, where Hamas leadership is believed to be hiding. In the past day, the Air Force has struck over 230 Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli Army has also announced the death of three more soldiers killed in fighting, bringing the IDF toll of slain soldiers to 137. Mimal Hamas has reportedly rejected an Israeli offer to temporarily halt fighting in exchange for the release of some of the 129 hostages still held captive in the war zone. According to the Wall Street Journal, the terror group wants Israel to first implement the ceasefire before beginning negotiations. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, U.S. President Biden doesn't expect a new hostage deal between Israel and Hamas to come soon. Take a listen. We're pushing it. There's no expectation at this point, but we are pushing. And your reaction to 20,000 dead in Gaza that death toll reached today. Mimal hostages release continue also on Israel's border with Lebanon. Let's cross over to our correspondent, Zach Anders, who's standing by there. Zach, what's the latest where you are? Yesterday, Hezbollah took credit for five different attacks throughout the day. And late last night, in the 11 o'clock hour just before midnight, there appeared to have been another strike on Kira at Shimona. Hezbollah has not claimed responsibility for it, but it was a sizable launch. It appears as many as eight rockets were fired on one of the largest communities here in the north, in the Galilee panhandle, apparently not inflicting damage. One of the rockets did appear to fall into an open area into a field and ignite some of the brush. Otherwise, the interceptions did appear successful. The IDF and the local authorities here have not said that there were any injuries or major damage from yesterday's attacks here in the Galilee. Still working to put together some of the damage reports for these communities closer to the coast just north of Haifa that were under attack yesterday. These are communities that have been largely evacuated, if not entirely evacuated, the ones that are just on the border, especially those that are closer to IDF outposts that have been under fire repeatedly since this conflict began here. Hezbollah has since late last night announced more of its belligerents have been killed, bringing the total to 118 Hezbollah fighters that have been killed since this conflict began. And Zach, as you mentioned, over 200,000 Israelis have been displaced because of this conflict, including those residents from the north. When are they expected to be able to go home? It's going to be a very long time. At least that's what the IDF is telling us that it will be sometime before there's a resolution to the situation here. I've lost my attention a little bit because there's a low flying plane overhead and sometimes you have to reconnect with the situation here that there's still farmlands. Everyone's heart rate pumps a little bit considering how many drones we've had intercepted right about here. A soldier was killed last week as well by one of the drones, but some of the farmland is still operating the crop dusters, the planes, so they've been flying low overhead. Everyone gets a little nervous, but the evacuation notice is going to be in place for a very long time, at least until the IDF says this situation is secured and Hezbollah has pushed back several miles from this border. And Zach, as you mentioned, that chilling nervousness on the border there where residents and soldiers have a mere seconds to run for shelter. Zach Anders, thank you very much for that update. A chilling discovery following a military probe into the accidental killing of three escaped hostages in the Gaza Strip by Israeli soldiers. One of the captives was recorded days earlier shouting for help during a gun battle between troops and Hamas terrorists. During the clash as the dog from the military's Oketz K9 unit was sent into the building, the dog was killed by the Hamas gunman, but a camera mounted on the dog, which continued to record even after the animal was killed caught the voice of a hostage, apparently Alon Shamri calling for help. The feed from the dog's body camera was not being monitored live and was only discovered on December 18th after the body of the K9 was recovered. Well, Iris Chaim, the mother of Yotam Chaim, one of those three hostages accidentally killed in the tragic event since a chilling recording in which she seeks to send a strengthening message to the soldiers from that very unit. An inspiring message of compassion from the brief mother. I would like to thank you for coming here from Rachok, and I know that everything that happened is absolutely not in your name. And in the name of God, apart from the Hamas, with your name and memory on the earth, I would like to hear from you. And to think all the time that you are doing the best thing in the world that can help us, and the Israeli people, and all of us are grateful to you, and do not hesitate for a moment. Don't think that you are alone, you are written in a book, you need to tell yourself because that's the only way you can protect us. And in the first place, you are invited to come to us, all those who are interested, and we want to see you in our lives, and share with you, and tell you that the number of them that it is necessary to say such a thing, and the anger, it was the most true thing that I see in that moment. I am not alone with you, I will not hurt you, and I will not hurt you, and I will not hurt you, and I will not hurt you, and I will not hurt you, and I will not hurt you, and I will not hurt you, and I will not hurt you very, very much. Joining me now in Studio Security Analyst and former IDF Senior Intelligence Officer Arfan Yorshan. Yarefa, it's always a pleasure having you here in Studio with me. I want to ask you that the IDF is intensifying its combat in Hanyunis where Hamas military leadership is believed to be hiding and holding those hostages. Talk to us about the difficulties intelligence agencies face there on the ground. Well in Hanyunis it's pretty obvious, I would say on the ground and even more so underground, that's the main problem. I mean above ground we do have more or less the intel as we proceed. In all these operations we saw it in the north, every day that passes by brings us a lot of intel. So the terrorists that have been captured and are being interrogated, so the places that we've conquered and inside we found documents and information. So as we proceed we get a clearer picture of what is waiting ahead. The real question mark is what is under, what is in the underground. If and where are Mr. Sinoir, Mr. Mohammed Def, are they hiding under Hanyunis? Under which neighborhood? In what kind of a bunker? How could we reach that bunker? So this is the difficult part. The fighting with the armed terrorists of the Hamas is becoming more or less of a routine as we have more or less understood how they function. As we proceed also and we go nearer the high leaders of the Hamas, the fighters are more trained, equipped than those that we encountered in the north. It's the hard nuts I'd say on the branch of the Hamas. So it's very dangerous fights, very tough fights. I'm afraid we are going to wake up every morning with more names of IDF soldiers being killed or wounded by these people. But the objective right now is clearer. It is to put our hand on the leaders. This war has to stop because it's ridiculous to continue it on the part of the Hamas, especially. The Hamas has lost the war. Even if it takes us weeks and months to finish the job, the Hamas has lost the war. The Hamas has lost Gaza, the control of Gaza. The Hamas has lost the support of the Palestinian people and even of the leaders living in Doha who are already speaking of a political solution, whereas Mr. Sinoir keeps insisting on fighting militarily. So the goal is as we cannot stop every soldier of the Hamas and force him to lay down his weapons is to reach the leaders and to force them to give the order to stop. When the Hamas says they want a full ceasefire, we agree, we also want a full ceasefire. All they have to do to obtain it is lay down the weapons. On that note, I want to cross over to I-24 News Correspondent Pierre Klochenler. He's on the Israel-Gaza border. Pierre, what's the latest where you are? Well, you can see behind me, there's a pillar of fire burning for about an hour and a half in the little town of Al-Mugraqa, which is south of Gaza City, just on the border with and it's probably a presumed terror target that has been hit there or maybe a compound. We don't know. It's far away from where we are. But this town is a strategic in the sense that it's the main access road, the Salahadin access that leads to Hanyuness, which is right now the main thrust of the ground offensive of the Israeli army since December 7th, December 2nd, sorry. But in the northern sector of the Gaza Strip, further to the north from where we are, there are still fighting, although the Israeli army has stated a number of times that it has the operational control of the northern Gaza Strip. And yet you have isolated clashes with isolated Hamasers in Jebalia, for instance, or even in Shatti, which was declared cleansed of terror infrastructure and presence already three weeks ago. That shows you the difficulty to fight in an urban area because even if in Jebalia, two days ago, it was announced that the whole brigade of Hamas there was annihilated with 1,000 terrorists killed, 500 taken prisoners, 70 of them participated in the massacres of October 7th. There are still boundings of targets in Jebalia as well as clashes. The army there enabled the evacuation, the organized evacuation of civilians in a school where they found weapons depots as usual in sensitive sites. And all in all, the IDF says that in the past 24 hours, 230 air strikes, Navy strikes and artillery strikes on presumed terror targets were performed by the IDF in the past 24 hours, as I said. But the main thrust of it was in Ghaniunas, the city which is about 20 kilometers to the south of where we're standing. Mtyal, you mentioned the difficulties of urban warfare there, the UN agencies warning of a toxic mix of disease, hunger and a lack of hygiene and sanitation. Talk to me a little bit about what's happening in terms of the aid coming into Gaza. Well, there's many efforts at this point. Some of them depend on Israel, some of them do not depend on Israel. For instance, the United Arab Emirates set up a desalination station in the Sinai Peninsula close to the border with Rafah in the Gaza Strip. They laid a pipeline and already now a water is being provided to over 150,000 displaced people in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. They're located in a safe humanitarian zone, the Al-Muassi humanitarian zone, which is between Ghaniunas to the north and Rafah to the southern tip of the Gaza Strip, a safe zone which was dedicated by the IDF as a no-bombing zone, although in the past terrorists have launched rockets from that zone. There are also two crossings, one to Gaza, one to Egyptian territory, which allow right now the passing of about 200 humanitarian trucks carrying medicine, carrying water, food, material to build tents for the displaced people. We know that over 80% of the total population of 2.2 million inhabitants in the Gaza Strip are now crammed into half of it into 180 square kilometers. That creates also a lot of problems for the fighting of the IDF because the IDF evolves in its ground operation between civilians and terrorists in civilian clothes. Nonetheless, those humanitarian trucks are crossing now. One of the passage is from Israel straight to Gaza that facilitate the bringing of aid to the Gaza Strip. The other crossing passes through Egypt to the Rafah Terminal, which has the capacity of only 100 trucks. The problem is that we've seen many videos of looting those trucks by the population, but also the hijacking of trucks by armed Hamas terrorists that provide those supplies to the war effort of Hamas against Israel. So not all that humanitarian aid is orderly distributed by the UN organizations. In addition, there are field hospitals that have been established. There is one by the Jordanian Hashemite Kingdom in the northern Gaza Strip. We know that material for that hospital is being channeled via Israeli territory straight in the northern part of the Gaza Strip. And there is also a field hospital by the UAE that has been established in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. There is a major effort that might not be enough at that stage of the fighting, but it's a start and it's gathering steam. Thank you very much for that update from the Israel-Gaza border. Let's do it with me here in studio. I want to ask you a little bit about the revelations that we've heard, especially notably this week of this Gaza hospital chief who also is a Hamas member saying that Hamas regularly used his hospital as a military command center. Did Israeli intelligence have an understanding of just how embedded Hamas was within civilian areas specifically like hospitals? We know that they had been warning us for years about this, but did they have an idea of the extent of it? I think they did. The information was there. It just was misread, misinterpreted, but most of the information, the tunnels, the fact that the Hamas uses schools and hospitals, the fact that the UNRWA infrastructure is a complete terrorist infrastructure. UNRWA employees are working hand in hand with the Hamas terrorists hiding weaponry inside UNRWA warehouses. All this was known. It was just misinterpreted to the extent that they didn't see the attack of the 7th of October coming. I mean, why would people dig so many tunnels? Why would people buy so many weapons, produce so many missiles if not to attack Israel? I mean, what is it for? The same with the Hizballah. There are 150,000 missiles at the hand of the Hizballah. The address is simple. It's here. They're going to hit us. So this is a misreading on part of the intelligence services, but mostly on part of the political level. After this war, it will be made very clear and very quickly with an inquiry that the political level is hugely responsible for these years of doing nothing. I mean, the most simple common citizen of any village of the south of Israel knew what the score was. He knew that it was in danger. He improved the government to do the job. Many rounds before of fighting with the Hamas were stopped halfway through. The job was never finished. And people in Zderot knew exactly what danger they were in. So the idea wouldn't. So that's the problem. What also is very important to understand with this example of the director of the hospital, chief of hospital, is that once we wipe out the military branch of the Hamas, we have still a huge job wiping out the white color terrorists to wipe out all the people, the civil servants that occupy key positions in Gaza of the Hamas. This director of the hospital is zero director of zero hospital. He's a Hamas member working for the Hamas. He's a Hamas officer. He was an accomplice. He knew exactly what was going on. He allowed this hospital to be taken hostage by terrorists. It's shameful, but he's really a Hamas person, a Hamas member. So this means that once we finish with the military part of the operation, we have this cleanup of thousands of civil first servants of the Hamas that we also have to neutralize or get rid of in some way because they control too many things in Gaza. And it's still like a kind of a rule of the Hamas over the Gaza people. You mentioned Israel wiping out Hamas, being near, finishing its mission to dismantle the terror organization. But can Hamas truly be eradicated? I mean that in the sense that the ideology will remain. And in fact, Hamas' support has only grown since October 7th. Are we just mowing the lawn here? The ideology will remain. And even the military power of Hamas will remain. We only want it not to remain in Gaza. So it will remain. It is there. Hamas is there and militarily present in the south of Lebanon in Palestinian refugee camps. It's still active, very active in the West Bank. It could be active in Algeria, in Libya. We don't care. We just don't want it at our door. That's it. We are not killing ourselves. We cannot eradicate Hamas completely. We cannot kill them to the last one, unfortunately. But what we can obtain is some kind of a political solution after the war effort that will make sure that the Gaza Strip falls under the rule of another Palestinian entity that is not affiliated to a Jihadist movement. It might be Ramallah, the PLO. It might be another entity. Mr. Dahlan, for instance, it doesn't really matter. All we want is to have the threat taken away, and we want to have this Gaza as a serene, peaceful place next to us, which will be the way to also reach a peace between us and them. Short of that, we will be back to square one, which is, of course, out of the question. The main thing is we are very happy that anybody, anybody takes care of Gaza, the Egyptians, the Saudis, the Emirates. I mean, everybody is speaking a lot, but they're doing nothing. They're leaving the problem in our hands, on our plate. I mean, we would be only too happy to give it to the Chinese, whoever wants to take Gaza. But nobody, unfortunately, nobody wants Gaza. Everybody has an opinion, but they don't want to take it. They don't want to take care of it, and the Gazan people are abundant to their own fate. And honestly, by right now, the only hope they ever have of a better future lies with us. Is the Israelis. And you mentioned the West Bank earlier, the IDF conducting a large-scale operation through the West Bank overnight. Talk to us about the complexity there on the ground and what's happening. Complexity, yes, but on the other hand, you have to see that since the beginning of this war, the Central Command of the IDF has done very well. It makes you wonder, why haven't we done this before? How come we have such a good clump on the West Bank right now, and we managed to limit very, very much the attacks? Why didn't we do that before? So the answer is that it's an intensive night after night action of the IDF, arresting people, eliminating people, discovering armed cash, but on a larger-scale intensive way that was done before. The same way as I said before, each time it brings us more intelligence. The more people you arrest, the more places you discover, the more you get a better picture of what's going on. We also had prepared the terrain. In Jenin, the terrain had been prepared. It's much easier today for IDF troops to enter Jenin, to do what they have to do and get out. The same thing with Naples. There are other pockets in the West Bank that are not so well prepared. It's a bit more difficult to go in and out and do the job. But all in all, I think I'd say the IDF got the knack of it. They understood how to operate, how to come at night at a certain time with the right amount of troops, do what they have to do, come out with really every night very, very, very successful operations. Rafael Hamas rejected Israel's proposal for a week-long truce in Gaza in exchange for 40 hostages, including women and children. In your eyes, actually, before I say that, Hamas instead wanting Israel to agree to a complete ceasefire before any negotiations and wanting Israel to release all Palestinian terror prisoners. In your eyes, what should Israel's next move be? We are now in just a battle of wits with the Hamas. We are in the bargaining. Of course, Hamas puts the bar very high, also because Mr. Sinouar is a little disconnected from what's going on. He doesn't realize how bad his situation is. The guys in Doha, they are more realistic about this. But he continues to think that he's got the upper hand, that he can dictate his conditions. He's the guy who lost, and he's losing. That's why now he wants to negotiate. Otherwise, he wouldn't negotiate. We have to be very strong, the Israelis. We have to keep our cool. We have to be a little patient, even if every day that passes by is a horrible danger to our hostages. We have to stand strong. And we have also to make sure it's all the hostages or nothing. At this point, it's not like the first truth where we could save women, children, et cetera. Now every hostage that is liberated, it will be at the expense of those who stay behind. It will be less chances for those who stay behind to liberate it. So we should insist on that. But then there is a problem. We do not know if the Hamas can deliver, because we don't know how many hostages are still alive. We don't know how many the Hamas actually holds. Because some are in power in Islamic jihad, including the Al-Mafia organization. But on the ground there, doesn't Hamas have control of the strip, control or oversight over these separate terror entities? It has control over the Islamic jihad. It might have some kind of a control over moral ISIS affiliated or al-Qaeda affiliated factions, but it doesn't have the control of the mafia. And right now, after the beginning of the war, what happened, which is very strange, but there is a kind of dispute now. The mafia was making money with the Hamas. They were the guys who were smuggling, for instance, weapons from the Sana'a into Gaza for cash. They were being very nicely paid for that. Well, it seems that there is a disagreement now between the mafia and the Hamas. And that's a loss of control, because the mafia in the Gaza Strip is very strong. Al-Fahdi Oshami, thank you very much for your insight today. That's a wrap for this hour's broadcast. Don't go anywhere. I 24 News will be back at the top of the hour. I'm Sara Martinez. Thanks for watching. Israel is in a state of war. Families completely done down in their beds. We have no idea where she is. 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 I-24 News Desk. I'm Sara Martinez, live from Tel Aviv. Today marks the 76th day of the war as Israel's ground operation to dismantle Hamas in Gaza intensifies. Earlier this morning, rocket sirens sounded in Gaza border communities after a 40-hour long. The IDF says it's nearing the end of its offensive in the northern part of the Strip and has begun fighting in new areas adjacent to Shezharia and Hanyunas, where Hamas leadership is believed to be hiding. In the past day, the Air Force has struck over 230 Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip and discovered more weapons hidden inside a school. The Israeli army has announced the death of three more soldiers killed in fighting, bringing the IDF toll of slain soldiers to 137. Meanwhile, Hamas has reportedly rejected an Israeli offer to temporarily halt fighting in exchange for the release of 40 of the 129 hostages still held captive in the war zone. According to the Wall Street Journal, the terror group wants Israel to first implement a ceasefire before beginning negotiations. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, US President Biden doesn't expect a new hostage deal between Israel and Hamas to come soon. Take a listen. I want to cross over to I-24 news correspondent Pierre Kloschenler. He's on the Israel-Gaza border. Pierre, what's happening where you are? Well, there was just a gunship over our head that fired some gunfire, heavy gunfire, to the direction of probably the Jebalia refugee camp. There are still clashes in the Jebalia refugee camp, although the head of the 162 division a couple of days ago said that the Jebalia Brigade of Hamas had been completely annihilated with 1,000 terrorists killed, 500 taken prisoners, among them 70 who participated into the massacres of October 7, and yet there were heavy strikes overnight, part of the 230 air, navy, and artillery strikes that pounded the Gaza Strip overnight according to the IDF. In Jebalia, there are clashes with isolated cells. We know that a clinic of the Red Crescent is besieged according to Palestinian media affiliated to Hamas. We know also that the army enabled the organized evacuation of displaced Palestinians that were seeking shelter into a school, in the school they found a weapon depot in a sensitive site. We know also that in Shatti, according to the IDF, Shatti refugee camp on the shore, on the northern outskirts of Gaza City, there are still clashes with isolated cells, although Shatti has already been declared under full operational control of the IDF three weeks ago. So it gives a sentiment that the offensive, the ground offensive that started in the northern Gaza Strip on October 27 is bogged down to a certain extent. But that's not surprising because the lines of defences of Hamas, where you have in almost every building in Shejaya, which is behind me for instance, you have weapon caches, you have hundreds if not thousands of tunnel shafts leading to tunnel networks that have been partially uncovered by the IDF. All that gives a sense that the offensive is wading, but it's not exactly true. Actually, the thrust of the offensive is south of Gaza City. You can see a town, Almurata, which is one of the leading access to Hanyunas, and the thrust of the offensive right now is in Hanyunas. Sarah? Yeah, Klushander, thank you very much for that update from the Israel-Gaza border. With me here in studio, Dr. Shai Alzvi, he's a senior researcher at the Institute for Policy and Strategy at Rechman University. Thank you very much for joining us today. Tell me a little bit about the players involved in the hostage negotiations, and in your opinion, what strategy should Israel take to tackle this stalemate with Hamas in brokering a deal to release these hostages? First, we must remember that Israel has two main goals, strategic goals. First, and I would like to start with this goal, is to bring back all the hostages ASAP, because actually the time is running out, and they don't. We know, actually, that every day that they are there in the hands of Hamas is a terrible situation for them. Actually, we've seen the video Hamas published just a few days ago of those hostages, and they look in dire conditions. Exactly. And the second one, of course, is to eliminate Hamas. Those are the two main strategic goals of Israel, and I don't think that they contradict each other. Furthermore, I do believe that actually Israel must, on the one hand, continue with its military operation, because what we have learned from the first day, that actually Hamas was convinced actually to make the deal after Israel has a lot of success in the battlefield. And this is why we should continue with the pressure on Hamas. This is on the one hand. On the second, we should continue the negotiation with the Qatari, try to understand what Hamas is willing to give, what his guidelines, etc. But it's also most very important that the U.S. and Egypt put a lot of pressure on Hamas and on Qatar, because U.S. actually has a lot of pressure that they can use against the Qatari regime, and they must do it. So actually, as I said, three channels, the negotiation, pressure on Qatar, and continue with the military operation in the battlefield. It might convince Hamas that actually he has no other choice but to reach another deal, and I do hope that it will happen in the coming few days. I want to ask you, Hamas is pushing for Israel to release all Palestinian prisoners. These are terror prisoners who have carried out attacks against Israeli civilians who have been involved in numerous uprisings, the first time to the father, the second time to the father. What would be the implications if Israel were to agree to such a deal? I think we should ask another question. What would be the implication if some of our hostages will stay in the Hamas's hands? So therefore, we should try to have the best deal that we can have, but at the end of the day, to bring back all the hostages, because otherwise, it will be for years. We won't be able to forget it, and it will have a lot of negative implications for our society and for our spirit and our ability to continue with the war against the Hamas. And speaking of that war with Hamas, the idea of saying that it's coming close to defeating Hamas in the Gaza Strip, but I want to talk to you a little bit about what comes after. You've got these Gulf nations threatening to end Gaza aid if the war continues past January, and that responsibility will fall on Israel's shoulders. At the same time, the United States is also pressuring Israel, a different retort, though, saying that do what you have to do, but time is running out. There needs to be a timeline here. Tell me a little bit about the international communities, those that are allied with Israel, their strategy in pressuring Israel, and at the same time saying, do the work, but we don't want to get involved. Yes, for some time, I argued that the main dispute with the international community and even with the Arab states will be in the day after, because at the moment, we all have the same strategy, the United States, Israel, and even the Arab states that Israel must eliminate Hamas because we are talking about the war between camps, between the democratic camp led by the United States and the radical camp led by Iran supported by Russia, Hezbollah, Hamas, and other players in the region. But for the long run, there is a huge gap between how the U.S. sees the situation, the Arab countries in Israel, and what actually the Biden administration is saying that there must be a new, something new in the Palestinian arena. And he believed that at the end of the day, Gaza Strip and the Judean Samaria should be united under a new or revitalized Palestinian authority. And Israel actually, you know, Prime Minister Netanyahu says, I was saying at the moment that it is something unacceptable. And I think that might be a huge dispute. And furthermore, I don't see, I don't believe that the Arab states will be willing to contribute or to take part in the Gaza Strip to give to humanitarian aid if they don't understand that there is something in the future that Israel must say that, okay, we understand that Palestinian authority is going to be part of the new regime in Gaza. And furthermore, it's very important. I think it might be the most negative scenario that Israel will try to conquer, to take Gaza Strip after, because we have a negative implication for the security situation, economic, our relation with the international community, with the Arab states. So this might be the worst scenario. Therefore, we must be part of the U.S. vision for the day after. Right. Stay with me. I want to cross over to Israel's Lebanon border where our correspondent Zach Anders is standing by. Zach, I understand hostilities continuing even this morning. And the idea of taking precautionary measures following those hostilities. Yeah, we may have some major developments brewing here. In my several weeks here in the north of yet to see the kind of precautionary measures that are taking place since the early days of the war that have been communicated this morning, the Upper Galilee Regional Council has basically put at least 15 communities on lockdown. They're closing the roads, urging residents to stay off the roads. Apparently a credible threat from southern Lebanon today. Hezbollah issuing strong statements regarding their plans for firing on several of these communities. This does appear to be a precaution at this moment. But it is one of the greater steps we've seen taken here in the last several weeks, closing these roads, the junctions, and especially for some of these northern communities having the gates closed. It sounds like that that is going to be at least a temporary measure for the next few hours. We're going to wait and see here. Keep our eye on the border, of course. But right now it does appear that they have taken some fairly large precautions today. And Zach, I see you've put on your bulletproof jacket to protect you from rock and fire and bullets as well. Zach, tell me a little bit about these diplomatic talks to create some sort of buffer zone there on the border and push Hezbollah forces past the Latani River. Are those diplomatic efforts progressing at all? We were seeing increased hostilities. Yeah. It's hard to say. And you have to remember too that all of these diplomatic talks are taking place without Hezbollah in the room. At least that's from all the independent media reports that are coming out of Lebanon. It does not appear that any Hezbollah officials are engaged in these talks, and they are really the ones that predicate the entire basis of any sort of deal. So these talks have been taking place with the interim caretaker prime minister in Lebanon, the head of parliament, some of the senior diplomats in Lebanon. But the political situation there is so fragmented and disrupted that it's hard to understand what political leverage they could possibly have, especially in southern Lebanon, where there is such a great power vacuum and Hezbollah operates with impunity in southern Lebanon. So there has not appeared, at least in the last 48 hours, to have been any major progress on these talks. Some of the diplomats that were in Lebanon have since left and not returned, including the French foreign minister. So it's really unclear where these talks stand. And we have not received any sort of official stance or update from both the U.S. and the Israeli side, which have been apparently some of the U.S., at least, engaged quite heavily in these talks. The Israeli side, though, the IDF has been very strong in its posturing and its language, determined to make it clear that should there be the need for offensive action, that that is something they're prepared to do. And they give a very clear understanding that that is not something that is dependent on a timeframe that they would be ready in several days. They're making it clear that they're ready now and that if something was to happen, they would be able to react and begin a campaign now. And that's something that has certainly changed the dynamic of these diplomatic talks here. We saw a fairly large military exercise that the IDF was taking place just three days ago here. And that, again, all plays into this broader picture of the military action that is staged and prepared and ready to take place. It's dependent, apparently, on where these diplomatic talks go. So the fact that it's been relatively quiet on that end for now 48 hours is certainly something to look out for. Zach Enders, thank you very much for that update from the Israel-Lebanon border. I want to get your reaction here, Dr. Sahel Tzvi, on what we just heard from our correspondent there on the border. I saw you nodding your head in not an approval, but an opportunity. Yeah, I think Iranian Hezbollah have reached the decision from the beginning of the war not to escalate the situation, to get into a fighting, not a wide-scale war against Israel. And this is what they are doing since October the 7th. But the main question that Israel actually faces is what we are going to do in the day after Gaza? Okay, we succeeded to eliminate Hamas. We are part of the U.S. region as we talked before. But what we are doing in the north? Are we going to ensure that the population in the north can go back to their home safely? Absolutely. And it's very tough. It's easy to ask the question. It's a very tough answer because, of course, those who are saying Israel should start a war with Hezbollah. But there are huge implications for such a war because the Hezbollah capability, it's completely different than Hamas. We should prepare our civilians. We should be sure that we have the support of the U.S. regime not only in the policy, but also supplying us all the munitions that we need. So it's not so simple to do that. We should give time, give a chance to all the political negotiations. But I'm not sure that they will be able to achieve the goal that we are looking for. And I just want to give a quick update for our viewers now. There are rocket sirens sounding in the Gaza border communities. You said earlier what happens in Gaza after the war has implications, not just for Israel, but the wider region. Yeah, of course. For example, if the Hamas is still there in the day after, unfortunately, we didn't succeed to eliminate Hamas. What will be the implication? Because there are two strategic implications. First, it means from the radical axis that actually Hamas, with the support of Iran and other players, actually succeeded to stand against Israel and the United States. And actually, they won the war. The second implication is also crucial, is the fact that the next target will be Judea and Samaria in the day after Abu Mazen, he's almost 88 years old. And if they could take control of Judea and Samaria, what will be stability in Jordan and all the other moderate Arab countries. Furthermore, I do believe that we have a chance to have a normalization with Saudi Arabia in the day after. But first, we have to eliminate Hamas. Second, we have to be part of the U.S. vision in the day after in the Palestinian arena. And then we have, I think, a good chance to reach a normalization. I do believe that Biden, President Biden himself, believes that it's something achievable the day after. I want to turn back to Hezbollah there for a second, because you mentioned that once we tackle Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank, perhaps the problem still lies in the North. And my question is, is the U.S. approach, the U.S. strategy of going the diplomatic route, is it realistic of who we're dealing with here? I think we must understand the U.S. regime policy towards the situation at the moment. From their point of view, they don't want to escalate it more and more. And yet we're seeing the escalation has already started. And I do believe that their main target is first, we should focus on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. And then they hope that with all the negotiation, with Amos Orkstein and other players, they might bring something. I'm not sure that they will be able to do that. The outcome of the war in the Gaza Strip will have a lot of implication, what Hezbollah will do. Because if we succeed to limit Hamas, then it might convince Hezbollah that he should have some new arrangement. And of course, the opposite thing. And will it convince Iran to stop using those tactics to undermine Israeli security through those proxies, like you mentioned, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Hamas? Will it deter them at all? At the moment, we see that Iran continues to use the proxies in Syria, in Yemen, in Iraq, against the U.S., against Israel. Because Iran has said, we are not doing it. It is there. The militias are doing it. We are not directly involved. And for example, we see that the American approach towards the Houthis, that they're working in between. On the one hand, they understand that they must stop all the Houthis' attack against the sheeps. But on the other hand, they still, they don't want to escalate their effort, for example, that if they attack the Houthis, that the Houthis might attack Saudi Arabia. So there are a lot of regional implications. Absolutely. Dr. Shai, I'll speak. Thank you very much for your insight. You're welcome. Thank you very much. Turning to that fateful day of October 7th, the question on everyone's mind is, how did Israeli military and intelligence agencies fail to read the signs of Hamas' imminent attack? And how was it carried out so easily? Israel's Channel 12 News reveals new details on Hamas' attack on the Nachal-Oz IDF post on Israel's border with Gaza. The results of the Hamas' terrorist invasion of the Nachal-Oz Outpost will continue to echo as the IDF investigates the events of the dark Saturday, October 7th. Today we can reveal what the IDF already knows about what happened at the base during the battle in which terrorists killed 66 soldiers, most of them field observers and soldiers of Golanic Brigade's 13th Battalion. The general data on the invasion presented to the families barely begins to convey the magnitude of the attack. At half past 5 a.m., IDF Southern Command Assessment shows no unusual warnings. The forces, which are already in limited capacity, do not prepare for anything out of the ordinary. At 6.29, sirens sound across Israel as intense rocket fire begins from the Gaza Strip. At 6.54, the first invasion of the Outpost by 70 terrorists commences. Six minutes later, at 7.00 a.m., a second invasion by about 50 more terrorists. Three and a half hours later, at 10.30, a third group of about 50 more terrorists invade the Outpost. By this time, a total of about 170 terrorists have entered the Nachal-Oz base. Saturday morning at half past 6, they have already identified a swarm of terrorists on the fence, and they asked for help. To be precise, it was at 6.29 a.m. And they were told, deal with it, we have other priorities. In that situation, the commander on duty needs to make a decision, make a decision, get them on a Hummer, get them out of there. Then they would be here with us today. According to the IDF investigation, this is what happened on the ground at the moment the barrier was breached. At 6.29, field observers had identified two armed men running towards the fence, the beginning of the infiltration. At 6.30, identification of additional terrorists blowing up the fence. At 6.31, the Deputy Battalion Commander announces what he defines as a complex event. Seven minutes later, at 6.38 a.m., terrorists from Hamas' alit Nukh byunit have fully crossed At 6.40 a.m., the procedure for dealing with an infiltration from the Gaza Strip was officially declared. Two minutes later, the platoon commander activates sentry tech systems that automatically identify threats and open fire, hitting some of the terrorists. But two minutes later, at 6.44, the system stopped working. The cameras did as well. At 6.51, a situation assessment finally made it through to IDF's southern command. Terrorists have entered the outpost. The battle inside the outpost lasted for many hours. The investigation shows that the amount of weapons the terrorists carried with them was much greater than the amount of weapons the IDF soldiers had at their disposal, both in quantity and in quality. During intense fighting, some of the soldiers took cover in shelters that turned into death traps. The majority of them were murdered or taken hostage. Some soldiers managed to hide in their dorms. Some locked themselves inside the war room. The hours of being barricaded and terrified inside the war room are as if taken from a horror movie. This is what happened. The terrorists did not enter the war room at any stage. They carried out the attacks from the hallway. They threw hand grenades within an incendiary substance that releases toxic gases. The goal? To asphyxiate everyone in the war room within minutes. The smoke that came into the closed room began to suffocate the 22 people who were locked inside. The soldiers could not open the burning door of the war room. Seven managed to make it through the window. One field observer and six fighters. We know that the explosion at the war room occurred between 1130 and 12, meaning that they were alive for five hours and no one came to rescue them. In this report by Yonit Levy two weeks ago, the parents of the field observers detailed how they conducted their own investigation into the events of that day, putting together fragments of information they collected. Even today after the IDF representatives shared with them the initial findings, the full picture remains unclear. While the parents are waiting for a full and comprehensive investigation to take place, they are still insisting on viewing the remaining security camera footage themselves, all so they can fully understand the chain of events that led to the bloody battle of the Nahal Oz outpost. Welcome to the I-24 News Desk. I'm Sarah Martinez, live from Tel Aviv. Today marks the 76th day of the war as Israel's ground operation to dismantle Hamas in Gaza intensifies. Earlier this morning, rocket sirens sounded in Gaza border communities after a 40-hour loan. The IDF says it's nearing the end of its offensive in the northern part of the Strip and has begun fighting in new areas adjacent to Shezharia and Janyones, where Hamas leadership is believed to be hiding. In the past day, the Air Force has struck over 230 Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip and discovered more weapons hidden inside a school. The Israeli army has announced the death of three more soldiers killed in fighting, bringing the IDF toll of slain soldiers to 137. Meanwhile, Hamas has reportedly rejected an Israeli offer to temporarily halt fighting in exchange for the release of 40 of the 129 hostages still held captive in the war zone. According to the Wall Street Journal, the terror group wants Israel to first implement a ceasefire before beginning negotiations. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, US President Biden doesn't expect a new hostage deal between Israel and Hamas to come soon. Take a listen. I want to cross over to I-24 news correspondent Pierre Kloschenler. He's on the Israel-Gaza border. Pierre, what's happening where you are? Well, there was just a gunship over our head that fired some gunfire, heavy gunfire, to the direction of probably the Jibalia refugee camp. There are still clashes in the Jibalia refugee camp, although the head of the 162 division a couple of days ago said that the Jibalia brigade of Hamas had been completely annihilated with 1,000 terrorists killed, 500 taken prisoners, among them 70 who participated into the massacres of October 7, and yet there were heavy strikes overnight, part of the 230 air, navy, and artillery strikes that pounded the Gaza Strip overnight according to the IDF. In Jibalia, there are clashes with isolated cells. We know that a clinic of the Red Crescent is besieged according to Palestinian media affiliated to Hamas. We know also that the army enabled the organized evacuation of displaced Palestinians that were seeking shelter into a school. In the school, they found a weapon depot in a sensitive site. We know also that in Shatti, according to the IDF, Shatti refugee camp on the shore on the northern outskirts of Gaza City, there are still clashes with isolated cells, although Shatti has already been declared under full operational control of the IDF three weeks ago. So it gives a sentiment that the offensive, the ground offensive that started in the northern Gaza Strip on October 27 is bogged down to a certain extent. But that's not surprising because the lines of defense of Hamas, where you have in almost every building in Shijaya, which is behind me, for instance, you have weapon caches, you have hundreds, if not thousands of tunnel shafts leading to tunnel networks that have been partially uncovered by the IDF, all that gives a sense that the offensive is wading, but it's not exactly true. Actually, the thrust of the offensive is south of Gaza City. You can see a town, Almugata, which is one of the leading access to Kanyunas, and the thrust of the offensive right now is in Kanyunas. Sarah? Yeah, Kanisha, I'm there. Thank you very much for that update from the Israel-Gaza border. With me here in studio, Dr. Shai Alzvi. He's a senior researcher at the Institute for Policy and Strategy at Reichman University. Thank you very much for joining us today. Tell me a little bit about the players involved in the hostage negotiations and in your opinion, what strategy should Israel take to tackle the stalemate with Hamas in brokering a deal to release these hostages? First, we must remember that Israel has two main strategic goals. First, and I would like to start with this goal, is to bring back all the hostages ASAP, because actually the time is running out, and we know actually that every day that they're there in the hands of Hamas is a terrible situation. Actually, we've seen the video Hamas published just a few days ago of those hostages, and they look in dire conditions. Exactly. And the second one, of course, is the eliminate Hamas. Those are the two main strategic goals of Israel, and I don't think that they contradict each other. Furthermore, I do believe that actually Israel must, on the one hand, continue with its military operation, because what we have learned from the first day that actually Hamas was convinced, actually to make the deal after Israel has a lot of success in the battlefield. And this is why we should continue with the pressure on Hamas. This is on the one hand. On the second, we should continue the negotiation with the Qatari, try to understand what Hamas is willing to give, what his guidelines, etc. But it's also most very important that the U.S. and Egypt put a lot of pressure on Hamas and on Qatar, because U.S. actually has a lot of pressure that they can use against the Qatari regime, and they must do it. So actually, as I said, three channels, the negotiation, pressure on Qatar, and continue with the military operation in the battlefield, it might convince Hamas that actually he has no other choice but to reach another deal, and I do hope that it will happen in the coming few days. I want to ask you, Hamas is pushing for Israel to release all Palestinian prisoners. These are terror prisoners who have carried out attacks against Israeli civilians who have been involved in numerous uprisings, the first in Tifada, the second in Tifada. What would be the implications if Israel were to agree to such a deal? I think we should ask another question. What would be the implication if some of our hostages will stay in the Hamas's hands? So therefore, we should try to have the best deal that we can have, but at the end of the day, to bring back all the hostages, because otherwise, it will be for years. We won't be able to forget it, and it will have a lot of negative implications for our society and for our spirit and our ability to continue with the war against the Hamas. And speaking of that war with Hamas, the IDF saying that it's coming close to defeating Hamas in the Gaza Strip, but I want to talk to you a little bit about what comes after. You've got these Gulf nations threatening to end Gaza aid if the war continues, past January, and that responsibility will fall on Israel's shoulders. At the same time, the United States is also pressuring Israel. A different rhetoric, though, saying that do what you have to do, but time is running out. There needs to be a timeline here. Tell me a little bit about the international communities, those that are allied with Israel, their strategy in pressuring Israel, and at the same time saying, do the work, but we don't want to get involved. Yes. For some time, I argued that the main dispute with the international community and even with the Arab States will be in the day after, because at the moment, we all have the same strategy, the United States, Israel, and even the Arab States that Israel must eliminate Hamas, because we are talking about the war between camps, between the democratic camp led by the United States and the radical camp led by Iran, supported by Russia, Hezbollah, Hamas and other players in the region. But for the long run, there is a huge gap between how the U.S. sees the situation, the Arab countries, and Israel. And what actually the Biden administration is saying that there must be a new, something new in the Palestinian arena. And he believed that at the end of the day, Gaza Strip and the Judea and Samaria should be united under a new or revitalized Palestinian authority. And Israel actually, you know, Prime Minister Netanyahu says, he's saying at the moment that it is something unacceptable. And I think that might be a huge dispute. And furthermore, I don't see, I don't believe that the Arab States will be willing to contribute or to take part in the Gaza Strip to give humanity if they don't understand that there is something in the future that Israel must say that, OK, we understand that Palestinian authority is going to be part of the new regime in Gaza. And furthermore, it's very important. I think it might be the most negative scenario that Israel will try to conquer, to take Gaza Strip after. Because we have a negative implication for the security situation, economic, our relation with the international community, with the Arab States. So this might be the worst scenario. Therefore, we must be part of the U.S. vision for the day after. Stay with me. I'm on a crossover to Israel's Levin on Border, where our correspondent Zach Anders is standing by. Zach, I understand hostilities continuing even this morning, and the idea of taking precautionary measures following those hostilities. Yeah, we may have some major developments brewing here. In my several weeks here in the north of yet to see the kind of precautionary measures that are being taken place since the early days of the war that have been communicated this morning, the upper galley regional council has basically put at least 15 communities on lockdown. They're closing the roads, urging residents to stay off the roads. Apparently a credible threat from southern Lebanon today. Hezbollah issuing strong statements regarding their plans for firing on several of these communities. This does appear to be a precaution at this moment, but it is one of the greater steps we've seen taken here in the last several weeks, closing these roads, the junctions, and especially for some of these northern communities having the gates closed. It sounds like that that is going to be at least a temporary measure for the next few hours. We're going to wait and see here. Keep our eye on the border, of course, but right now it does appear that they have taken some fairly large precautions today. And Zach, I see you've put on your bulletproof jacket to protect you from rock and fire and bullets as well. Zach, tell me a little bit about these diplomatic talks to create some sort of buffer zone there on the border and push Hezbollah forces past the Latani River. Are those diplomatic efforts progressing at all? We were seeing increased hostilities. Yeah. It's hard to say. And you have to remember too that all of these diplomatic talks are taking place without Hezbollah in the room. At least that's from all the independent media reports that are coming out of Lebanon. It does not appear that any Hezbollah officials are engaged in these talks, and they are really the ones that predicate the entire basis of any sort of deal. So these talks have been taking place with the interim caretaker prime minister in Lebanon, the head of parliament, some of the senior diplomats in Lebanon. But the political situation there is so fragmented and disrupted that it's hard to understand what political leverage they could possibly have, especially in southern Lebanon, where there is such a great power vacuum, and Hezbollah operates with impunity in southern Lebanon. So there has not appeared, at least in the last 48 hours, to have been any major progress on these talks. Some of the diplomats that were in Lebanon have since left and not returned, including the French foreign minister. So it's really unclear where these talks stand. And we have not received any sort of official stance or update from both the U.S. and the Israeli side, which have been apparently some of the U.S., at least, engaged quite heavily in these talks. The Israeli side, though, the IDF has been very strong in its posturing and its language, determined to make it clear that should there be the need for offensive action, that that is something they're prepared to do. And they give a very clear understanding that that is not something that is dependent on a timeframe that they would be ready in several days. They're making it clear that they're ready now, and that if something was to happen, they would be able to react and begin a campaign now. And that's something that has certainly changed the dynamic of these diplomatic talks here. We saw a fairly large military exercise that the IDF was taking place just three days ago here. And that, again, all plays into this broader picture of the military action that is staged and prepared and ready to take place. It's dependent, apparently, on where these diplomatic talks go. So the fact that it's been relatively quiet on that end for now 48 hours is certainly something to look out for. Zach Enders, thank you very much for that update from the Israel-Lebanon border. I want to get your reaction here, Dr. Shai al-Tzvi, on what we just heard from our correspondent there on the border. I saw you nodding your head in not an approval, but unfortunately... Yeah, I think Iranian Hezbollah have reached a decision from the beginning of the war not to escalate the situation, to get into a fighting, not a wide-scale war against Israel. And this is what they are doing since October the 7th. But the main question that Israel actually faces is what we are going to do in the day after Gaza? Okay, we succeeded to eliminate Hamas. We are part of the U.S. region, as we talked before. But what we are doing in the North? Are we sure that the population in the North can go back to their home safely? And it's very tough. It's easy to ask the question. It's a very tough answer because, of course, those who are saying Israel should start a war with Hezbollah. But there is a huge implication for such a war, because the Hezbollah capability, it's completely different than Hamas. We should prepare our civilians. We should be sure that we have the support of the U.S. regime not only in the policy, but also supplying us all the munitions that we need. So it's not so simple to do that. We should give time and give a chance to all the political negotiations. But I'm not sure that they will be able to achieve the goal that we are looking for. And I just want to give a quick update for our viewers now. There are rocket sirens sounding in the Gaza border communities. You said earlier what happens in Gaza after the war has implications, not just for Israel, but the wider region. Yeah, of course. For example, if the Hamas is still there in the day after, unfortunately, we didn't succeed to eliminate Hamas. What would be the implication? Because there are two strategic implications. First, it means from the radical axis that actually Hamas with the support of Iran and other players actually succeeded to stand against Israel and the United States. And actually they won the war. The second implication is also crucial is the fact that the next target will be Judea and Samaria in the day after Abu Mazen. He's almost 88 years old. And if they could take control of Judea and Samaria, what will be the stability in Jordan, and all the other moderate Arab countries. Furthermore, I do believe that we have a chance to have a normalization with Saudi Arabia in the day after. But first, we have to eliminate Hamas. Second, we have to be part of the U.S. vision in the day after in the Palestinian arena. And then we have, I think, a good chance to reach a normalization. I do believe that Biden administration, President Biden himself, believes that it's something achievable the day after. I want to turn back to Hezbollah there for a second, because you mentioned that once we tackle Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank, perhaps the problem still lies in the north. And my question is, is the U.S. approach, the U.S. strategy of going the diplomatic route, is it realistic of who we're dealing with here? I think we must understand the U.S. regime policy towards the situation at the moment. From their point of view, they don't want to escalate more and more. And yet we're seeing the escalation as already started. And I do believe that their main target is first, we should focus on Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and then they hope that with all the negotiation, with Amos Orkstein and other players, they might bring something. I'm not sure that they will be able to do that. The outcome of the war in the Gaza Strip will have a lot of implication what Hezbollah do, because if we succeed to limit Hamas, then it might convince Hezbollah that he should have some new arrangement and, of course, the opposite thing. And will it convince Iran to stop using those tactics to undermine Israeli security through those proxies, like you mentioned, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Hamas? Will it deter them at all? At the moment, we see that Iran continues to use the proxies in Syria, in Yemen, in Iraq against the U.S., against Israel, because Iran has said, we are not doing it. It is there that the militias are doing it. We are not directly involved. For example, we see that the American approach towards the Houthis, that they are working in between. On the one hand, they understand that they must stop all the Houthis' attack against the sheeps, but on the other hand, they still, they don't want to escalate. They're afraid, for example, that if they attack the Houthis, the Houthis might attack Saudi Arabia. So there are a lot of regional implications. Absolutely. Dr. Shai Elzbi, thank you very much for your insight. You're welcome. Thank you very much. Turning to that fateful day of October 7th, the question on everyone's mind is, how did Israeli military and intelligence agencies fail to read the signs of Hamas' imminent attack, and how was it carried out so easily? Israel's Channel 12 News reveals new details on Hamas' attack on the Nakh al-Oz IDF post on Israel's border with Gaza. The results of the Hamas terrorist invasion of the Nakh al-Oz outpost will continue to echo as the IDF investigates the events of the dark Saturday, October 7th. Today we can reveal what the IDF already knows about what happened at the base during the battle in which terrorists killed 66 soldiers, most of them field observers and soldiers of Ghulani Brigade's 13th Battalion. The Nakh al-Oz IDF has a lot of soldiers. There are a lot of soldiers. The IDF that entered the Nakh al-Oz IDF is much more important than any other IDF. But this is the IDF that comes in three parts. The first part comes out of the Nakh al-Oz IDF. The IDF that entered the Nakh al-Oz IDF is the IDF that in the end is the IDF that entered the Nakh al-Oz IDF. The general data on the invasion presented to the families barely begins to convey the magnitude of the attack. At half past 5 a.m., IDF's southern command assessment shows no unusual warnings. The forces, which are already in limited capacity, do not prepare for anything out of the ordinary. At 6.29, sirens sound across Israel as intense rocket fire begins from the Gaza Strip. At 6.54, the first invasion of the outpost by 70 terrorists commences. Six minutes later, at 7 a.m., a second invasion by about 50 more terrorists. Three and a half hours later, at 10.30, a third group of about 50 more terrorists invade the outpost. By this time, a total of about 170 terrorists have entered the Nakh al-Oz base. Saturday morning at half past 6, they have already identified a swarm of terrorists on the fence, and they asked for help. To be precise, it was at 6.29 a.m. And they were told, deal with it, we have other priorities. In that situation, the commander on duty needs to make a decision, make a decision, get them on a Hummer, get them out of there. Then they would be here with us today. According to the IDF investigation, this is what happened on the ground at the moment the barrier was breached. At 6.29, field observers had identified two armed men running towards the fence, the beginning of the infiltration. At 6.30, identification of additional terrorists blowing up the fence. At 6.31, the deputy battalion commander announces what he defines as a complex event. Seven minutes later, at 6.38 a.m., terrorists from Hamas's elite Nakhbayunat have fully crossed the fence. At 6.40 a.m., the procedure for dealing with an infiltration from the Gaza Strip was officially declared. Two minutes later, the platoon commander activates sentry tech systems that automatically identify threats and open fire, hitting some of the terrorists. But two minutes later, at 6.44, the system stopped working. The cameras did as well. At 6.51, a situation assessment finally made it through to IDF's southern command. Terrorists have entered the outpost. The battle inside the outpost lasted for many hours. The investigation shows that the amount of weapons the terrorists carried with them was much greater than the amount of weapons the IDF soldiers had at their disposal, both in quantity and in quality. During intense fighting, some of the soldiers took cover in shelters that turned into death traps. The majority of them were murdered or taken hostage. Some soldiers managed to hide in their dorms. Some locked themselves inside the war room. The hours of being barricaded and terrified inside the war room are as if taken from a horror movie. This is what happened. The terrorists did not enter the war room at any stage. They carried out the attacks from the hallway. They threw hand grenades within an incendiary substance that releases toxic gases. The goal? To asphyxiate everyone in the war room within minutes. The smoke that came into the closed room began to suffocate the 22 people who were locked inside. The soldiers could not open the burning door of the war room. Seven managed to make it through the window. One field observer and six fighters. We know that the explosion at the war room occurred between 1130 and 12, meaning that they were alive for five hours and no one came to rescue them. In this report by Yonit Levy two weeks ago, the parents of the field observers detailed how they conducted their own investigation into the events of that day, putting together fragments of information they collected. Even today, after the IDF representatives shared with them the initial findings, the full picture remains unclear. While the parents are waiting for a full and comprehensive investigation to take place, they are still insisting on viewing the remaining security camera footage themselves, all so they can fully understand the chain of events that led to the bloody battle of the Nahal Oz Outpost. 924 News, we'll be back at the top of the hour. Until then, I'm Sam Martinez. Thanks for watching. Israel is in a state of war. Families completely done down in their beds. We have no idea where she is. Our soldiers are fighting on the front lines, but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well. Welcome to the I-24 News Desk. I'm Sarah Martinez, live from Tel Aviv. Today marks the 76th day of the war as Israel's ground operation to dismantle Hamas and Gaza intensifies. A short while ago, rocket sirens sounded in Gaza border communities for the second time today after a 40-hour long. The IDF says it's nearing the end of its offensive in the northern part of the Strip and has begun fighting in new areas, including Hanyunas, where Hamas leadership is believed to be hiding. In the past day, the Air Force has struck over 230 Hamas targets in the Gaza enclave and discovered more weapons hidden inside schools. The Israeli army has also announced the death of three more soldiers killed in fighting, bringing the IDF tool to 137. Meanwhile, Hamas has reportedly rejected an Israeli offer to temporarily halt fighting in exchange for the release of the 129 hostages still held captive in the war zone. According to the Wall Street Journal, the terror group wants Israel to first implement a ceasefire before beginning negotiations. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, U.S. President Biden doesn't expect a new hostage deal between Israel and Hamas to come anytime soon. We're pushing it. There's no expectation at this point, but we are pushing it. And your reaction to 20,000 dead in Gaza that death toll reached today, right? Let's try. The hostilities are escalating in the north on Israel's border with Lebanon. I-24 News correspondent Zach Anders is on the ground. Zach, what's happening where you are? We're looking at some major developments here in the north. 15 separate communities along the northern border have been placed in a state of lockdown. Gates closed, roads closed, and there are more checkpoints. We've just gone through a checkpoint that was not there in the days before. This is a heavy level of activity that's taking place as a precaution. I'm told that it is the result of some strong language that's coming out of southern Lebanon, Hezbollah statements in Lebanese media channels. And as a result of yesterday, the IDF struck very hard. We're hearing last night at several positions throughout the south there was extensive damage and casualties. Hezbollah updated its figures for its casualties with 118 of its militants now killed since the fighting began. That is a number that has been growing exponentially in the last week. Yesterday we also saw damage to some communities where apparently Hezbollah was operating and potential civilian casualties that have not yet been confirmed. But the statements from Hezbollah are relating to civilian deaths. They are claiming that they're going to strike back with force today, prompting apparently a general broad assessment by the IDF telling the Upper Galilee Regional Council to take extra precautions today. And that's what we're seeing a very heavy presence here in the north. Everyone is in a state of standby as we are, again, not an offensive stage with the IDF. But this is, again, just a very strong stance today, a very great sense of precaution. And this escalation amid US and French diplomatic efforts to secure some sort of buffer zone on the ground there. Yeah, and that buffer zone is six miles to start. At least that's the negotiations we're hearing. That's significant because it does push some of the weapons that we have been seen used frequently in this conflict out of range. We have anti-tank guided missiles and mortars that need to be launched by militants, personnel on the ground. This is going to put them out of range, but not entirely. And Hezbollah still has a vast arsenal of heavy rockets at its disposal. That wouldn't matter even if they're able to get the original proposal, the buffer zone, all the way to the Lattani River. That does not push these heavy rockets out of range. They'll still be able to hit central Israel even. This is the concern, so we're still waiting to see where these diplomatic talks go. But so far, no major breakthroughs in the last 48 hours. Zach Anders, thank you very much for that update from the Israel-Lebanon border. I want to introduce my panel with me here in studio. Yaakov Labin, Military and Strategic Affairs Analyst for the Jewish News Syndicate and the Miriam Institute. As well as I-24 News Senior Correspondent Owen Alterman. Thank you both for joining me today. Yaakov, I want to start with you before we turn to the situation in Gaza. I want to get your assessment on the situation happening on the Lebanese border. I've thought for several weeks that Israel and Hezbollah are on a collision course. And I think we're seeing that collision start to happen. There's a fundamental clash of interests here. Israel is going to demand, as you just referred to in your question, to a buffer zone. It's going to demand that Hezbollah move back and in order to fulfill a basic requirement to allow Northern residents to come back to their homes. We have between 80,000 to 100,000 according to various estimates. People who are internally displaced cannot come back to their homes. Some of them are looking for permanent homes in central Israel. So this is a state of affairs. It's a crisis that cannot go on indefinitely. Chief of Staff last night said the IDF will change the situation fundamentally. Hezbollah understands that this is where it's going. It's not going to accept a buffer zone lying down. Diplomacy is just a weight and whole tactic both sides are using to prepare themselves, in my opinion, for the next stage, which is an escalation. And is there a clash in visions between what the Israelis see as the reality on the ground versus what U.S. and foreign diplomatic efforts see as the solution here when it comes to Hezbollah? Unfortunately, I think there is. Ultimately, there's a clash of interests. The United States, as a global superpower, is interested in preventing a regional war. It wants to hem in fencing the Israel Hamas war to the Gaza Strip and to not let it expand because it wants to prioritize the Chinese challenge in the Pacific arena. It wants to enable its forces to go east. It doesn't want to get drawn into a Middle East conflict. And Israel has an entirely separate set of interests, which is to never again allow a terrorist sort of proxy monster to grow on its border and threaten its communities as we had happening in Gaza and Lebanon. So there is this inherent clash of interests. And speaking of Gaza, IDF is intensifying its combat in Hanyunis where Hamas military leadership is believed to be hiding out. Talk to us about the difficulties on the ground, including Hamas' network of tunnels, where those terrorists are believed to be hiding and holding those hostages captive. So we've seen some very interesting updates from the IDF about what it's been doing in northern Gaza in recent weeks, which is detecting and taking apart this very elaborate tunnel network that was dug out in the Remal area of northern Gaza for the leadership of Hamas. And they were using this to move around all over northern Gaza. And then when they wanted to move above ground, they had ambulances taking them and then they could go back down into the tunnels, an incredible network of covert movement. And the reason that the IDF was able to do this in northern Gaza is because it has essentially entered the mopping up phase of the northern Gaza war. And in southern Gaza, it's still taking on the above ground Hamas threat. And it's beginning to prepare to go underground. That's where the Hamas leadership is believed to be hiding in Hanyunis underground, the last fortress of Hamas. So we're seeing this sort of order of operations above ground and then they're going underground. And briefly, before we go to our correspondent there on the ground, there are reports that Israel had knowledge of this massive tunnel four years prior. Yeah. I mean, there's going to have to be a long reckoning, I think, you know, at the end of this war. But ultimately, you know, the problem here is knowing about capabilities that were being built and not taking action against them based on this concept that it's possible to deter. It's possible to contain these concepts. Of course, you know, completely collapsed on October 7th in the most tragic way possible. And that entire concept will have to be revisited in a very thorough manner after the war. All right. Let's cross over to 24 News Correspondent Pierre Klochender. He's on the Israel-Gaza border. Pierre, rocket siren sounding for a second time this morning after what was a 40-hour long? Absolutely. And the rocket fire is emanating probably from Hanyunis because it's on the communities that are facing Hanyunis, again, near us, near him. And these places could probably be the staging ground of forces going inside Hanyunis or getting out of Hanyunis rotating. And therefore Hamas is trying to prevent that. I don't know if you hear the outgoing shells, but the IDF right now is striking with its artillery the little town of Almugraka, which is in the south of Gaza City and which controls the access road, the Salahadin road to Hanyunis. And it's a very important battleground for these ready forces as the thrust of the offensive right now focuses on Hanyunis. Also, you can maybe see the white smoke on the right of your monitor, which is Shejaia, where there are still strikes on a little town that has been basically the siege of very harsh battles. And further to the right, I can ask Igor Bazilenko, a cameraman, you will see now an airstrike from the Jabalia refugee camp, which is north of where we are. And Jabalia was stated to be by the IDF and the full operational control. But overnight and even this morning, you can see there are airstrikes on the refugee camp. Earlier in the night, it was announced that the army enabled the organized evacuations of displaced Palestinians that seek shelter in a school of Jabalia. They were evacuated and inside the school, they found a weapon depot. As usual, in such places, sensitive places where Hamas believed that the army would not dare to enter for fear of a humanitarian disaster, there is again an arms depot using infrastructure, civilians infrastructure as human shield. And you see more strikes in this particular sector. But this is a small sector of the central Gaza Strip. And the thrust of the offensive, as I said, is in Canunas, where an additional brigade has been added to at least two brigades and other units inside and around Canunas in order to put maximum pressure on the city which has become, according to the Israeli Defense Minister, the alternative terror capital of the Gaza Strip after the city of Gaza has been under operational control of the Israeli army. And Tia, you mentioned there the humanitarian crisis taking place in Gaza. Tell us a little bit about the efforts to bring in aid into the enclave. There is an effort not only by Israel but by many countries, including Arab countries such as the United Arab Emirates, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and others to alleviate the plight of the Palestinians because 80% even maybe more of the population of the whole Gaza Strip is now crammed into half of it in the central and southern sector of the Gaza Strip on 180 square kilometers. The UAE has installed a desalination plan on the Egyptian side in the Sinai Peninsula south of the Gaza Strip. And they've laid pipelines which are bringing water, desalinated water to 150,000 people. That's not enough because there are 2 million people now inside that sector in safe humanitarian zones or at relatives in Rafar or in Hanoones. And yet the Israeli army has also opened an additional crossing in addition to the Nitzana crossing which brings humanitarian trucks from Israeli territory into Egyptian territory. It takes an hour to reach the Rafar terminal. But the problem with the Rafar terminal is that its capacity is limited to about 100 trucks. So they opened under U.S. pressure another terminal, the Kerem Shalom crossing where the aid is transferred after inspection directly into the Gaza Strip. Now there are about 200 trucks a day that are being transferred to the Gaza Strip including four trucks of fuel and also four trucks of cooking gas for the displaced Palestinian population. The problem is those trucks are either hijacked by Hamas terrorists to supply their own forces or they're looted by the population so that the U.N. organizations have a very difficult time to gather that humanitarian aid into specific places and distribute it. We know also that the U.S. administration is trying also to revive the markets of Gaza in other words to bring in goods that are not necessarily only humanitarian in order to revive the economy of embattled Gaza but that is also going to take time because it requires inspections because it requires more capacity at the Rafar crossing and this maybe will give more hope to the displaced population of Gaza but at a later stage I believe. Jaqal Al-Shamler thank you very much for that update from the Israel-Gaza border. Still with me here in studio Yaqob Laban and Owen Alterman. Owen I want to start with you. New reports perhaps updates in hostage negotiations? Yeah from Al-Akhbar in Lebanon, Hezbollah linked media outlet and Sarah the spin may be back right as we remember from previous negotiations a flurry of reports about what's going on in the talks some of them true some of them false some of them somewhere in the middle all of them I think intended to have an impact on the negotiations themselves spun and put out there and leaked for a reason at any rate such as they are here's the information that's in that report Hezbollah asking for him a Hamas rather asking for a 10 to 1 prisoner to hostage ratio again remind viewers that the in the previous deal was a 3 to 1 ratio so obviously a big difference the United States actually being the actor that's pushing Israel for a longer truce more than a week of what we saw last time but a two week truce to get hostages freed it seems the number of hostages that would set to be released at 40 which has been consistent with previous reports again focusing on groups that Israel wants to see released women the elderly and the sick and injured and the hang up on Israel side less so about the ratio and the number that about the type of prisoner released and who would actually be released as part of this deal Sarah I will say this obviously when it's coming from Hezbollah linked outlet obviously caution is advised but there are some elements of this that actually in some sense ring true such as the idea that the United States would be the actor who wants the truce to be extended it's more of an American interest than anybody else's and the fact that the hang up on the Israeli side is less about the length of the truce I don't think it's all that material at this point whether the truce is one week or two weeks and even less about the ratio right as tough as that would be for Israelis to swallow but much more about who would be released which prisoners would be released that I suspect and I wonder what Yaakov thinks about this is likely to be the hang up on the Israeli side and if anything would generate opposition and pushback to this deal from a month within public opinion and more importantly from within those 30 plus ministers who ultimately would have to okay the deal it would be the who which prisoners would have to be released and that I think would be the Israeli backstop on this so again the fact that the spin is back maybe further evidence of the seriousness of the talks and the seriousness of which it is taken even if the information in this particular report may or may not actually itself be true and Yaakov has mentioned certainly some pushback in public opinion when it comes to the ratio as he mentioned of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Israeli hostages but I want to talk about the risk and more so the ratio the who would be released right exactly the who would be released there's a difference in that 10 to 1 who those 10 are and to my point what are the risks here of releasing perhaps a large number of Palestinian terrorist prisoners or as Owen said who those people are of course there's a risk Yahya Sanwar was released as part of the Gilat Shalit deal and now he's you know in charge of this war and the unprecedented mass murder that Israelis have experienced the risk is huge but I actually think I agree that Israel will demand the right to say who is going to be released which one which group which category of its captives will be released first but I think the element of time is actually crucial there's a very big difference between a week and 2 weeks in terms of a ceasefire operationally and tactically and I think essentially what Hamas wants here is to build up a dynamic in which a ceasefire will end up becoming permanent and it wants to trap Israel into that position it thinks that it can create dynamics which are not currently seen and then it will extend again and again until Israel will give up under the pressure of international pressure and various other factors other regional developments that's what Hamas is banking its entire survival strategy on and that's why they're demanding that time is such a critical asset time is the oxygen that they need to survive and this is the thing that Israel will not give them because otherwise the entire war effort will not succeed so I would just draw attention to the element of time it's crucial to probably the most important thing that's being negotiated here except for two things number one that whole theory that a temporary pause will lead to a permanent ceasefire was proven false in the first round of the military proved and the public here proved that it was willing to go back to war and second we're obviously in a different place in the fighting we're set to move on to the next phase such as it is with the lower intensity warfare to use the American language anyway so I guess given that is the risk the same from Israel's perspective now as it was before that first deal in November and the odds of Hamas actually getting benefits and profiting from that strategy aren't those odds longer this time than they were even in November when Hamas may have gotten obviously advantages through the truce I think that seems to be at least as a layman clear but not a kind of game-changing advantages that they at least wanted right well and that was a shorter truce but I think really the main thing is not the length of the truce but this hope that it will lead to something new from Hamas's perspective they think that they can wiggle their way out of this and end up ending the war with the leadership intact and surviving coming out joining the PA in some future regime they have these dreams of surviving the war and if they get that picture if they get that picture of them emerging Yahis and war death any of them emerging after this war intact they will declare victory and by the way rightly so so this is the most important thing from Israel's perspective is to make it absolutely clear that Hamas's demands for the length of the truce will not be respected if it's beyond a certain reasonable degree and let's also keep in mind what Hamas's original demand in this round of negotiations was a permanent truce and they weren't joking this is really what they want so again I'm drawing attention to the time as a concept that can lead to something as far as Hamas is concerned to survival that's the thing that they're after here before we start discussing the other Iranian proxies in the region threatening Israeli security I want to turn to you Owen quickly UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron has touched on in Cairo what's on the agenda there yeah I think it seems like a broadly similar agenda Sarah to the previous stop on his agenda in Amman again wanting to be seen I think more than anything else visiting these countries and to be seen as doing something to move forward on the ideas that he put in that op-ed that he co-authored the idea of a quote a sustainable ceasefire to try to put flesh on those bones what exactly is a sustainable ceasefire because by his own admission you can't have a sustainable ceasefire until Hamas is defeated so then how can you actually have a ceasefire right now before Hamas is defeated at any rate I think there are some smaller scale goals here again moving more aid into the Gaza Strip that was a big part of the visit in Jordan presumably even more so in Egypt because of the geography that there will be real deliverables after because it's hard for me to imagine I think this is more political both internally in Britain and geopolitically for its other relationships in the Middle East and around the world for him to be seen as going out there and making this trip so again he's in Egypt and we'll meet with Samachukri the Egyptian Foreign Minister as we understand it over the next few hours and then at some point in the trip I'll meet with the President Sisi as well we'll see what the statements are probably of a similar flavor to those in Jordan again that there be concrete action more of the goal in the symbolism in the theater if you will maybe more than theater but in the statement being issued by the very fact of making the trip and showing this is the direction that he wants to take you a British foreign policy and speaking of foreign policy Israel's posture when it comes to the Houthis a new posture does it align with the U.S. Task Force to tackle that it's designed from the Israeli perspective to complement the U.S. Task Force but there's a couple of things being said here in the subtext on board a Sal 6 missile corvette in Elat the Red Sea City this is Israel's newest and most powerful Navy platform and he is saying that if these missile attacks on Elat don't stop and if this terrorizing of commercial shipping that's heading for Israel does not stop Israel will know what to do and he makes reference to air power and sea power which Israel can deploy those capabilities 2,000 kilometers to Yemen now he's saying this I think basically to say to the whole region look this may look like we're not responding but what's actually happening is we're giving this U.S. Task Force a chance if the Task Force fails to take offensive action if it just limits itself to intercepting missiles and drones on commercial shipping then Israel is going to take offensive action against Houthi targets in Yemen as a very bare minimum to make it clear to the other adversaries in the region that you cannot fire on Israel in Israeli and Israel is simply going to sit there and play defense that's a very bad message of deterrence for Israel so Gallant's statement last night was important in my view I want to speak to you a little bit about Iran's strategy that it's used over the years as we've seen using these its proxies in the region to undermine Israel's security and it's a bit of a if you think about it a brilliant strategy of sorts because they're really using these quote-unquote underdogs the Palestinians and the Gaza Strip and the Israelis that are going through a political and economic crisis again pinning Israel as the enemy here not the enemy but perhaps the aggressor it's quite interesting to see the Iranians are very high class strategists this is a big problem what they've done essentially is they've set up franchises and by franchise I mean setting up a terrorist asymmetric army armed with precision munitions and mass ability to deploy firepower firepower bases if we can call on that around Israel's border and they identify areas of failed sovereignty or places that already have sympathetic Islamist regime so the Gaza Strip Lebanon which in many ways is a fiction as a state as a real state they've tried to do the same in Syria and they're trying to do the same in the West Bank it hasn't really worked for them in Syria in the West Bank because Israel is there destroying the lawn whether it's from the air or the ground or both but in places where Israel has not mowed the lawn and by that I mean continuous security operations to take down these growing capabilities Lebanon and Gaza we face the situation that we're in now it's a very smart, devious, dangerous and destabilizing strategy the ultimate goal here is for Iran to be the dominant regional power to destroy this state of Israel they're fully committed to that this is part of their goal and make life here unlivable this is the Iranian goal and also to bring down these Sunni pragmatic states along the way this is their long-term goal and they're pursuing it and they have to be stopped That's a wrap for this hour's broadcast but don't go anywhere i24news will be back at the top of the hour with its rolling coverage of the war here in Israel if you want to stay up to date throughout the day you can connect to our website i24news.tv or on social media it's 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 line but the general perception is something that certainly needs to to be fought as well through the traffic faster we can get across town quicker ultimately it's cheaper for the folks who pay to use our services it's been so long and we don't know what's happening in Japan I think it's spreading in the middle of the world we're hearing the end of its offensive in the northern part of the strip and has begun fighting in new areas including Hanyunas where Hamas leadership is believed to be hiding in the past day the air force has struck over 230 Hamas targets in the Gaza enclave and discovered more weapons hidden inside schools the Israeli army has also announced the death of three more soldiers killed and fighting bringing the IDF tool to 137 meanwhile Hamas has reportedly rejected an Israeli offer to temporarily halt fighting in exchange for the release of the 129 hostages still held captive in the war zone according to the Wall Street Journal the terror group wants Israel to first implement a ceasefire before beginning negotiations speaking to reporters on Wednesday US President Biden doesn't expect a new hostage deal between Israel and Hamas to come anytime soon yes well we're pushing it there's no expectation at this point but we are pushing and your reaction to 20,000 dead in Gaza that death toll reached today hostilities are escalating in the north on Israel's border with Lebanon I-24 news correspondent Zach Anders is on the ground Zach what's happening where you are we're looking at some major developments here in the north 15 separate communities have been placed in a state of lockdown gates closed roads closed and there are more checkpoints we've just gone through a checkpoint that was not there in the days before this is a heavy level of activity that's taking place as a precaution I'm told that is the result of some strong language that's coming out of southern Lebanon Hezbollah statements in Lebanese media channels and as a result of yesterday the IDF struck very hard we're hearing about it last night at several positions throughout the south there was extensive damage and casualties Hezbollah updated its figures for its casualties with 118 of its militants now killed since the fighting began that is a number that has been growing exponentially in the last week yesterday we also saw damage to some communities where apparently Hezbollah was operating and potential civilian casualties that have not yet been confirmed but the statements from Hezbollah are relating to civilian deaths they are claiming that they're going to strike back with force today prompting apparently a general broad assessment by the IDF telling the upper galley regional council to take extra precautions today and that's what we're seeing a very heavy presence here in the north everyone is in a state of standby as we are again not in intensive stage with the IDF but this is again just a very strong stance today a very great sense of precaution and this escalation in mid US and French diplomatic efforts to secure some sort of buffer zone on the ground there yeah and that buffer zone is six miles to start at least that's the negotiations we're hearing that's significant because it does push some of the weapons that we have been seen used frequently in this conflict the anti-tank guided missiles and mortars that need to be launched by militants personnel on the ground this is going to put them out of range but not entirely and Hezbollah still has a vast arsenal of heavy rockets at its disposal that wouldn't matter even if they're able to get the original proposal the buffer zone all the way to the Lattani river that does not push these heavy rockets out of range they'll still be able to hit central Israel even this is the concern so we're still waiting to see where these diplomatic talks go but so far no major breakthroughs in the last 48 hours Zach Anders thank you very much for that update from the Israel Lebanon border I want to introduce my panel with me here in studio Yaakov Lapin military and strategic affairs analyst for the Jewish news syndicate and the Miriam Institute as well as I-24 news senior correspondent Owen Alterman thank you both for joining me today Yaakov I want to start with you before we move on to the situation in Gaza I want to get your assessment on the situation happening on the Lebanese border I've thought for several weeks that Israel and Hezbollah are on a collision course and I think we're seeing that collision start to happen there's a fundamental clash of interests here Israel is going to demand as you just referred to in your question to a buffer zone it's going to demand that Hezbollah move back and in order to allow the environment to allow northern residents to come back to their homes we have between 80 to 100,000 according to various estimates people who are internally displaced cannot come back to their homes some of them are looking for permanent homes in central Israel so this is a state of affairs it's a crisis that cannot go on indefinitely chief of staff last night said the IDF will change the situation fundamentally Hezbollah understands that this is where it's going it's not going to accept a buffer zone lying down diplomacy a weight in whole tactics both sides are using to prepare themselves in my opinion for the next stage which is an escalation and is there a clash and visions between what the Israelis see as the reality on the ground versus what US and foreign diplomatic efforts see as the solution here when it comes to Hezbollah? Unfortunately I think there is and there's ultimately there's a clash of interests the United States as a global superpower is interested in preventing a regional war it wants to you know hem in the Israel Hamas war to the Gaza Strip and to not let it expand because it wants to prioritize the Chinese challenge in the Pacific arena it wants to enable its forces to go east doesn't want to get drawn into a Middle East conflict and Israel has an entirely separate set of interests which is to never again allow a terrorist sort of proxy monster to grow on its border and threaten communities as we had happening in Gaza and in Lebanon so there is this inherent clash of interests and speaking of Gaza IDF is intensifying its combat in Hanyunas where Hamas military leadership is believed to be hiding out talk to us about the difficulties on the ground including Hamas's network of tunnels where those terrorists are believed to be hiding and holding those hostages captive. So we've seen some very interesting updates from the IDF about what it's been doing in northern Gaza in recent weeks detecting and taking apart this very elaborate tunnel network that was dug out in the Ramal area of northern Gaza for the leadership of Hamas and they were using this to move around all over northern Gaza and then when they wanted to move above ground they had ambulances taking them and then they could go back down into the tunnels you know an incredible network of covert movement and the reason that the IDF is able to do this in northern Gaza is because it has essentially entered the mopping up phase of the northern Gaza war and in southern Gaza it's still taking on the above ground Hamas threat and it's beginning to prepare to go underground that's where the Hamas leadership is believed to be hiding in Hanyunas underground the last fortress of Hamas so we're seeing this sort of order of operations above ground and then they're going underground And briefly before we go to our correspondent there on the ground there are reports that Israel had knowledge of this massive tunnel four years prior yeah I mean there's going to have to be a long reckoning I think you know at the end of this war but ultimately you know the problem here is knowing about capabilities that were being built and not taking action against them based on this concept that it's possible to deter it's possible to contain these concepts of course you know completely collapsed on October 7th in the most tragic way possible and that entire concept will have to be revisited in a very thorough manner after the war that's cost over to I-24 news correspondent Pierre Kloschender he's on the Israel Gaza border Pierre rocket sirens sounding for a second time this morning after what was a 40 hour long absolutely and the rocket fire is emanating probably from Hanyunas because it's on the communities that are facing Hanyunas again near us near him and these places could probably be the staging ground of forces going inside Hanyunas or getting out of Hanyunas rotating and therefore Hamas is trying to prevent that I don't know if you hear the outgoing shells but the IDF right now is striking with its artillery the little town of Almugraka which is in the south of Gaza city and which controls the access road the Salahadin road to Hanyunas and it's a very important battleground for these ready forces as they're as the thrust of the offensive right now focuses on Hanyunas also you can maybe see the white smoke on the right of your monitor which is Shizaya where there are still strikes on a little town that has been basically the siege of very harsh battles and further to the right I can ask Igor Bazilenko cameraman you will see now an airstrike from the Jebalia refugee camp which is north of where we are and Jebalia was stated to be by the IDF and the full operational control but overnight and even this morning you can see there are airstrikes on the refugee camp earlier in the night it was announced that the army enabled the organized evacuations of displaced Palestinians that seek shelter in a school of Jebalia they were evacuated and inside the school they found a weapon depot as usual in such places sensitive places where Hamas believed that the army would not dare to enter for fear of a humanitarian disaster there is again an arms depot using infrastructure civilians infrastructure as human shield and you see more strikes in this particular sector but this is a small sector of the central Gaza Strip and the thrust of the offensive as I said is in Hanyunes where an additional brigade has been added to at least two brigades and other units inside and around Hanyunes in order to put maximum pressure on the city which has become according to the Israeli defense minister the alternative terror capital of the Gaza Strip after the after the city of Gaza has been under operational control of the Israeli army and tell you mentioned there the humanitarian crisis taking place in Gaza tell us a little bit about the efforts to bring in aid into the enclave there is an effort not only by Israel but by many countries including Arab countries such as the United Arab Emirates the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and others to alleviate the plight of the Palestinians because 80% even maybe more of the population of the whole Gaza Strip is now crammed into half of it in the central and southern sector of the Gaza Strip on 180 square kilometers the UAE has installed a desalination plan on the Egyptian side in the Sinai Peninsula south of the Gaza Strip and they've laid pipelines which are bringing water desalinated water to 150,000 people that's not enough because there are 2 million people now inside that sector in safe humanitarian zones or at relatives in Rafar or in Hanyunis and yet the Israeli army has also opened an additional crossing in addition to the Nitzana crossing which brings humanitarian trucks from Israeli territory into Egyptian territory it takes an hour to reach the Rafar terminal but the problem with the Rafar terminal is that its capacity is limited to about 100 trucks so they opened under US pressure another terminal Kerem Shalom crossing where the aid is transferred after inspection directly to the Gaza Strip now there are about 200 trucks a day that are being transferred to the Gaza Strip including 4 trucks of fuel and also 4 trucks of cooking gas for the displaced Palestinian population the problem is those who are either hijacked by Hamas terrorists to supply their own forces or they're looted by the population so that the UN organizations have a very difficult time to gather that humanitarian aid into specific places and distribute it we know also that the US administration is trying also to revive the markets of Gaza in other words to bring in goods that are not necessarily only humanitarian in order to revive the economy of embattled Gaza but that is also going to take time because it requires inspections because it requires more capacity at the Rafar crossing and this maybe will give more hope to the displaced population of Gaza but at a later stage I believe Thank you very much for that update from the Israel-Gaza border Still with me here in studio Yaakob Lapin and Owen Alterman Owen I want to start with you new reports of perhaps updates in hostage negotiations Yeah from Al-Akhbar in Lebanon Hezbollah linked media outlet and Sarah the spin may be back as we remember from previous negotiations a flurry of reports of what's going on in the talks some of them true some of them false some of them somewhere in the middle all of them I think intended to have an impact on the negotiations themselves spun and put out there and leaked for a reason at any rate such as they are here's the information that's in that report Hezbollah asking for him a Hamas rather asking for a 10 to 1 prisoner to hostage ratio again remind viewers that in the previous deal it was a 3 to 1 ratio but it states actually being the actor that's pushing Israel for a longer truce more than a week of what we saw last time but a two week truce to get hostages freed it seems the number of hostages that would set to be released at 40 which has been consistent with previous reports again focusing on groups that Israel wants to see released women, the elderly and the sick and injured and the hang up on Israel side less so about the ratio and the number that about the type of prisoner actually be released as part of this deal Sarah I will say this obviously when it's coming from Hezbollah linked outlet obviously caution is advised but there are some elements of this that actually in some sense ring true such as the idea that the United States would be the actor who wants the truce to be extended it's more of an American interest than anybody else's and the fact that the hang up on the Israeli side is less about the length of the truce I don't think it's all that material at this point whether the truce is one week or two weeks and even less about the ratio right as tough as that would be for Israelis to swallow but much more about who would be released which prisoners would be released that I suspect and I wonder what Yaakov thinks about this is likely to be the hang up on the Israeli side and if anything would generate opposition and push back to this deal from within public opinion and more importantly from within those 30 plus ministers who ultimately would have to okay the deal it would be the who which prisoners would have to be released and then I think would be the Israeli backstop on this so again the fact that the spin is back maybe further evidence of the seriousness of the talks and the seriousness of which it is taken even if the information in this particular report may or may not actually itself be true and Yaakov as Owen mentioned certainly some pushback in public opinion when it comes to the ratio as he mentioned of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Israeli hostages but when I want to talk about the risk and more so the ratio the who would be released right the who would be released there's a difference in that 10 to 1 who those 10 are and to my point what are the risks here of releasing perhaps a large number of Palestinian terrorist prisoners or as Owen said who those people are of course there's a risk Yahya Sanwar was released as part of the Gila Chalit deal and now he's you know in charge of this war and the unprecedented mass murder that Israelis have experienced the risk is huge but I actually think I agree that Israel will demand the right to say who is going to be released which one which group which category of its captives will be released first but I think the element of time is actually crucial there's a very big difference between a week and two weeks in terms of a ceasefire operationally and tactically and I think essentially what Hamas wants here is to build up a dynamic in which a ceasefire will end up becoming permanent and it wants to trap Israel into that position it thinks that it can create dynamics which are not currently seen and then it will extend again and again until Israel will give up under the pressure of international pressure and various other factors other regional developments that's what Hamas is banking its entire survival strategy on and that's why they're demanding that time is such a critical asset time is the oxygen that they need to survive and this is the thing that Israel will not give them because otherwise the ceasefire war effort will not succeed so I would just draw attention to the element of time it's crucial to probably the most important thing that's being negotiated here number one that whole theory that temporary pause will lead to a permanent ceasefire was proven false in the first round of the military proved and the public here proved that it was willing to go back to war and second obviously in a different place in the fighting we're set to move on to the next phase such as it is in the Israeli language anyway so I guess given that is the risk the same from Israel's perspective now as it was before that first deal in November and the odds of Hamas actually getting benefits and profiting from that strategy aren't those odds longer this time than they were even in November when Hamas may have gotten obviously advantages through the truth I think that seems to be at least as a layman clear but not the kind of game changing advantages that they at least wanted right well and that was a shorter truce but I think really the main thing is not the length of the truth but this hope that it will lead to something new from Hamas's perspective they think that they can wiggle their way out of this and end up ending the war with the leadership intact and surviving coming out joining the PA in some future regime they have these dreams of surviving the war and if they get that picture if they get that picture of them emerging after this war intact they will declare victory and by the way rightly so so this is the most important thing from Israel's perspective is to make it absolutely clear that Hamas's demands for the length of the truth will not be respected if it's beyond a certain reasonable degree and let's also keep in mind what Hamas's original demand in this round of negotiations was a permanent truce and they weren't joking this is really what they want so I again I'm drawing attention to the time as a concept that can lead to something as far as Hamas is concerned to survival that's the thing that they're after here before we start discussing the other Iranian proxies in the region threatening Israeli security I want to turn to you Owen quickly UK foreign secretary David Cameron has touched on in Cairo what's on the agenda there? I think it seems like a broadly similar agenda Sarah to the previous stop on his agenda in Amman again wanting to be seen I think more than anything else visiting these countries and to be seen as doing something to move forward on the ideas that he put in that op-ed that he co-authored the idea of a quote sustainable ceasefire to try to put flesh in those bones what exactly is a sustainable ceasefire because by his own admission you can't have a sustainable ceasefire until Hamas is defeated so then how can you actually have a ceasefire right now before Hamas is defeated at any rate I think there are some smaller scale goals here again moving more aid into the Gaza Strip that was a big part of Britain presumably even more so in Egypt because of the geography that there will be real deliverables after these visits hard for me to imagine I think this is more political both internally in Britain and geopolitically for its other relationships in the Middle East and around the world for him to be seen as going out there and making this trip so again he's in Egypt and we'll meet with some of Shukri the Egyptian foreign minister as we understand it over the next few hours and then at some point in the trip visit with the statements are probably of a similar flavor to those in Jordan again that there be concrete action I think probably less the goal more of the goal in the symbolism in the theater if you will maybe more than theater but in the statement being issued by the very fact of making the trip and showing this is the direction that he wants to take you a British foreign policy and speaking of foreign policy Israel's posture when it comes to the Houthis a new posture does it align with the U.S. Task Force to tackle that it's designed from the Israeli perspective to complement the U.S. Task Force but there's a couple of things being said here in the subtext the defense minister Yov Galant on board a South six missile Corvette in a lot the Red Sea City this is Israel's newest and most powerful Navy platform and he is saying that if these missile attacks on a lot don't stop and if you know this terrorizing of commercial shipping that's heading for Israel does not stop Israel will know what to do and this reference to air power and sea power which Israel can deploy those capabilities 2000 kilometers to Yemen now he's saying this I think basically to say to the whole region look this may look like we're not responding but what actually happening is we're giving this U.S. Task Force a chance if the Task Force fails to take offensive action if it just limits itself to intercepting missiles and drones on commercial shipping then Israel is going to take offensive action as a very bare minimum to make it clear to the other adversaries in the region that you cannot fire on Israel and Israeli interests and Israel simply going to sit there and play defense that's a very bad message of deterrence for Israel so Galant's statement last night was important in my view I want to speak to you a little bit about Iran's strategy that it's used over the years as we've seen using these its proxies in the region to undermine Israel security and it's a bit of a if you think about it strategy of sorts because they're really using these quote-unquote underdogs the Palestinians and the Gaza Strip the Lebanese that are going through a political and economic crisis again pinning Israel as the enemy here not the enemy but perhaps the aggressor it's it's quite interesting to see the Iranians are very high class strategists this is a big problem what they've done essentially is they've set up franchises and by franchise I mean setting up a terrorist asymmetric army very well armed with precision munitions and mass ability to deploy firepower firepower bases if we can call on that around Israel's border and they identify areas of failed sovereignty or places that already have sympathetic Islamist regimes so the Gaza Strip Lebanon which in many ways is a fiction as a state as a real state they've tried to do the same in Syria and they're trying to do the same in the West Bank it hasn't really worked for them in Syria in the West Bank because Israel is there mowing the lawn whether it's from the air or the ground or both but in places where Israel has not mowed the lawn and by that I mean continuous security operations to take down these growing capabilities Lebanon and Gaza we face the situation that we're in now it's a very smart, devious, dangerous and destabilizing strategy the ultimate goal here is for Iran to be the dominant regional power to destroy the State of Israel they're fully committed to that, this is part of their goal build a nuclear umbrella over these proxies and make life here unlivable this is the Iranian goal and also to bring down these Sunni pragmatic states along the way, this is their long-term goal and they're pursuing it and they have to be stopped That's a wrap for this hour's broadcast but don't go anywhere I-24 News will be back at the top of the hour with its rolling coverage of the war here in Israel if you want to stay up to date throughout the day you can connect to our website i-24news.tv war on social media I'm Sara Martinez, thanks for watching Israel is in a state of war families completely gunned down in their beds we have no idea where she is our soldiers are fighting on the front line but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well and welcome to the I-24 News Desk I'm Sara Martinez live from Tel Aviv today marks the 76th day of the war as Israel's ground operation to dismantle Hamas and Gaza intensifies a short while ago more rockets fired at Gaza border communities from Gaza after a 40 hour lull the IDF says it's nearing the end of its offensive in the northern part of the strip and has begun fighting in new areas including Hanyunas where Hamas leadership is believed to be hiding in the past day the Air Force has struck over 230 Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip discovered more weapons caches inside a school the Israeli army has also announced the death of three more soldiers killed in fighting bringing the IDF to slain soldiers to 137 meanwhile Hamas has reportedly rejected an Israeli offer to temporarily halt fighting in exchange for the release of some of the 129 hostages still held captive in the war zone according to the Wall Street Journal Hamas Israel to first implement a ceasefire before beginning negotiations and let's cross over to the Israel Gaza border where I-24 news correspondent Pierre Pochandler is standing by Pierre, more rocket launches I understand Yeah, there was another rocket launch on the community of near host facing Hanyunas possibly a staging ground of the Israeli army and Hamas trying to foil the incursion of additional ground forces into the area of Hanyunas but no casualties as far as we know behind me there was just an a strike a few moments ago on the Direl Balach refugee camp in the central sector of the Gaza Strip that's already closer to Hanyunas and further to the north with Igor Basilenko will show you the area which was also pounded quite heavily by artillery fire a few minutes ago as well as the Almuraka town south of Gaza city which is also a strategic town in the sense that it leads to Hanyunas the access Salahadin Road is the main access road for the ground offensive entering Hanyunas from the north from the south of Gaza city to the north of Hanyunas in Hanyunas itself there's an additional brigade that has been deployed there in addition to the 7th Armoured Brigade the 98th elite commando unit brigade which operates inside Hanyunas in the heart of it and in addition to the paratrooper reservists of the 55th brigade but that's only the forces that are deployed on the whole Gaza Strip there's about 4 divisions about 80,000 soldiers on the ground in the Gaza Strip so the offensive goes unabated although there is a feeling in the public discourse that there is some sort of offensive getting bucked down inside Gaza but what we get from the IDF is some information which usually is delayed by at least 24 hours so we don't know exactly the state of the operation right now as we're talking what we know is that earlier in the morning the IDF said that there had been 230 airstrike, artillery strike and navy strike throughout the territory of the Gaza Strip it's not the maximum that we've heard from the IDF yesterday they said that in the previous 24 hours there had been 350 air, artillery and navy strike so this is less but that doesn't mean much in the northern sector of the Gaza Strip although it's under full operational control by the IDF there are still clashes of isolated cells and the forces are combing the area and finding more weapons more tunnels, more workshop of manufacturing rockets and weapons Thank you very much for that update from the Israel-Gaza border joining me in studio is IDF Colonel in the reserves IDF spokesperson for international media thank you very much for joining me today I want to ask you what is the state currently of the operation the war is still going on forces are actually surrounding Hanyunes and also we have troops within Hanyunes and we found an incredible network of tunnels beneath the ground these tunnels actually are part of the infrastructure directly connected to the leaders to the chief of Hamas and it proved that we are actually moving in in the right direction because we understand that we are destroying and revealing is the exact structure of Hamas terrorist infrastructures all over the Gaza Strip and more particularly in Hanyunes and speaking of that Hamas tunnel network how is the IDF tackling that landscape when it comes to obviously they cannot solve it we are actually using many tactics and I'm not going to elaborate about it but it is clear that because it's actually being trapped all over so we have to be very cautious very careful to deal with that but we have also other means of tactical and macro tactical antigens to check and to look into it in order to check for example we found like almost apartments beneath the ground 50 meters beneath the ground we found actually an incredible network of of a network of tunnel I'm sorry but very prepared very sophisticated that show that it was used by the leader of themself by Yakhiesi Noir by Mohammed Def and we are using many means to also get information to agent from it stay with us I want to cross over to the northern border hostilities part in our escalating our correspondent Zach Anders is there on the ground Zach I understand the IDF taking precautionary measures following this morning's rocket fire yeah 15 communities appear to be on lockdown today the upper galley regional council has responded from the request by the IDF to take extreme precautions today closing roads locking down some of these communities this kind of credible threat in southern Lebanon we have just been seeing some smoke behind us behind Kira Shemona and what appears to be apparent IDF strikes but the two ATGM launches these AT anti-tank guided missiles were taking place in communities just about 5-10 miles away from us here two separate communities there appears to be damage but the IDF says no apparent casualties or injuries with these two strikes happening in the last hour or so but there are a much further deeper level of precautions that have been taking place today like Kira Shemona has postponed funeral services that were set to take place in the town's cemetery this is not something that we've seen here before in the north or at least not since the early days of the conflict these level of precautions we've already gone through extended checkpoints so there's a apparent level of unease here in the north much more so than we've seen in previous days Zach Anders thank you very much for that update a chilling discovery following a military probe into the accidental killing of three escaped hostages in the Gaza Strip by Israeli soldiers one of the captives was recorded days earlier shouting for help during a gun battle between troops and Hamas terrorists during the clashes a dog from the military's Oketz canine unit was sent into the building the dog was killed by the Hamas gunman but a camera mounted on the dog which continued to record even after the animal was killed caught the voice of a hostage apparently Alon Shemri is calling for help the feed from the dog's body camera was not being monitored live and was only discovered on December 18th after the body of the canine was recovered now Iris Chaim the mother of Yotam Chaim one of the three hostages accidentally shot by IDF soldiers in the tragic event since a chilling recording in which she seeks to send a strengthening message to the soldiers from that very unit an inspiring message of compassion from the bereaved mother take a listen I would like to tell you that I love you very much and that I thank you from the bottom of my heart and I know that everything that happened is completely in your ears and in one ear apart from the Hamas with a smile on the blood I ask to hear from you and to think that you are doing the best thing in the world that can read, that can help us and the people of Israel we are grateful for you and do not hesitate for a moment when you see a sign do not think that you are just in a good mood you need to tell yourself because only this way you can protect us and in the first few minutes you will come to us everyone who is interested and we want to see you in our lives and to share with you and to tell you that it is a must to say such a thing and the best at that moment I would not be able to do anything with you no one would be happy nor ashamed nor envy nor be proud and tell you that I am proud very much So with me here in studio is Ida of Spokesperson for International Media in a very tragic accident. Tell me, what is the IDF doing to train its troops to avoid a future, a similar incident in the future, on a very complicated and complex battlefield where they're both facing terrorists and at the same time looking for potential hostages? First of all, again, I would like to convey our condolences for the families, for this tragedy that happened. And as you know, we made and we cut out a very deep and very precise investigation. And the soldiers actually behave not according to the rules of engagement and was clearly said by all the authorities in the Army on these rules of engagement in order to prevent such incidents, such a tragedy have been, again, transmitted to the forces all around the Gaza Strip because there is this possibility of hostages release or free or around in this combat area. So a tragedy that should be prevented the next time in case that, unfortunately, again, it could happen, but, of course, we'll do everything that this tragedy will not be repeated. And speaking of those hostages, Hamas has rejected Israel's proposal for a week-long truce in Gaza in exchange for the release of some 40 hostages which would have included women and children. I want to ask you, did that list include the Bebes family? I will tell you, Sarah, you know, this sensitive issue is dealt at the highest level, at the Israeli government level by the war cabinet. And the Army is actually following the directions and the instructions. So for now, I cannot elaborate or cannot give any element on it, except that the Army is continuing to do two big missions, two priorities. One, to eliminate Hamas in the Gaza Strip and two, at the same time simultaneously to do everything in order to release and to bring back home free and safe all the hostages. The issue of the way to negotiate or something else is a specific prerogative from the government. Just a quick update for our viewers. Now, rocket siren sounding pardon in the north. Hostile aircraft has been identified reportedly. Before we turn to the north, I want to ask you, how much of the Gaza enclave does the IDF actually control at this hour? We actually are moving in and controlling most of the northern part of the Gaza Strip, but it's not a war for territory. It's a war for eliminating Hamas. And it is very important to say it. It's not like we are moving in order to take territory. We are moving in order to destroy to eliminate to kill Hamas terrorists or to arrest them or to put them in our prison for investigation. But at the time that we are now talking together, we are actually working the IDF in three main points. Jebalia and Sajay, another point in the north and also in Hanyunes area, that the main points of combat frictions with Hamas and we continue to do so. I want to bring in to the conversation, Eliott Chodov. He's the IDF major in the reserves of political and military analysts. Thank you very much for joining us. Pleasure. Thank you. I want to get your assessment of the situation on the Lebanese border at this hour. It's clearly heating up. I believe that Hezbollah is feeling the pressure from Hamas to do something. And they're increasing their attacks, although still staying within the border area, although they've launched occasional drones in the direction of Haifa, I think are more symbolic than actual. They didn't launch enough that anyone would actually get through unless they were incredibly lucky or unlucky, depending on your perspective. So I think what we're seeing is an increased likelihood of casualties on the Israeli side that could cause a massive escalation. Not so much because Hezbollah wants it, but because Hezbollah wants to show that it's much more involved in the attacks against Israel, especially with what the Houthis are doing in Yemen. It's hard for them to stand by and do nothing. And I think that the Israeli response by shutting down areas, closing roads is an attempt to prevent the possibility of casualties and causing the whole thing to blow up out of control of Israel. In other words, if and when the time comes, we may escalate it, but we don't want it to happen by surprise or by accident. And many security analysts believe a direct confrontation with Hezbollah is unavoidable, despite diplomatic efforts by the international community to establish some sort of buffer zone there on the border. I think unavoidable is overstating it, but highly likely would be a better way of putting it. I think that the possibility of Israel leaving Hezbollah along the border is near zero. And accepting any sort of diplomatic solution would be folly given that they violated every single one that we've ever put together with them, whether it was unilaterally or bilaterally, whether it was after our withdrawal in 2000 or after the war in 2006. So anything that leaves them in power, even with some sort of an agreement to pull back beyond the Letani River, is simply a waste of time. Turning to Gaza, Hamas refusing Israel's proposal for a hostage deal of a one-week ceasefire in exchange for some 40 women and children. What does Hamas want here? They want an end to the war. They know that a week isn't going to do them any good. Marginally maybe to get in some more supplies through tunnels from Egypt, maybe to do a bit of a realignment. But they're being beaten so badly that a week does them really no good whatsoever. And they want an end to it. They're hoping either to get it by agreement, by demand, that will include pressure from Egypt, from the United States. But they, whether they meant to or not, on October 7th, they put all of their chips on one number and they played it. Now they're losing and they can only work for survival, not for some intermediate agreement that'll get them a little bit of time and maybe a few of their people out of prison. Israel's allies in Washington are pushing the IDF to wrap up this more intensive phase of the war. When do you expect Israel to shift, as we said to that next phase? I think in the north we're going to see that shift relatively soon. As was mentioned earlier, the operations in Jabalia and Seja'i are starting to wind down above ground and the underground, the tunnel operations won't have the apparent intensity at least that the above ground operations do. I think that we're still looking at at least a couple of weeks if not longer in Khan Yunus and the Rafiakh area in order to reach the same situation that we're in in Gaza, Jabalia, Seja'i in that area. I want to get your assessments on how the IDF is tackling the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea. The IDF isn't really tackling it. It's a decision that has to be made on a political strategic level. In the meantime, the Americans set up their international naval force that I think remains to be seen whether it'll work. I don't believe that it will ultimately be the answer if it stays only defensively. In other words, picking off a drone here and a missile there. If the Americans and their allies decide to go after the Houthis and they have the power to do it, then the job is basically done for Israel. If not, then a decision is going to have to be made how to deal with them. And that means long-range air, possibly naval support attacks. Simply, as I said before, taking out a drone here and a missile there is not going to secure shipping in the southern Red Sea in the streets of Babelman Dip. I want to thank my guest IDF major in the reserves, Ali Akhodov. And with me here in studio, Olivier Khafovic, IDF spokesperson for International Media. Thank you. Turning to that fateful day of October 7th, a question on everyone's mind is how did Israeli military and intelligence agencies fail to read the signs of Hamas' imminent attack and how was it carried out so easily? Israel's Channel 12 News reveals new details on Hamas' attack on the Nakhal Oz IDF post on Israel's Gaza border. The results of the Hamas terrorist invasion of the Nakhal Oz outpost will continue to echo as the IDF investigates the events of the dark Saturday, October 7th. Today we can reveal what the IDF already knows about what happened at the base during the battle in which terrorists killed 66 soldiers, most of them field observers and soldiers of Golanic Brigade's 13th Battalion. The IDF that entered the Nakhal Oz is at a much higher level than any other IDF, but this is the IDF that arrived in the 3rd Battalion. The 1st Battalion arrived in the 60th Battalion. The IDF that entered the Nakhal Oz in the middle of the battle is the IDF that arrived at the base of the Nakhal Oz in the 50th Battalion. The general data on the invasion presented to the families barely begins to convey the magnitude of the attack. At half past 5 a.m., IDF Southern Command Assessment shows no unusual warnings. The forces, which are already in limited capacity, do not prepare for anything out of the ordinary. At 6.29, sirens sound across Israel as intense rocket fire begins from the Gaza Strip. At 6.54, the first invasion of the outpost by 70 terrorists commences. Six minutes later, at 7.00 a.m., a second invasion by about 50 more terrorists. Three and a half hours later, at 10.30, a third group of about 50 more terrorists invade the outpost. By this time, a total of about 170 terrorists have entered the Nakhal Oz base. Saturday morning, at half past 6, they have already identified a swarm of terrorists on the fence and they asked for help. To be precise, it was at 6.29 a.m. And they were told, deal with it, we have other priorities. In that situation, the commander on duty needs to make a decision, make a decision, get them on a hammer, get them out of there. Then they would be here with us today. According to the IDF investigation, this is what happened on the ground at the moment the barrier was breached. At 6.29, field observers identified two armed men running towards the fence, the beginning of the infiltration. At 6.30, identification of additional terrorists blowing up the fence. At 6.31, the deputy battalion commander announces what he defines as a complex event. Seven minutes later, at 6.38 a.m., terrorists from Hamas's elite Nakhubayunat have fully crossed the fence. At 6.40 a.m., the procedure for dealing with an infiltration from the Gaza Strip was officially declared. Two minutes later, the platoon commander activates sentry tech systems that automatically identify threats and open fire, hitting some of the terrorists. But two minutes later, at 6.44, the system stopped working. The cameras did as well. At 6.51, a situation assessment finally made it through to IDF's southern command. Terrorists have entered the outpost. This is the room of the girls. They were killed. And the terrorists, from here, they were killed. In their dorms, some locked themselves inside the war room. The firecrackers they received were found in a number of bodies. In fact, he said to them, get out of the room, and that's very good. Everyone in the war room, within minutes. The smoke that came into the closed room began to suffocate the 22 people who were locked inside. The soldiers could not open the burning door of the war room. Seven managed to make it through the window. One field observer and six fighters. We know that the explosion at the war room occurred between 11.30 and 12, meaning that they were alive for five hours and no one came to rescue them. In this report, by Yonit Levy, two weeks ago, the parents of the field observers detailed how they conducted their own investigation into the events of that day, putting together fragments of information they collected. Even today, after the IDF representatives shared with them the initial findings, the full picture remains unclear. While the parents are waiting for a full and comprehensive investigation to take place, they are still insisting on viewing the remaining security camera footage themselves, all so they can fully understand the chain of events that led to the bloody battle of the Nahal Oz outpost. And that wraps this hour's broadcast. But don't go anywhere. I-24 News will be back at the top of the hour with more rolling coverage of the war unfolding here in Israel. If you missed anything from this broadcast, you can always catch up on our website, i24news.tv or on social media. I'm Sarah Martinez. Thanks for watching. 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 be fought as well. We can get through the traffic faster. We can get across town quicker. Ultimately it's cheaper for the folks who pay to use our services. Welcome to the I-24 News Desk. I'm Sarah Martinez, live from Tel Aviv. Today marks the 76th day of the war as Israel's ground operation to dismantle Hamas and Gaza intensifies. A short while ago, more rockets fired at Gaza border communities from Gaza after a 40-hour lull. The IDF says it's nearing the end of its offensive in the northern part of the Strip and has begun fighting in new areas, including Hanyunas, where Hamas leadership is believed to be hiding. In the past day, the Air Force has struck over 230 Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip. They discovered more weapons caches inside a school. The Israeli army has also announced the death of three more soldiers killed in fighting, bringing the IDF toll of slain soldiers to 137. Meanwhile, Hamas has reportedly rejected an Israeli offer to temporarily halt fighting in exchange for the release of some of the 129 hostages still held captive in the war zone. According to the Wall Street Journal, the terror group wants Israel to first implement a ceasefire before beginning negotiations. And let's cross over to the Israel-Gaza border where I-24 News correspondent Pierre Pochandler is standing by. Pierre, more rocket launchers, I understand? Yeah, there was another rocket launch on the community of near-hosts facing Hanyunas, possibly a staging ground of the Israeli army and Hamas trying to foil the incursion of additional ground forces into the area of Hanyunas, but no casualties as far as we know. Behind me, there was just a strike a few moments ago on the Direl Balach refugee camp in the central sector of the Gaza Strip. That's already closer to Hanyunas. And further to the north, with Igor Bazilenko, we'll show you the area of Shejaia, which was also pounded quite heavily by artillery fire a few minutes ago, as well as the Al-Muraka town south of Gaza City, which is also a strategic town in the sense that it leads to Hanyunas. The access Salahadin Road is the main access road for the ground offensive, entering Hanyunas from the north, from the south of Gaza City to the north of Hanyunas. In Hanyunas itself, there's an additional brigade that has been deployed there. In addition to the 7th Armored Brigade, the 98th Elite Commando Unit Brigade, which operates inside Hanyunas in the heart of it, and in addition to the paratrooper reservists of the 55th Brigade. But that's only some of the forces that are deployed on the whole Gaza Strip. There's about five, four divisions, about 80,000 soldiers on the ground in the Gaza Strip. So the offensive goes unabated, although there is a feeling in the public discourse that there is some sort of offensive getting bucked down inside Gaza. But what we get from the IDF is some information which usually is delayed by at least 24 hours. So we don't know exactly the state of the operation right now as we're talking. What we know is that earlier in the morning, the IDF said that there had been 230 airstrike, artillery strike, and Navy strike throughout the territory of the Gaza Strip. It's not the maximum that we've heard from the IDF. Yesterday, they said that in the previous 24 hours there had been 350 air, artillery, and Navy strike. So this is less, but that doesn't mean much. In the northern sector of the Gaza Strip, although it's under full operational control by the IDF, there are still clashes with isolated cells, and the forces are combing the area and finding more weapons, more tunnels, more workshop of manufacturing rockets and weapons. Yeah, Kalo Shander, thank you very much for that update from the Israel-Gaza border. Joining me in studio is IDF Colonel in the Reserves, Oryvera Fovic. IDF's spokesperson for international media. Thank you very much for joining me today. I want to ask you, what is the state currently of the operation taking place in Hanyunis? The war is still going on. Forces are actually surrounding Hanyunis and also we have troops within Hanyunis, and we found an incredible network of tunnels beneath the ground. These tunnels actually are part of the infrastructure directly connected to the leaders, to the chief of Hamas, and it proves that we are actually moving in in the right direction because we understand that we are destroying and revealing the exact structure of Hamas' terrorist infrastructures all over the Gaza Strip and more particularly in Hanyunis. And speaking of that Hamas Tunnel Network, how is the IDF tackling that landscape when it comes to, obviously they cannot send soldiers down there, it's too much of a risk. We are actually using many tactics and I'm not going to elaborate about it, but it is clear that because it's actually being trapped all over, so we have to be very cautious, very careful to deal with that, but we have also other means of tactical and macro-tactical antigens to check and to look into it in order to check. For example, we found like almost apartments beneath the ground, 50 meters beneath the ground. We found actually an incredible network of Tunnel, I'm sorry, but very prepared, very sophisticated that show that it was used by the leader themselves, by Yakhiesi Noir, by Mohamed Def, and we are using many means to also get information and to agent from it. May I stay with us? I want to cross over to the northern border where hostilities, pardon, are escalating. Our correspondent Zach Anders is there on the ground. Zach, I understand the IDF taking precautionary measures following this morning's rocket fire. Yeah, 15 communities appear to be on lockdown today. The Upper Galley Regional Council has responded from the request by the IDF to take extreme precautions today, it's closing roads, locking down some of these communities. This, after some sort of credible threat in southern Lebanon, we have just been seeing some smoke behind us, behind Kiryat Shemona and what appears to be apparent IDF strikes, but the two ATGM launches, these anti-tank guided missiles were taking place in communities just about 5, 10 miles away from us here, two separate communities. There appears to be damage, but the IDF says no apparent casualties or injuries with these two strikes happening in the last hour or so, but there are a much further level, deeper level of precautions that have been taking place today, like Kiryat Shemona has postponed funeral services that were set to take place in the town's cemetery. This is not something that we've seen here before in the north, or at least not since the early days of the conflict, these level of precautions we've already gone through, extended checkpoints, so there's a apparent level of unease here in the north, much more so than we've seen in previous days. Zach Anders, thank you very much for that update. A chilling discovery following a military probe into the accidental killing of three escaped hostages in the Gaza Strip by Israeli soldiers. One of the captives was recorded days earlier shouting for help during a gun battle between troops and Hamas terrorists. During the clashes, a dog from the military's Oketz canine unit was sent into the building. The dog was killed by the Hamas gunman, but a camera mounted on the dog, which continued to record even after the animal was killed, caught the voice of a hostage, apparently Alon Shemri's calling for help. The feed from the dog's body camera was not being monitored live and was only discovered on December 18th after the body of the canine was recovered. Now, Iris Chaim, the mother of Yotam Chaim, one of the three hostages accidentally shot by IDF soldiers in the tragic event, sent a chilling recording in which she seeks to send a strengthening message to the soldiers from that very unit an inspiring message of compassion from the bereaved mother. Take a listen. Peace to you. Peace to you. Peace to you. So, with me here in the studio is IDF spokesperson for International Media, Olivier Rafovich. Olivier, we just heard from the mother, the bereaved mother of one of those hostages that was accidentally killed in a very tragic accident. Tell me, what is the IDF doing to train its troops to avoid a similar incident in the future on a very complicated and complex battlefield where they're both facing terrorists and at the same time looking for potential hostages? First of all, again, I would like to convey our condolences for the families, for this tragedy that happened. And as you know, we made and we cut out a very deep and very precise investigation and the soldiers actually gave note according to the rules of engagement and was clearly said by all the authorities in the Army on these rules of engagement in order to prevent such incidents, such a tragedy have been, again, transmitted to the forces all around the Gaza Strip because there is this possibility of hostages released or free or around in this combat area. So a tragedy that should be prevented the next time in case that, unfortunately, again, it could happen, but, of course, we'll do everything that this tragedy will not be repeated. And speaking of those hostages, Hamas has rejected Israel's proposal for a week-long truce in Gaza in exchange for the release of some 40 hostages which would have included women and children. I want to ask you, did that list include the Bebas family? I will tell you, Sarah, you know, this sensitive issue is dealt at the highest level at the Israeli government level by the war cabinet. And the Army is actually following the direction of the instructions. So for now, I cannot elaborate or cannot give any element on it except that the Army is continuing to do two big missions, two priorities. One, to eliminate Hamas in the Gaza Strip and two, at the same time simultaneously, to do everything in order to release and to bring back home free and safe all the hostages. The issue of the way to negotiate or something else is a specific prerogative from the government. Just a quick update for our viewers. Now, rocket siren sounding pardon in the north. Hostile aircraft has been identified reportedly. Before we turn to the north, I want to ask you, how much of the Gaza enclave does the IDF actually control at this hour? We actually are moving on and controlling most of the northern part of the Gaza Strip, but it's not a war for territory. It's a war for eliminating Hamas. And it is very important to say it. It's not like we are moving in order to take territory. We are moving in order to destroy, to eliminate, to kill Hamas terrorists or to arrest them or to put them in our prison for investigation. But at the time that we are now talking together, we are actually working the IDF in three main points. Jebalia and Sajey, another point in the north and also in Hanuneh, Syria, that the main points of combat frictions with Hamas and we continue to do so. I want to bring into the conversation Eliot Chodov. He's the IDF major in the reserves of political and military analysts. Thank you very much for joining us. Pleasure. Thank you. I want to get your assessment of the situation on the Lebanese border at this hour. It's clearly heating up. I believe that Hezbollah is feeling the pressure from Hamas to do something. And they're increasing their attacks, although still staying within the border area. Although they've launched occasional drones in the direction of Haifa, those I think are more symbolic than actual. They didn't launch enough that anyone would actually get through unless they were incredibly lucky or unlucky depending on your perspective. So I think what we're seeing is an increased likelihood of casualties on the Israeli side that could cause a massive escalation. Not so much because Hezbollah wants it, but because Hezbollah wants to show that it's much more involved in the attacks against Israel, especially with what the Houthis are doing in Yemen. It's hard for them to stand by and do nothing. And I think that the Israeli response by shutting down areas, closing roads is an attempt to prevent the possibility of casualties and causing all things to blow up out of control of Israel. In other words, if and when the time comes, we may escalate it, but we don't want it to happen by surprise or by accident. And many security analysts believe a direct confrontation with Hezbollah is unavoidable despite diplomatic efforts by the international community to establish some sort of buffer zone there on the border. I think unavoidable is overstating it, but highly likely would be a better way of putting it. I think that the possibility of Israel leaving Hezbollah along the border is near zero, and accepting any sort of diplomatic solution would be folly given that they violated every single one that we've ever put together with them, whether it was unilaterally or bilaterally, whether it was after our withdrawal in 2000 or after the war in 2006. So anything that leaves them in power, even with some sort of an agreement to pull back beyond the Letani River is simply a waste of time. Turning to Gaza, Hamas refusing Israel's proposal for a hostage deal of a one-week ceasefire in exchange for some 40 women and children. What does Hamas want here? They want an end to the war. They know that a week isn't going to do them any good. Marginally maybe to get in some more supplies through tunnels from Egypt, maybe to do a bit of a realignment. But they're being beaten so badly that a week does them really no good whatsoever. And they want an end to it. They're hoping either to get it by agreement, by demand, that will include pressure from Egypt, from the United States. But they, whether they meant to or not, on October 7th, they put all of their chips on one number and they played it. Now they're losing and they can only work for survival, not for some intermediate agreement that'll get them a little bit of time and maybe a few of their people out of prison. Israel's allies in Washington are pushing the IDF to wrap up this more intensive phase of the war. When do you expect Israel to shift, as we said to that next phase? I think in the north we're going to see that shift relatively soon. As was mentioned earlier, the operations in Jabalia and Seja'i are starting to wind down above ground. And the underground, the tunnel operations won't have the apparent intensity, at least, that the above ground operations do. I think that we're still looking at at least a couple of weeks, if not longer in Kanyunas and the Rafiakh area in order to reach the same situation that we're in in Gaza, Jabalia, Seja'i in that area. I want to get your assessments on how the IDF is tackling the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea. The IDF isn't really tackling it. It's a decision that has to be made on a political strategic level. In the meantime, the Americans set up their international naval force that I think remains to be seen whether it'll work. I don't believe that it will ultimately be the answer if it stays only defensively. In other words, picking off a drone here and a missile there. If the Americans and their allies decide to go after the Houthis and they have the power to do it, then the job is basically done for Israel. If not, then a decision is going to have to be made how to deal with them. And that means long-range air, possibly naval support attacks. Simply, as I said before, taking out a drone here and a missile there is not going to secure shipping in the Southern Red Sea in the Straits of Babylon dip. I want to thank my guest IDF major in the Reserves, Ali Khodov, and with me here in Studio Olivier Khafovic, an IDF spokesperson for International Media. Thank you. Turning to that fateful day of October 7th, the question on everyone's mind is how did Israeli military and intelligence agencies fail to read the signs of Hamas' eminent attack and how was it carried out so easily? Israel's Channel 12 News reveals new details on Hamas' attack on the Nakhal-Oz IDF post on Israel's Gaza border. The results of the Hamas terrorist invasion of the Nakhal-Oz outpost will continue to echo as the IDF investigates the events of the dark Saturday, October 7th. Today, we can reveal what the IDF already knows about what happened at the base during the battle in which terrorists killed 66 soldiers, most of them field observers and soldiers of Golan Brigade's 13th Battalion. The IDF, which entered the Nakhal-Oz IDF, is much more important than any other IDF. But this is the IDF that comes in three parts. The first part comes with 70 soldiers. The IDF that enters the Nakhal-Oz IDF is the IDF that, on the whole, comes with 150 soldiers. On the 50th anniversary. Right. The general data on the invasion presented to the families barely begins to convey the magnitude of the attack. At half past 5 a.m., IDF Southern Command Assessment shows no unusual warnings. The forces, which are already in limited capacity, do not prepare for anything out of the ordinary. At 6.29, sirens sound across Israel as intense rocket fire begins from the Gaza Strip. At 6.54, the first invasion of the outpost by 70 terrorists commences. Six minutes later, at 7.00 a.m., a second invasion by about 50 more terrorists. Three and a half hours later, at 10.30, a third group of about 50 more terrorists invade the outpost. By this time, a total of about 170 terrorists have entered the Nakhal-Oz base. Saturday morning at half past 6, they have already identified a swarm of terrorists on the fence, and they asked for help. To be precise, it was at 6.29 a.m. And they were told, deal with it, we have other priorities. In that situation, the commander on duty needs to make a decision, make a decision, get them on a Hummer, get them out of there. Then they would be here with us today. According to the IDF investigation, this is what happened on the ground at the moment the barrier was breached. At 6.29, field observers had identified two armed men running towards the fence, the beginning of the infiltration. At 6.30, identification of additional terrorists blowing up the fence. At 6.31, the deputy battalion commander announces what he defines as a complex event. Seven minutes later, at 6.38 a.m., terrorists from Hamas's elite Nakhuba unit have fully crossed the fence. At 6.40 a.m., the procedure for dealing with an infiltration from the Gaza Strip was officially declared. Two minutes later, the platoon commander activates sentry-tech systems that automatically identify threats and open fire, hitting some of the terrorists. But two minutes later, at 6.44, the system stopped working. The cameras did as well. At 6.51, a situation assessment finally made it through to IDF's southern command. Terrorists have entered the outpost. This is the only part of the fence, the battle inside the outpost lasted for many hours. The investigation shows that the amount of weapons the terrorists carried with them was much greater than the amount of weapons the IDF soldiers had at their disposal, both in quantity and in quality. During intense fighting, some of the soldiers took cover in shelters that turned into death traps. The majority of them were murdered or taken hostage. Some soldiers managed to hide in their dorms. Some locked themselves inside the war room. The number of bullets they received was a number of bullets. In fact, he said to them, let's go and see what happens next. It was very good. The hours of being barricaded and terrified inside the war room are as if taken from a horror movie. This is what happened. The terrorists did not enter the war room at any stage. They carried out the attacks from the hallway. They threw hand grenades with an incendiary substance that releases toxic gases. The goal? To asphyxiate everyone in the war room within minutes. The smoke that came into the closed room began to suffocate the 22 people who were locked inside. The soldiers could not open the burning door of the war room. Seven managed to make it through the window. One field observer and six fighters. We know that the explosion at the war room occurred between 1130 and 12, meaning that they were alive for five hours and no one came to rescue them. In this report by Yonit Levy two weeks ago, the parents of the field observers detailed how they conducted their own investigation into the events of that day, putting together fragments of information they collected. Even today, after the IDF representatives shared with them the initial findings, the full picture remains unclear. While the parents are waiting for a full and comprehensive investigation to take place, they are still insisting on viewing the remaining security camera footage themselves, all so they can fully understand the chain of events that led to the bloody battle of the Nahal Oz outpost. And that wraps this hour's broadcast, but don't go anywhere. I-24 News will be back at the top of the hour with more rolling coverage of the war unfolding here in Israel. If you missed anything from this broadcast, you can always catch up on our website, i-24news.tv or on social media. I'm Sarah Martinez. Thanks for watching.