 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. Official broadcast here on I-24 News, we continue our rolling coverage. Day 60 of the war here in Israel, heavy barrages of rockets that to Israel's south, center and north this afternoon directed in the southern city of Ashkelon and Debris in Tel Aviv and its surroundings. This is the idea of battle over Hamas, Bastion of Hanyunas in the southern part of the Gaza Strip is gaining momentum. This hour the Israeli War Cabinet is still meeting the families of the remaining 137 hostages. Some of the hostages who were released are taking part in this meeting too, pleading there is no time. This as new horrific details continue to be revealed in what Hamas terrorists are doing to Israelis in captivity, including drugging them on the day of their release. So their physical and mental trauma will not be visible. Both American and Israeli officials are saying Hamas is not releasing the remaining women in captivity, all young women, because they don't want them to speak up about the sexual abuse that they're going through. Statistics, psychotic, monsters, acts on October 7th and since. And we want to begin this broadcast here in studio, Colonel Dr. Jacques Neria, former deputy head of assessment of the Israeli military intelligence is joining us. Dr. Neria, thank you very much for being here. Well, let's begin with what we're seeing on the ground down south. The idea for saying it's not just the encirclement of Hanyunas, it is gaining momentum, but we're finishing the loose ends, so to speak, in the northern part of the Strip. But the focus is naturally on what's happening in the south. Well, you know, the main idea was to advance as quickly as possible in order to reach Gaza City where we thought that the beginning of intelligence that the leadership and the commanders of Hamas would be there. Unfortunately, they were not there. They just fled to supposedly to Hanyunas. And this is why by going very fast, you left behind your pockets and the pockets where the main refugee camps, you know, the Jebal Yad, Chajai Yad, Beit Hanun, those places were not tackled at the time. And now it's the time just to finish the job, finish the job. And we know from the clashes that are going on there that a lot of Hamas commanders have lost their lives. I mean, they have been killed. There were 14 battalions of Hamas. And, you know, the barely four of them are left. And they don't know exactly what's going on around them. But they have decided to fight maybe to the end. Who knows. But let me tell you that every day we bring some prisoners, a lot of prisoners from Gaza inside Israel, which we interrogate and get a lot of intelligence. So the final steps will be certainly in the next 24, 48 hours. And the northern part of Gaza will be clear of terrorists. Hopefully, this will leave us to with the main task. The main task would be as the Palestinians themselves have been saying that to isolating Hanunis from the rest of the Gaza ban. And this is where the Gaza strip, this is where the IDF has advanced in a movement, claw movement around Hanunis. And now that the siege is on, then there will be an erosion day after day of the positions of Hamas, ultimately maybe reaching the whole city of Hanunis. Personally, I think this is not needed. You can stay where you are in your positions and wait for them to surrender. By the way, as we speak, we're seeing live images from Hanunis on our screens. It's the possibility of surrender, even visible, because from what we see, including most recently those heavy barges of rockets, albeit that perhaps the capabilities of Hamas have been damaged. A, they still do have abilities. And B, more than all else, they have the desire, they intend to keep on fighting. Let us not forget that we are not fighting only Hamas. Islamic jihad is also there. And some of the rockets that are being fired at Israel are fired by Islamic jihad. And there are other Palestinian factions that are there. And they are still fighting the Israeli forces. I think that at the end of the day, we will reach a position where they'll have to choose either surrender or die. Now, I hope that the situation in Hanunis will not develop as the situation at the time in Mosul, meaning that they will decide to fight to the end. They will try to commit suicide attacks against Israeli forces, beat by individuals or by cars or by anything that they have in their position. And this would mean that a lot of casualties from both sides and certainly from the Palestinian side will be witnessing a lot of people killed if this is the pattern that the Palestinians would like to have with Israel. I just remind you that in Mosul, there were thousands of terrorists that were killed by the coalition. Yes. And yet it seems that we are nearing certain climax or perhaps an anti-climatic stage, climax to an extent, with Hamas luring the Israeli forces further in. And also Israel, you know, targeting Sinwar and the other commanders is some sort of a final chord to this act. Before we continue to elaborate on that, we do want to head to the ground now to the southern city of Ashkelon, I-24 News, a senior correspondent, Gazrael, is joining us from there. At the scene of yet another direct hit this afternoon, shortly afterwards, a heavy barrage of rockets towards Israel's center, including impact in several central Israeli cities. Gai. As Ali has the idea of intensifies, its ground operation, its war against Hamas in Gaza, rocket fire continues in various areas in Israel. We saw that barrage towards the center, around 10 interceptions there. We know the IDF is operating in various spots around the Gaza Strip, both in the north in the neighborhood of Sajai in Jabalia, but beyond that also in Hanu-Nes today, confirmation from the IDF that its forces are well in that area, which is of course different from the northern part of the Gaza Strip, more condensed, less high rises, and of course a lot of population that has moved from the northern part of the Gaza Strip where the IDF has been operating for several weeks into the south, and therefore the IDF is pleading to the residents to seek shelter in other areas like the Muassi and like Rafa in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, so that they will not hurt. At the same time, those rocket fire have made impact, especially one significant one was in the city of Ashkelon, where we were just a short while ago over there, a direct hit to a home. Luckily, a mother and her two children have managed to seek shelter just moments before the impact, and we heard from the head of the home front command in the southern Lakhish region, David Ram, about what has transpired there, let's take a listen. We are 60 days into the war, and there was a rocket siren one and a half hours ago. The building behind me suffered a direct hit. The amazing thing is that while the siren sounded, a mother, her kids in the middle of lunch, had the foresight to leave the shower, grab her kids and run to the safe room and close the door. Eight seconds later, a massive explosion occurred, and their apartment suffered a direct hit. All survived unscathed in the safe room. They behaved optimally. That mother saved all their lives. I-24 new senior correspondent, Guy Azrael, in the southern city of Ashkelon. Thank you very much for this, and from south we're heading north now. I-24 new correspondent, Zach Anders with the I-24 news team there on the ground. Zach, thank you very much for joining us. Well, this past hour, another anti-tank missile fire towards Israel from southern Lebanon. What can you tell us? Sure, this will mark another day full of Hezbollah strikes, and it appears that in the retaliation as the IDF policy has been to wait until they're fired upon to then find the sources of points of origin for this fire and strike these positions, that they're perhaps, according to reports in Lebanon, may be more than Hezbollah casualties this afternoon, but also Lebanese army soldiers appear to be caught in the fire with reported casualties there after striking a position in southern Lebanon that must have been apparently close to where Hezbollah was firing on the IDF earlier this afternoon. Yes, Zach, another busy day on the northern border. Seems to be the new normal there. Cross border fire from Lebanon towards Israel and the IDF striking targets back. Zach, before we let you go, Hezbollah also announcing several of its terrorist being injured or killed during IDF strikes. What does it mean when Hezbollah is making this information public? It's been interesting in the last 24 hours to see some of their public social media posts because they obviously are using the commotion here on their southern border as an opportunity to bring the rhetoric to another level to bring their fighters into a wartime mindset if they aren't already. But some of this footage that they're posting, it shows what appears to be Israeli troops caught in the crosshairs, but it doesn't take video expert to be able to tell that it looks like the IDF's own video that someone has just placed a crosshairs graphic over the video itself. But it's a veiled threat. Well, it's not right threat, obviously. It's another tool that they continue to use these moments through their own media to attempt to bring this sense of urgency or that the fight is much grander in scale to the people that are in Lebanon to make them feel as though the conflict rises to the level or what they're seeing on their media is similar to the action that's taking place in Gaza. When the reality is that this is much farther apart, the Hezbollah fighters are descending through the terrain in this mountainous area, firing on positions, and then getting into vehicles and retreating miles and miles inland before attempting to escape these retaliatory IDF strikes. Well, Zach, as we speak, another round of red siren alerts in northern communities, including the city of Kiryatouna, the largest city in Israel's north near the border there. And yes, in this day and age of, you know, a TikTok warfare, sophistication, or truth, or less relevant, that of course relating to our previous conversation. Zach Anders on the Israel-Lebanon border. Stay safe. Thank you very much for this. And of course, much more from you later on on our broadcast this evening. Thank you for this. And now we want to turn to Dr. Ali Khamon, Senior Researcher at the Institute for Counterterrorism at the Rachman University. Because Dr. Khamon, the one who's supposed to be an honest broker, a broker, maybe, definitely not honest, Qatar, now its ruler is blaming Israel of genocide. And how can you, again, not that there were any false perceptions of Qatar, its intentions, its actions, and yet how can you continue negotiations when this is the player who's supposed to mediate? Good afternoon. Indeed, I think personally I have appeared several times on your show and I did before using English and in French. And I consider, for many years, Qatar a real danger for Israel. But it was the decision of the Israeli government to involve them in all this strategy of keeping Hamas quiet. Now, since the beginning, although they were indeed the mediator, I don't think that were the honest broker, but they were the mediator who had most contacts with the Hamas leadership, because they had all the political leadership in Doha. So I really know, for instance, that they made everything possible to have a general ceasefire and to stop the Israeli fight against the Hamas in order to help Hamas to survive. And even they spoke about the possibility that in the future they will be part of the solution, I mean, Qatar, the solution of Gaza. And now I would ask the Qatar leadership, for instance, they were very well aware what happened in other operations against Hamas during the years, because they paid for the reconstruction every time the Hamas returned to fight. And they had, again, the need to rebuild things that were destroyed by our military forces, especially by the Air Force. And they knew exactly what is the price for the Syrian population. And another question, all these leaders of Hamas in Doha, I am completely sure that the Qatar intelligence is following them very closely for their own need, because every country does these such things. Did they know something about what happened on 7th of October? Even if not the exact day or the exact hour, they clearly knew that something is preparing. And did they announce Israel or the United States that something is preparing? I think in the future, not so far future, we have Israel and the United States, the international community will have to check how much they knew, how much they were coordinated with the Hamas leadership. And the fact is that Ankara and Droghan, President Droghan, which is another good friend of Israel, expels some of them, which were speaking openly for the atrocities in favor of the atrocities and even pray for the atrocities. Yes, Qatar created the problem or helped creating the problem, just in order to be perceived as a solution at this point in time. A cynical, dual game that will have to come to test in the near future, as you're saying, Dr. Kamal. But meanwhile, perhaps the only player who's really putting their money where their mouth is equal heart and mouth, so to speak, the Houthis terrorizing the Red Sea by that terrorizing World Trade and by that more or less dragging the U.S. into some sort of reaction more than what we've seen until this point in time. I'd like to say one more thing about Qatar in aviation. I think Israeli agencies can press Qatar to do more because they have a possibility of physically, physically pressing the Hamas leadership. And thus easing, perhaps, the conditions for the Hamas leadership in Gaza to accept a new deal. Now, without the Houthis, again, since 2017, when I, for the first time, wrote about the Houthis, I'd analyze them as they may be, because they are really part of the axis of resistance since 2016-17, ideologically and militarily. I am a bit surprised by the United States' position, although I know the President Biden decided in the first weeks of his presidency to cancel the presence of the Houthis on the list of terrorist organizations after Trump put it also quite late, I would say. But all forces are attacked, even the forces in Syria and Iraq are attacked by proxies of Iran. So I think that the response, the military response should be much more severe, much more, I think, today or yesterday. There was already a bombing by, perhaps, the United States on their targets, but the international community and especially United States have the duty to defend the international novel and commercial moves. And yet, and by the way, Dr. Karamona, for the second time in the past 10 minutes, another round of red siren alerts in the North, still in the city of Kiryat Shmona and its surroundings. And perhaps that is the, you know, the root of the problem, Iran, to an extent, eating the cake and having it, too, unleashing its proxies against Israel and the U.S. and so far not paying a price for it. Dr. Ali Karamon, Senior Researcher at the Institute for Counter Terrorism and Direct Money University, thank you very much for this. And back here in Syria with Dr. Jacques Neria, I do want us to go back, not even to October 7, but to the days leading to, because, and again, that is and will be discussed in length, what brought about this massive intelligence fiasco. And now the British Guardian is reporting that from Hamas documents that were obtained and its commands in Gaza, the mapping of Israel's military bases in Israel were so beyond accurate that it leaves little, if any, room for doubt that they were created or illustrated with the assistance of spies. The spies were the Palestinians working in those localities. Most of them lived there, worked there, and gave details about the whole about the whole the kibbutz or the Mosheb or whatever. Let's be clear about, let's call Spada Spada, those handymen or construction workers or or they were the ones that were working in Israeli communities were the ones who just pointed and gave the information. And we know that we don't need the Guardian to tell us what's what went there. We know that they came with maps about let's say Berry, and they knew that this house was this family and this house was the other family. They knew everything. They knew where the cash of weapons were. They knew everything. They were they prepared themselves for this campaign for more than two years. So this is this is the result of of negligence from the from the intelligence. But let me say something about intelligence and operations. In in the military life, there are two levels. One is the intelligence who gives assessment about what is going to be what is that the the situation so on. And the second is the operative who would look at what the intelligence is giving and he will just deploy accordingly. Now there's data and data analysis. Exactly. So most of the most of the time, according to what my experience that sometimes we could say we would say that there is no risk for war. And then the the operations would say with all due respect, intelligence, we will prepare ourselves. We will put we will deploy in such a way that even if there is a surprise, we won't be surprised. And this is this is the big failure. The big failure is not only the intelligence is only is on the deployment of forces that were on the ground and they were directed to other places. Fortunately, it seems that there were failures across the board here. And perhaps most inherently, this notion that that the enemy should be assessed by its by its intentions and not by its abilities, something that that was completely shattered. Yes, Dr. Jocknery, I thank you so very much for joining us on this broadcast. We appreciate your time and your insight. And now what to this an old idea, literally, literally resurfacing a new flooding. Hamas is a terror tunnel terror infrastructure. And yet it's a plan that comes with great risk. I-24 News in your Middle East correspondent, Tareela Saran with the details. An unusual plan to tackle a serious threat. The Wall Street Journal reported late Monday that Israel finished assembling a system of large pumps to flood Hamas's vast underground tunnel network with seawater. According to the report, the IDF set up five large water pumps near the Shati Camp in northern Gaza capable of flooding the terror tunnels under the strip. When we talk about the tunnel system, we have to understand that there are two aspects to it. There's the vertical aspect, which is the shafts of which there are hundreds and hundreds, 800 have already been found, 500 have been destroyed. And they present a tactical threat to any Israeli forces operating in Gaza. But there's the other aspect of it. And that's the 500 kilometers of underground tunnels, I call that the horizontal part of it, which not only are networks under the cities, but connect the cities to each other. The goal of the week's long process would be to gradually flush out Hamas terrorists and potentially hostages from the tunnels with the aim to render them unusable. It's one of many methods to destroy the tunnels. And it's a great important to the Israeli military to destroy the tunnels, because this is the way that the Hamas is trying to survive this war. And after that, of course, to claim that he's the victorious. In other words, the destruction caused by the IDF above ground would force the international community to impose a ceasefire with Hamas protected from Israeli strikes. Israel reportedly informed the U.S. of the option early last month, prompting a discussion in Washington regarding its costs and benefits. There are two downsides that one is for sure, and the other one is a we don't know. The one for sure is damaging the aquifer under Gaza. In other words, there's an environmental question here that has to come into play. But even leaving that aside, the substrate of Gaza is sand, as you can see in what you're showing on the screen right now, sand absorbs water. And it's not clear at all whether these tunnels will actually flood, even with massive amounts of water being pumped into them. They may get a foot or two of water on the ground, but will they actually flood to the point where they can't be used is an open question. The idea of flooding tunnels in Gaza is not new. Back in 2015, Egypt flooded hundreds of underground tunnels between Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula used for smuggling and by Islamist groups. The Egyptians destroyed everything within 20 days. The flooding of the tunnels caused them more damage than 50 days of Israeli air strikes. All the tunnels have collapsed. While some of the hundreds of tunnels did survive the flooding, the benefit of such a strategy seemed clear. Now the question is whether the leaked information is intended to only frighten Hamas or is indeed Israel's next move in its campaign to uproot Hamas from beneath the ground? This is it from us for now. But we, of course, continue our rolling coverage at the top of the hour, day 60 of the war here in Israel. I-24 News Correspondents spread from South to North. We continue to bring you all the latest. And until then, you can always, of course, stay updated online at 24News.tv or on social media. We are there. Thank you very much 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 to be fought as well. And until every one of them, all of the 137, still being held in Gaza are back. We will not stop working for their release. They're held in horrible conditions. We're starting to hear the testimonies from those who came back living through hell. Welcome to the special broadcast here in I-24 News. We continue our rolling coverage, day 60 of the war here in Israel. Heavy barrages of rockets to Israel's south, center and north this afternoon directed in the southern city of Ashkelon and debris in Tel Aviv and its surroundings. This is the idea of battle over Hamas Bastion of Hanyunas in the southern part of the Gaza ship is gaining momentum. This hour, the Israeli War Cabinet is still meeting the families of the remaining 137 hostages. Some of the hostages who were released are taking part in this meeting too, pleading there is no time. This says new horrific details continue to be revealed on what Hamas terrorists are doing to Israelis in captivity, including drugging them on the day of their release. So their physical and mental trauma will not be visible. Both American and Israeli officials are saying Hamas is not releasing the remaining women in captivity, all young women, because they don't want them to speak up about the sexual abuse that they're going through. Sadistic, psychotic, monsters acts on October 7th and since. And we want to begin this broadcast here in studio Colonel Dr. Jacques Neria, former deputy head of assessment of the Israeli military intelligence is joining us. Dr. Neria, thank you very much for being here. Well, let's begin with what we're seeing on the ground down south. The idea for saying, it's not just the encirclement of Hanyunas at this gaining momentum, but we're finishing the loose ends, so to speak, in the northern part of this trip. But the focus is naturally on what's happening in the south. Well, you know, the main idea was to advance as quickly as possible in order to reach Gaza City where we thought that the beginning according to intelligence that the leadership and the commanders of Hamas would be there. Unfortunately, they were not there. They just fled to supposedly to Hanyunas. And this is why by going very fast, you left behind you pockets and the pockets where the main refugee camps, you know, the Jabalia, the Chajai, the Beit Hanun, those places were not tackled at the time. And now it's the time just to finish the job, finish the job. And we know from the clashes that are going on there that a lot of Hamas commanders have lost their lives. I mean, they've been killed. There were 14 battalions of Hamas and, you know, the barely four of them are left. And they don't know exactly what's going on around them, but they have decided to fight maybe to the end. Who knows? But let me tell you that every day we bring some prisoners, a lot of prisoners from Gaza inside Israel, which we interrogate and get a lot of intelligence. So the final steps will be certainly the next 24, 48 hours. And the northern part of Gaza will be clear of terrorists. Hopefully this will leave us to with the main task. The main task would be as the Palestinians themselves have been saying that to isolating Hanunis from the rest of the Gaza ban. And this is where the Gaza strip, this is where we know the IDF has advanced in a movement, claw movement around Hanunis. And now that the siege is on, then there'll be an erosion day after day of the positions of Hamas, ultimately maybe reaching the whole city of Hanunis. Personally, I think this is not needed. You can say where you are in your positions and wait for them to surrender. By the way, as we speak, we're seeing live images from Hanunis on our screens. It's the possibility of surrender, even feasible, because from what we see, including most recently those heavy barges of rockets, albeit that perhaps the capabilities of Hamas have been damaged, A, they still do have abilities, and B, more than all else, they have the desire they intend to keep on fighting. Let us not forget that we are not fighting only Hamas. Islamic jihad is also there. And some of the rockets that are being fired at Israel are fired by Islamic jihad. And there are other Palestinian factions that are there, and they are still fighting the Israeli forces. I think that at the end of the day, there'll be, we will reach a position where they'll have to choose either surrender or die. Now, I hope that the situation in Hanunis will not develop as the situation at the time in Mosul, meaning that they will decide to fight to the end. They will try to commit suicide attacks against Israeli forces, beat by individuals or by cars or by anything that they have in their position. And this would mean that a lot of casualties from both sides and certainly from the Palestinian side will be witnessing a lot of people killed if this is the pattern that the Palestinians would like to have with Israel. And I just remind you that in Mosul, there were thousands of terrorists that were killed by the coalition. Yes. And yet it seems that we are nearing certain climax or perhaps an anti-climatic stage, climax to an extent, with Hamas luring the Israeli forces further in. And also Israel, targeting Sinwar and the other commanders is some sort of a final chord to this act. Before we continue to elaborate on that, we do want to head to the ground now, to the southern city of Ashkelon, I-24, and use a senior correspondent. Israel is joining us from there at the scene of yet another direct hit this afternoon, shortly afterwards, heavy barrage of rockets towards Israel's center, including impact in several central Israeli cities. Guy. Yes, Ali, as the idea intensifies, its ground operation, its war against Hamas in Gaza, rocket fire continues in various areas in Israel. We saw that barrage towards the center, around 10 interceptions there. We know the IDF is operating in various spots around the Gaza Strip, both in the north, in the neighborhood of Saja'iyah, in Jabalia. But beyond that also, in Hanyunas today, confirmation from the IDF that its forces are well in that area, which is, of course, different from the northern part of the Gaza Strip, more condensed, less high rises, and, of course, a lot of population that has moved from the northern part of the Gaza Strip, where the IDF has been operating for several weeks, into the south. And therefore, the IDF is pleading to the residents to seek shelter in other areas, like the Muassi and like Rafa in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, so that they will not hurt. At the same time, those rocket fire have made impact, especially one significant one, was in the city of Ashkelon, where we were just a short while ago, over there, a direct hit to a home. Luckily, a mother and her two children have managed to seek shelter just moments before the impact. And we heard from the head of the home front command in the southern Lakhish region, David Ram, about what has transpired there. Let's take a listen. We are 60 days into the war, and there was a rocket siren one and a half hours ago. The building behind me suffered a direct hit. The amazing thing is that while the siren sounded, a mother, her kids in the middle of lunch, had the foresight to leave the shower, grab her kids and run to the safe room and close the door. Eight seconds later, a massive explosion occurred, and their apartment suffered a direct hit. All survived, unscathed, in the safe room. They behaved optimally. That mother saved all their lives. I-24 News, senior correspondent, Guy Azrael, in the southern city of Ashkelon. Thank you very much for this. And from south, we're heading north now, I-24 News correspondent, Zach Anders with the I-24 News team there on the ground. Zach, thank you very much for joining us. Well, this past hour, another anti-tank missile fire towards Israel from southern Lebanon. What can you tell us? Sure. This will mark another day full of Hezbollah strikes. And it appears that in the retaliation as the IDF policy has been to wait until they're fired upon to then find the sources of points of origin for this fire and strike these positions that they're perhaps, according to reports in Lebanon, may be more than Hezbollah casualties this afternoon, but also Lebanese Army soldiers appear to be caught in the fire with reported casualties there after striking a position in southern Lebanon that must have been apparently close to where Hezbollah was firing on the IDF earlier this afternoon. Yes, Zach, another busy day on the northern border seems to be the new normal there, cross-border fire from Lebanon towards Israel and the IDF striking targets back. Zach, before we'll let you go, Hezbollah also announcing several of its terrorist being injured or killed during IDF strikes. What does it mean when Hezbollah is making this information public? It's been interesting in the last 24 hours to see some of their public social media posts because they obviously are using the commotion here on their southern border as an opportunity to bring the rhetoric to another level to bring their fighters into a wartime mindset if they aren't already, but some of this footage that they're posting, it shows what appears to be Israeli troops caught in the crosshairs, but it doesn't take video expert to be able to tell that it looks like the IDF's own video that someone has just placed a crosshairs graphic over the video itself, but it's a veiled threat. Well, it's not right threat, obviously. It's another tool that they continue to use these moments through their own media to attempt to bring this sense of urgency or that the fight is much grander in scale to the people that are in Lebanon to make them feel as though the conflict rises to the level or what they're seeing on their media is similar to the action that's taking place in Gaza. When the reality is that this is much far, the engagements are much farther apart. The Hezbollah fighters are descending through the terrain in this mountainous area, firing on positions, and then getting into vehicles and retreating miles and miles inland before attempting to escape these retaliatory IDF strikes. Well, Zach, as we speak, another round of red siren alerts in northern communities, including the city of Kiryatuna, the largest city in Israel's north near the border there. In this day and age of TikTok warfare, sophistication or truth are less relevant than, of course, relating to our previous conversation. Zach Anders on the Israel-Lebanon border. Stay safe. Thank you very much for this and, of course, much more from you later on in our broadcast this evening. Thank you for this. And now we want to turn to Dr. Ali Khamon, Senior Researcher at the Institute for Counterterrorism at the Rachman University. Because Dr. Khamon, the one who's supposed to be an honest broker, a broker, maybe, definitely not honest, Qatar, now its ruler is blaming Israel of genocide. And how can you, again, not that there were any false perceptions of Qatar, its intentions, its actions, and yet how can you continue negotiations when this is the player who's supposed to mediate? Good afternoon. Indeed, I think personally, I have appeared several times on your show and I did before using English and in French. And I consider for many years Qatar real danger for Israel. But it was the decision of the Israeli government to involve them in all this strategy of keeping Hamas quiet. Now, since the beginning, although they were indeed the mediator, I don't think that were the honest broker, but they were the mediator who had most contacts with the Hamas leadership, because they had all the political leadership in Doha. So I really know, for instance, that they made everything possible to have a general physis fire and to stop the Israeli fight against Hamas in order to help Hamas to survive. And even they spoke about the possibility that in the future they will be part of the solution, I mean, Qatar, the solution of Gaza. And now I would ask the Qatar leadership, for instance, they were very well aware what happened in other operations against Hamas during the years, because they paid for the reconstruction every time the Hamas returned to fight. And they had, again, the need to rebuild things that were destroyed by our military forces, especially by the Air Force, and they knew exactly what is the price for the Syrian population. And another question, all these leaders of Hamas in Doha, I am completely sure that the Qatar intelligence is following them very closely for their own need, because every country does these such things. Did they know something about what happened on 7th of October? Even if not the exact day or the exact hour, they clearly knew that something is preparing. And did they announce Israel or the United States that something is preparing? I think in the future, not so far future, we have Israel and the United States and the international community will have to check how much they knew, how much they were coordinated with the Hamas leadership. And the fact is that Ankara and Rogan, President Rogan, which is another good friend of Israel, expels some of them which were speaking openly for the atrocities in favor of the atrocities and even pray for the atrocities. Yes, Qatar created the problem or helped creating the problem just in order to be perceived as a solution at this point in time. A cynical, dual game that will have to come to test in the near future as you're saying, Dr. Khamon. But meanwhile, perhaps the only player who's really putting their money where their mouth is equal heart and mouth, so to speak, the Houthis terrorizing the Red Sea by that terrorizing world trade and by that, more or less dragging the U.S. into some sort of reaction more than what we've seen until this point in time. I'd like to say one more thing about Qatar investigation. I think that Israeli agencies can press Qatar to do more because they have a possibility of physically, physically pressing the Hamas leadership. And thus easing perhaps the conditions for the Hamas leadership in Gaza to accept a new deal. Now, about the Houthis again, since 2017, when I, for the first time, wrote about the Houthis, I'd analyze them as they may be because they are really part of the axis of resistance since 2016-17 ideologically and militarily. I am a bit surprised by the United States position, although I know the President Biden decided in the first weeks of his presidency to cancel the presence of the Houthis on the list of terrorist organizations. After Trump put it also quite late, I would say. But all forces are attacked, even the forces in Syria and Iraq are attacked by proxies of Iran. So I think that the response, the middle response should be much more severe, much more, I think today or yesterday, there was already a bombing by perhaps the United States on their targets, but the international community and especially the United States have the duty to defend the international novel and commercial movement. And yet, and by the way, Dr. Karamona, for the second time in the past 10 minutes, another round of red siren alerts in the north still in the city of Kiryat Shmona and its surroundings. And perhaps that is the, you know, the root of the problem. Iran, to an extent, eating the cake and having it, too, unleashing its proxies against Israel and the U.S., and so far not paying a price for it. Dr. Ali Karamon, Senior Researcher at the Institute for Counterterrorism and Direct Money University, thank you very much for this. Thank you. And back here in the city with Dr. Jacques Neria, Dr. Neria, I do want to go back not even to October 7, but to the days leading to, because, and again, that is and will be discussed in length what brought about this massive intelligence fiasco. And now the British Guardian is reporting that from Hamas documents that were obtained in its commands in Gaza, the mapping of Israel's military bases in Israel were so beyond accurate that it leaves little, if any room for doubt, that they were created or illustrated with the assistance of spies. The spies were the Palestinians working in those localities. Most of them lived there, worked there, and gave details about the whole, about the whole the kibbutz or the moshab, whatever. So let's be clear about, let's call Spada Spada, those handymen or construction workers or cousins that were working in Israeli communities. Were the ones who just pointed and gave the information. And we know that we don't need the Guardian to tell us what's what went there. We know that they came with maps about, let's say, Barry, and they knew that this house was this family and this house was another family. They knew everything. They knew where the cash of weapons were. They knew everything. They prepared themselves for this campaign for more than two years. So this is this is the result of negligence from the intelligence. But let me say something about intelligence and operations. In the military life, there are two levels. One is the intelligence who gives assessment about what is going to be, what is the situation so on. And the second is the operative who would look at what the intelligence is giving and he will just deploy accordingly. Now most data and data analysis. Exactly. So most of the most of the time, according to what my experience, that sometimes we could say we would say that there is no risk for war. And then the operations would say with all due respect, the intelligence, we will prepare ourselves. We will put we will deploy in such a way that even if there is a surprise, we won't be surprised. And this is this is the big failure. The big failure is not only the intelligence is only it's on the deployment of forces that were on the ground and they were directed to other places. Fortunately, it seems that there were failures across the board here. And perhaps it's most inherently this notion that that the enemy should be assessed by its by its intentions and not by its abilities, something that that was completely shattered. Yes, Dr. Jocknery, I thank you so very much for joining us on this broadcast. We appreciate your time and your insight. And now what to this an old idea, literally resurfacing a new flooding Hamas's terror tunnel terror infrastructure. And yet it's a plan that comes with great risk. I-24 News in your Middle East correspondent, Tariah Loser on with the details. An unusual plan to tackle a serious threat. The Wall Street Journal reported late Monday that Israel finished assembling a system of large pumps to flood Hamas's vast underground tunnel network with seawater. According to the report, the IDF set up five large water pumps near the Shati Camp in northern Gaza, capable of flooding the terror tunnels under the strip. When we talk about the tunnel system, we have to understand that there are two aspects to it. There's the vertical aspect, which is the shafts of which there are hundreds and hundreds, 800 have already been found, 500 have been destroyed. And they they present a tactical threat to any Israeli forces operating in Gaza. But there's the other aspect of it. And that's the 500 kilometers of underground tunnels. I call that the horizontal part of it, which not only are networks under the cities, but connect the cities to each other. The goal of the weeks long process would be to gradually flush out Hamas terrorists and potentially hostages from the tunnels with the aim to render them unusable. It's one of many methods to destroy the tunnels. And it's a it's a great important to the Israeli military to to destroy the tunnels. Because this is the way that the Hamas is trying to to survive this war. And after that, of course, to claim that he is the victorious. In other words, the destruction caused by the IDF above ground would force the international community to impose a ceasefire with Hamas protected from Israeli strikes. Israel reportedly informed the US of the option early last month, prompting a discussion in Washington regarding its costs and benefits. There are two downsides that one is for sure. And the other one is we is a we don't know the one for sure is damaging the aquifer under Gaza. In other words, there's there's an environmental question here that has to come into play. But even leaving that aside, the substrate of Gaza is sand, as you can see in what you're showing on the screen right now, sand absorbs water. And it's not clear at all whether these tunnels will actually flood even with massive amounts of water being pumped into them. They may get a foot or two of water on the ground. But will they actually flood to the point where they can't be used is an open question. The idea of flooding tunnels in Gaza is not new. Back in 2015, Egypt flooded hundreds of underground tunnels between Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula used for smuggling and by Islamist groups. The Egyptians destroyed everything within 20 days. The flooding of the tunnels caused them more damage than 50 days of Israeli airstrikes. All the tunnels have collapsed. While some of the hundreds of tunnels did survive the flooding, the benefit of such a strategy seemed clear. Now the question is whether the leaked information is intended to only frighten Hamas or is indeed Israel's next move in its campaign to uproot Hamas from beneath the ground? This is it from us for now. But we, of course, continue our rolling coverage at the top of the hour. Day 60 of the war here in Israel, I-24 News, a correspondent spread from South to North. We continue to bring you all the latest. And until then, you can always, of course, stay updated online at 24News.tv or on social media. We are there. Thank you very much for watching. Thing from Israel, with dozens of correspondence throughout the world, brings the truth from Israel to hundreds of millions of people in scores of countries. Bringing Israel's story to the world, I-24 News channels, now on Hot. 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 to be fought as well. Back to our special coverage of the war. It's the middle of the ninth week since Israel was attacked by Hamas and fighting is intensifying inside Gaza. I-24 News, defense correspondent Jonathan Regev has the latest. Fighting is raging all across the Gaza Strip as Hamas strongholds are being targeted one after the other. One of those is Jabalia just to the north of Gaza City. It is a very densely populated area where terrorists can pop up from a tunnel shaft practically anywhere. IDF forces striking from the ground and from the air have now encircled Jabalia, one of the last standing strongholds in the northern Gaza Strip and are now carrying out the dangerous mission of clearing this area of terrorists to further establish Israeli control here. There should be no stopping. Keep on pushing forward until victory here and you should know that the next missions are already planned. This is the next mission. Chanyounis is the biggest city in the southern Gaza Strip. This is the birthplace of Yassin Wahr and Muhammad Def, the political and military leaders of Hamas in Gaza. This is also the place Israel believes many of the hostages are being held. There's been no ground incursion here yet, but the very heavy artillery and airstrikes suggest that it is coming. We pursued them in northern Gaza. We're now pursuing Hamas in southern Gaza too. We will operate in maximum force against Hamas terrorists and infrastructures while minimizing harm to the civilians that Hamas places around them as shields. It will be a difficult challenge as the vast majority of the Gaza Strip population, more than two million people, is concentrated in this area. While Israel is trying to protect them, Hamas is no problem or maybe even an interest in sacrificing them all. More rockets were fired at Israel today. I24 News guy, Israel is in the southern city of Sderot with the latest from their guy. Jacob, there has been quite a lot of activity in the southern part of Israel this afternoon. There's been a lot in the past three hours, but earlier today we were in the city of Ashkelon where there was a direct hit into a building there. Luckily the mother who was in the apartment with her two children has managed to lock themselves up in the shelter, miraculously surviving a direct rocket hit into that apartment building. Two other women were lightly injured from shrapnel and several other Israelis were treated for anxiety. We've seen ongoing rocket fire throughout the day, both here of course in the southern border as in the northern border which you will discuss later in the show. This goes together with the ongoing IDF operation that we heard about from Jonathan Regev earlier. The IDF deepening its fight in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. The IDF spokesman Herzi Alevi publishing a statement just a short while ago and we are hearing of rocket alerts in the city of Ashdod and we are certainly hearing the explosions in the air. This could be the interceptions quite a lot. I'm not sure if you can hear those explosions in the air. Quite a lot of them could be the interceptions of the iron dome rocket alert system. Maybe it's a good time for you to find the shelter because there's a barrage of rockets right now all over southern Israel up to the city of Ashkelon and elsewhere. So if you feel safe you can keep reporting from there. If not, catch some place and we'll get back to you later. With me here in the studio is Shuri Fine Grossman former head of foreign affairs at the Israel National Security Council. Thank you very much for coming. So we see more fighting in Gaza. We see more rockets as we speak. What's the projection? Well the assumption is they're firing as many rockets as they can as long as they can. There's massive attacks of the air force in recent days to try before the infantry and the tanks come in. Right now I mean we're seeing the IDF advance. We see very harsh fighting. We have some IDF casualties. The projection is I mean I believe the Hamas is in a strategic point that is not comfortable for him. What happened on Friday when there was a pause but it didn't continue in spite that he wanted to continue it and the IDF resumed its fighting in Blinken. Secretary Blinken said it's Hamas' fault. He violated the ceasefire rather than the terms of the deal that gave a lot of legitimacy to the IDF and it broke kind of this conception with Siniar and Hamas and others that Israel won't continue the fighting after the humanitarian pause and that it will stop fighting because there are more hostages. There is a very difficult situation with the hostages. I mean testimonies are coming out of what they suffered and I'm sure we'll speak about it in the next hour and there's a lot of pressure on the government to pause the fighting but it doesn't seem like we're going. Right there was a meeting today between the families of hostages and Israeli prime minister that did not go very well. Yeah harsh tough meeting reportedly with some yelling and maybe some physical expressions as well. It's a very difficult task. I think the government of Israel is basically saying we're determined to keep on the fighting until Hamas raises his hand and raises his white flag in the air and comes to the negotiation table with a much better deal, a broader deal, not just 10 hostages every day. We've seen he has command and control of the territory. He was very, very, you know, put on a very good show, a report coming out today from the Ministry of Health of Israel that it drugged the hostages before they released them just to make them calm and happy as we saw some of the pictures were unbelievable. And so, you know, you've shown that strength you have in command and control. Okay, so please release all the hostages right now or we'll continue. That's what the government is trying to do. I hear some reports that Qatar is saying it might resume negotiations. I'm sure there's a negotiations that are taking place headed for the public. But now that it's coming out to the public, it may be a sign of the Hamas maybe breaking down. Although I'd say Salah Harouri, he's a Hamas senior in Lebanon, he said a few days ago we'll continue fighting. It's very easy for him to say it when he's, you know, not in Gaza. There's a real crack that we're seeing starting to widen between the population in Gaza and that it's starving. And Hamas, Hamas controlling the supplies, the humanitarian supplies are coming in, giving it into its forces first. It makes a lot of controversy. We even saw fighting going on between people that are trying to take from the humanitarian aid from the trucks and Hamas's operatives. And that's the kind of example that I hope we see. I don't want to people see starving, but I want to see the people in Gaza turning their back to Hamas and saying stop this, stop this now. And we're seeing some voices like that. Yeah, but usually they cannot pressure the Hamas really. The IDF chief of staff has just said that Hamas was maybe surprised or did not think that the IDF would continue its maneuvering on the ground. And maybe Hamas was caught unprepared, would you say? I don't think it was. I think we did took him by surprise. Like I said before, there's a with a conception that somehow they'll just continue the pauses. They'll give hostages as the list they want. Look, I was in a conference today in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs about gender-based violence and what the sexual crimes, crimes against humanity, perpetrated by Hamas. And what we were presented, formed Vora members and ambassadors from all over the world that represented more than 100 ambassadors packed auditorium, is that research so shows when you have sexual crimes that are part of the attack, it's not likely. I mean, they usually, the fighters don't want to release the female hostages, so they won't tell what went on in captivity. Exactly like the spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the State Department said last night in its briefing, and it's heartbreaking. And so Israel is insisting to get those women back, as was agreed upon in the initial list. And Hamas just thought he could play with us. He played with all the terms and conditions. He was supposed to release the hostages at four, and we saw them only at the middle of the night were released. So basically every term that we had with him, he broke. And IDF Governor Nevisra is saying, enough is enough. Now we're leading this. And I think they're doing the right thing, although it's very hard. It's heartbreaking. We know the hostages are at risk from what's going on. And it's just an impossible decision by the government. Right. Thank you. We'll get back to you later on other issues. Moving on, Israel has a plan to flood Hamas Tunnels with water pumped from the Mediterranean, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Middle East correspondent Arilo Sran is more on that. An unusual plan to tackle a serious threat. The Wall Street Journal reported late Monday that Israel finished assembling a system of large pumps to flood Hamas's vast underground tunnel network with seawater. According to the report, the IDF set up five large water pumps near the Shati Camp in northern Gaza, capable of flooding the terror tunnels under the strip. When we talk about the tunnel system, we have to understand that there are two aspects to it. There's the vertical aspect, which is the shafts of which there are hundreds and hundreds. 800 have already been found. 500 have been destroyed. And they present a tactical threat to any Israeli forces operating in Gaza. But there's the other aspect of it. And that's the 500 kilometers of underground tunnels that I call that the horizontal part of it, which not only are networks under the cities, but connect the cities to each other. The goal of the weeks-long process would be to gradually flush out Hamas terrorists and potentially hostages from the tunnels with the aim to render them unusable. It's one of many methods to destroy the tunnels. And it's a great, important to the Israeli military to destroy the tunnels, because this is the way that Hamas is trying to survive this war. And after, of course, to claim that he is victorious. In other words, the destruction caused by the IDF above ground would force the international community to impose a ceasefire, with Hamas protected from Israeli strikes. Israel reportedly informed the U.S. of the option early last month, prompting a discussion in Washington regarding its costs and benefits. There are two downsides that one is for sure, and the other one is a we don't know. The one for sure is damaging the aquifer under Gaza. In other words, there's an environmental question here that has to come into play. But even leaving that aside, the substrate of Gaza is sand, as you can see in what you're showing on the screen right now. Sand absorbs water, and it's not clear at all whether these tunnels will actually flood, even with massive amounts of water being pumped into them. They may get a foot or two of water on the ground, but will they actually flood to the point where they can't be used is an open question. The idea of flooding tunnels in Gaza is not new. Back in 2015, Egypt flooded hundreds of underground tunnels between Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula, used for smuggling and by Islamist groups. The Egyptians destroyed everything within 20 days. The flooding of the tunnels caused them more damage than 50 days of Israeli airstrikes. All the tunnels have collapsed. While some of the hundreds of tunnels did survive the flooding, the benefit of such a strategy seemed clear. Now the question is whether the leaked information is intended to only frighten Hamas or is indeed Israel's next move in its campaign to uproot Hamas from beneath the ground. With us now is Ahiak Lainel, former officer at the IDF Special Engineering Unit. Thank you very much for joining us. Thanks for having me. It was discussed before flooding the tunnels. Is this a viable option? I think the idea of flooding the tunnel is to use nature force in order to get the tunnels or the whole system, the whole metro system to be unstable to stay there and to force Hamas, terrorists to go outside and they create the tunnel network in order to be kind of there protected with her shield to hide when the Israeli force will go inside. But now, by flooding the tunnels, we are creating this area very, very unstable to stay there. But there's a danger that hostages are still inside tunnels. Yeah, I think when the IDF took this solution and considered the solution, it's also, you know, everything is taking into consider. I mean, by using the air force from the air, bombing the whole area, there also can be very challenging and can be hurt the hostages. But I think blowing the tunnel, it can create a lot of damage with putting if there is hostages inside this tunnel, it's with less dangerous doing different stuff. And even if you do flood the tunnels, does that mean they go out of commission? I mean, nothing is guaranteed. As I say for many, many years, you know, the underground world is very, very unknown. And we don't know what exactly Hamas did there for 10 years. I mean, we just now discovered a lot of stuff they did, you know, as an example that we saw under Shifa Hospital with the door, with the shooter area. So yeah, we're doing whatever we can do in order to dismantle the tunnel and also understanding the challenging of maybe there is hostages inside, you know. Right. Akhii Aklain, thank you very much for that. Back to you, Shuri. Thanks for having me. In the studio, actually, IDF Chief of Staff, Ertzi Alevi, said that this is one of the options. And he was talking about circling the city of Hanyunas and targeting the heads of Hamas over there, assuming they are there. Yeah. So there are a few points to consider here. First of all, the whole issue of tunnels, it's since there are wars. It's very, it's a very old custom in war. And we've seen a lot of experience with the Americans dealing with Daesh, ISIS in Iraq. They basically, by the way, learned from Hamas in 2014. And then Hamas learned from Daesh and ISIS and what they did with their tunnels in Iraq and other places north of Syria, and then perfected what he did. Now, using seawater, it has to be very high pressure in order to collapse the tunnels. And we don't know how long it will stretch for 500 kilometers. But there are a few dangers other than the hostages. One is the aquifer that goes beneath the seawater, drinking water. And it made collapse, and then collapse entire buildings with them. And they won't be able to control it as we do with explosives. There's a lot of challenges, and we don't know exactly what they will do. It's the first time they will use it. So it's a very tricky thing. But having said that, we have to remember that the idea from the north of Gaza is already taking control of the territory and the tunnel. So it did, it was able to experiment with the tunnels and what it will do. So hopefully that experiment will be very, very useful when it comes to Khaninos in the south of Gaza as we move forward. Yeah, and Israel is determined to finish off these tunnels as much as possible. I just want to say, in a broader sense, what the tunnels are supposed to do, we have an asymmetrical war with Hamas, right? The IDF is much more powerful than Hamas. So they go underground to try to build that cemetery. And the IDF is trying to get them out to bring back the asymmetry, because it knows he will defeat them, more likely to defeat them in battle, in face-to-face battle that we've seen few of. We see them. And also the threat to the IDF forces is 360 degrees right now. It comes from above, from the drones. It comes from underground, from sides, from buildings. So we're trying kind of to narrow the scope of the angles that are in threat for the IDF soldiers. So trying in a broader sense to bring back the asymmetry and the advantages IDF has on Hamas. Right. This tactic of water that basically would aim to force them to get out of the tunnels more than anything, even before destroying the tunnels, just to have the Hamas people getting out of there to the surface. And then you can have a face-to-face battle. And then the assumption is that we will suffer losses, but in most cases we will, in evidence show, we will defeat them and beat them and kill them. The IDF is better in fighting face-to-face battles with them. Right. Meanwhile, the fighting is intensifying in and around Hanyunas, which is a very dense area. Still many civilians around and a lot of bombardments and fighting there. And the question Israelis are asking themselves is how long will we be able to do this? Well, we don't have the answer to that. I mean, it is evident, it is very clear that the IDF is doing a much faster job than it did in the north of Gaza. It almost looks like he's in a hurry to get as many advantages as possible. Look, I would like to say I think we do have a leverage here with the timing. First of all, Hamas broke the ceasefire. Second, the holidays are coming up soon. From international arena perspective, come the 14th, 20th of December, people will be offered the holidays. And then the world attention will be away from the fighting. And that's not in Hamas's advantage at all, because the public battle and the public perception is one of the key arenas for him. There are many arenas. There's the legal arena. There's the media arena, the fighting arena, the political and diplomacy arena. So all of these arena, we might get a leverage and advantage on. And that could help us free the hostages and win the war. Right. Let's go to Kibbutz Nahalos. This is one of the places which were most severely damaged on October the 7th. Our correspondent Yuri Shapiro takes us there. October 7th called the entire country by surprise. In Kibbutz Nahalos, one of the places closest to the Gaza border, the surprise was even bigger. We woke up around 6 a.m. My partner told me that there is a red alert. I wasn't very excited about it. I said, OK, we've experienced these situations. We'll walk it out. So we entered the safe room. The first message I got was from a friend who texted me that his wife was injured. Eventually, she died from her wounds. The door was closed, but I suppose that it wouldn't matter to them. I guess that they realized that we are old people. There is not much to do with us. So they went to other places. Yechiel Chelnov is one of the founders of Nahalos. He is close to his 90s, but still very active. When we established the Kibbutz, we concentrated on agriculture. And indeed, we had very good agriculture. We have one of the best dairy industries. At least it was until the war. But it is still working. It's the first time I'm leaving the Kibbutz. We had security issues when you evacuated young families with the kids or whoever wanted to go. But never like this. Kibbutz Nahalos was the first Nahal settlement, a collective community of veterans of the IDF's Nahal Brigade who combined military service and building communities across the country. In the early days, the Kibbutz was considered one of the most famous in Israel, as leaders and officials visited it. One of the most famous incidents occurred in 1956 when a member of the Kibbutz, Roy Rothenberg, was brutally killed by Egyptian forces. The eulogy of Moshe Dayan, then chief of staff, became one of the most iconic speeches in the history of Israel. Early yesterday morning, Roy was murdered. The quiet of the spring morning dazzled him, and he did not see those waiting in ambush for him at the edge of the furrow. Let us not cast the blame on the murderers today. Why should we declare their burning hatred for us? For eight years, they have been sitting in the refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes, we have been transforming the lands and the villages where they and their fathers dwelt into our state. It is not among the Arabs in Gaza, but in our own midst that we must seek Roy's blood. How did we shut our eyes and refuse to look squarely at our fate and see in all its brutality the destiny of our generation? In 2014, another traumatic event happened when four-year-old Daniel Tragman died from a missile sent from Gaza. The Kibbutz was about to celebrate 70 years since its founding with a special ceremony. Ironically, the main show was a play which shows two women spotters who were cut off from their cameras. We were supposed to have a big celebration marking 70 years of the Kibbutz. On Friday, we had rehearsals for the show, the plot where the spotters are disconnected. It seems like a crazy story for me, but this is what happened eventually. Around 35 people were murdered in Nakhaloz on October 7th. Today, residents of the Kibbutz are staying in another Kibbutz in the north, Mishmar Hayamek, and are waiting to decide on their next step as Nakhaloz remains a closed military zone. Now, we'll take a short break and we'll be right back with more special coverage here on I-24 News. Stay with us. Average of the big question is what's going to happen in Gaza after the war. Inside Israel, it is already a political campaign motive by the current prime minister. I-24 News in the correspondent Owen Alterman has more. Before the day after in Gaza, the day itself has to end. But if the war in fact drives Hamas out of power, then three different types of regime could rule the strip. We have said that any security responsibility that they take on because of the military operation in Gaza needs to be temporary. The first, reoccupation by Israel, with Israel governing two million Gazans, seen by almost all as a bad outcome, but still the default. If the war ends with Israel in control, then Israel would need to find a taker to replace it. Fail to find someone, and Israel would be stuck. In defining that future, in shaping that future for Gaza, for the West Bank, and ultimately for a Palestinian state, Palestinian voices have to be at the center of that. And so the second option, Palestinians governing Gaza, either the Palestinian Authority, revitalized Palestinian Authority, or some other structure run by Palestinians. In Washington and beyond, seen as the better choice. A skeptical Israel will try for deep change in Palestinian education and policies toward terrorism. We will do everything to ensure that Gaza does not return to pose a threat to Israel, and that there is no element in it that educates its children in terrorism. And then the third option, an international force, enticing say Saudi Arabia or the UAE to take on influence in Gaza to show goodwill to the Arab world and to project power against Iran. The outside actor could work through a Palestinian Authority, its sponsors, showing options can be mixed and matched to find something key players can rally around. So we're here in the studio with Shiri Fine Grossman, formerly from Israel National Security Council. This is the big question. This is my favorite question. Your favorite question. Why do you have an answer? I have a few thoughts on the subject. Look, the third option is not really an option. No international force, especially an Arab force, will be willing to hurt the Palestinian future state in that way. The only way there is an international force is for an intermediate period. And for that, Israel has to commit to the two-state solution and say, in the end of this process, there will be two states. And that's really the question. Are we talking about a one-state or a two-state? And it's a strategic question. My personal view is the two-state solution is preferably from a security point, from a moral point, from an economical perspective. But it's a question that is tearing apart Israel. And even if you agree on the two-state solution, it's not something that in the immediate short time we can see it happening, because there's so much lack of trust about the current Palestinian authority. Although I must say there are fragments and parts of the Israeli, the Palestinian authority, that have been moderate, pragmatic, been, you know, there's a security cooperation that's going on between Israeli forces and Palestinian forces. So the all perspective right now looks very dire and long-term. But in the end, that's what we have to deal with, the long-term question. Both President Biden and also in Israel, they were talking about a different Palestinian authority, something new. What might that be? Yeah, so there are different opinions and thoughts about this. One is a different leadership, and take it away Mahmoud Abbas, Abu Mazen, and maybe replacing it with someone more favorable. The UAE is, of course, promoting a Dachlan to that position. Some, you know, maybe a more bureaucratic kind of personnel like we saw Salam Fayad in the past. All these scenarios, we already kind of used a playbook. So I'm not sure what we work in really. And, you know, I hope some of the elements are derealization. And in that, I mean, you know, we have to totally reform UNRWA, maybe cancel UNRWA in its entirely, making sure schoolbooks are totally different. And of course, what's going on in Maas also. And we have experience that with our new partners in the UAE with Morocco and others, where they have kind of this, you know, inspection and regulation on what's going on, even in their religious institutions. So that is a very important point, and it has to be dealt with. I think the soft issues, the soft, you know, kind of elements were neglected, as well as security mechanisms that will have to be put in place. And for sure, something will have to be gradual. It has to be like a gradual. And even after all that, the question of land, which is a very complicated one. So here we are. Are we in ideological conflict on territorial conflict on a religious conflict? I fear the more and more voices, both in Israel and certainly in the Palestinians, that are trying to get this to be a religious conflict. And that's the real danger. I think most us non-religious people, both in, you know, Palestinians and Israelis feel that when you turn this into a religious conflict, it's unsolvable. It's a for sure zero sum game. And that's really the issue. Although when it was ideological with, you know, Fatah and the PLO, it wasn't easier for years. And there were many missed opportunities. And I think right now we're facing the biggest crisis and the biggest opportunity. And are we going to choose the two-state solution or not? And that's a huge question. Right. This moment, IDF spokesman says the two more Israeli soldiers died in Gaza. That brings the number of foreign soldiers since the ground attack began to 81. And this is likely to go up, of course, as fighting is continuing all the time. It's fierce fighting, like we said. There's 360 degrees threat on our soldiers. And this is kind of what Sinuwa wanted. And this is why we waited for all these years. We didn't want to go in. We didn't see. We had to be sure that it's worth this sacrifice. And I think it's, I think every mother, although I can't put myself in their shoes, feel that this time we didn't have a choice. We went to this war and make these sacrifices. But it's heartbreaking every loss of life is. But I have to say, I mean, I think we expected a much higher casualties among the IDF. I think part of what the IDF is doing is the way it's operating has saved many, many soldiers' lives. And hopefully, as we go forward, we learn from each incident and save as many life as possible as we go ahead. Right. Testimonies of rape and sexual abuse by Hamas terrorists are surfacing all the time. I24 News, Emily Francis reports on what's known so far. On October 7th, Hamas committed crimes against humanity. They raped, murdered and violated Israeli women. Usually the United Nations is a place where Israelis have to defend their actions. But this time they had center stage calling out the brutal violence against women on October 7th. Hamas had committed rapes. We saw bodies of naked women. Morgue workers say the bodies show trauma consistent with rape. They bent someone down and I realized he was raping her and then he shot her in the head. Her pants are pulled down and she is half naked. The legs will spread out. And women's organizations chose to be silent against Hamas violence. And calling out the deafening silence, denial and vocal vitriol against Jewish people that ensued. The world has to decide who to believe. Do we believe the Hamas spokesperson who said that rape is forbidden therefore it couldn't have possibly happened on October 7th? Or do we believe the women whose bodies tell us how they spent the last minutes of their lives? Who are we going to believe? We found a woman's body dumped outside without pants, without underpants, burned. Barely any hair left on her. They even displayed horrific eyewitness testimonies. We have been told that it is not happening. A lot of rape. We also have rape in the area of the suburbs. This is very likely. There is no rape in our area. Also for women and women. We found out that we were brought up to the maximum. We are either in the same place or they will be. What's more, is the overwhelming amount of women protesting in hate and anti-semitic rallies around the world, especially when it's taken so many decades and centuries for women to find a voice and speak out against rape and violence. When people use the language of feminism while brushing aside gender-based violence because of the identity of the victims, they're sending a clear signal that women's rights are negotiable, that rape is sometimes okay, that some women have more dignity than others. That is more than hypocrisy. It is a betrayal of all women because when our agency can be traded away, none of us are safe. Israeli authorities also called out the propaganda of Hamas and the fact that Hamas uses rape as a weapon of war while the world watches. Israel suffered the most brutal massacre since the Holocaust. The atrocities committed by Hamas were more barbaric than ISIS. Some say more cruel and barbaric than the Nazis. Babies were murdered and beheaded. Families were bound together and burnt alive. Children were executed in front of their parents and parents in front of their children. We may hear in the studio right now is Miriam Schleyer, Executive Director of Tel Aviv Crisis Center for Sexual Assault. Thank you very much for coming. First of all, you're the expert. How difficult it is to get the evidence, the testimonies? How difficult? It's very difficult because first of all, in general, it's very difficult. We know that survivors of sexual assault have a very difficult time coming forward with their stories. There's usually a long period of time between the assault and between the time that they're able to come forward. In general, in Israel, less than 17% of the women that were assaulted actually come forward and file a complaint. That's in regular times. And something like this, and this complete atrocity that happened, it's very normal that people aren't going to come forward and start giving testimonies and start talking about what happened. It's just such a hugely dramatic event. So you took some time for this to come out and we'll take some more time for this. It takes time, but there were already signs from the first day and we heard testimonies and we heard witnesses and we heard witnesses from Zaka and we heard witnesses from pathologists. What was absolutely horrifying about this whole thing was that the fact that the world didn't want to believe it and was silent to it. Either there were two things, two paths that both of them are, I don't know, which is worse. One was that we didn't believe survivors or we didn't believe stories and that it's a complete betrayal of everything that we believe in as feminists or as rape crisis centers, the whole Me Too movement. The whole idea was that we have to validate people's stories and believe them. So we had a case where the director of the rape crisis center in Canada actually doubted the veracity of survivor's stories. So that's absolutely horrible in and of itself. And then we had people who said, okay, October 7th had happened or it wasn't so bad or, you know, it was because of the occupation we could actually justify it. And that was something that was absolutely horrifying because there's no excuse ever for rape. There's no context for rape. There's no context for sexual assault. And the fact that all these women organizations, especially all these feminist organizations, the UN women just found it possible to condemn this just yesterday, eight weeks after the atrocity happened. So that's been a huge betrayal as far as we're concerned. From your perspective, what do you think it is the scope of this? From what we understand, it was something that was a systematic mechanism. It wasn't something that happened just one time. And that was part of this horrifying massacre and the brutality. That's what's so astounding and so upsetting and disappointing about the fact that the world is just remaining silent as if this is a possibility in war that rape can be a weapon of war, that this could absolutely be one of the possibilities. It's outrageous. The fact that the world is not up in arms about this is even more outrageous. And it feels like all this feminist ideology and all the ideology we have around survivors just stops at the Israeli border. And that's really, really, really troubling. What are the long-term effects on women? The long-term effects are very, very debilitating. We see now a surge in calls from survivors of sexual assault just because it's echoing the discourse. Others will not come back. Yeah, people who suffered in the past because it's echoing the discourse that we're familiar with about sexual assault, that people don't believe me, that people are silencing it, people are trying to say that I'm crazy, people are kind of gaslighting me, a lot of these survivors are feeling like no one believes us. And again, it's just echoing the whole experience of sexual assault, which in and of itself is always, he said, she said, it's always a kind of problem that we have to, we thought that we'd advance from that and like that. In terms of the victims, the war victims here, sometimes, you know, you want to keep their privacy. Maybe they don't want to expose themselves, maybe they don't want to talk about it. How do you deal with that? We don't. Sometimes we always, at the rape crisis centers, it's a thumb rule, no matter what, it becomes, it's more important than anything else. And we will never, ever, ever disclose somebody's privacy for them. And that should be a rule for all of us, because one of the things that we see in sexual assault is that our ability to have control over one's body or control over what happened, it was taken away from her. Her autonomy was taken away from her. And men as well, by the way, there's men who suffer from sexual assault as well. So the last thing that we want to do is to be able to impose upon them something that's against their will. So we have to be very, very, very careful about protecting their privacy, about going at the pace that they're willing to go at, letting them heal, letting them come forward, letting them ask for help at the pace that they want to come to as well. And that's conflicting right now with the need for us to tell the world what happened. And no one believes us as it is, so we have to bring testimony. So now there's a lot of pressure on people to come forward and talk. But that can't be at the expense of individual people and individual survivors. We have to use it as evidence-based, either by the police, the people that came in for testimonies or the pathologist, or Zaka, or witnesses, but definitely without names and definitely leave it anonymous, and definitely not to put pressure on these women to have to come forward after everything that they went through to have to go through that again. And do you have a long-term programs to deal with this? We have long-term, short-term. Yeah, definitely. It's something that's, we know that sexual assault in any circumstance has long-term implications and effects. We know that there's lots of post-trauma. Lots of, like I said, survivors have been triggered by this event and they're suffering from the implications of post-trauma. And it's a long, long, long journey. But we'll be there for anybody that wants us to be there for them and we'll be there to support them. Shuri, this is something that never happened in the history of Israel. We had wars, a lot of ugly incidents, but rape, especially in this scope, never before. Yeah, the sexual violence that took place on October 7th is very much similar to what Daesh's tactics are and ISIS's tactics are. And this is one of the reasons that Hamas has been trying so much to deny and ignore it, because from an image perspective, brand perspective, I'm sorry to speak, this is something that Hamas is really troubling with. You have to understand that they have their own people in their interrogations, testified to the fact that this was part of their systematic method. Iran and Hezbollah and Iran's affiliates in Iraq, the Shia militias, they fought against Daesh and ISIS. So when they look at what Hamas has done, they're not comfortable with that at all. They're not comfortable with the tactics. They're not comfortable with the scope of it. And it's a big embarrassment, both to Hamas, to Qatar, to Iran. So what they're trying to do is hide it and deny it and say, we're lying, like they say, we're lying about everything for the past 20 years. So it's getting into this strategic issue that we have to bring into the world consciousness. And I applaud the men and women that are dealing with the victims. And also, all these really, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and police are really working on this and have secondary trauma, taking in those testimonies and seeing what they're seeing and dealing with. I heard Israel Police representative today in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs conference talk about it. This is, they took a lot of 443 people to investigate. And it's nothing that they ever dealt with or coped to deal with. We don't have the men power. We don't have the training for this. And people will bear this for life, be scarred for life with what they're seeing. Not to mention that a lot of the victims themselves were murdered, which is also a part of the... And I understand a lot of the men were also sexual. So that's an important point that we have to make too, because that's something that we're not talking about. Because it doesn't fit into our paradigm of men, women, and women being released as hostages. What's going on with the men? We're going back now to very patriarchal descriptions of men and women on the gender scale. But it's really important to say that there are men who are sexually assaulted as well. Their genitals were mutilated. There's lots of... That is part of sexual assault. And it's crimes against humanity. That's what we're talking about. That's what's so upsetting and devastating about this thing that people can't just come out and say, okay, we're against the occupation. We have, we feel empathy for the suffering of Palestinian civilians. But we are absolutely unequivocally opposed to using rape and sexual assault in any respect whatsoever. It's not a method of liberation. And it's absolutely outrageous that this can't even be said. It's just, it's really very devastating. That's a good point to say. Thank you very much for coming. Thank you. It's just one thing that's really important to me that anybody that's listening to us, we're here for you. One, two, oh, two, a line for women. One, two, oh, three, a line for men. We believe you, we're here for you. All right, thank you. The community of Beirik, Kibbutz Beirik in southern Israel is one of those hardest hit during the Hamas terror attack on the 7th of October. Here's the story of one of its survivors. Today's newspaper has arrived. Here, more hostages have been released. It's all from the party at Reim. He wasn't at the Reim party at all. No, he was at home. Itai is in Gaza? Yes, he might get lucky. Right, right. Let's hope he gets lucky. We have a lot of questions, if I know. Everything gets mixed up. What can I do? It's been eight weeks since she was brought here on the Black Sabbath. She sits in fake tranquility in the home of one of her children in Kochav-e-Yair, grieving over the destruction of the Kibbutz and the death of her loved ones. Grandma Aviva has only one hope left. To celebrate a birthday next month with her grandson Itai, who is a prisoner of Hamas. You have to tell me what you will ask me. How old I am. I think I'm 97 years old. I don't believe it, either. I was born in 1927. Do the math. I think that it's true. Yes, soon. I have no complaints about my age. I have no complaints. Not about the health, not even about the mind. It's hard for the mind to contain everything. What happened to Aviva that Saturday? How did she manage to get out on her own from the Baeri massacre? I remember Arabs came. They said it was actually their house. I told them, welcome. Come visit. Come visit. I thought we could talk to them, but they were by my balcony. I know that, sure. But what happened, then, I no longer remember. Well, that's history. The truth is that mom remembers it. But Gracie, the nanny, was there. At our house? Yes. Gracie, the devoted caregiver. She even managed to send a picture of herself in Aviva, cuddled under the blanket in the safe room. Until her last post, help people are entering the house. At around 12, she wrote for the first time that the terrorists have entered. 10 to 3? This is her last message. And at some point, Gracie disappeared and was murdered. The full picture was completely by the family members, eyewitnesses who survived to tell their story. They say that mother's house, the balcony was the war room, and all your lawn, mother, was actually their ops room, full of weapons, and that's where their activity was concentrated. And where was mom at the time? On the swing. That's what they say, that mom was on the swing on the porch. A plate full of fruit was placed in front of her, which Gracie, the nanny, must have prepared for her. To the war room that opened on Aviva's balcony, the terrorists brought more people from the Kibbutz. Some were kidnapped later, some injured, like a Kibbutz member who arrived there seriously injured with their two remaining children. This woman is mother's neighbor, and she herself, her husband was murdered and her baby was murdered and brought her there. She says that thanks to mom she survived because mom kept talking to her, and that's how she didn't lose consciousness. She also says that her son vomited all the time because he inhaled a lot of smoke and she told him, it's okay, everything is fine. She also said that the mother kept talking and they kept telling her to shut up, but she talked. I hear, I'm listening. Nothing ringing? This is what we were told about you, people who were with you. What? You're a hero and you don't even remember? Probably the bad things I don't remember. Memory is deceptive, the fog of the senses and forgetfulness probably leaves the bar of consciousness, only with what the soul can bear. I only remember one thing, I only remember one thing about myself and I'm not, I can't believe it was like that. I decided I was going, that I was leaving the kibbutz. Can you take my kibbutz? Aviva decided to go, walking slowly, alone, from her house toward the parking lot, with the walker, without the glasses and without a hearing aid. She remembers complete silence, but when she's in a bubble of silence from around the fighting at its peak. There were still many terrorists in the kibbutz. There were many battles. It was half past five, five in the afternoon. Fortunately for me, there was a ride and I got on this ride and he was on his way to Tel Aviv and on the way I called my daughter. She didn't agree to go until she knew where Orit was. She asked what happened to Gracie. She said, how can it be that I went without her?