 of injured being treated in hospitals the entire country under lockdown apocalyptic seems Israelis being slaughtered in their homes the IDF still working this hour to conquer back Israeli towns reservists have been called in the head of Hamas military wing Muhammad death announcing it is a beginning of a war urging Arab Israelis West Bank Palestinians Palestinians in Jerusalem and armed groups in Lebanon all to take up their arms and join the fog of war is creating a whole lot of confusion and we need to say clearly the beginning of this broadcast there is a lot of information circulating at the moment of social media some containing extremely difficult visuals and contact we are aware of it all we get it all from all sides of the border fence and yet we will be reporting only verified information here and in this respect after long hours of speculation we have decided to show a tiny portion of milder documentation published by Hamas terrorists on social media live streaming their activities in recent hours showing Israeli civilians kidnapped into the Gaza Strip where they're being held hostage unprecedented and truly unbelievable scenes it's a Saturday morning October 7th 2023 a day and 50 years after the Yom Kippur war broke out today Israel once again under a surprise attack a surprise war Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convening the security cabinet this hour as we speak here's more from the premier earlier on in the day citizens of Israel were at war not operation in war this morning Hamas launched a murder of surprise attack against the state of Israel and its citizens we've been at it since early morning I convened the heads of the security establishment first of all I instructed to cleanse the villages of the terrorists who have infiltrated this operation is being carried out during these hours at the same time I ordered an extensive reserve mobilization and a retaliatory war with a strength and scope that the enemy had never known the enemy will pay a price he has never known in the meantime I call on all citizens of Israel to strictly obey the instructions of the army and the instructions of the home command we are in a war and we will win it Israel it's war we want to head now live to the southern city of Oshkelon rather Beverly Jamil resident of the Oshkelon is joining us live from there Beverly how are you shock frightened upset annoyed it's the worst it's ever been try to describe to us what what you've been through since the early hours of this morning well at six o'clock half past six this morning we were woken up by the sirens and basically they've been non-stop ever since hearing about the infiltration of the terrorists into Israel into settlements and army bases is really really frightening we've been in and out of the shelter most of the day in fact one of the one of the rockets actually landed in the opposite me in one of my neighbor's houses opposite me luckily they were all in the safe room and they nobody's hurt physically mentally it's a different story yeah mentally it will it will take time to all of us due to grasp what is currently unfolding Beverly throughout the morning we've been hearing Israelis essentially begging for for the police for security forces to come and help have you been able to see the presence of security personnel where where you're at well basically i've been in my house i've not even know i've not been the open the gate of the house this morning we're in we're inside we're basically in lockdown yes and we've never had that before it's never been as bad as this no no doubt unprecedented uncharted territory literally unfortunately Beverly i can assume that online communication with your neighbors with your family members ongoing throughout throughout the day what have you been hearing from from neighbors in the southern city of Oshkilon well to be honest once the rocket fell here we had no electricity and all the phones were all the phones went down as well they've just come back up just now i spoke to my neighbors that are here you know over the wall um we're trying to keep each other optimistic to a certain extent but as soon as the siren goes off off you go back into your room your safe room you wait for the time so you can come out again um i've spoke to my i managed to speak to my two daughters that aren't in that aren't here at the moment listen it's the worst it's frightening as i said to somebody you can you've got 30 seconds in Oshkilon to get to a safe room with the sirens go off but from gunfire you can't escape from fire unfortunately i've already heard of two people that i do know that have been killed Beverly Jamil uh joining us from the southern city of Oshkilon stay safe stay resilient and thank you very much for speaking with us you're welcome here's hoping it stays quiet as well amen crossing now live to kibbutz again resident dina bernstein is joining us from there dina hello thank you very much for speaking to us today um i will start by asking how are you am i how can i be how can the entire family be we are um do we have the people if you can say elderly people 65 plus plus our wife and baby and a big dog everybody is locked down here in in the same room since 6 30 this morning and nobody's allowed to go out not even to the toilet not even to get some food it it's the first time we have been locked for so much so much time you know and nobody sees the uh the end of it the horrifying thing is and and you know you have to bear in mind that as opposed to the lady from Oshkilon of 34 and she was uh she was saying that she has 30 seconds to go to the shelter's safe room we have 15 which makes her a tremendous difference but anyway um people here we have a whatsapp group for the kibbutz to transfer messages from you know the management to the population and vice versa if somebody needs help and um we had an attack of uh um the uh Palestinians the Hamas people from Gaza they entered the kibbutz and as far as i'm talking to you now we didn't get any message about them leaving the kibbutz so uh we're still trying to get look at these people where they are hiding in between the the buildings here or wherever we don't know yes and dina this is indeed um the perhaps most surreal element or one of many that we've been facing in recent hours as we speak there might be still Hamas terrorists in your community in your kibbutz uh as as still some Israeli territories has been conquered is under Hamas control exactly yeah we are uh hostages now in the hands of uh of you know we don't know what's happening that's the biggest problem is that you don't really know what's happening nobody can go outside and uh and uh the the only people who are outside is are the people who belong to the emergencies squad they can walk around and and they are the soldiers we didn't see the army until recently nobody came they couldn't even come i don't know why they didn't come but the only people who are trying to figure out what's happening and defend the citizens were the squad the local ones um and and that's it and we had three injured from the squad um this is what we were reported we got this information and we don't know you know what's going on with these people i can tell you that my son who was a fighter in the army when he was in the army he couldn't bear sitting here in the room doing nothing yeah and trying to so he just volunteered and he doesn't live here on the keyboard anymore he volunteered to help the uh the people and he's now patrolling in the kibbutz dina berenstein um speaking to us from um her home uh under siege in kibbutz again um thank you very much for speaking to us um hopefully we'll be able to touch base with you later on um sooner rather than later once uh this apocalyptic uh scene is over uh stay safe um and stay resilient thank you very much dina berenstein thank you thank you thank you all right um joining us uh now here uh in uh studio um ambassador avi pizner former israeli ambassador um to italy and france colonel and reserves mr grisha yakubovic former head of the civilian um department of uh of kogat and our very own at 24 news middle east correspondent ariel oseron uh gentleman before we will try to clear the clutter uh um with you ariel let's try and have a clear picture of what is the current state of affairs down south israeli forces still engaged in a battle to conquer back israeli territory with the lack of a better phrasing indeed ellie the the difficult thing to say this afternoon is that there is still a lot of uncertainty going on down south the main goal right now of israeli forces is as you say to liberate israeli towns from hamas operatives the idf spokesperson said to uh public broadcasting radio not too long ago that as far as we're concerned there could be hamas fighters in every town surrounding gaza our forces are searching everywhere and engage in fighting inside multiple towns so as we speak there is fighting taking place in multiple israeli communities border communities according to uh different uh reports from locals there we're talking about just to name a few bery kfaraza nireem nachalos people inside there are saying they're hunkering down they are hearing gunfights uh taking place around them and a lot of confusion a lot of lack of clarity from israeli authorities as to what to do in this situation and this is happening ariel again i'm repeating it out out loud maybe uh in a bit to to to grasp what i'm i'm saying here the large parts of the border wide open with hamas terrorists walking in in and out um more or less freely ellie half an hour before we went on air we received a notification that the township of nativa sarah has been liberated from hamas fighters that is the situation that communities down south are currently suffering with are currently engaging and not to mention these are there's one challenge people in their homes people who live there but there was also the desert party a lot of people on my way here to the studio i heard multiple accounts of people who have been waiting hours for some their water is has been depleted they don't know what to do they've been receiving conflicting instructions from police some said just get in your car and drive to which is a couple-hour drive others said wait until forces come they were told the forces that came were hit by hamas operatives so there is a current state of chaos down south there are a large also large numbers of israeli forces police special forces military trying to contain the situation engaging with fighters hamas militants in multiple townships and areas and we're not even mentioning rocket fire which is since i start smoking there have been alerts of rocket fire and as this is happening also the idf says that its air force has struck over 20 hamas targets command posts but this is obviously a drop in the bucket compared to what is expected to be taking place in the coming hours and to that point exact exactly a colonel which obviously so many questions to be asked but at this point in time when we're not even at the stage of the israeli counterattack or response or you name it as as you wish but what might or is already complicating the situation even further is is is the issue of israeli's israeli civilians kidnapped into the Gaza Strip hence every israeli attack of the Gaza Strip at the moment must take into consideration this this factor as well well we need to understand that hamas planned this operation i believe a few months ago now we need this is this is a large scale of an operation well planned probably hundreds of people in Gaza knew about this operation and this is the biggest achievement hamas achieved yeah and this is our biggest failure now yes we need and actually the political level the idf will consider any action any reaction taking or understanding that there are probably okay those are numbers coming out from Gaza right okay between 35 to 40 dead alive people in Gaza civilians israeli is talking about talking about soldiers and civilians i even published on my social media a video of an old woman that i think she's ill she doesn't even know where she is and she's driving a car with some hamas terrorists inside Gaza now in any future reaction or in any reaction that israeli react it will be taken under consideration we need to understand that this is not the event of gilacial it this is totally different how will israel react i think that we still uh i think that it will take time okay we need to understand it will take time because any action will have a huge impact on the people who are actually were kidnapped and they are inside Gaza i'm listening to you and and i remain speechless uh ambassador paznell um again in a bit to try and and get a clear sense of the of the situation the security cabinet convening this hour nearly seven hours after this war broke out earlier this morning what are we expecting from the um senior political and and and security leadership at this point in time we are expecting the answer to this attack this unprecedented attack against israel you know when i woke up this morning and i heard the siren it brought me back 50 years ago when yom kippel war we were surprised then we have been surprised today from the point of view of hamas this first day is a success and we have to see that the continuation will be a success for israel and i think that the prime minister was right when he said that israel is at war and i'm not convinced that this war will be only against the hamas there is a possibility of the war spreading also to other fronts i heard already all the muazzin in jerusalem calling for riots in jerusalem like we had three four years ago i don't know whether the khizballah will move or not we have to be prepared for something bigger than we have seen until now with gaza and i hope also that it will have the right political consequences because let's not make let's not fool ourselves here there was a big mistake on our part a mistake on part of our intelligence which was not able to read correctly the intent of the hamas and the mistake at the political level that also did not read underestimating the enemy's ability the enemies will absolutely we cannot hide that cannot hide that and i do think that this is an occasion today to repair the wrong would have been done to the country in the last 10 months this is the day that prime minister netanyahu should call on the opposition to join a national unity government just like golda mayo did in 67 when she invited beggin and dayan today after this meeting of the security council netanyahu meets lapid the opposition leader yeah and the opposition leader and i know it's only for a briefing of what we know it should be to call lapid and guns enter immediately into a national unity government because we are in an emergency yeah no no doubt about uh uh that ariello saran um again we we need to reiterate to try and explain the surreal situation that is happening as we speak down south still several israeli communities are under siege under the control of hamas terrorists the security forces seven hours or a bit more after this war broke out still fighting to regain control um what can you tell us about about what are we to see from the idf in the coming hours well ali as as you mentioned we're nearly eight hours into this and first of all we have to take the job of of informing the public in these very difficult times because unfortunately israel's leaders and the heads of israel's emergency services are not doing that enough till this time we still don't know the extent of israeli's kidnapped dead or alive inside gaza these are not just soldiers these are civilians unfortunately i've seen multiple videos uh i i i also we should use this opportunity to call on our viewers not to forward unauthenticated videos that could cause further uh miss and disinformation this requires a lot of responsibility at these points and we are relying we are lowering uh relying our reports on very scarce uh official reports that are coming out but yes as you mentioned the current situation in addition to an unknown amount of israeli civilians and soldiers currently held by hamas inside the gaza strip there are multiple firefights taking place in uh more in in in a few israeli border towns and communities large amounts of emergency forces are there and all the while barrages of rockets continue according to the idf the latest figures are over 2200 rockets launched from uh almost eight hours ago yeah during this day towards israel but that number is obviously much higher we're seeing live images of the gaza skyline at a moment as the israeli air force is starting to target hamas hamas positions there um likely to assume only the very beginning of the israeli response and it's likely also that many of these command posts are empty whether the officials in their leadership is almost for certain underground either they either they're underground or they participated in the infiltration into israel and are either in israeli streets laying dead or have managed to uh go back into the gaza strip and we are we're we're we're nearing the end of our of our broadcast so so um colonel kabocha i do want to get back to you because we're focusing naturally on on the fiasco that is happening down south at the moment um um this emergency situation um there but there is fear that other fronts will um um will be reignited uh from the west bank through jerusalem israel uh the israeli towns uh elsewhere and and the northern front of course well early first of all he says at least three times that you're surprised uh i think that nobody should be surprised as we've seen the northern scenario carried out in the south so we saw that in the northern playbook yeah no the northern scenario this is exactly what hezbollah okay trained the last the last big training i think two months ago they trained and that was exactly exactly exactly what was carried out in gaza now hamas and this is the deception okay well coordinated with hezbollah well coordinated with iran and the problem and just listen carefully to what the miss of defense said you have gallant at the beginning of this morning a few hours ago we need to make sure that this is the only arena right the problem is not Jerusalem the problem is not the mixed towns in israel the problem is to make sure that the triangle okay of gaza the west bank lebanon syria maybe iran okay will not be let's say the unity of the arenas to make sure that the idea will deal only with one arena the moment the idea will make sure that this is our reality and the threat is only the let's say the gaza arena i believe that israel will start dealing with gaza but as an expert my recommendation will be this is not in operation if israel will carry out an operation as a response it will be the biggest failure in history we need to change the equation okay one goal the collapse of hamas rule in gaza period ambassador posnell um we have uh less than 30 seconds left your concluding remarks that to israeli citizens at this tough hour what we have to do really is to prepare world public opinion for a very strong israeli response until now we had a lot of love outpouring towards israel of sympathy now that we will uh commence to act we have to prepare public opinion because we will have harsh and harsh um ambassador obi posnell colonel grisha kubovic aria lozano thank you for this we'll be back with more