 emergency and war in Israel. Bringing Israel's story to the world. I-24 News Channels, now on Hot. I'm Sarah Martinez and you're watching I-24 News. Today marks the 61st day of the war here in Israel. And just as we go to air, there are rocket sirens in the South. Fierce battles continue between the IDF and Hamas operatives in the Gaza Strip as the Air Force has struck over 250 Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets in the past 24 hours alone. Troops have discovered one of the largest weapon stockpiles in the Gaza Strip, including hundreds of missiles and RPG launchers near a clinic and a school in the northern part of the enclave. The IDF announcing the death of another two soldiers, 23-year-old first-class sergeant in the reserves, Yonatan Malka, who was killed fighting in Gaza. As well as 52-year-old Lieutenant Colonel in the reserves, Yochai Ghulhashbeg was curled in a car accident, bringing the death toll of the IDF soldier since the beginning of the war to 82. Meanwhile, Israeli media reporting today that security officials believe it may take up to a month for enough military pressure to build on Hamas, a new window will open for a truce and the release of more of the 138 hostages still held captive in the Gaza Strip. The on-source report says that military operations will need to continue in both the north and the south of the enclave for this to happen. I-24 News correspondent Pierre Klochenlers in the southern Israeli of Zderot. Pierre, what's the latest where you are? Well, we just saw in this direction in the sky two interceptions of a rocket fire targeting the city of Ashkelon, which has been the hardest hit city in Israel from rocket fire with over 1,300 rockets launched toward the city and over 700 impacts or interceptions. Now, this is the first time that in the day that the Palestinian terrorists are shooting rocket fire out of the realm of the communities that are facing the Gaza Strip. But there's been some trickle of rocket fire earlier in the communities facing the southern sector of the Gaza Strip in a place called Sufa, for instance. It's very possible that it was a mortar fire that the Iron Don cannot intercept. And as a result, there was one person who was likely wounded in that rocket fire. Here behind me in the northern sector, there is an increase of targeted bombing of presumed terror targets in Beth-Khanun. It was very calm in the early hours in the morning, and now it's kind of waking up, so to speak. There are fierce fighting in Jabalia refugee camp north of Gaza City, fierce fighting in Shejaya, which is a southeastern suburb of Gaza City. And of course, the focal point of Khanunas, which has been, according to the IDF, completely encircled and at the same time, ground forces operating within the city. So the city is the ground for operations within and without Khanunas, with the IDF urging the residents to leave the area of Khanunas and move west to the coastal road of Arunah Rashid in order to find the safe area which has been dedicated for displaced, non-involved Palestinians. Southwest of Khanunas and northeast of the city, the border city of Rafah with Egypt. But at the same time, I picked up on telegram from one of the media outlets from Gaza, which are affiliated to Hamas, obviously, a threat by the terror factions in Gaza, saying that anyone who obeys the injunctions of the army to evacuate the battlefield is deemed a collaborator. So the Hamas is trying to protect its human shield, in a sense, and the UN at the same time is saying that now the number of Palestinians that are in the central and southern sector of the Gaza Strip is now 80% of the total population of 2,200,000 people, because many were displaced from the north and moved to the south. So it's staggering numbers, and the army is trying very much, they say, to pinpoint their terror targets with aerial strikes. Pia Klochenler, thank you for that update. From the south, I want to cross over now to Israel's northern border, where I-24 News correspondent Zach Anders is standing by. Zach, the IDF issuing a rare apology to the Lebanese army after one of its soldiers was killed in an IDF strike on a Hezbollah target. Is this an attempt to put a wider conflict with Lebanon at bay? It could be. Obviously the tensions here are incredibly high and have been since the seventh with the amount of exchanges that have been taking place between not just Hezbollah, but other factions here in the north, including a small sect of Hamas that operates in the south of Lebanon. These strikes have killed, the retaliatory strikes from the IDF have killed over 80 Hezbollah fighters. Civilians, journalists have been caught in the crosshairs as well over the last several weeks. This, as you mentioned, is a rare apology aimed at the Lebanese armed forces, the LAF. And it has been noted that in years past, the IDF has accused the LAF and Hezbollah of collaborating, of working together, but they don't do so here. They don't make those claims. Instead, they make what is essentially an outright apology and say they will investigate this incident and assure that it was not intentional that they were attempting to strike the Hezbollah position of fire when Hezbollah was firing earlier in the day. And it should be noted that Hezbollah claimed responsibility for over five of those launches that occurred yesterday as well. So it could very well be an attempt to, at least in Lebanese spaces, to make it clear to the people of Lebanon that the fight is not with their government's wing of armed forces, that their fight is with the religious sect and with Hezbollah. And as you mentioned, the Hezbollah firing rockets at Israel's north from Lebanon, when can those northern Israeli residents expect to go home? No clear timeline on when they'll be able to return. In fact, the continued call for evacuation remains. The residents that have been in living places like here at Shimano, one of the more populated areas here in the north, most of them continue to stay in hotels or accommodations in the south and central Israel. And there is no timeline. That's the frustration because as long as the operation in Gaza continues, it does appear at least based on extracting Nisrallah's intent from his statements that they will continue to fight here in the north. And for that reason, the IDF says it is unsafe to live and work in these areas. 200,000, approximately 200,000 Israelis have been displaced because of this conflict. Zach Anders, thank you for that update from Israel's northern border. With me in studio is Dr. David Shimoni, former intelligence official and I-24 News Defense correspondent Jonathan Regev. Thank you both for joining me here in studio. Jonathan, I wanna begin with you amid this ground operation, paint us a picture here of how much the IDF actually has control on the Gaza Strip as we speak right now. If we speak of quite a strong control of the northern part, but is it complete control? Absolutely not. You just said seven minutes ago, rockets were fired from Ashkelon, the rockets to Ashkelon are fired from, usually from Betlaya, which is on the northern part of the Gaza Strip, very close to Ashkelon, some about 10 miles to the north of Ashkelon, meaning Hamas still has abilities there. Can Israel take over, kill every Hamas terrorist and reach every rocket? I'm afraid not. Israel can reach a level where this place is no longer a threat, but we see that Hamas still has abilities. That's in the north, where Israel has a bigger presence in the south, where the ground operation is just beginning. There's still no control. I mean Hamas is still operating there, as the ground maneuver will intensify. Israel will gain more and more control, but to say that Israel has eradicated Hamas is something I'm not sure that this is exactly possible. Israel can, I believe, bring the Gaza Strip into a place where Hamas is no longer a threat, but even that's a difficult mission, which will take time. And Jonathan, just a quick update here. Rockets were fired at Mount Hamon, possibly from Syria, David, of course this shows us that we're not just facing from Hamas in the south and Hezbollah north. We're also facing exterior threats from both Syria and Hezbollah Houthis in Yemen. Yeah, we're facing something that's orchestrated from Iran, and they're trying to involve as many of their proxies without them being directly involved in active fighting. So yes, we have their elements in Syria, in Yemen, in Iraq. They would all try to act as kind of pests and draw our attention and our efforts to other fronts. The question, the big question of the Iranian involvement is about Hezbollah. Will they give Hezbollah their order to launch a full attack on Israel? And if they do, will Hezbollah obey? So yeah, we're facing something big, orchestrated from Iran by Iran. And as we've seen, the IDF is active on all fronts. Yesterday, the day before, there were reports of mysterious explosions in Sana'a, in Yemen, which... Perhaps Israeli target, I mean, not that the IDF would comment on that, but can we presume those are IDF strikes? It's possible, yes. First of all, technically it's possible. The IDF is able to do these things to reach these distant targets and hit them. So yes, we're facing a big or multi-front war, for the time being low intensity except for in Gaza. I will also add that I think in the last days, we're seeing more initiatives by the IDF in Lebanon than in the past. Until a few days ago, it was mostly retaliation for rocket attacks or mortar attacks by the Hezbollah. But I sense now that Israel is more, taking more initiative and hitting more and more Hezbollah targets with the intention, I believe, to try to drive the Hezbollah back north to the Litani River line where, according to UN Resolution 1701, they were supposed to be. Israel had not prevented them from creeping down to the south. And to that point, we are hearing reports of sirens in Elad. Jonathan, what more can you tell us about that right now? Just something coming just in the last minute. It was 30 seconds ago when you mentioned the Houthis in Yemen. So this is it. They heard us. On all fronts. We're speaking of Gaza. We're speaking of Lebanon, which, as was mentioned here, Israel at this moment is not interested in tackling Hezbollah because it is interested mostly in the Gaza border. But Israel clearly is interested in pushing Hezbollah to the north past the Litani River. And let's remember, again, this was mentioned. There is a resolution, 1701, by the United Nations, which was formatted after the Second Lebanon War in 2006, drive Hezbollah to the north at the moment that is not implemented. And as we're now hearing, sirens in Elad, possibly something coming from Yemen, UAV, rockets, we don't know yet. But this is clearly a development from the last two minutes. And as you both mentioned, this is a war that's facing on all fronts, but not just on the ground. It's also beneath ground. There is a 800 Hamas Tunnel network where Hamas terrorists and hostages are believed to be held captive in the Gaza Strip. Tell me a little bit, Jonathan, about the IDF is reportedly preparing to flood those tunnels with seawater. Maybe that is one plan. It has been reported on the foreign media, not on Israeli media, that there is a plan to try and flood the tunnels. First, before you do that, you have to make sure that there are no Israeli hostages there. So if this will really happen, this will not happen before. We know that all hostages are out of Gaza. That is one plan. It may be a plan. How realistic is it? I don't know. And let's remember, Gaza is sand. Sand absorbs water. So I don't know how much of the water will eventually be absorbed in the sand. One of the reasons why it's relatively easy to dig in Gaza is because everything is sand. But this is one plan. Of course, it would be much better for Israel to flood it with water than to send its soldiers there and put them in major risk. Absolutely. And Dr. Shimoni, I wanna ask you, the US believes Israel could complete this large-scale military operations in the Southern Gaza Strip by January and then shift to more targeted attacks on specific Hamas terrorists and leaders as part of a long-term campaign. Is that realistic? And are we hearing the same assessment from the IDF? January of what year? Yeah, okay, there's a big difference in the way we look at things in the United States. The United States would like to make this a shorter campaign, a shorter battle. And they're very much concerned about the civilian population in Gaza who are suffering terrible conditions since the beginning of the war. I believe that by January, there's a good chance that a lot of our objectives in the Gaza Strip will be fulfilled, especially hopefully hitting the Hamas leadership in Hanunas and the Hanunas area. But for sure, there'll be a need for further smaller operations, special unit operations, even after January. And I believe that would be something to debate or to discuss between us and the United States. And as you mentioned, the ground operation is expanding south, as Israel hopes it will eventually lead to another round of a hostage deal. I-24 News, Senior Defense Corp. John Tanrega with the details. Two months on and the war in Gaza is in full swing, Israeli ground forces are now operating on all fronts. We have secured many Hamas strongholds in the northern Gaza Strip. And now we're operating against its strongholds in the south. Our forces are now encircling the Hanunas area in the southern Gaza Strip, while simultaneously securing our accomplishments in the north. While the Gaza city neighborhoods of Jabalia and Sadzahiyah are the focal points in the north, the city of Hanunas is now the main aim in the south. As ground forces are approaching, the main work is still done here from the air with massive strikes hitting the city and its surroundings for the past 48 hours. Our forces are expanding the ground operation against Hamas in every place in the Gaza Strip, including in the south. Tonight, we operated with massive force. The earth shook in Hanunas. Further north, the ground operation is also intensifying. The infantry, backed by armored vehicles right behind them, is conducting the dangerous task of searching for terrorists in every house. Once again, major Hamas operation facilities are found right next to civilian areas. We found hundreds of anti-tank missiles, UAVs and long-range rockets. We are in the middle of a residential area right next to schools. The ground forces are assisted from above. Here is a terror cell hoping to confront the IDF soldiers, but they are eliminated from the air as soon as they appear. As all this is happening on the military front, there's still one bigger goal than any military achievement. As the IDF expands its operations to dismantle Hamas in Gaza, we have not lost sight, not for one moment of our critical mission to rescue our hostages, to do everything in our power to bring our hostages home. The security establishment believes the military pressure will eventually lead to a hostage deal, as it did in the previous stage of the war. Dr. Shimoni, I want to ask you, there's reports that Hamas won't release the remaining hostage, or at least it'll be used as a last resort card. Out of fear, it'll hurt their propaganda that we've seen of these hostages being released and waving at cameras clearly out of fear. There's women who are believed to have been raped. Does the IDF have any indication as to where these hostages are? I believe so. First of all, yes, these things were said by an American official concerned that the Hamas want to conceal or to hide what's happening to the remaining hostages, especially women, soldiers, female soldiers who are in captivity. I believe the IDF now has quite of a good picture, intelligence picture of what's going on. Where are many of the hostages? I believe also there's knowledge, maybe a sad knowledge about the condition of some of them. I believe not all of them are alive. Not all of them survived the October 7th attack or their wounds or were executed in captivity. I believe now the IDF has quite a good coverage of what's happening. And as the prime minister and minister of defense mentioned last night, they're also considering military operations to try to rescue some of these hostages based on solid intelligence. As we saw earlier in the war, when one of that female Israeli soldier was able to come home. Only one. Exactly, only one. And here we're talking about 138 hostages. That puts all soldiers also at risk there. For sure, for sure. There's a big debate, national debate, of course also in the cabinet on the, how much do you risk your troops to get survivors from the hostages? And the thought now is that the more pressure we exert on Hamas, the easier it will be to negotiate in the future. There's some logic in that point of view because eventually the Hamas will not negotiate only numbers of prisoners against hostages. It will start to negotiate their safety and their life and their survival, personal survival of the leaders. So there is some logic in this continuing fighting and pressure on Hamas with the thought that it will enable us to yield more release of hostages in the future. And those are some live visuals of Gaza. You can see right there plumes of smoke coming out of the enclave as fierce fighting continues there between the IDF and Hamas terrorists. I wanna speak to both of you for a second about US Secretary Anthony Blinken. He's spoken with China reiterating the imperativeness that all parties work to prevent the conflict from spreading. What is that fear here? Specifically when it comes to speaking to China about this. I think what the United States is mainly hoping is to prevent this from escalating into something bigger global. We have heard reports that they've never been confirmed on behalf of Israel that Israel wanted to use this opportunity for a preemptive strike on Lebanon. We're speaking at the beginning of the war nearly two months ago. And the fact that so many Western leaders here were here, President Biden, Prime Minister Sunak, President Macron, Chancellor Schultz, and so on, they were here to express support. But they were also here to, I'm even gonna call it babysit. Make sure that Israel does not go too far with what it perhaps wanted because they do not want this conflict to escalate into something bigger. It is already something bigger because we just spoke about it. Yemen and Lebanon and so on. But it's still confined mostly to the Israel-Gaza border and world powers in the United States and others, they want to keep it this way. Of course, once if the war between Israel and Hezbollah escalates into something bigger, a full-on war, it may have implications on Iran and then implications on the United States. I'm quite sure that the administration, which is already an electioneer, is not really, that is something they will not be happy to see. So I wanna discuss with you Gaza after the war. Netanyahu has rejected the idea of a sort of international force that could be responsible for the security there, saying Israeli troops should retain control over the disarmament of the strip. What are your thoughts on that? Well, I think we spoke earlier about the debate between Israel and the United States about the duration of the war in the south. And for Israel, the longer war, the easier because it postpones making very, very important decisions. And the decisions are what's gonna happen in Gaza once the hostilities end, if they end. The Americans have a very clear understanding and view that not the Hamas nor Israel will rule Gaza, but the Palestinian entity, hopefully, according to the Americans, the Palestinian Authority will take over. Israel, as we know, we have a war cabinet and we have a government and they're very harsh about explaining the military objectives of the war, but they have no internal agreement about what's gonna happen later. So I believe the Americans want to see an end to hostilities and some international force, maybe an inter-Arab force, a coalition taking over Gaza, taking control, not behind Israeli tanks, but on their own, eventually installing a government or governance by the Palestinian Authority. I believe Israel is stalling on these questions. As you know, and I believe your audience knows, Israel has very, very fundamental questions. It never answered, what are our borders? Okay, we have no agreement within our society. What are the final, and we don't have final borders, nor in the West Bank, nor in Lebanon. Lebanon, we have a ceasefire line, not agreed upon border. So these are my thoughts. How will things end in Gaza? I think eventually Hamas will have to, in some way, surrender if they want to survive physically, if they're fighting for their lives. And I believe from day to day, they understand that they are now fighting for their lives, which means there will be an exchange of prisoners and hostages, but there'll be some solution which I think the Americans are advocating and promoting to allow safe exit by the Hamas leaders out of Gaza. And this can be declared as the end of the rule of Hamas in Gaza. And that's in Gaza though, but we just saw overnight the IDF making arrest warrants in Janine, Hamas poking its head there. This is sort of the snake that keeps poking its head in every single corner possible. Yes, true, and it will keep doing so. First, one of the goals set out at the beginning of the war was to eradicate Hamas. If this really is a solution, which could very well be the case, did we eradicate Hamas? Is Hamas eradicated in this case? I think the answer is no. But it's one possible solution. But yeah, the United States and Western powers and others, they have declared that they have defeated ISIS. Does that mean there's no more ISIS? Is ISIS gone? No, ISIS is still around. And still carrying out attacks. So killing out an idea or every terrorist or every rocket, that will not happen. Hamas will continue to haunt us. The only question is if Israel will be able to bring this, and I think Israel can, to bring this to a bearable amount. I don't know if we can speak about numbers or how exactly to define it, but to a place where this is a reality that Israel could live with, the reality in the Gaza border before October 7th, clearly after October 7th. But even before October 7th, that was a reality that Israel could not live with. You could not have a solution where hundreds of thousands of residents go to shelters every few weeks because someone in Gaza is feeling uncomfortable about something. This was a reality which Israel got used to, but it was wrong. And that reality has to go. But Hamas, can it be gone altogether? Unfortunately, I think the answer is no. Gentlemen, stay with me. We're gonna go out for a quick break. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back with more updates on the ground operation in Gaza. You're watching I-24 News, we'll be right back. Welcome back, and thanks for staying with us here on I-24 News. Welcome back, and thanks for staying with us here on I-24 News. Quick update here, the IDF has intercepted a surface-to-surface missile towards Israel that was fired, pardon, intercepted over the Red Sea. Meanwhile, families of hostages met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last night to present their grievances, and the meeting devolved into a shouting match. Families furious with the Prime Minister's statements that bringing back their loved ones is simply not possible at this moment. Israeli officials believe that after another month of combat operation, Hamas will be damaged and desperate enough for another ceasefire for hostage deals, but Hamas has already released a list of impossible demands, including the release of every single terrorist held in Israeli prisons. There are currently still 138 hostages held by Hamas since October 7th. We're saying that we're in a situation where we're in a state of emergency, where the people and the people.iqu les intra accession. Joining us in studio is I-24 News, senior diplomatic correspondent Owen Alterman, and still with us is Dr. David Chimone, former intelligence official. Gentlemen, Owen, I want to start with you. We just heard those recordings from that meeting yesterday between Netanyahu and the families of those hostages still held captive. These families are obviously tormented, Owen, and many of them feel forgotten by the government and having to plead to meet with Netanyahu and his government. What came out of that meeting, though? A lot of frustration, a lot of frustration at a press conference that was hastily convened last night by Netanyahu, Defense Ministry of Galant and the senior minister, Benny Gantz, I think is a response to the fact that they knew this might come out from the meeting. And what they said at the press conference in a much more elegant way than they said in the meeting, unfortunately, is that at this point, the two goals, Sarah, the goal of winning the war proper and the goal of bringing back the hostages are not reinforcing each other at this moment. In the short term and the immediate term, they're actually undermining each other. And to weave toward the goal of freeing the hostages would mean accepting the kinds of terms that you were laying out, which obviously are unacceptable to the decision makers and to the wider Israeli public. And therefore, the right move is to prioritize the goal of winning the war. And we're seeing that before our very eyes. It's a very tough message to give to the families. And everyone understands why these families need to be advocating for their loved ones. And by the way, of course, not just the families, but maybe for the first time, freed hostages themselves, looking the members of the war cabinet in the eye and telling them what they experienced and what their colleagues are experiencing inside the Gaza Strip. We all understand why the freed hostages and the families need to be advocates. Again, in the Jewish tradition, there's the saying in the ethics of our fathers, the saying of our fathers, that if I'm not for myself, who will be for me? So we all understand why they need to be advocating. But I think also understand why it's the job, the responsibility of the war cabinet to mediate between that advocacy and the bigger picture of what the country's national interests are. And that's the case that they presented, again, the more elegant way during that press conference last night is real time. Dr. Shimoni, I want to get your take on that. We spoke about it a little before. It's not an experiment. We don't have a control group. We don't know what would have happened if, in the beginning of the war, we would negotiate the release of all Palestinian prisoners, 6,000 of them in our prisons. And as for all of our hostages back, we didn't try it. We don't know if the Hamas would have agreed to that. So we have only something that we're doing. We're testing it. We're trying. And as I said before, our official policy now is to try to inflict as much damage on Hamas as possible, to exert pressure on them, and to bring them to a point that they will negotiate a release of more hostages. We don't know what the truth is. We don't know, I mean, what's the true answer? What's the best policy to adopt? For the time being, our government is insistent that by applying military pressure, that would be the safer way to bring back as many as our hostages possible. I hope they're right. I hope so too. And meanwhile, those hostages are being caught in the middle of that crossfire. We are hearing, of course, those calls to return those hostages home from everybody, including an Israeli singer who's released a powerful music video calling for the release of those hostages held by Hamas in Gaza with one very clear message. Bring them home now. Take a look. We have no fear. Bring them home. It's just inconceivable. Such a heavy tall house as they bleed. We have no fear. Bring them home. Joining me now in studio is Gal De Paz. You may recognize her warm and powerful voice from the famous band Lucille Crue. Gal, thank you very much for joining me today. Thank you for inviting me. Gal, your song Bring Them Home now calls for the immediate release of those hostages. But it also focuses on the violence Hamas terrorists carried out against women on October 7. And the song you say, it's unperceivable. It's unbelievable what's happening here. The world won't see, but we can feel it. What was the message behind those lyrics? I wrote a song about a month after the war, after I was experiencing very harsh hate comments from people around the world and seeing how the information is so far from reality, the way they perceive what's happening. They can't see what is happening here. And I was so frustrated about it that as an artist, sometimes that's the way you deal with it. You're like, maybe if I write a song about it, maybe that would bring the message even further. Maybe people understand that horrible things have happened here, and the world is not only not seeing it, but I don't know even how to say it. Only 60 days later are we hearing UNICEF, the UN come out and mention some of it. As a female artist, as you said, do you feel like the music industry abroad has spoken out publicly enough against the crimes that happened? Not at all. I'm personally very disappointed by most of my favorite artists. Even the silence is like complying. You know what I'm saying? So I don't think so at all. You also say in the song, we don't care how we choose to right this wrong, but if you'd be in our place, would you do it any different? Is that aimed at those abroad who have criticized Israel for its war with Hamas and Gaza? Yeah, because you know for a fact, that if those people would have experienced what we have experienced, if they were missing their children, their siblings, their friends, their family, if they have been through what we have been through, they would act exactly the same. So that's what's insane for me, that they justify it, no matter what the reason is, it's not justified. Absolutely, and Israel is really experiencing a collective trauma. And as you said, music has the power to bring people together and heal in ways that sometimes words fail. You performed at the Hoster Square a long ago. How was that for you? Very emotional. You know, seeing those people around you with those signs actually had to close my eyes for the whole thing because every time I opened it, the image was so, like, it was too emotional when you're singing about something that's happening now and you have all those people who are suffering around you and you're like, you're speaking for them. It was very emotional, but it was like a privilege, also for me, that I could do it. And I think that whatever the UN posted about the women, it's not enough, you know? It's not enough in the video that we did with the orange tapes on our mouth, trying to show how we're being silenced, you know? And how any violence against women, whether it's sexual or whatever, is not justified no matter what. And the silence is just appalling. I think Albert Einstein said the world won't be destroyed by the people who are doing bad things or something like that, but the ones who are silent about it, you know? So that's the big problem. That's not our ring more true than today, Gal De Paz. Beautiful song, very powerful message. Thank you very much for joining us. Thank you. In recent weeks, US universities have become hotbeds of genocidal rhetoric with pro-Palestinian students gathering in the thousands, chanting, gas the Jews, globalize the intifada, and there's only one solution, a direct reference to Hitler's final solution, often physical attacks on Jewish students. Jewish students have reported harassment at schools were at the center of the US House, pardon, hearing last night that grilled the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania. I-24 News correspondent Owen Alterman with the details. The fewer over anti-Semitism on campus has made it all the way here to the witness table on Capitol Hill with three university presidents Tuesday facing a grilling at a hearing of the Education Committee of the US House of Representatives. So the answer is yes, that calling for the genocide of Jews violates Harvard code of conduct, correct? Again, it depends on the context. It does not depend on the context. The answer is yes, and this is why you should resign. These are unacceptable answers across the board. And so it went, with scenes like these as the backdrop, months of angry campus protests on the backdrop of the war in Gaza, with tensions building between pro-Palestinian students who fear being silenced, and particularly Jewish students who feel bullied, with Jewish students saying slogans like Intifada Global Revolution are anti-Semitic, and some pro-Palestinian groups seeing them as protected speech. That is hateful speech that has been and should be condemned, whether it rises to the level of incitement to violence under the policies that Penn and the City of Philadelphia follow, which are guided by the United States Constitution, I think is a much more difficult question. The hearing on Capitol Hill adds to the headaches of campus presidents who are facing competing pressures from pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian students, faculty, alumni, and donors. Unable to please everyone, and maybe to please anyone. Still with me here in studio is I-24 News, senior diplomatic correspondent Owen Alterman. Owen, you have a different opinion on this. Yeah, an opinion that I think a lot of people are not going to like, but Sarah, at the end of the day, those university presidents are largely right. I mean, listen, obviously physical violence of any kind is completely out of bounds, and they said that themselves, and there are certain expressions, right? And you talked about them in your lead, about gassing the Jews and so forth, which I think might be considered over the line, but even there, look, there are a lot of phrases being used from the river to the sea and globalize the Intifada and even others, which have ambiguity in them. And it's an ambiguity that frightens Jewish students, that is, I think fair to say, as we heard from the president of Penn, is hateful speech, but at the end of the day, ambiguity in a climate like the United States, particularly universities, where we have to preserve freedom of expression. And in my opinion, even at private universities, should be preserved to the outer bounds of the First Amendment, ambiguity has to be resolved in favor of allowing the speech. And I know it's hard. I know it's hard for those Jewish students, and I can understand how painful it is, and how painful it is to all of us, including those of us who are alumni of these schools, to see what's happening on the campuses. But the address is not those presidents. The address is not those presidents. We can't look to them for salvation. And in fact, Sarah, I think there's a sense in which Claw Dean Gay, for example, is being scapegoated. For the failures of Jewish organizations, for the failures of the American Jewish community, for the failures of the pro-Israel movement going back decades, who have allowed Middle Eastern studies departments in a sense to evolve in a certain direction, right? While funding Jewish studies and Israel studies, while having robust pro-Israel activism on campus, have in a sense been asleep at the wheel, in terms of watching what's going on in Middle Eastern studies departments over the course of time, and broader trends in American society, not being forceful enough in seeing anti-Semitism training part of the DEI, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion movement. Not being forceful enough, being complacent about the issue of anti-Semitism for decades, allowing Jews to be typecast as rich privileged whites, rather than giving a more full and nuanced understanding of the historical Jewish story. The answer is not to go after university presidents and put them on the stand. The answer, as always, with hateful speech, is more speech, speech that counters the hatred, a broad coalition against it. It's unfair to forge institutions to take positions. I think at this point, we should all agree to agree to the University of Chicago principles that universities should not be taking positions on political issues, no matter how straightforward it seems. And I think in retrospect, even taking positions on George Floyd in 2020 for that reason, for that reason was a mistake, but certainly students and individual faculty members on all of these campuses should be approached to sign petitions and to protest against hateful speech that is widely seen by Jews as anti-Semitic. And building those broad coalitions is hard work, but it's essential work, and we should be seeing, I hope, protests on these campuses that dwarf what we've seen, the pro-Palestinian protests, particularly the more hateful ones, and have a broad coalition against anti-Semitism, not to scapegoat the university presidents or look to them for salvation, but to the difficult work ourselves in building the coalitions that are needed to counter hate, to counter anti-Semitism, and to counter overseas. And to the point I want to bring into the conversation, Egan Marcus, he's the director of Republicans Overseas Israel. He joins me from Modine. Thank you very much for joining me today. Thanks for having me. I wanted to see time, unfortunately. Absolutely, I want to get your take on this anti-Semitic speech that we're hearing in American universities, not just any American universities. We're hearing Ivy League schools. These are the future leaders of America and the world. Yeah, first of all, I watched the Congress yesterday and the hearings, and of course, it was outrageous. And I disagree with your previous, your other guest. First of all, because one of the things I have to look at is the kind of foreign funding that is going into these universities. And the amount of funding that foreign and unfriendly governments have sent into these universities is staggering. So the question becomes, yeah, I'm all for free speech. I'm Republican. I love our constitution. But there is a line, and there's a line actually that the courts have set in terms of what is allowed and what is not allowed. You can't walk into a theater and yell fire. You actually cannot call for violence and incite violence. Those are standards set by our Supreme Court. And if the freedom of speech is not absolute, there are limitations. And so when you have these people on college campuses, college campuses that are funded by foreign governments, we need to hold them to the standards that we are self have established as a standards of what is and is not allowed. That's number one. Number two, when you look at Harvard, in 2017, they actually suspended, they suspended a soccer team, the male soccer team for an entire season because of a, quite frankly, inappropriate texts and inappropriate, I don't get into details regarding the women's soccer team and what they did. But the university said, that's an appropriate behavior. It's against our values. You're all suspended for an entire year. In 2019, Harvard threw out an applicant who was admitted to the university because on social media, she had posted very negative and controversial and racist comments about minorities. Well, what we're saying is, hold by the standards that you yourself have been holding yourselves to. Your values, you suspended, or actually, I'm sorry, you disallowed and admitted students into the university because of hate. When you have these foreign funded organizations on your campus who are calling for the extermination of the Jewish people, guess what? That is not protected speech. That is not something that we can allow. So we are simply saying, Harvard, you've been there, you've done that, you've done things in 2017 and 2019. Why won't you do it now? Oh, and I see you nodding there in agreement. I actually agree with a lot of what we just heard. Look, this issue of foreign funding, I maybe talked around it so much, but Sarah, that's exactly what I was talking about about the pro-Israel movement in the United States being asleep at the switch, focusing maybe rightly on certain aspects of the campus experience, but basically seeding the entire ground of Middle Eastern studies. By the way, in contrast to what we've seen in Washington itself, where in the think tank world, the pro-Israel movement was more active, right? Was more active in that space, in establishing a fingerprint for Middle Eastern think tanks that don't only deal with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict proper, but deal with the entire region. And it should have been an imperative to do that on college campuses. The warning signs were out there decades ago, and instead that vacuum was filmed as we just heard by foreign governments. But that's not Claudine Gay's fault, and you can't scapegoat her for that. That is a failing of the American Jewish community and the pro-Israel movement, and at this late hour, it's imperative upon them to try to correct it. As for freedom of speech, I agree with them. The standard should be the First Amendment. The standard should be what courts should enforce as a speech that can be criminalized, that can be outlawed. And if that's the standard, then most of the speech going on at these protests, including the horrific hateful statements that Verjan supporting genocide of Jews would be protected speech. But I wanna ask you both here for a second, because Owen, you say this is on Jewish organizations, but really here, is this not more on universities to understand a conflict properly and not oversimplify it? We've heard over and over again at these protests, these Israelis, they're white colonialists. These are Ivy League students. If they think that Israelis are white period, two colonialists, then they've clearly misunderstood the whole conflict. And at the end of the day, these are not, this is the school curriculum. So shouldn't the school be at fault here? You take it. Absolutely. Of course the school's at fault. One of the fundamental problems that we're having, aside from, and I agree that the Jewish community obviously needs to step forward, but then that'll just be turned into some kind of anti-Semitic campaign of the Jews controlling the schools and the Jews controlling the media and everything else. So I'm not sure how much success we're gonna see there, but the answer is number one, it is a matter of education, but we are reaching a level here of where videos of named, raped, mutilated people doesn't move these people, okay? So this is not about education. This is about hate, it's an irrational hate. And so when you can't have a rational conversation, present evidence and talk about what occurred without them saying, well, it was just a, it was made up, the Jews are making this up, they're trying to manipulate the world media and everything else that they're saying and calling for our gassing and our extermination. When you can't have that rational conversation, you have to look at not allowing these people the venue to spew hate because there's nothing that we really can do to change their opinions. This is anti-Semitism and there's nothing that we're gonna say that's gonna change their mind. We've done that historically, it's never worked. And so right now, the way that we had to think about it is not giving these people a venue, cutting the funding, just because, if the universities wanna hold by this, they have a right to do that, but then why are we giving hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars to Harvard every year? Why is the federal government and taxpayers funding this garbage? We shouldn't be and we must stop that. But I wish in a perfect world that this is simply a matter of education. Let's put them in a classroom and explain to them what happened. These people aren't listening because they don't wanna listen because hatred is fueled by hatred, not by lack of education. And that I think is the biggest challenge here. And one last point that I wanna make, when I was going through university back in the late 90s, I had a lot of friends at the University of Pennsylvania. And every Friday night, they would get 800, 800 people at Shabbat meals and Minyan and in synagogue. If you go there today, the amount of Jews that are actually at the University of Pennsylvania is tiny in comparison. Now, when you're a Jew under fire with an administration and a campus that is literally a flame with these haters. And what you wanna do is unite with your community and be there and have the infrastructure around you to enable you to get through that. But when you look around, wait a minute, there aren't a lot of Jews left here. Why is that? And you guys, this is not just an issue in the United States. It's also an issue in Europe and Brussels where Jewish students at the ULB, the Free University of Brussels are experiencing a surge of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel incidents. High 24 News met with leaders of the Belgian Jewish Students' Union who describe a tense environment and a feeling of neglect from authorities. Take a look. Ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen. On Belgium University campuses, Jewish students live in hiding. They no longer feel safe. Here at ULB, the Université Libre de Bruxelles, anti-Semitic incidents have been increasing since October 7th. Actually, it's horrible. We feel really alone, isolated. We feel like we're shouting into the void. It's really, right now, it's a disaster what's happening on campus. Attacks on Jewish students and verbal aggression are a common phenomenon. In pro-Palestinian demonstrations, taking Israeli civilians hostage is legitimized. The October 7th massacre isolated Jewish students. No organization condemned the acts of Hamas. And what's worse, the UEJB, the Belgium Jewish Students' Union, has been ostracized from student structures. Hamas propaganda is unprecedented. The terrorist organization that publishes crimes on TikTok and yet receives support from all over Europe. We've also noticed it with organizations we used to work with. Suddenly, nothing. There's no more talk of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, no more talk of the UEJB, and there you have it, the abandonment, the isolation of Jewish students, and it started from there. Confronted with this hostility, Jewish students no longer fit in. They're forced to hide their identity. It doesn't necessarily show on your face that you're Jewish. If you don't wear a kippah, if you don't wear a magendavid, nobody's gonna know that you're Jewish, and so you're not gonna be directly attacked on campus like someone else, like other people. Other religions that have much more distinctive signs. So the acts we do record are those occurring when we identify ourselves as Jews on campus. Oh, and your take on that? Yeah, I mean, just going back to the discussion before, look, and do things that you said and that Yigal said, the university is not there to explain anything. The university is not a speaker, it should be a forum, that's the way it should be. There should be a multitude of voices, and I think it's up to Jewish students, pro-Israel students to make their voice heard as loudly as they can, not only in the classroom, but certainly very much in the campus square. All right, we're going out for a quick break. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back with more updates on the Garland operation in Gaza. You're watching I-24 News, we'll be right back. Made For Me, a unique concept in Israel. Custom made men's fashion to your measurements. Made For Me, designer of all your events. Schedule your appointment at www.madeforme.co.il. Made For Me, official dresser of I-24 News. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome back, and thanks for staying with us here on I-24 News. Welcome back, and thanks for staying with us here on I-24 News. If you're just joining us, the IDF has intercepted a missile over the Red Sea a short while ago. It believed was fired from Yemen. Meanwhile, today marks the 61st day of the war here in Israel. Fierce battles continue between the IDF and Hamas operatives in the Gaza Strip as the Air Force has struck over 250 Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets in the past 24 hours alone. Troops pardoned have discovered one of the largest weapons stockpiles in the Gaza Strip, including hundreds of missiles and RPG launchers near a clinic and a school in the northern part of the enclave. The IDF announcing the death of another two soldiers this morning, 23-year-old first-class sergeant in the reserves, Yonatan Malka, who was killed fighting in Gaza, and 52-year-old Lieutenant Colonel in the reserves, Yohai Gour Erschberg, who was killed in a car crash, bringing the death toll of IDF soldiers since the beginning of the war to 82. Meanwhile, Israeli media reporting today that security officials believe it may take up to a month to put enough military pressure on Hamas to open a new window for a truce to release more of the 138 hostages still held captive in Gaza. The Unsourced Report says that military operations will need to continue in both the north and the south of the enclave for this to happen. Let's cross over to the northern border where I-24 news correspondent Zach Anders is standing by. Zach, what's happening there? Well, as you come to us, we hear the sound of outgoing artillery. The IDF says that they have come under fire at two positions, one on Mount Hermon and the other at a base in Arab Al-Aramshi. These two are the sites of previous strikes in the last several days. Hezbollah is claiming through Lebanese media channels that they have endured through the defensive mechanisms here and that they have direct hits. Not confirmed, of course, by the IDF, and this is a claim that they most certainly make just about every time they claim responsibility for these strikes here. We do hear, again, the outgoing artillery and the IDF says that they are both using the Air Force to strike targets as well as tanks on the ground are striking targets, which indicates to us that this exchange is taking place at a fairly close range or at least within a line of sight of one another and this could be characteristic of another ATGM launch, the anti-tank guided missiles that need to be fired by personnel on the ground rather than the heavy rocket launches which can take place several miles into southern Lebanon and that requires the artillery as well as the Air Force to strike these positions. And Zach, separately, the IDF issued a rare apology today to the Lebanese Army after one of its soldiers was killed in an IDF strike on a Hezbollah target. One more can you tell us about that? That apology does come in a way to at least differentiate to the people in Lebanon what it is, who it is that they're fighting. The IDF is doing what it can to demonstrate that they are returning fire and attempting to strike Hezbollah that when Hezbollah has been firing upon them that that is where their forces then turn their attention to that these are retaliatory strikes attempting to target the points of origin from where these launches took place but if you step back in the last several years the IDF has made accusations that the LAF, the Lebanon Armed Forces and Hezbollah have been working together and are operating in bases with one another. This, of course, is not included in the latest statement. The IDF does not make accusations that they were working together or in the same place. Rather, this does appear to be an attempt to de-escalate the fact that one of the LAF soldiers was killed and several other were wounded in what they say was an attempt to strike Hezbollah. Back-enders, thank you very much for that update from Israel's Northern border with Lebanon. Joining me now in studio is Shiri Fein Grossman. She's a member of Form Dvorah, Women and Form Policy, National Security and the former head of regional affairs for Israel's National Security Council. Thank you very much for joining me in the studio today. As we just heard, we're seeing, Israel is seeing an attack in the north. We're obviously the operation in Gaza. And now we're also seeing the Houthis fire more rockets towards Elat, rocket-alerts firing just in the past hour. Are we getting pulled here into a wider escalation, a more wider regional escalation? So as, look, we very much feared the wider escalation and a spillover effect in the beginning, I think, of the operation. I think as time goes by, we understand more and more that there is no real desire by Hezbollah or Iran to fully engage in a full-out war. Actually, it's against its interest, I believe. And it's just not that it's not interested in destroying and eliminating Israel, but the timing is off. It seems, and this is not about, you know, I don't have the intelligence report to claim this, but look, we know that Hamas was, Iran armed Hamas throughout the time. We've seen it on the ground with weapons they have. So we know there were a plan. But as for the timing, it looks like Hamas might have gone rogue. And Iran is very strategic. It chooses the right time to act. And right now, what's going on with Hezbollah and Lebanon is there is kind of a rift between the population and most of the Lebanese and Hezbollah. It's an ongoing rift for the last year or so, ever since the explosion we saw in Beirut a few years ago, which many hold Hezbollah accountable. So from a strategic point of view, it would be wrong timing to choose this until everything is in place. And they can all come together and do a joint attack, which would have put Israel in a very, very tough position. Shirees, stay with me. I do want to cross over to I-24 News correspondent Pierre Klochender. He's in the southern Israeli city of Zehran. Pierre, what's the latest where you are right now? Well, I can show you what's behind us in Beit Hanun, which is in the northern sector of the Gaza Strip. There's been heavy bombing for the past couple of hours. And Palestinian media affiliated to Hamas in Gaza are also reporting heavy clashes in that town of Beit Hanun, north of Gaza City. Further south, there's still fierce clashes between armed terrorists and the IDF ground forces in the Jebalia refugee camp. And further southeast, in the suburb of Shejaia, also fierce clashes. And at the same time, further south, in the central sector of the Gaza Strip, Hanunes and the central refugee camps, such as Direl Balach, Nusserat, heavy targeting of Prisium Hamas terror targets, heavy strikes there. The city is encircled according to the Israeli chief of staff. The city is also subjected to ground forces, raids in the heart of the city of Hanunes, which means that the ground operation is within and without Hanunes. Also strikes in the communities on the eastern south skirts of Hanunes, according to Palestinian media. And this injunction by the Israeli army to the Palestinian non-involved population to move west of Hanunes to the safe zone that has been dedicated to the displaced Palestinians. But at the same time, Gaza media are relaying the messages of the terror factions that for them the evacuation of Hanunes and the vicinity stand amount to collaboration with the Zionist enemy in order to discourage the Palestinian population from fleeing west from leaving the battleground. Now, there are videos. It seems that that doesn't work because we see videos of people in car by foot that are moving west of Hanunes to the El-Muassi area. And Pierre, the IDF discovered one of the largest weapons stockpiles today in the Gaza Strip. What more can you tell us about that? Right, the IDF is even surprised of this discovery because they said that it's probably the most important arsenal of weaponry that was held by Hamas with hundreds of rockets, RPG rockets, ground-to-ground missiles that can hit Tel Aviv and the central areas of Israel with drones, attack drones, as well as hand grenades, rifles, etc., etc. So a very important discovery that happened here in the northern sector of the Gaza Strip and although the offensive on the northern sector of the Gaza Strip started in October 27 after a three-week bombing campaign, they still find weapon caches, depots, manufacturing sites, tunnel shafts, and they're still fighting just behind us in Bethanoon, just eight kilometers away from where we are. Pierre Crochandler, thank you very much for that update from the southern Israeli town of Delot. Stay safe. Still with me here in studio is Shiri Fein Grossman. Shiri, I want to discuss to you this next phase of the war that we're very much in. Describe to us the difficulties for the IDF troops there on the ground. Well, it's a very dense area. Gaza is the most dense populated area in the world and now you cut that by half of the territory, so it's almost impossible not to engage and hit civilians along the way. We've seen the IDF try to move people either to Rafa or to the west area of Gaza in order to continue the fighting. Khan Yunis is one of the strongest command and control centers and compound the Hamas has. Originally, Mohamed Def and both Yiches and Noir are both from Khan Yunis, so they are fierce fighting. But I hope the army has learned a lot of lessons from its fighting in the north. And so we've seen its advances is pretty fast. I don't think they expected it to move this fast, but of course it's once you take control of the territory, it's not done yet. You have to clear it from terrorists and they come from 360 degrees from above with drones and below with tunnels and from the houses there by. And that's why we've seen RPGs shot at tanks that we've seen a lot of casualties from that. It's very hard to catch us so fierce fighting and we'll continue to see that as we move along. I think the most important point is does the army have an ability to substantially hit or dismantle the underground tunnels, the metro of Hamas? By doing that the battle will be totally different. Right now we're seeing them hiding most of them. There are 30,000 terrorist Hamas operatives underground. So the idea of doing what it can to try to get them above ground. And one of those tactics is filling those tunnels with seawater. So that was reported on the Wall Street Journal. It's an operational challenge, I would say. You have to have very high pressure in order to be effective and even then you don't know exactly how it would affect. Will it hurt the drinking water in the aquifer and then it would be a humanitarian catastrophe? Will it... Will the sand absorb that water? Exactly. Let's not forget, there's also 138 hostages. Hostages, exactly. So whole houses and apartment buildings can collapse from it because we really don't know the effects. I assume that the IDF is experimenting with what it has already caught in the north to try to foresee the effect. You would probably do it on a smaller scale at first. We saw the Egyptians do that in Rafa a few years ago. It was very, very, very effective. We'll have to wait and see. But that's really the key point. And when and does the IDF already has the technology that it needs to really win this battle much quicker than we have time for. Absolutely. And also that deadline that the United States has put out there for January. As we mentioned, 138 hostages still remain in Hamas captivity. That's men, women, children and elderly. IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagarri says the army has not forgotten about them and that their return remains the top objective. Take a listen. Every day, every hour, every minute is critical. The lives of our hostages are at risk. Those who claim to value women's rights. Do the lives of Israeli women mean less? Those who claim to value human life. Do the lives of 138 hostages. Lives that are at risk right now. Are their lives worth less? International organizations know their mandate. And they also know the facts. Hamas is preventing them from doing their job. The Israel Defense Forces will do everything in its power to rescue our hostages and bring them home. We call others to do the same. We just heard Daniel Hagarri speaking there about the hostages saying that still remains the main objective here. Does the IDF have a specific plan on how they plan to bring those hostages is black? The plan is to apply as much military pressure as possible in order for Hamas to say, hey, I'm going to release them before I will be eliminated completely. That's basically the plan. It's top priority. Everybody thinks that diplomacy is not getting us anywhere near where we want to achieve. And we've heard research about in other cases where there are hostages where they leave the women for last, not to release them so they won't tell what they went through in captivity. We heard the State Department spokesperson speak about that. So the Israeli is insisting on getting the women first in order to save even before any injuries, elderly men and others. So the Israeli government is insisting on this and right now the military operation is the main way to do that. Absolutely. And those women who we know many of them have suffered rape and horrible atrocities. Absolutely. And with me here, economist Alex Koeman, because we're also experiencing here in Israel, the war has had obviously an overall impact on the Israeli economy. Tell me a little bit about how expensive it's been for the State of Israel. Well, money is not a problem so much in the sense that you can always, as a government, you can always take loans from outside and pay them overtime. The problem is, for instance, small businesses that were devastated we see this in tourism. Tourism was destroyed during the COVID, raised its head over the water, and now suddenly again it was hit in a terrible way. We see this with agriculture. Both Palestinian and Thai workers are gone. So I, for instance, volunteered, but I'm something like one over 10 of a Thai worker. So they don't even plant because they do not know who will be there to pick the products. Industry is devastated because many workers became reserve employees. If we're talking about the high-tech industry, many of the people who were in intelligence were working in the high-tech industry and are in reserve. So many, many areas of the economy are paralyzed or badly hurt. And this means that when you think about the budget, for instance, the budget is going to be in a severe deficit because significantly less money is going to come in. At the same time, we need a lot of money to help people who were hurt in these atrocities to recover, to compensate industries. And I think one of the big problems is particularly small businesses because in Israel, small businesses are taken lightly. If you think about the falafel stand, the small restaurant, the hairdresser, while I think the correct view is to say that these tiny businesses, they are what drives the economy forward. Because if I have a tiny business and I employ two people and they take a taxi to work and the babysitter, this is what accelerates the economy. And you do not see the government concerned about that. Absolutely. And you mentioned those 300,000 reservists who left behind their jobs, their businesses to go and protect the country. They're paid a very minimal stipend when you compare it to... First of all, how much is that stipend a day? I believe it's something like 100 shekels, something like that? Well, bitwachlumi gives them a certain compensation according to the salary. Which they only receive at the end. Exactly. Yes, exactly. And so obviously, that's a very minimal daily stipend in comparison to the sacrifice that they're making. Has the government promised them any sort of compensation? Well, first, what the government has done, it gave them something like a thousand shekels or something that they can spend on sweets in advance so that they do not need to... But I'm talking about businesses that were completely devastated, for instance, farmers who were taken to the reserve and their whole herd was stolen. So I'm talking about people are going to come back to nothing. Right. So for some reason, and I do not... Because this is not the first time we've encountered these situations. So you'd expect the government to say, ah, we have the normal procedure and we'll expedite this. This is not a situation. Right. And it's really heartbreaking. What about the displaced families and the hostage families? Are they receiving any sort of stipend? They've been displaced. We're talking about 200,000 Israelis displaced because of the war both from the southern border and the northern border. They're living in hotels, in people's homes. They have no way of making a living. So it's very partial in the sense that if you're part of the government solution, if they put you in a hotel, then they know about you and you're registered. But for instance, friends of mine who just rented an apartment, they're actually from the north, so they had to evacuate their home in the north. And the government basically does not know about them, which is ridiculous because they're not hiding or anything. It's just laziness in trying to register these things and be proactive because I think many of the government officials are in a mode that says, okay, how do I make sure that you're not cheating, that you're not... The state of mind should be the opposite. How do I help you get what you deserve? How do I help you survive in this situation? Absolutely. And in an economy already, that doesn't really encourage small businesses to... Unfortunately. And these are the entrepreneurs. These are the people who have the guts. Yeah, absolutely. Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to visit both Saudi Arabia and the UAE today. He's actually already arrived in Dubai, which is hosting the UN's COP28 climate talks. Not to remind our viewers, Putin faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court over the war in Ukraine. And our Bastien Bourry is in Dubai. Bastien, what are the stakes of this visit? Well, there are a few objectives. First, to discuss the structural disagreement on the attitude to adopt towards Hamas, because on the one hand, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have atrocious relations with Hamas for at least 15, 20 years. The Saudi authorities have been accusing Hamas of being too close to Iran, too close to the Muslim Brotherhood. And they regularly arrest Palestinian leaders and activists on their soil. And on the other hand, Russia has always had friendly relations with Hamas. The Russians have never designated them as a terrorist organization. They will support everything that can be a blow to U.S. interests. That's why Russia did not condemn Hamas on October 7, although around 15 or 16 Russians died in those attacks. Second objective is also linked in a way to the war in Gaza. Putin wants to make sure that the oil prices policy continues to serve Russian interests. Russia, as you know, is highly dependent on revenues from its hydrocarbon exports, which dropped, by the way, by almost 50% in 2023 compared to last year. So Putin wants, is here to make sure that Saudi Arabia and the UAE agree to keep oil prices high, notably by taking advantage, if you will, of the market uncertainty caused by the war in Gaza. And Bestia, how are Gulf-led ceasefire negotiations going at this hour? Well, Saudi Arabia and the UAE suffer from the fact that they have appalling relations with Hamas. So Qatar, being the only country in the world to have good ties with all the actors in this Gaza war, will certainly do more. There will be more hostage releases in the weeks and the months to come. It is in Qatar's interest, because a war is simply not. Not a single country in the Gulf wants this conflict to last, because these countries' development cannot happen if the Near East and the Middle East remain eternally associated with the notion or the concept of conflict. Bestia, COP28 has become international territory for diplomatic talks on the Israel Hamas war. Just last week we saw the Mirror of Qatar shake hands with Israeli President Herzog. What sideline talks can we expect out of this visit from Putin? Well, there will be no impact whatsoever on the COP28, because Vladimir Putin is not going to take the risk of showing at this COP28. He doesn't want to disrupt the negotiations on climate change because he has good relations with Saudi Arabia, with the UAE, with Qatar, with Bahrain. And he doesn't want to disrupt this COP28, which is hosted by countries with which he wants to keep good relations with. But San Buoy, thank you very much for that update from Dubai. Still with me here in studio is Shiri Feingosman. Shiri, I want to ask you, does this visit of Putin to the Gulf just a day after Raisi, who was expected to, pardon, just a day before Raisi is expected in Moscow. Does that confirm fears of this sort of larger alliance forming between Russia, Iran, China, Iran's Middle Eastern proxies, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis? This is scary stuff. No, I mean, that access is already in play. It's already, you know, it exists for a few years now. And I think we're definitely a part of what's going on in the battle between, you know, this bipolar. The Middle East countries are trying to convince us it's a multi-polar world, but the world seems to, right now, be trying to divide itself. And the Middle East is trying to be, you know, hold on to the stick on every end. And it's really a battle between the US and China, Russia, Iran over the oil and what's going on in the Middle East. So that visit in Saudi Arabia and the UAE and also, you know, Qatar is supposedly selling Germany gas to save it from the gas that he doesn't want to get from Russia anymore and not to be dependent on Russia. So there's a much bigger play here, and we've seen Saudi Arabia and the US. I mean, the whole normalization process with Israel is actually not about Israel. It's about the Saudi-Israel, sorry, Saudi-US relationship, and Saudis getting closer to China, actually. And so Russia wants to still be, you know, on top of everything, making sure the Middle East stays in the middle. And I think that's also what they want to do. So it's a... Shay Finkelsman, Alex Coleman. Thank you very much for your insight today. We do have to go out for a quick break, but don't go anywhere. We'll be right back with more updates on the ground operation in Gaza. Right after the break, you're watching I-24 News. Don't go anywhere. There have been countless memorable moments broadcasting with I-24 News in the past six years. But for me, the one that stands out the most was the first time that I had ever personally heard a rocket siren sounding in Tel Aviv. And at that moment, we were live on air in studio. I will never forget the moment our senior producer said to me in my ear, the sirens are sounding in Tel Aviv. The control room is going to the shelter. With me in studio at the time were Michael Herzog, a former Brigadier General. Today, the Israeli ambassador to the United States. And Arsene Ostrowski, an international human rights lawyer. And their responses were completely different Michael Herzog was calm and composed. And on the other hand, Arsene Ostrowski was trying to phone his family and check in to make sure that his loved ones were okay. The camera that normally faces us was hoisted from above. There was an overhead shot of the three of us in the studio. You could see colleagues going to the shelter if you looked at the glass behind the studio and obviously we looked at each other in the studio and obviously we lost contact with our team on the ground, our reporters in Ashkelon and all the witnesses that we were speaking to during that time. When rockets are coming towards a residential area they don't distinguish between race, religion, political views, cultural views. They just intend to harm civilians. And that moment being in studio hearing those interceptions overhead was the most real coverage I've ever been involved in. Welcome back and thanks for staying with us here on I-24 News. After over 60 days, UNICEF has finally condemned the sexual violence against women and children on October 7th but failed to make any mention of their perpetrators Hamas. UNICEF Chief Catherine Russell wrote on X the accounts of sexual violence on October 7th and Israel are horrific. Adding allegations must be fully investigated. Yesterday Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden lambasted human rights groups and women's organizations including the United Nations for failing to speak out about the rapes and sexual violence committed by Hamas against Israeli women and children despite evidence and numerous firsthand accounts of both eyewitnesses and first responders who have described horrific scenes of women found semi-naked, bound, mutilated, shot in the head, or torched. Well Israeli police have published a video of eyewitness accounts of the Nova Festival attack awarding to our viewers these testimonies can be triggering. I thought at the beginning that it would be a shame that we didn't have the experience of this at the moment. There are a lot of police officers there we also have a police officer in the neighborhood of Eberman it's a lot of police officers. There are police officers in the neighborhood of Eberman also in the neighborhood of Eberman people who came to us to help us, it was we saw either police officers or women only in women, just women from a small village of Eberman to another village in the neighborhood of Eberman women in the neighborhood of Eberman they were in the area of the street. So it's a shame that there are people and I am actually the one who is trying to do it and it actually changes it's like we remember this incident and then we pass it on to someone else was it in your life in the neighborhood they were trying to do? yes, it was in my life did it come about in normal? it came about in normal my hands are full my hands are full from the skin I don't know what it was because he was lying in the office he was lying in the office he was like he wasn't angry he was angry angry He's just sitting there, looking at the wall, they're laughing at it, and if he's going like this, he'll see that he's dead. Still with me here in studio is Shiri Fine Grossman. She's the former head of regional affairs for the Israel National Security Council. Shiri, we just heard that horrific testimony. Tell me, how difficult has it been for the Israeli police to collect evidence of these women, some of them who have been kidnapped back to Gaza? Yeah, so first of all, most of the victims were murdered. So that's the number one difficulty. They have collected from pathologists, from scenes at the ground that they witnessed, Zaka people, the first responders. And of the few live evidence we have, like the testimony you just have seen and heard, horrific things. And we've heard support by President Biden. And just now I've seen a report that Hamas has been distributing flyers, saying that President Biden has adopted the Israeli narrative, which is false. And of course, you have to understand that by Islam, this is a ripping of women and mutilated women, is Kharam, is forbidding. And so it's very bothering his image, especially with the moderate Arab world, you know, people. And so what does it do? It just denies it. Although there are pictures, there are videos, there are testimonies. So this is a very important point that we have to stress. It's very difficult, just the scale, sure scale of what has happened, is very difficult for the Israeli police. They don't have the manpower trained for this horrific pogrom. And in crimes that the mass scale went on. And I have to say, yesterday I was here and I talked about this and I see in comments some Palestinian or Hamas supporters telling that there were rape or sexual violence by the IDF as well. The distinct difference is that this seems to be a systematic, methodical, preplanned, attacked, telling the Hamas operative to do what they did. So it's very different. It's a crime against humanity. It's forbidden. And it's an international war crime, of course. So this is very, very severe. And the testimonies we've seen, and along with the fact that there are women hostages coming out and telling the stories. And we are bound to keep their privacy. And it's part of recuperating that we keep their privacy and we respect their privacy. And we don't talk about what they've been through unless they have. But what we're facing is a difficulty because we want to tell the world what they went through. But if we do that, we damage their mental health and their rehabilitation process. So we are, again, in this catch-22, but as evidence clearly shows of testimonies, this was a systematic attack. Crimes against humanity, very barbaric, barbaric, forbidding by Islam, very much like Daesh and ISIS. And Hamas is embarrassed by this. And so it's denying it. Absolutely. And the security apparatus says, saying that they largely believe that Hamas is still holding many of those women and children who were raped, hostages still in Gaza out of fear, that once they do come out, they will tell about those atrocities that they experienced at the hands of Hamas. Tell me, how difficult will it be for Israel to bring back those hostages? It's difficult. I wish I had, you know, there's no button I can push or there's no solution to this. This is an unprecedented situation from the entire world. I invite all our viewers to any creative ideas right now. It seems like the operation at hand is the thing. If we had any intelligence, the whereabouts or an ability to know, we would probably do everything we can to release them. And hopefully, as they move to Khan Yunus, there will be an ability to try to find them without any negotiations. But it seems like Hamas won't give up until it feels like its demise is near and will do everything he needs to survive. And then he will release the hostages, hopefully for free, but probably not for free. Probably would still demand many, many Palestinian Hamas prisoners to be released. And as we mentioned, the Israeli police is carrying out investigation into those rapes and that sexual violence. But can we expect a wider investigation from an international body, such as the UN, such as the ICC, to carry out an investigation, a proper investigation into what happened and to really prosecute these Hamas terrorists? So there are two elements here that we have to take into account. First of all, there is a whole issue of the policy of Israeli authorities cooperating with international bodies. In the ICC, there's a principle called complementarity principle, where if we have the court of law to prosecute it ourselves, that's the preferred kind of role here. But there are civil organizations that are cooperating and can cooperate with international bodies. And there are plenty of NGOs that can present testimonies and evidence. There is an issue of lack of trust for Israel and both a sovereign kind of issue that we usually don't cooperate with international UN bodies like that, especially when they approve time again and again how they treat, there's a double standard when addressing Israel and also there's a kind of this statehood position of the Palestinian territories where we object to the Palestinian statehood and some organizations, international groups like the ICC do not or it's still under some kind of quarry, I'd say. So it's a complicated issue. We don't usually depend on international bodies to do this, but we do, I mean, MNesty and NGOs, where they're usually very, very outspoken, exactly. So there's no reason for them to remain silent. There's no reason but for the double standards and the politics that are concerned over this. It's very disappointing. Indeed, Shiri Fein, a Grossman member of the Dvole Forum and former head of regional affairs for Israel's National Security Council. Thank you very much for joining me today. Thank you. Israeli hostages released from captivity in Gaza have been recounting harrowing experiences of abuse and psychological terror. There are still 138 hostages, young and old, being held in dire conditions. More in the next report. Is everything okay? My mother was kept in a one and a half room apartment. She was in one small closed room and the couple lived in the other room. There was a small window in the room, which they closed, and she couldn't see if it was day or night. As soon as she realized she was alone, she simply told us, listen, I decided, I read, I studied all the stories from the Holocaust, I will keep a diary. I read that Gilad Shalit used to do some sports and that's what kept her going. She realized very quickly that they prayed five times a day and she would simply count prayers. She would record it in a journal and the prayers and sound of the muazzin, all these things gave her a complex of understanding what day it was, what night, what hour, and she revolved around that. When I come to them, they see the distress. You see the distress. Yola, Yael, all the time by their mother's side, she never leaves Adi. Until two days ago, she whispered, she didn't speak at all, not out loud. Now there a little more, but you know, he's right away from the moment they were kidnapped, what happened. He saw everything, he doesn't speak at all, not asking, not about the father, not about the grandfather. As far as we know, all six of them were in one place. Tal was not with them, no. We saw some of the children who came with orthopedic injuries. There is a girl who needed surgery. Injuries to the legs, injuries to the hands, scars that were on children, a burn on a child's leg, which he said was a burn from a motorcycle. We saw very low hygiene conditions at levels I don't remember encountering on children. Stories you hear from other areas, lice, rashes, skin infections. Some of them lost weight in a very, very significant way. What does that mean? Ten kilos in children, a lot. They arrived and after the first meeting with the family, what is the first thing they want to give children who meet them? We let them eat, and at some point we found ourselves taking food from the children's rooms so that they wouldn't eat too much when they arrived. That's why I pulled yogurts and rolls out of the children's hands so that it wouldn't be too much. We will have to continue to support them and give them everything they need, both now and in the future, but they are amazing. We've received an inspiring group of children. We know that she did not know, for example, what happened to her father. She was very pleasantly surprised to see her father in that famous video that she actually ran quickly at the speed of light into her mother's embrace and suddenly she saw her father and she was sure that her father had been kidnapped. She did not know that her father was saved and got out of it. The first thing she asked after looking at her father and suddenly didn't see Lior, her brother, she asked about her brother and the parents had to tell her this is actually the first thing they told her after she returned, about her brother, that her brother was murdered. From what I know, and this is almost the first thing I heard from her when I saw her, this whole time she was without shoes for almost two months, this girl was without shoes. She says that she was humiliated very much, that she had a very difficult experience, that she was treated badly and this is now engraved in her heart. Everything she does, she remembers the experience from there. Was she there alone? She's very scared for the abductees who remained behind. They're still in danger. She was literally brainwashed there, really, and she doesn't live in our world right now, she's still there. It's impossible to cope there, it's impossible. We have to get the abductees out of there. If we don't get them out now, they won't get out alive. How did she keep her sanity? What did she do all day? She says that most of the time she just looked at the wall. That's what she had to do, and only occupied herself with thoughts of my daughters are fine, my daughters are fine, my daughters are fine, my daughters are fine. She kept trying to convince herself. I don't think that we don't see, but you can say that something has changed. Her enthusiasm for every little thing, from the most basic things she had before, I don't know, maybe a towel for the shower or some chocolate or something to drink, you suddenly see the light in her eyes that she accepts such things. Or used to, she was always, we'd waste our dinner, throw away food as usual. Today we're forbidden to throw away food. There's no such thing, save everything, put it in the fridge, find a place. We were privileged to take care of 29 returnees, now the 30th returnee. Almost all of them without exception. The first thing they wanted to do when they met their families was to talk. We heard a lot from them about the psychological games that were played with them, as part of the psychological abuse they went through. So it was a great opportunity for them to get to know each other better, to get to know each other better, to get to know each other better, to get to know each other better, to get to know each other better, to get to know each other better, so that they'll have the same psychological abuse they went through. So it's also related to information that they share and don't share. As part of the psychology of the captive, of creating dependence on the captives, but by my feeling from what I hear from the people, is that it has been refined at very high levels. What do you mean, elaborate psychological terror? The feeling is that it was sophisticated, orchestrated not some kind of relationship that develops by chance between a certain captor and a certain abductee But to create the psychological infrastructure to play on their minds in a way that would achieve their goal Was there also evidence of abuse? Yes But I won't go into details as I said it's I can say it's about the whole range of abuse that a person can dream I want to hear some of the returnees who just want to talk and I found myself sitting by their bedsides for hours and listening to their stories It's no different from testimonies of people who survived the ghettos or concentration camps. It feels it sounds the same I think we can't sleep at night because of those who have returned and the stories that they have to tell And I say again, we'll take time for it to come out And we still have a lot of people there who are being held in bad conditions And as the days go by they're still there Eyes on Israel and Gaza the world has seemingly forgotten about the ongoing war in Ukraine at the onsets of the Russian invasion the Israeli government and Numerous NGOs dispatch humanitarian delegations to the war-torn country one of them is live a hat That's one heart in Hebrew. That's a Jerusalem-based aid organization that sends some 30 delegations to Ukraine consisting of doctors Medicine humanitarian aid supplies as well as professionals to counsel women and children suffering from trauma Well now Ukrainian volunteers from Levichad's sister association that was set up in Ukraine one-heart Ukraine are returning the favor They have arrived here in Israel to help Israeli civilians who have been affected by the war and joining me here in studio shield DNL She's the CEO of one heart and Oostik Kubik who's the chief of staff of one of hearts sister association in Ukraine Thank you both for joining me today. Thank you for having us Well, we'll see tell me a little bit about the work that you've been doing here in Israel well since I came in Israel it was a week ago and mainly besides the meeting and trying to understand of Organizing the work that we can actually do here while being volunteers We also went to the farms to help farmers around the Israel and see how the farmers are doing as well as also We were trying to create this bridge in between Ukrainian part of that of Levichad and then Israeli part of Levichad to bring more people from Ukraine having experience and Sharing experience in terms of how to deal with things that we deal dealt with Back in Ukraine for more than a year and a half now and you surely both understand each other. Maybe a little bit better now It's pretty incredible. You left a war zone to come to another war zone that must not have been an easy decision to make Honestly, I think there's two reasons to it. First one is one heart is a organization from people and for people and this is something to keep in mind and it's important that it's a Will of heart right there's something good that you can do even small step-by-step and Make this world a bit better place and then the second one. I remember at the beginning of the full-scale invasion when Israeli part of Levichad came to Ukraine and actually organized delegations helping refugees with doctors and PTSD treatment for other People affected by war and I remember this strong feeling of Not being alone, you know, and I think it's important to understand that During war people are not alone. You're not isolated and there are people who support and there are people who Can and want to help absolutely and Surely now the Ukrainian experience of war in the Israeli experience you guys have a lot more in common now Yes, absolutely. I think now after the war started. We told rustic and our other friends and partners in Ukraine that we We understand them right now much more and it is More than a heartwarming to see how many friends we have around the world even now when when the media and Everything around we think the Israeli nation Feels a little bit lonely right now Yeah in front of the big world and it's more than heartwarming to see that we have friends and we have support and we are not alone Especially after everything we've been through together And that and that we have done for the Ukrainian people without knowing what will come next And it will stick before when we were on break. You said you Mentioned that Israel is on its 60th day of the war, but Ukraine is on its 600 Day of the war and the world has forgotten about it Well, honestly We still keep on fighting the war is still present in Ukraine. You can still feel it Eventually life tries to come back to normal and people try to live their own life. It's just important to I think understand what you're fighting for and then war doesn't disappear in Your own day-to-day life if you look at the media Yes, you know we can both all of us can agree that Ukraine is gradually moving away in the way from the media resources but in terms of spirit and will of people that are against this war and fighting this war and Solving the problems caused by this war. It is still present. Tell me how is the war here in Israel been perceived in Ukraine? Honestly Since Ukrainians have their own war, you know, we have our own enemy to deal with since the I think it was October 8th our government and the president had a speech supporting Israel and After that there was even negotiations of our president Volodymyr Zelensky coming to Israel as well But that was canceled and moved and moved again Unfortunately didn't really happen in terms of country-to-country relationships. But in general, I think there's a great support of Israel side from Ukrainians because Ukrainians are fighting evil and I think Israel is on the same side as well You mentioned earlier that some of the work that your organization does is treating people with Trauma and post trauma including women and children. Tell me a little bit about how you guys deal with that How do you treat those those people that are suffering? I? Think she would be probably have more expertise in that I think we came to Ukraine and With a with a goal to teach them how to deal with with war with the civil facts of a war as the only almost the only Western country that is In a constant military threat, and I think right now we see that we have a lot. We have a lot to learn from Ukraine So to see them coming here. It gives us a lot of inspiration And we basically in the past year and a half we've sent delegations of experts from Israel In the field in many fields, but especially in the field of psychology and PTSD treating to teach and guide and supervise the psychologists and the Psychiatrics and the doctors and all the all the professionals relevant professionals in Ukraine To to help them and to teach them how to deal with the effects of of this kind of full-scale war It's it's really beautiful to see Volunteers that went and helped another country and now that country returning the favor. Thank you both for joining me in Studio today really amazing work. Thank you very much. Thank you and that wraps up this hour's broadcast Make sure to tune in at the top of the hour for more updates on the ongoing idea of ground operation in Gaza If you missed anything from this broadcast, you can always catch up on our website or on social media Facebook Twitter and Instagram I'm Sarah Martinez. Thanks for watching