 special edition on I-24 News and Battle 11th all coming July from our Tel Aviv Studios. Thanks for joining me this hour. It is day 90 of war between Israel and Hamas. The fighting is intensified in the southern and central parts of the Gaza Strip this Thursday. Early in the day, the IDF thwarted several anti-tank Hamas terror cells. In Hanyunas, reservists of the Kiryati Brigade directed an Israeli Air Force aircraft to strike three Hamas terrorists attempting to plant a bomb near the forces. An Israeli fighter jet also hit a Hamas weapons depot in the area. All this following air raid sirens that sounded in the coastal city of Ashkelon and surrounding communities near the northern Gaza Strip this morning after about 15 hours of silence in the area. Well from all let's go live to the south of Israel where our correspondent Pierre Kloschenblad is standing by. Pierre the IDF saying that troops in south Gaza have killed many terrorists significantly damaging Hamas' control mainly in Hanyunas. Right but it's going to take some time. It's going to take some time because first of all there are three brigades of Hamas just in Hanyunas facing the 98th Division of Combined Combat Forces including the Kiryati 56, 55 Brigade of paratroopers and other units. It's taking time because the progress is incremental. It's incremental because there's a fear that hostages are being held somewhere above or underneath Hanyunas as well as with the political and military leadership of Hamas. The area has not been completely cleared of non-involved Palestinians in the fighting so in order to preserve the lives of the soldiers to save the life of the hostages and to not harm the Palestinian non-involved population the progress is very slow incremental but very determined at the same time. What I understand from people who are in the 55th Brigade that you mentioned earlier neutralizing anti-tank squads as well as tunnel shafts the company for instance will take over three buildings in Hanyunas the buildings are low there are no high rises in Hanyunas they're taking three buildings and then set up their headquarters there and from there they're moving to different places where they can neutralize infrastructure such as tunnel shafts and also neutralizing terror squads because although the Hamas operational capabilities is I wouldn't say intact but bruised and not completely annihilated Hamas in Hanyunas according to those testimonies that I've gathered are working on a on a modus operandi of guerrilla warfare and not organized military warfare and this complicates the task of the IDF soldiers but only know there are seven brigades inside and outside of Hanyunas now further north in the central sector of the Gaza Strip heavy fighting in El Burej there are three brigades of Hamas three battalions of Hamas there in the three refugee camps of the central sector El Burej Nusserat Almurazi and the 36th division of combined armed forces is tackling them at the moment especially in Hanyunas we've seen a lot of a strike in support a lot of artillery strikes gunships are firing hellfire air to ground missiles in short there is intense fighting in the central and southern sector of the Gaza Strip well in the northern sector of the Gaza Strip apart from two neighborhoods there is in in Gaza city Al Tufar and Al Daraj there are low intensity warfare incidents with isolated cells that have completely lost the operational chain of command and are working on their own popping out of tunnels that have not yet been identified and shooting a Rafale of gunfire or an RPG rocket propelled grenade at the forces but usually the northern sector of the Gaza Strip is much quieter than what's going on inside Gaza city in those two neighborhoods and in the central and southern sector up here Koga the defense ministry body is responsible for Palestinian civilian affairs once again accused the United Nations of not doing enough to process humanitarian aid into the Strip my understanding was that you were near the the areas or the Kiran Shalom crossing earlier in the day what is the situation on the ground at the moment right right now there's two crossing open the Rafale Terminal which which allows the convenience of humanitarian aid from Egyptian territory to the Gaza Strip because Rafale is a city split between Egypt and the Gaza Strip there's another open crossing from two weeks ago the Kiran Shalom crossing between Israel straight into the Gaza Strip right now the number of trucks is much lower than the 200 trucks that were supposed to be conveyed to the civilian population there are right now in the past days 170 trucks per day crossing that's not enough especially that we've seen video of Hamas gunman looting or even hijacking whole humanitarian trucks for the lifeline of Hamas and the longer the lifeline of Hamas the longer the fighting will go on now there is under US pressure a consideration to reopen the areas border crossing in the northern sector of the Gaza Strip that will allow humanitarian aid to cross to the northern sector where there are still 100 to 200 000 Palestinians who are not involved in the fighting and who remained in the battle zone and the advantage of the areas crossing would be that there's no Hamas there basically and there would be no looting or no hijacking of humanitarian trucks correspond in pure clutch and they're giving us an update there from the south of the country thank you very much for that now in the north of the country the idea of says one of its fighter jets struck a Hezbollah observation position and a military site in southern Lebanon the latest retaliation coming is cross border attacks have continued and intensified over the last few days especially as they also come just 48 hours after the killing of Salah al-Arouri in Beirut on Tuesday all eyes have been on the northern front awaiting some kind of revenge but exactly what that would be is still unclear our senior defense correspondent Jonathan Regev has more in this report to begin an all out war or not to begin an all out war for nearly three months Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has been hesitating to make a decision will the high profile killing of senior Hamas official Salah al-Arouri right on Nasrallah's home turf in Beirut changed that at least for now there's no real answer if the enemy thinks it can impose war in Lebanon our fighting will be without sealing borders rules and controls whoever thinks about war with us will regret it as war with us is very very expensive the threats coming from Nasrallah in his speech on Wednesday are not much different than those already made earlier in this war and as far as he's concerned they are already bearing fruit I will read you the words of the Israeli minister of defense gallant he says the problem that they have is not just the people of the Gaza border communities that are displaced but also those who fled their homes in the north and other speeches expected on Friday whether be a different rhetoric there no one really knows but the Israelis are not waiting at least four Hezbollah members including a senior commander were killed on Wednesday night in what is one of the deadliest Israeli strikes on Hezbollah operatives so far and Israel is ready for whatever consequences it may bring we are on a high level of readiness in the north I visit here often and I think our readiness is at its peak Israel is upping its actions Hezbollah is upping its rhetoric and in the hope of preventing a major explosion the American envoy Amos Hochstein is coming to the region Thursday for visits to Jerusalem and Beirut just over a year ago he brokered the deal between Israel and Lebanon with the approval of Hezbollah regarding the maritime border he hopes to do the same this time but with the cannons firing it will be far more challenging well with me here in studio to discuss this further as reserve lieutenant colonel Doron Abital a former IDF commander of special forces thank you for being with me this afternoon the US has dispatched as we heard in the report their senior envoy Amos Hochstein to the region in order to try and cool seething tensions but the US at the same time also does not think that Hezbollah is truly seeking an all-out war against Israel I think the situation is tensed I mean this assassination a successful assassination very clean really really we can remember the the the greatness of our our armies and our the most other way they operated they had one opportunity and they struck al-aruri of course this heightened attention we saw the Nasrallah speech the Americans are rushing to the area they want to de-escalate they don't want original conflict and the Lebanese I think most of the Lebanese citizens don't want to see Lebanon engage in a full-blown war with Israel but we'll see Nasrallah was a little bit I wouldn't say moderate but he wasn't promising an all-out war he was all day was putting the emphasis on the prices we pay in terms of the inhabitants having to leave the north or and the price that the fact that he engages us in fire but the situation in tensed and is very tensed still of course what should Israelis make of Nasrallah speeches this is now if I'm not mistaken the second time the year spoken since the start of the war following the october 7th massacre and a lot of the time as you mentioned he stops short of really putting it out there that Hezbollah is going to engage in an all-out front against Israel I think our strategy is very simple we keep them in keep him engaged we keep them paying a a dire toll for every of every act we hit we I think we hit maybe 140 or more of their soldiers in the southern in southern Lebanon and we are trying to push them militarily in terms of their engagement and in the end maybe diplomatic to a different line away from our border this would be the end game in our attempt I think he has a tent I think even Iran might be hesitant to go into a full-blown war because the price for Lebanon would be dire and Lebanon is really in a fragile economical situation nobody wants to see Lebanon collapses and I think also for Nasrallah he's part of Lebanon in the end he's a proxy of Iran but he lives in his part of the Lebanese society in the political structure he's not rushing into a war but we have to be careful it can happen every moment in the end as we also heard in the report just one day after the killing of El Rory and I believe they are live visuals of his funeral taking place at the moment in Lebanon Israel struck a post in southern Lebanon taking out four other commanders experts say on the one hand that Israel needs to deal Hezbollah a fatal blow on the other hand should they not be keeping them at bay until things sort of wrap up in Gaza can we in a in a lack of a better way to put it have our cake and eat a tour are we likely to see a fatal blow means a war an all-out war in in Lebanon and we don't want to eat the Dakhia where we was targeting El Rory but to really pay the Dakhia which is the stronghold of the leadership of Nasrallah it should be a big decision to it today we're trying now only in the southern zone what we used to call the buzzer the security zone of Israel in the north I think we do right the strategy was engaging Gaza we have Khan Yunus it's a big challenge I mean this is where our hostages are perhaps this is where the leadership of Hamas is keep engaging Hezbollah see what's the outcome in Gaza and then see what's next speaking of Gaza I do want to ask you because there has been a fortune of backlash in the international community of the government's far-right ministers it's my bank very ambitial smart rich with regards to their claims that the displaced Palestinians in the Gaza Strip should be relocated elsewhere just in the last few moments that we've been sitting in studio the United Nations has come out as well saying that they are very perturbed by the comments made considering how dire the humanitarian situation is is this simply adding to the bad PR line that is being told at the moment no question one of the leaders were talking about an atomic bomb one of the ministers a few months ago we should be very careful about our rhetoric Israel is known for having their internal politics sometimes not thinking what how does it read outside so they come because they have those political campaigns inside they are really trying to work out to their positioning in the political Israeli landscape and forget that somebody listened to those things translate the term to English and it causes a lot of damage including the threat of going to hug in the context of the South Africans they're filing in hugs so it's really if baby can do something good right now escape his ministers they keep them quiet I'm not sure we can but I think it would be that's what Israel needs for sure a wise move uh reserve lieutenant colonels ron avital thank you so very much for that as we were discussing moving from the proxies to the actual source itself Iran the country is now lowered the death toll from Wednesday's terror attack to 84 down from over 100 Islamic Republic continues to lick its wounds after that attack in which two bombs were detonated at a commemoration for prominent Iranian general Qasem Soleimani slain by the U.S. in a 2020 drone strike at the same time Tehran is trying to deflect attention toward Israel and as a senior diplomatic correspondent Owen ultimate explains a move that is not all that surprising given that it may fall in line with Iran's regional strategy Iran is treating its wounded burying its dead and after Wednesday's terror attack in Karaman plotting next steps and in pointing fingers the resistance axis is taking the path of least resistance I warn the Zionist regime don't doubt it you will pay the price for this crime these crimes that you have committed you will deeply regret Wednesday's attack does not fit Israel's modus operandi and indeed foreign governments have signaled Israel did not do the deed instead ISIS is seen as the likeliest perpetrator for Iran an inconvenient one because an act like this highlights the potential for instability within Iran and discontent among Iran's own people we don't have any more detail in terms of how it happened or who would might be responsible we have no indication at this time at all that Israel was involved in any way whatsoever Iran wants to focus here on Gaza whereas usual Iran thinks it can expand its soft power by being seen in the Muslim world as the player that's really taking on the Zionists and here in the Red Sea where Iran has signaled it is flexing its muscles showing it has leverage over the global economy even if the global economy is the one that actually has leverage over Iran in all these fronts Iran does continue to take the fight to others territory in the words of a New York Times report exercising strategic patience which is why Wednesday's terror attack is such an embarrassment because there Iran's soft strategic underbelly is exposed the risk of opposition on Iran's own soil and also joining us here in studio is our senior diplomatic correspondent Owen Altman Owen it's a massive question who was possibly behind this attack but despite who was actually responsible for it does it give rise to the fears of a wider war occurring in the Middle East no I think what it raises the fear of batches the fear in Iran of unrest inside Iran right I mean we obviously seen the various protest movements over the course of the last 20 years and the potential the tantalizing potential from Israel's perspective and not only of a regime change in Iran of course from Israel's strategic perspective that's that's winning the lottery right if you actually were to have a popular color rebellion in Iran that would topple the regime but it is really winning the lottery I think all of us assess the chances of that actually happening as low but beyond that there are ethnic tensions in Iran right the majority a bare majority is ethnic Persian but there are other ethnic groups there Arabs in the southwest and Kurds in the northwest the Baluchis in the southeast of course one of the groups that potentially could have been behind this and many many others so this is Azeris of course also in the northwest a very very important part of the of the ethnic fabric so there are other points of potential friction inside the country that said of course the Islamic Republic has largely been able to keep its house in order and we haven't seen instability along those lines but an incident such as this one right with the high death toll even after being lowered high death toll of again a heinous terror attack against against civilians it raises the the possibility of instability inside Iran which of course goes completely against 180 degrees against Iran's own strategy which is not to have instability inside Iran but is it to have instability outside Iran for Iran to destabilize countries and use those countries as forward bases to take on Israel by extension the United States and of course on the whole this is a strategy that has worked fairly well for Iran and even at this hour right with one Iranian proxy being hopefully dismantled in the Gaza Strip and I think largely having been dismantled another Iranian proxy in my opinion embarrassing itself and making a fool out of itself in Yemen there's still of course is his Bala with its arsenal famously intact and the militias in Syria and Iraq which are poking the United States and more than that I mean American sources that have been injured one has been critically wounded so again the Iranians are continuing to pursue their strategy to great success and of course with the nuclear program still very much there and Richmond being ramped up well it does also beg the question because critics are saying that Iran got a taste of their own medicine given as you just brought up how many proxy forces it has operating in the Middle East whoever was behind this was the intent to send a message to Iran to cut it out or was it simply to agitate Iran into possibly pushing a lot of their proxy forces and their directness on other countries almost to the edge great question and we don't really know because of course we don't really know who did this I mean look this was a politically motivated attack that's what makes it a terrorist one of the things that makes it a terrorist attack this was at a memorial procession for Qasem Soleimani so it wasn't by coincidence that an attack like this happens there it was sent meant to send a political message it was obviously by done by somebody who doesn't much like the Islamic Republic right maybe someone from inside Iran maybe someone from outside Iran but whether this is a push back against Iran's regional strategy and if it were done by ISIS for example that's a fair description right because ISIS was a target in a sense of Iran's regional strategy but it may have been done by a group inside Iran right don't forget those Baluchis in the southeast and their organization is one of the potential culprits here that's not a pushback against Iran's regional strategy that's a pushback against the Islamic Republic by a group that wants more authority more power in its part of the country and in this case tried to further that goal through terrorism senior diplomatic correspondent Owen Altman thank you for bringing that to the table now we end this broadcast on a personal story Iris Qaim tragically lost her son who was first kidnapped to Gaza on October 7th by Hamas terrorists and was then shot and killed by IDF troops who mistook him and two others for Hamas terrorists amid close-quarter combat while this painstakingly hard event became a symbol of courage not just for her son Yotam but also for Iris herself who's response to those troops inspired many i24 news correspondent Uri Shapiro had the chance to speak with Iris and hear about a special tribute to Yotam by members of his rock band this message from Iris Haim to the IDF soldiers a few weeks ago moved the entire country Iris the mother of Yotam one of three hostages who were killed by IDF fire decided to release a message of unity and support rather than blame the IDF for the horrific accident that led to the tragic death of her son we didn't have anger about the army from the first minute my husband got a telephone from gallant and this Friday evening after we got the message the first thing is he told him we are not angry the first thing after we we like understood i thought about the soldiers what about them they're also children of somebody and they're good people they are in the Israeli army so how can i be angry about them and i was afraid that they will hurt themselves that something will happen to them 28 year old Yotam was kidnapped from Kibbutz Kfar Aza he survived for weeks in captivity he and two other hostages Alon Shemri's and Samar Al Talalka managed to escape from captivity and tried to message the IDF that they are Israeli hostages using SOS signs in the place where they were hiding the IDF chief took responsibility for the incident this incident raised questions about the open fire policy of the IDF today another question is coming up in public discussion whether Israel should continue the military operation or pause it in order to achieve the release of other hostages iris doesn't have a clear answer i'm not a military person i'm not a secure person i don't understand that nothing i i really believe that this question is not for me it's not for the the families it's just to the government Yotam was a talented musician who played the drums in a heavy metal band named Persefor members of the band say they are planning a special album in tribute to Yotam Yotam was playing the drums since he was nine years old and they found a lot of comfort in listening to metal music heavy metal rock music and i think for him it was like a very good place to express his feelings and the the people in the band were good friends that saw his real personality because he was a really sensitive person and not everybody saw his complicity and Yossi and Lido in the band and Danny they saw him as as he is and they have more than music they have a lot of like deep conversations and i know that now they took all the conversations that they have with Yotam and they start to build an album from that for Yotam in recent weeks Iris has become a public speaker and is sharing her story with the media and at public events though this tragic event may be hard to share this strong message to bring back the rest of the hostages continues before we go to the end of this broadcast a short recap of the latest at the moment from the south of the country the fighting has intensified in both the southern and the central parts of the Gaza Strip this Thursday you are currently looking at live images of the Gaza Strip you can see smoke there bellowing in the background early in the day the idea thwarted several anti-tank Hamas terror cells in corn units where most of the fighting has been concentrated as of recently a reservists of the Kiryati bugay directed in Israeli Air Force aircraft to strike three Hamas terrorists attempting to plant a bomb near the forces a Israeli fighter jet also hit a Hamas weapons depot that was situated in the area now all this follows air raid sirens that sounded in the coastal city of Ashkelon and surrounding communities near the border of the strip after 15 hours of silence in the area we'll have more updates coming up just at the top of the hour stay with us Israel is in a state of war families completely done down in their beds we have no idea where is she as our soldiers are fighting on the front line but the general perception is something that certainly needs to to be fought as well dozens of correspondence throughout the world brings the truth from Israel to hundreds of millions of people in scores of countries bringing Israel's story to the world i24 news channels now on hot this special edition on i24 news i'm bat 11 thought coming July from our televised studios thanks for joining me this hour it is day 90 of war between Israel and Hamas the fighting is intensified in the southern and central parts of the Gaza Strip this Thursday early in the day the IDF thought it several anti-tank Hamas terror cells in Hanyuna's reservoirs of the Kiryati brigade directed an Israeli Air Force aircraft to strike three Hamas terrorists attempting to plant a bomb near the forces an Israeli fighter jet also hit a Hamas weapons depot in the area all this following air raid sirens that sounded in the coastal city of Ashkelon and surrounding communities near the northern Gaza Strip this morning after about 15 hours of silence in the area well from all let's go live to the south of Israel where our correspondent Pierre Clash and ladies Danny by Pierre the IDF saying that troops in south Gaza have killed many terrorists significantly damaging Hamas's control mainly in Hanyunas right but it's going to take some time it's going to take some time because first of all there are three brigades of Hamas just in Hanyunas facing the 98th division of combined combat forces including the Kiryati 56 55 brigade of paratroopers and other units it's taking time because the progress is incremental it's incremental because there's a fear that hostages are being held somewhere above or underneath Hanyunas as well as with the political and military leadership of Hamas the area has not been completely cleared of non-involved Palestinians in the fighting so in order to preserve the lives of the soldiers to save the life of the hostages and to not harm the Palestinian non-involved population the progress is very slow incremental but very determined at the same time what I understand from people who are in the 55th brigade that you mentioned earlier neutralizing anti-tank squads as well as tunnel shafts the company for instance will take over three buildings in Hanyunas the buildings are low there are no high rises in Hanyunas they're taking three buildings and then set up their headquarters there and from there they're moving to different places where they can neutralize infrastructure such as tunnel shafts and also neutralizing terror squads because although the Hamas operational capabilities is I wouldn't say intact but bruised and not completely annihilated Hamas in Hanyunas according to those testimonies that have gathered are working on a on a modus operandi of guerrilla warfare and not organized military warfare and this complicates the task of the IDF soldiers but only know there are seven brigades inside and outside of Hanyunas now further north in the central sector of the Gaza Strip heavy fighting in El Burej there three brigades of Hamas three battalions of Hamas there in the three refugee camps of the central sector El Burej Nusserat Al Mourazi and the 36th division of combined armed forces is tackling them at the moment especially in Hanyunas we've seen a lot of a striking support a lot of artillery strikes gunships are firing hellfire air to ground missiles in short there is intense fighting in the central and southern sector of the Gaza Strip while in the northern sector of the Gaza Strip apart from two neighborhoods there is in Gaza city Al Tufaq and Al Daraj there are low intensity warfare incidents with isolated cells that have completely lost the operational chain of command and are working on their own popping out of tunnels that have not yet been identified and shooting a Rafale of gunfire or an RPG rocket propelled grenade at the forces but usually the northern sector of the Gaza Strip is much quieter than what's going on inside Gaza city in those two neighborhoods and in the central and southern sector up here Kogaat the defense ministry body is responsible for Palestinian civilian affairs once again accused the United Nations of not doing enough to process humanitarian aid into the Strip my understanding was that you were near the the areas or the Kerrin Shalom crossing earlier in the day what is the situation on the ground at the moment right right now there's two crossing open the Rafale Terminal which which allows the convenience of humanitarian aid from Egyptian territory to the Gaza Strip because Rafale is a city split between Egypt and the Gaza Strip there's another open crossing from two weeks ago the Kerrin Shalom crossing between Israel straight into the Gaza Strip right now the number of trucks is much lower than the 200 trucks that were supposed to be conveyed to the civilian population there are right now in the past days 170 trucks per day crossing that's not enough especially that we've seen video of Hamas gunmen looting or even hijacking whole humanitarian trucks for the lifeline of Hamas and the longer the lifeline of Hamas the longer the fighting will go on now there is under US pressure a consideration to reopen the areas border crossing in the northern sector of the Gaza Strip that will allow humanitarian aid to cross to the northern sector where there are still 100 to 200 thousand Palestinians who are not involved in the fighting and who remained in the battle zone and the advantage of the areas crossing would be that there's no Hamas there basically and there would be no looting or no hijacking of humanitarian trucks Correspondent Pierre Clush and they're giving us an update there from the south of the country thank you very much for that now in the north of the country the idea of says one of its fighter jets struck a Hezbollah observation position and a military site in southern Lebanon the latest retaliation coming has crossed border attacks have continued and intensified over the last few days especially as they also come just 48 hours after the killing of Salah al-Arouri in Beirut on Tuesday all eyes have been on the northern front awaiting some kind of revenge but exactly what that would be is still unclear our senior defense correspondent Jonathan Regev has mourned in this report to begin an all-out war or not to begin an all-out war for nearly three months Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has been hesitating to make a decision will the high-profile killing of senior Hamas official Salah al-Arouri right on Nasrallah's home turf in Beirut change that at least for now there's no real answer if the enemy thinks it can impose war in Lebanon our fighting will be without sealing borders rules and controls whoever thinks about war with us will regret it as war with us is very very expensive the threats coming from Nasrallah in his speech on Wednesday are not much different than those already made earlier in this war and as far as he's concerned they are already bearing fruit I will read you the words of the Israeli Minister of Defense Galan he says the problem that they have is not just the people of the Gaza border communities that are displaced but also those who fled their homes in the north another speech is expected on Friday whether be a different rhetoric there no one really knows but the Israelis are not waiting at least four Hezbollah members including a senior commander were killed on Wednesday night in what is one of the deadliest Israeli strikes on Hezbollah operatives so far and Israel is ready for whatever consequences it may bring we are on a high level of readiness in the north I visit here often and I think our readiness is at its peak Israel is upping its actions Hezbollah is upping its rhetoric and in the hope of preventing a major explosion the American envoy Amos Ochstein is coming to the region Thursday for visits to Jerusalem and Beirut just over a year ago he brokered a deal between Israel and Lebanon with the approval of Hezbollah regarding the maritime border he hopes to do the same this time but with the cannons firing it will be far more challenging well with me here in studio to discuss this further his reserve lieutenant colonel Doron Abital a former IDF commander of special forces thank you for being with me this afternoon the US has dispatched as we heard in the report their senior envoy Amos Ochstein to the region in order to try and cool seething tensions but the US at the same time also does not think that Hezbollah is truly seeking an all-out war against Israel I think the situation is tensed I mean this assassination a successful assassination very clean really really we can remember the the the greatness of our our armies and our the most other way they operated they had one opportunity and they struck a la Ruri of course this heightened attention we saw the Nasrallah speech the Americans are rushing to the area they want to de-escalate they don't want to regional conflict and the Lebanese I think most of the Lebanese cities and don't want to see Lebanon engage in all full-blown war with Israel but we'll see Nasrallah was a little bit I wouldn't say moderate but he wasn't promising an all-out war he was all day was putting the emphasis on the prices we pay in terms of the inhabitants having to leave the north and the price that the fact that he engages us in fire but the situation in tensed and is very tensed still of course what should Israelis make of Nasrallah speeches this is now if I'm not mistaken the second time that he has spoken since the start of the war following the October 7th massacre and a lot of the time as you mentioned he stopped short of really putting it out there that Hezbollah is going to engage in an all-out front against Israel I think our strategy is very simple we keep them in keep him engaged we keep them paying a dire toll for every of every act we hit we I think we hit maybe 140 or more of their soldiers in the southern in southern Lebanon and we are trying to push them militarily in terms of the engagement and in the end maybe diplomatic to a different line away from our border this would be the end game in our attempt I think he has a tent I think even Iran might be hesitant to go into a full-blown war because the price for Lebanon would be dire and Lebanon is really in a fragile economical situation nobody wants to see Lebanon collapses and I think also for Nasrallah he's part of Lebanon in the end he's a proxy of Iran but he lives and he's part of the Lebanese society and the political structure is not rushing into a war but we have to be careful it can happen every moment in the end as we also heard in the report just one day after the killing of Al-Rouri and I believe they are live visuals of his funeral taking place at the moment in Lebanon Israel struck a post in southern Lebanon taking out four other commanders experts say on the one hand that Israel needs to deal Hezbollah a fatal blow on the other hand should they not be keeping them at bay until things sort of wrap up in Gaza can we in a lack of a better way to put it have our cake and eat a tour are we likely to see a fatal blow mean a fatal blow means a war an all-out war in Lebanon and we don't want to eat the Dakhia where we was targeting Al-Rouri but to really pay the Dakhia which is the stronghold of the leadership of Nasrallah it should be a big decision to eat there we're trying now only in the southern zone what we used to call the buzzer the security zone of Israel in the north I think we do right the strategy was in Gadrim Gaza we have Khan Yunus it's a big challenge I mean this is where our hostages are perhaps this is where the leadership of Hamas is keep engaging Hezbollah see what's the outcome in Gaza and then see what's next speaking of Gaza I do want to ask you because there has been a fortune of backlash in the international community of the government's far-right ministers it's in my bank very ambitial smart rich with regards to their claims that the displaced Palestinians in the Gaza Strip should be relocated elsewhere just in the last few moments that we've been sitting in studio the United Nations has come out as well saying that they are very perturbed by the comments made considering how dire the humanitarian situation is is this simply adding to the bad PR line that is being told at the moment no question one of the leaders were talking about an atomic bomb one of the ministers a few months ago we should be very careful about our rhetoric Israel is known for having their internal politics sometimes not thinking what how does it read outside so they come because they have those political campaigns inside they're really trying to work out their positioning in the political Israeli landscape and forget that somebody listened to those things translated them to English and it causes a lot of damage including the threat of going to hug in the context of the South Africans they're filing in hugs so it's really if baby can do something good right now escape his ministers keep them quiet i'm not sure we can but i think it would be that's what Israel needs for sure a wise move uh reserve lieutenant colonels ron avital thank you so very much for that as we were discussing moving from the proxies to the actual source itself iran the country is now lowered the death toll from wednesday's terror attack to 84 down from over 100 islamic republic continues to lick its wounds after that attack in which two bombs were detonated at a commemoration for prominent iranian general kassam solemani slain by the us in a 2020 drone strike at the same time terran is trying to deflect attention toward israel and as a senior diplomatic correspondent oan ultiman explains a move that is not all that surprising given that it may fall in line with iran's regional strategy iran is treating its wounded burying its dead and after wednesday's terror attack in carman plotting next steps and in pointing fingers the resistance axis is taking the path of least resistance i warn the zionist regime don't doubt it you will pay the price for this crime these crimes that you have committed you will deeply regret wednesday's attack does not fit israel's modus operandi and indeed foreign governments have signaled israel did not do the deed instead isis is seen as the likeliest perpetrator for iran an inconvenient one because an act like this highlights the potential for instability within iran and discontent among iran's own people we don't have any more detail in terms of how it happened or who would might be responsible we have no indication at this time at all that israel was involved in any way whatsoever iran wants to focus here on gaza whereas usual iran thinks it can expand its soft power by being seen in the muslim world as the player that's really taking on the zionist and here in the red sea where iran has signaled it is flexing its muscles showing it has leverage over the global economy even if the global economy is the one that actually has leverage over iran in all these fronts iran does continue to take the fight to others territory in the words of a new york times report exercising strategic patience which is why wednesday's terror attack is such an embarrassment because there iran's soft strategic underbelly is exposed the risk of opposition on iran's own soil and also joining us here in studio is our senior diplomatic correspondent oan altman oan it's a massive question who was possibly behind this attack but despite who was actually responsible for it does it give rise to the fears of a wider war occurring in the middle east no i think what raises the fear of bach is the fear in iran of unrest inside iran right i mean we obviously seen the various protest movements over the course of the last 20 years and the potential the tantalizing potential from israel's perspective and not only of a regime change in iran of course from israel's strategic perspective that's that's winning the lottery right if you actually were to have a popular color rebellion in iran that would topple the regime but it is really winning the lottery i think all of us assess the chances of that actually happening as low but beyond that there are ethnic tensions in iran right the majority a bare majority is ethnic persian but there are other ethnic groups there are arabs in the southwest and curds in the northwest the beluchis in the southeast of course one of the groups that potentially could have been behind this and many many others so this is an azeris of course also in the northwest a very very important part of the of the ethnic fabric so there are other points of potential friction inside the country that said of course the islamic republic has largely been able to keep its house in order and we haven't seen instability along those lines but in incidents such as this one right with the high death toll even after being lowered high death toll of again a heinous terror attack against against civilians it raises the the possibility of instability inside iran which of course goes completely against 180 degrees against iran's own strategy which is not to have instability inside iran but is to have instability outside iran for iran to destabilize countries and use those countries as forward bases to take on israel by extension the united states and of course on the whole this is a strategy that has worked fairly well for iran and even at this hour right with one iranian proxy being hopefully dismantled in the gaza strip but i think largely having been dismantled another iranian proxy in embarrassing itself and making a fool out of itself in yemen there's still of course is his balla with its arsenal famously intact and the militias in syria and iraq which are poking the united states and more than that i mean americans have been injured one has been critically wounded so again the iranians are continuing to pursue their strategy to great success and of course with the nuclear program still very much there and richman being ramped up well it does also beg the question because critics are saying that iran got a taste of their own medicine given as you just brought up how many proxy forces it has operating in the middle east whoever was behind this was the intent to send a message to iran to cut it out or was it simply to agitate iran into possibly pushing a lot of their proxy forces and their directness on other countries almost to the edge great question and we don't really know because of course we don't really know who did this i mean look this was a politically motivated attack that's what makes it a terrorist one of the things that makes it a terrorist attack this was at a memorial procession for qasem sulimani so it wasn't by coincidence that an attack like this happens there it was sent meant to send a political message it was obviously by done by somebody who doesn't much like the islamic republic right maybe someone from inside iran maybe someone from outside iran but whether this is a push back against iran's regional strategy and if it were done by isis for example that's a fair description right because isis was a target in a sense of iran's regional strategy but it may have been done by a group inside iran right don't forget those beluchis in the southeast and their organization is one of the potential culprits here that's not a push back against iran's regional strategy that's a push back against the islamic republic by a group that wants more authority more power in its part of the country and in this case tried to further that goal through terrorism senior diplomatic correspondent thank you for bringing that to the table now we end this broadcast on a personal story iris khayem tragically lost her son who was first kidnapped to gaza on october 7th by khamas terrorists and was then shot and killed by idf troops who mistook him and two others for khamas terrorists amid close quarter combat while this painstakingly hard event became a symbol of courage not just for her son yotam but also for iris herself whose response to those troops inspired many i24 news correspondent orisha pure had the chance to speak with iris and hear about a special tribute to yotam by members of his rock band i wanted to tell you that i love you very much and that i beg you here from rachok and i know that everything that happened is absolutely not in your name and in the name of one outside of khamas with a smile on the face of the earth i ask you to listen to yourself and think about all the time that you are doing the best thing in the world that can happen that can help us as israel and we are all grateful to you this message from iris hayeem to the idf soldiers a few weeks ago moved the entire country iris the mother of yotam one of three hostages who were killed by idf fire decided to release a message of unity and support rather than blame the idf for the horrific accident that led to the tragic death of her son we didn't have anger about the army from the first minute my husband got a telephone from gallant and friday evening after we got the message the first thing is he told him we are not angry the first thing after we we like understood i thought about the the soldiers what about them they are also children of somebody and they are good people they are in the israeli army so how can i be angry about them and i was afraid that they will hurt themselves that something will happen to them 28-year-old yotam was kidnapped from kibbutz kfar aza he survived for weeks in captivity he and two other hostages alon shemri's and samar al tal alka managed to escape from captivity and tried to message the idf that they are israeli hostages using sos signs in the place where they were hiding the idf chief took responsibility for the incident this incident raised questions about the open fire policy of the idf today another question is coming up in public discussion whether israel should continue the military operation or pause it in order to achieve the release of other hostages iris doesn't have a clear answer i'm not a military person i'm not a secure person i don't understand that nothing i i really believe that this question is not for me it's not for the the families it's just to the government yotam was a talented musician who played the drums in a heavy metal band named purse for members of the band say they are planning a special album in tribute to yotam yotam was playing the drums since he was nine years old and they found a lot of comfort in listening to metal music heavy metal rock music and i think for him it was like a very good place to express his feelings and the the people in the band were good friends that saw his real personality because he was a really sensitive person and not everybody saw his complicity and yosi and lido in the band and danie they saw him as as he is and they have more than music they have a lot of like deep conversations and i know that now they took all the conversations that they have with yotam and they start to build an album from death for yotam in recent weeks iris has become a public speaker and is sharing her story with the media and at public events though this tragic event may be hard to share this strong message to bring back the rest of the hostages continues before we go to the end of this broadcast short recap of the latest at the moment from the south of the country the fighting has intensified in both the southern and the central parts of the gaza strip this thursday you are currently looking at live images of the gaza strip you can see smoke there bellowing in the background early in the day the idea thwarted several anti-tank hamas terror cells in khan unis where most of the fighting has been concentrated as a recently reservists of the kiriyati bugay directed an israeli air force aircraft to strike three hamas terrorists attempting to plant a bomb near the forces a israeli fighter jet also hit a hamas weapons depot that was situated in the area now all this follows air raid sirens that sounded in the coastal city of ashkelon and surrounding communities near the border of the strip after 15 hours of silence in the area we'll have more updates coming up just at the top of the hour stay with us date of war families completely done down in their beds we have no idea where she has our soldiers are fighting on the front line but the general perception is something that certainly needs to to be fought as well to another special edition on i-24 news i'm batia levendol coming july from our televiv studios thanks for joining me at this hour it is day 90 of war between israel and hamas but eyes are shifting to the northern front as tensions heat up there the idea of says one of its fighter jets struck a chesbola observation position and a military site in southern lebanon recently the latest retaliation coming as cross-border attacks have continued and intensified over the last few days especially as they also come just 48 hours after the killing of salah al-aruri and beirut on tuesday therefore much of the focus of this war has been on the north awaiting some kind of revenge but exactly what that would be is still unclear well for the latest updates let's go to the north of israel where our correspondent robert swift is standing by rob what is the latest going on there we know tensions are high the u.s. special envoy amos a hoax dean is in the region trying to at least sither some of those tensions that's right it remains a sort of day as usual here business as usual there have been attacks in the morning anti-tank missiles were launched across the border with the adf responding with airstrikes of its own however this is not unusual these are the sorts of events that take place here every day so people are holding their breath waiting to see if there is going to be some sort of larger response or attack to the assassination two days ago of salah al-aruri now his funeral is taking place in beirut as we speak it may be finishing in the in the coming minutes or hour there is some speculation as to whether or not following that there may be some sort of escalation here on the border however at the minute that has not been seen we have seen the idea of patrolling this area heavily just about a minute ago we saw two israeli air force jets flying over us so there is plenty of israeli military presence on site here and they await to see what comes next right well what about unifil's presence in the area obviously taking a drive up from our studios in jaffa to the north most of the north is pretty desolate and empty of civilians at the moment given so many of them have been evacuated down to the center of the country is unifil still operating in the area have you seen them there the fact that the us is standing there on void to try and calm tensions where's the force that's meant to do that in the interim the unifil have been present throughout this this conflict and i have to say we haven't seen much of their presence on the ground but that's to be expected as they tend to be right on the border normally you have to go to the border itself to see them and since that's uh let's call it a free fire zone at the minute um you know there isn't much opportunity to to get close to see them there with regards to the civilians we're we're a little bit further south of the border and there are civilians present here but as you move increasingly closer to the border you quite quickly get to a zone where there's very little civilian activity about 90 percent of the people you see in the gas stations in the towns themselves and the small villages they are reserve soldiers and the occasional civilian who is either working essential essential jobs in the area such as farming or working in some of the the services there or quite often family members moving into the area to visit the soldiers all right i'll correspondent robert swift there in the north of the country giving us the latest updates on the ground thank you for that meanwhile the fighting is intensified in the southern and central parts of the Gaza Strip this thursday earlier in the day the IDF thwarted several anti-tank Hamas terror cells in Hanyunas where most of the fighting has been taking place reservists of the Kiryati brigade directed in Israeli Air Force aircraft to strike three Hamas terrorists attempting to plant a bomb near the forces an IAF fighter jet also hit a Hamas weapons depot in the area all this following air raid sirens that sounded in the coastal city of Ashkelon and surrounding communities near the northern Gaza Strip this morning after about 15 hours of silence in the area and joining me now to talk about this a little bit more in-depth from Hurtsley and central Israel is retired colonel miri eisen the director of the international institute for counterterrorism at reichman university miri good afternoon to you good afternoon but yeah it's obviously a big question as the IDF continues to move into obviously the south of the Gaza Strip how on earth Hamas Palestinian islamic jihad are still firing rockets into the state of israel yes they may have gone down significantly since the beginning of the war but their capabilities are still there but yeah they built their capabilities to still be there they built the capabilities so that you'd be able to ask after 90 days how do they have these capabilities first of all it's both numbers but it's also about the location they had before the war most likely 15 000 rockets and we don't know the exact number until now they have fired 12 maybe 13 000 that means that they still have at least 2000 rockets they've only been firing five rockets every few days 10 rockets every few days that means that they still have hundreds of rockets that they could fire so that question is how can they still do that when israel the idea are in such intense action inside but that has to do with the 2.2 million people who live in the Gaza Strip they fire the rockets out of the midst of the urban areas that we're not in out of the centers of where you have literally millions of people the millions of people that's where they fire the rockets from israel does not retaliate into those areas we very much want to stop that but we cannot attack those areas that that is part of what Hamas did to build their own defense so i will stay very clearly but no matter how long this war goes on Hamas built a capability that what they want to be able to say at the end is look we fired rockets the entire time they built the capability to be this way and mary as the idea continues to move south into the strip obviously at the beginning of this war when they were working in the northern part of the Gaza Strip there were leaflets there were loud speaker announcements to the civilian population head south because this is now an ongoing war zone and you don't want to be caught in the crossfire we know we've seen the footage and the proof in the evidence showing that Hamas militants have not allowed for many of the civilians to move south but what happens now given the fact that the IDF is moving further south it seems that the minute you ask the international community who cares about the Palestinians everybody's hands go up but when it comes to actually doing something in order to get them to safety there's not a single hand in the room everybody's scared of Hamas i really i have to tell you after three months of israel fighting against Hamas my bottom line is via terror organization suddenly it seems to give you immunity because you're not allowed to attack them because they hide behind civilians you can't attack them wherever they are because they get safe havens and it is part of the challenge of modern warfare all these kinds of terror organizations that batia it's very tricky because they are both responsible they took the responsibility for all of the Gaza Strip from 2007 Hamas play it both ways they took over the sovereignty they kicked out the palestinian authority and they built their terror army there is no easy way out of this in this case in that sense when israel looks at what we want to try to do as i say um go say you're a terror organization you seem to get a lot more immunity in the world than when you're a sovereign state that works by the rules of war who tries as much as they can to save civilian lives doesn't seem to help much within the international community and speaking of the international community a fortune of backlash coming to the far right ministers in israel's government namely batalel smatrich as well as itzmer being very full their comments saying that they are going to need to relocate some of these palestinians in the strip elsewhere to other countries now the united nations came out with a statement just a few hours ago saying that they are very disturbed by their calls for palestinians to leave Gaza and mind you israel takes i wouldn't even say what the un says with a pinch of salt more like the entire bottle of salt but the fact that the united states called them out by name our biggest ally and the fact that saudi arabia a nation that prior talks over seventh israel was nearing some sort of normalization accords with is also calling this out is this not a major warning for netanyahu to now rein them in much i talk with you about every single subject on earth until we get to israeli domestic politics that is something which is it's not even a question of understanding it i'm going to give a different example i served in a government as the government spokesperson at a time that there were six different parties that were members in that coalition government just like the coalition government right now both smatrich is the head of one party then here is that of a different party netanyahu is the head of a third different party and there are other parties in the coalition government to additional haraidi ultra i mean haraidi uh our religious parties and i say that because i look at action and policy and not at talk the government has been doing different things that has to do that ben vir is going to say that to ben vir is a base and smatrich is going to say that both of them i think believe it but that is not the israeli government policy not even this government it is not not the policy it is not a decision what it does inside israel is one thing i i actually in this case do agree i think that it is detrimental to israel's international position but if i can say one thing to all of us right now aren't we an amazing democracy don't we have amazing freedom of speech aren't elected officials allowed to say whatever they want there's a difference between that and between policy and implementing policy and right now i'm going to enjoy israeli democracy and i talked more about a domestic policy issue that i usually ever do you are looking at live images at the moment on your screen of the gaza skyline and we can't see smoke there in the background mary just finally called out to the defense ministry body responsible for palestinian civil affairs is again accusing the united nations of not doing nearly enough to process humanitarian aid into the gaza strip this is becoming almost a daily occurrence that israel is now saying the united nations is the one with their finger on the trigger not allowing aid to be able to move into the gaza strip they are the very body that should be assisting the palestinians right now and so why is there no outcry to the humanitarian organizations around the world to be upping or ramping up the pressure on the united nations or even egypt for that matter that has a border crossing with gaza to make sure that that aid is getting into the palestinians who's so desperately needed i'm going to break it down for a moment just in the sense of for us to understand how ridiculous it is what you just said in that sense is that the united nation says humanitarian needs and has been saying it for three months israel throughout these three months through koga the coordination organization in israel but does these sort of things has been upping and doing what the united nations want and yet that saying united nations is not the one helping and facilitating to bring the the different capabilities inside and you ask why and i say is the united nations an impartial balance side are they really trying to help the palestinians inside or are they trying to take a stand that has to do with maybe this is the way to pressure israel how about right now the united nations will pressure hamas how about the international organizations will pressure hamas and it goes back to what we were talking about before isn't it nice i say in a very sarcastic way to be a terror organization that nobody pressures isn't it nice when it's as if they're immune to any kind of pressure hamas is the one that is stopping the aid i absolutely believe that hamas is making it very difficult for people inside the guzzle strip so call them out on that make sure that the world understands that it's hamas that's doing so the international community needs to push harder it cannot be that we all are trying to get more goods inside and everybody understands the goods into the guzzle strip are going to hamas and not to the people who need it retired colonel mary eisen the director of the international institute for counterterrorism at reichman university as always thank you very much for your analysis thank you so much and moving to the diplomatic front many consider this war as an escalation on the israeli-palestinian conflict but israel has stood its ground clarifying this is not a war on the palestinians it is purely against terror group hamas nevertheless many outside of the region are continuing their calls for a two-state solution something that has been debated for decades so much so that now the eu foreign policy chief Joseph borrell is calling on the international community to impose a solution to the conflict and joining me right here in studio is brian libe the CEO of henry pr and a former GOP congressional candidate thank you so much for taking the time to be with me in studio this week you're in israel on a solidarity visit but what's also interesting is you're here on a mission asking every israeli you meet what they think about a two-state solution and if peace with the palestinians is still possible so before we really dive into the two-state solution and a lot more of the questions what have been your answers thus far well i just got here just recently i'm running on about two hours of sleep right now so the mission starts on monday and i am looking forward to having those conversations with the israeli people all throughout this country and one thing i want to say to you and say to to your audience is that you know i am one of 15 young jewish leaders that have decided to to leave the comforts of our home 6 000 miles away to to send a very strong message to the israeli people and i think to the world at large that we are here as a jewish aspera standing tall with the israeli people with people in land of israel not just today not just tomorrow but for the foreseeable future you know when we talk about on the austral high you know what does that mean it's a slogan what does it actually mean well it means showing up when you're the jewish diaspora showing up into israel in the middle of a war to to show that love to the israeli people so hopefully we're able to do that and hopefully i will say i'm looking forward to the israeli people also strengthening us and really you know giving us a lot of strength to go back to an america go back to america and keep fighting for the people and land of israel that we love so much well the days of at least the the jury around the world of thinking that their fate is not inextricably tied to the fate of the state of israel has evidently changed since the october 7 attacks including obviously the major rise in anti-semitism across the world including in the united states i say this all the time on the broadcast and no one has yet been able to provide me an answer throughout experts analysts you name it we always talk about the need for a two-state solution the global community talks about the need for a two-state solution but who is the viable partner for peace that israel has for a two-state solution it surely is not hamas and to some extent it's not the pa either i think you're exactly correct and i think we have to really start just dealing in reality and the reality of the situation is that israel does not have a partner for peace whether it is in gaza it's in ramallah it's maybe some of the other arab countries in the region as well i don't think israel has that partner for peace so i think it's it's it's way past time to stop with this fantasy world that that israel is going to have a two-state solution it's never going to happen we saw what happened when israel unilaterally pulled thousands of israelis out of gush katif which is now gaza we saw what happened and and in less than 15 years it's turned into a terrorist breeding ground that also has now served as the breeding ground for the deadliest terrorist attack in in israel's history so yeah i listen i think there should be peace for sure but but you have to have a partner for peace the saying goes you have to have what to detango so to speak israel doesn't have a partner for peace i don't think they're going to anytime in the near future and that's why it is so important that now more than ever israel moves forward does everything that they can in my opinion to crush amas every single element of hamas needs to cease to exist and maybe maybe then we can start israel can start having those conversations to see if they can find a partner for peace but right now from my perspective there is no partner for peace and it's time for the jewish diaspora especially in my country in america to stop with this fantasy that there is a partner for peace there is none well i want to ask you specifically on the american population obviously because that is where you're from so you can very much attest to that but why is there such an almost disbelief in the fact that there is no viable partner for peace not only does hamas have it in their actual charter that their sole obligation is to rid jews out of the state of israel so that they can reclaim what they call their holy land but it also sort of trickles down into the actual population or those that support them you know the charm from the river to the sea literally means the extermination of the jews and more so than that it would appear that the gulf nations don't even think that the palestinian issue anymore is at least the the top concern or priority for them given that they sign normalization agreements with israel of which they isolated the very same state that they did that with just decades before because there was no two state solutions so how do we what is the further proof the further evidence that needs to be shown in particular to the american public for them to understand this i hate to say this but i i do think that october 7 was a wake-up call for the jewish diaspora in america i think that they're finally seeing firsthand granted it came at the at the expense of thousands of israelis dying thousands of israeli families being destroyed but i do think that the american people especially the jewish diaspora finally see what the reality is here on the ground something that i and many of my friends have been talking about for many years now but now i think october 7 has really brought it into the forefront and people truly do now understand what israel is dealing with i think that's why you're seeing so much widespread support for what israel is doing in gaza right now from not just the jewish diaspora in america but i think from the american people at large so i'm hopeful that we can get to a point where my my jewish brothers and sisters in america understand that that israel desperately does want peace but yes it does take that other side to want to come to the table and have peace and final point that i'll make on that i think we all saw the the polling that came out a couple weeks after this horrible massacre where some 70 75 percent of gaza said that they supported what hamas did so i think polling data like that is very important for the jewish diaspora and for the american people to see because you can't argue with that you can't argue with the fact that 75 percent of people in gaza are cheering on what what hamas did so i think the tide might be turning on that there's certainly is a lot of unity now in the jewish diaspora i hope it maintains i hope it continues on the antisemitic front there's actually been some breaking news and recent developments that harvard has named professor allen garber as its interim president following the resignation of claudine gay i'll remind our audience that gay stepped aside just yesterday being wednesday amid not only plagiarism accusations but criticism over her testimony in a congressional hearing where she was unable to say unequivocally that calls on campus for the genocide of jews would violate the school's conduct policy now i do want to point out that garba is actually jewish does this um obviously undo not just what occurred weeks ago with regards to this congressional hearing but the long line of antisemitism and anti-israel policies that have sort of been escalating around harvard for decades does it undo it no it doesn't i mean maybe it's a small step in the right direction this individual in particular that you're talking about actually some video came out of him during hanukkah with a very powerful speech about you know how jewish students really are under attack not just at harvard but all throughout the world or all throughout america but the rot of of antisemitism on college campuses is so widespread it is so deep from the top to the bottom we're talking about university presidents board chairs professors student leaders it is so widespread that we're at the point now in america where it's not just jewish students that don't feel safe on college campuses it's any any student that supports the state of israel which by the way is a lot of non jewish students they don't feel safe on these college campuses so i think what we've seen unravel in the last couple weeks now with these two major resignations is the start it's a step in the right direction for some accountability but the real you know issue if we're going to be honest with ourselves here are the professors the professors that are the ones going out ripping these ripping the the posters down the ones that are in helping to incite this violence so eating by example exactly so that is the real problem here and and and i don't know how we're going to fix that but but i do know that there seems to be a kind of renewed focus on this right now and i hope it continues because when we look at the future of our country probably the future of any society honestly if we're being honest it all starts ecologists these are where young men and women their opinions are being shaped their minds are being shaped and their trajectory is being set so now is the time on college campuses to really try and dial back this anti-semitism and there's a lot of great great groups that are doing good work on this front and and i think they're going to continue doing that so i hate to put you on the spot but you're going to you're not a politician but yes i'm going to what then is the solution here the palestinians do in fact have a legitimate plight how then do how does one go about even fixing this problem at the moment we are going to have a massive but massive crisis at the moment with refugees there is a huge displacement on both sides of the border at the moment because of the war so what then needs to be done and does this have to be the responsibility of israel or does the international community really have to turn their words into actions here i don't think it's israel's responsibility i mean i i i hold a pretty right wing opinion when it comes to gaza and i think that we should we should take gaza back and we should israel not we i'm sorry israel should should annex gaza right back into israel we you know israel gave this land as as an olive branch for peace it didn't work out and in fact it failed miserably so i think that we should israel should pivot very very kind of hard on that front but i think you raise a very good point the international community is the first to raise their voice and condemn israel for everything that they're doing and the first ones to put out statements supporting the palestinian people but what are they actually doing to support the palestinian people why won't countries like egypt or like jordan take take in refugees from from gaza it really doesn't make much sense but you know there there is one state it's the state of israel and there are some you know million plus arabs that live live in israel you know so if there are individuals that that want to be part of israel i i think israel would probably welcome them with open arms as long as they are willing to acknowledge israel's right to exist and be part a productive part of society otherwise you know yeah maybe it is time for egypt or jordan or some other these countries to step up and put their money where their mouth is well the good news is that i put you on the spot purely for your opinion but it would be challenged by a lot of those in israel who would argue that they have no interest in retaking the gaza strip as you obviously mentioned israel does not want the responsibility over the two a two million plus palestinians in the strip and of course is calling on its allies in the us and the international community as well to really help out with that and if i can just in the last 30 seconds that we've got left with you do you as an american and as a jew believe that the biden administration is doing enough to support israel at the moment you know it's on a monday yes on a tuesday no on a wednesday yes it's been a in my opinion on kind of a lot of double talk and a lot of mixed messaging and when we we've got to bring all this kind of like back to center right hamas hezbollah the hoothies palestin jihad all these rogue terrorist groups in my opinion and depending on many others would not be able to operate if it was not for the logistical financial and material support that they received from the islamic republic of iran so that is the elephant in the room here and unfortunately we've seen the biden administration continue to really do a lot to enable uh and appease uh the islamic republic of iran and i think that's really what we have to start talking about brian lyre the ceo of henry pr and a former gop congressional candidate thank you very much for taking the time to be here in studio but more so for your solidarity visits to the state of israel it's an honor to be here and like i said i i hope that we can garner some strength from the israeli people to take it back home and fight for fight for israel that does bring us to an end of the special edition but tune in again at the top of the hour for more updates on the 90th day of war trail is in a state of war families completely done down in their beds we have no idea where is she as our soldiers are fighting on the front line but the general perception is something that certainly needs to to be fought as well entrevistas exclusivas report es desde la zona de guerra la reacción de los países hispano parlantes it's cool now the special edition on i-24 news i'm batia 11th all coming july from our televiv studios thanks for joining me at this hour it is day 90 of war between israel and hamas but eyes are shifting to the northern front as tensions heat up there the idf says one of its fighter jets struck aches bolar observation position and a military site in southern lebanon recently the latest retaliation coming as cross-border attacks have continued and intensified over the last few days especially as they also come just 48 hours after the killing of salah al-aruri and be root on tuesday therefore much of the focus of this war has been on the north awaiting some kind of revenge but exactly what that would be is still unclear well for the latest updates let's go to the north of israel where our correspondent robert swift is standing by rob what is the latest going on there we know tensions are high the u.s. special envoy amas the hox dean is in the region trying to at least sith some of those tensions that's right it's it remains a sort of day as usual here business as usual there have been attacks in the morning anti-tank missiles were launched across the border with the adf responding with airstrikes of its own however this is not unusual these are the sorts of events that take place here every day so people are holding their breath waiting to see if there is going to be some sort of larger response or attack to the assassination two days ago of salah al-aruri now his funeral is taking place in beirut as we speak it may be finishing in the in the coming minutes or hour there is some speculation as to whether or not following that there may be some sort of escalation here on the border however at the minute that has not been seen we have seen the idf patrolling this area heavily just about a minute ago we saw two israeli air force jets flying over us so there is plenty of israeli military presence on site here and they await to see what comes next right well what about unifil's presence in the area obviously taking a drive up from our studios in jaffa to the north most of the north is pretty desolate and empty of civilians at the moment given so many of them have been evacuated down to the center of the country is unifil still operating in the area have you seen them there the fact that the us is standing there on void to try and calm tensions where's the force that's meant to do that in the interim the unifil have been present throughout this this conflict and i have to say we haven't seen much of their presence on the ground but that's to be expected as they tend to be right on the border normally you have to go to the border itself to see them and since that's a let's call it a free fire zone at the minute you know there isn't much opportunity to to get close to see them there with regards to the civilians we're we're a little bit further south of the border and there are civilians present here but as you move increasingly closer to the border you quite quickly get to a zone where there's very little civilian activity about 90 of the people you see in the gas stations in the towns themselves and small villages they are reserve soldiers and the occasional civilian who is either working essential essential jobs in the area such as farming or working in some of the the services there or quite often family members moving into the area to visit the soldiers all right i'll correspondent robert swift there in the north of the country giving us the latest updates on the ground thank you for that meanwhile the fighting is intensified in the southern and central parts of the Gaza Strip this thursday earlier in the day the IDF thwarted several anti-tank Hamas terror cells in Hanyunas where most of the fighting has been taking place reservists of the Kiryati brigade directed an Israeli air force aircraft to strike three Hamas terrorists attempting to plant a bomb near the forces an IIF fighter jet also hit a Hamas weapons depot in the area all this following air raid sirens that sounded in the coastal city of Ashkelon and surrounding communities near the northern Gaza Strip this morning after about 15 hours of silence in the area and joining me now to talk about this a little bit more in-depth from Herzli and central israel is retired colonel mary eisen the director of the international institute for counterterrorism at reichman university mary good afternoon to you good afternoon it's obviously a big question as the IDF continues to move into obviously the south of the Gaza Strip how on earth Hamas Palestinian islamic jihad are still firing rockets into the state of israel yes they may have gone down significantly since the beginning of the war but their capabilities are still there they built their capabilities to still be there they built the capabilities so that you'd be able to ask after 90 days how do they have these capabilities first of all it's both numbers but it's also about the location they had before the war most likely 15 000 rockets and we don't know the exact number until now they have fired 12 maybe 13 000 that means that they still have at least 2000 rockets they've only been firing five rockets every few days 10 rockets every few days that means that they still have hundreds of rockets that they could fire so that question is how can they still do that when israel the idea are in such intense action inside but that has to do with the 2.2 million people who live in the Gaza Strip they fired the rockets out of the midst of the urban areas that were not in out of the centers of where you have literally millions of people millions of people that's where they fired the rockets from israel does not retaliate into those areas we very much want to stop that but we cannot attack those areas that that is part of what Hamas did to build their own defense so i will state very clearly but no matter how long this war goes on Hamas built a capability that what they want to be able to say at the end is look we fired rockets the entire time they built the capability to be this way and mary as the idea continues to move south into the strip obviously at the beginning of this war when they were working in the northern part of the Gaza Strip there were leaflets there were loud speaker announcements to the civilian population head south because this is now an ongoing war zone and you don't want to be caught in the crossfire we know we've seen the footage and the proof and the evidence showing that Hamas militants have not allowed for many of the civilians to move south but what happens now given the fact that the IDF is moving further south it seems that the minute you ask the international community who cares about the Palestinians everybody's hands go up but when it comes to actually doing something in order to get them to safety there's not a single hand in the room everybody's scared of Hamas i really i have to tell you after three months of Israel fighting against Hamas my bottom line is be a terror organization suddenly it seems to give you immunity because you're not allowed to attack them because they hide behind civilians you can't attack them wherever they are because they get safe havens and it is part of the challenge of modern warfare all of these kinds of terror organizations the batia it's very tricky because they are both responsible they took the responsibility for all of the Gaza Strip from 2007 Hamas play it both ways they took over the sovereignty they kicked out the Palestinian Authority and they built their terror army there is no easy way out of this in this case in that sense when Israel looks at what we want to try to do as i say um go say you're a terror organization you seem to get a lot more immunity in the world than when you're a sovereign state that works by the rules of war of war who tries as much as they can to save civilian lives doesn't seem to help much within the international community nowadays and speaking of the international community a fortune of backlash coming to the far right ministers in Israel's government namely Batalel Smotrich as well as Itamar being very for their comments saying that they are going to need to relocate some of these Palestinians in the strip elsewhere to other countries now the United Nations came out with a statement just a few hours ago saying that they are very disturbed by their calls for Palestinians to leave Gaza and mind you Israel takes I wouldn't even say what the UN says with a pinch of salt more like the entire bottle of salt but the fact that the United States called them out by name our biggest ally and the fact that Saudi Arabia nation that prior talks over 7th Israel was nearing some sort of normalization accords with is also calling this out is this not a major warning for Netanyahu to now rain them in I talked with you about every single subject on earth until we get to Israeli domestic politics that is something which is it's not even a question of understanding it I'm going to give a different example I served in a government as the government spokesperson at the time that there were six different parties that were members in that coalition government just like the coalition government right now both smoke reaches the head of one party then here is that of a different party Netanyahu is the head of a third different party and there are other parties in the coalition government two additional Haredi ultra I mean Haredi religious parties and I say that because I look at action and policy and not at talk the government has been doing different things that has to do that Ben Veer is going to say that to Ben Veer is a base and small treat she's going to say that both of them I think believe it but that is not the Israeli government policy not even this government it is not not the policy it is not a decision what it does inside Israel is one thing I actually in this case do agree I think that it is detrimental to Israel's international position but if I can say one thing to all of us right now aren't we an amazing democracy don't we have amazing freedom of speech aren't elected officials allowed to say whatever they want there's a difference between that and between policy and implementing policy and right now I'm going to enjoy Israeli democracy and I talked more about a domestic policy issue that I usually ever do you are looking at live images at the moment on your screen of the Gaza skyline and we can see smoke there in the background Mary just finally Kogat the Defense Ministry body responsible for Palestinian civil affairs is again accusing the United Nations of not doing nearly enough to process humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip this is becoming almost a daily occurrence that Israel is now saying the United Nations is the one with their finger on the trigger not allowing aid to be able to move into the Gaza Strip they are the very body that should be assisting the Palestinians right now and so why is there no outcry to the humanitarian organizations around the world to be upping or ramping up the pressure on the United Nations or even Egypt for that matter that has a border crossing with Gaza to make sure that that aid is getting into the Palestinians who's so desperately needed I'm going to break it down for a moment just in the sense of cross to understand how ridiculous it is what you just said in that sense is that the United Nations says humanitarian needs and has been saying it for three months Israel throughout these three months through Kogat the coordination organization in Israel that does these sort of things has been upping and doing what the United Nations wants and yet that same United Nations is not the one helping and facilitating to bring the the different capabilities inside and you ask why and I say is the United Nations an impartial balance side are they really trying to help the Palestinians inside or are they trying to take a stand that has to do with maybe this is the way to pressure Israel how about right now the United Nations will pressure Hamas how about the international organizations will pressure Hamas and it goes back to what we were talking about before isn't it nice I say in a very sarcastic way to be a terror organization that nobody pressures isn't it nice when it's as if they're immune to any kind of pressure Hamas is the one that is stopping the aid I absolutely believe that Hamas is making it very difficult for people inside the Gaza Strip so call them out on that make sure that the world understands that it's Hamas that's doing so the international community needs to push harder it cannot be that we all are trying to get more goods inside and everybody understands that goods into the Gaza Strip are going to Hamas and not to the people who need it retired Colonel Mary Eisen the director of the international institute for counterterrorism at Reichemann University as always thank you very much for your analysis thank you so much for that and moving to the diplomatic front many consider this war as an escalation on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but Israel has stood its ground clarifying this is not a war on the Palestinians it is purely against terror group Hamas nevertheless many outside of the region are continuing their calls for a two-state solution something that has been debated for decades so much so that now the EU foreign policy chief Joseph Borrell is calling on the international community to impose a solution to the conflict and joining me right here in studio is Brian Leib the CEO of Henry PR and a former GOP congressional candidate thank you so much for taking the time to be with me in studio this week you're in Israel on a solidarity visit but what's also interesting is you're here on a mission asking every Israeli you meet what they think about a two-state solution and if peace with the Palestinians is still possible so before we really dive into the two-state solution and a lot more of the questions what have been your answers thus far well I just got here just recently I'm running on about two hours of sleep right now so the mission starts on Monday and I am looking forward to having those conversations with the Israeli people all throughout this country and one thing I want to say to you and say to to your audience is that you know I am one of 15 young Jewish leaders that have decided to to leave the comforts of our home 6,000 miles away to to send a very strong message to the Israeli people and I think to the world at large that we are here as a Jewish diaspora standing tall with the Israeli people with people and land of Israel not just today not just tomorrow but for the foreseeable future you know when we talk about Am Yisrael high you know what does that mean it's a slogan what does it actually mean well it means showing up when you're the Jewish diaspora showing up into Israel in the middle of a war to to show that love to the Israeli people so hopefully we're able to do that and hopefully I will say I'm looking forward to the Israeli people also strengthening us and really you know giving us a lot of strength to go back to America go back to America and keep fighting for the people and land of Israel that we love so much well the days of at least the the jury around the world of thinking that their fate is not inextricably tied to the fate of the state of Israel has evidently changed since the October 7th attacks including obviously the major rise in anti-Semitism across the world including in the United States I see this all the time on the broadcast and no one has yet been able to provide me an answer throughout experts analysts you name it we always talk about the need for a two-state solution the global community talks about the need for a two-state solution but who is the viable partner for peace that Israel has for a two-state solution it surely is not Hamas and to some extent it's not the PA either I think you're exactly correct and I think we have to really start just dealing in reality and the reality of the situation is is that Israel does not have a partner for peace whether it is in Gaza it's in Ramallah it's maybe some of the other Arab countries in the region as well I don't think Israel has that partner for peace so I think it's it's it's way past time to stop with this fantasy world that that Israel is going to have a two-state solution it's never going to happen we saw what happened when Israel unilaterally pulled thousands of Israelis out of Gush Katif which is now Gaza we saw what happened and in less than 15 years it's turned into a terrorist breeding ground that also has now served as the breeding ground for the deadliest terrorist attack in Israel's history so yeah I listen I think there should be peace for sure but but you have to have a partner for peace the saying goes you have to have what two to tango so to speak Israel doesn't have a partner for peace I don't think they're going to anytime in the near future and that's why it is so important that now more than ever Israel moves forward does everything that they can in my opinion to crush Hamas every single element of Hamas needs to cease to exist and maybe maybe then we can start Israel can start having those conversations to see if they can find a partner for peace but right now from my perspective there is no partner for peace and it's time for the Jewish diaspora especially in my country in America to stop with this fantasy that there is a partner for peace there is none well I want to ask you specifically on the American population obviously because that is where you're from so you can very much attest to that but why is there such an almost disbelief in the fact that there is no viable partner for peace not only does Hamas have it in their actual charter that their sole obligation is to rid Jews out of the state of Israel so that they can reclaim what they call their holy land but it also sort of trickles down into the actual population or those that support them you know the charm from the river to the sea literally means the extermination of the Jews and more so than that it would appear that the Gulf nations don't even think that the Palestinian issue anymore is at least the top concern or priority for them given that they signed normalization agreements with Israel of which they isolated the very same states that they did that with just decades before because there was no two state solutions so how do we what is the further proof the further evidence that needs to be shown in particular to the American public for them to understand this I hate to say this but I do think that October 7th was a wake up call for the Jewish diaspora in America I think that they're finally seeing first hand granted it came at the at the expense of thousands of Israelis dying thousands of Israeli families being destroyed but I do think that the American people especially the Jewish diaspora finally see what the reality is here on the ground something that I and many of my friends have been talking about for many years now but now I think October 7th has really brought it into the forefront and people truly do now understand what Israel is dealing with I think that's why you're seeing so much widespread support for what Israel is doing in Gaza right now from not just the Jewish diaspora in America but I think from the American people at large so I'm hopeful that we can get to a point where my my Jewish brothers and sisters in America understand that that Israel desperately does want peace but yes it does take that other side to want to come to the table and have peace and final point that I'll make on that I think we all saw the the polling that came out a couple weeks after this horrible massacre where some 70 75 percent of Gazans said that they supported what Hamas did so I think polling data like that is very important for the Jewish diaspora and for the American people to see because you can't argue with that you can't argue with the fact that 75 percent of people in Gaza are cheering on what what Hamas did so I think the tide might be turning on that there certainly is a lot of unity now in the Jewish diaspora I hope it maintains I hope it continues On the anti-Semitic front there's actually been some breaking news and recent developments that Harvard has named Professor Alan Garber as its interim president following the resignation of Claudine Gay I'll remind our audience that Gay stepped aside just yesterday being Wednesday amid not only plagiarism accusations but criticism over her testimony in a congressional hearing where she was unable to say unequivocally that calls on campus for the genocide of Jews would violate the school's conduct policy now I do want to point out that Gerber is actually Jewish does this obviously undo not just what occurred weeks ago with regards to this congressional hearing but the long line of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel policies that have sort of been escalating around Harvard for decades does it undo it no it doesn't I mean maybe it's a small step in the right direction this individual in particular that you're talking about actually some video came out of him during Hanukkah with a very powerful speech about you know how Jewish students really are under attack not just at Harvard but all throughout the world or all throughout America but the rot of of anti-Semitism on college campuses is so widespread it is so deep from the top to the bottom we're talking about university presidents board chairs professors student leaders it is so widespread that we're at the point now in America where it's not just Jewish students that don't feel safe on college campuses it's any any student that supports the state of Israel which by the way is a lot of non-Jewish students they don't feel safe on these college campuses so I think what we've seen unravel in the last couple weeks now with these two major resignations is the start it's a step in the right direction for some accountability but the real you know issue if we're going to be honest with ourselves here are the professors the professors that are the ones going out ripping these ripping the the posters down the ones that are in helping to incite this violence so eating by example exactly so that is the real problem here and and and I don't know how we're going to fix that but but I do know that there seems to be a kind of renewed focus on this right now and I hope it continues because when we look at the future of our country probably the future of any society honestly if we're being honest it all starts ecologists these are where young men and women their opinions are being shaped their minds are being shaped and their trajectory is being set so now is the time on college campuses to really try and dial back this anti-Semitism and there's a lot of great great groups that are doing good work on this front and and I think they're going to continue doing that so I hate to put you on the spot but you're going to you're not a politician but yes I'm going to what then is the solution here the Palestinians do in fact have a legitimate plight how then do you how does one go about even fixing this problem at the moment we are going to have a massive but massive crisis at the moment with refugees there is a huge displacement on both sides of the border at the moment because of the war so what then needs to be done and does this have to be the responsibility of Israel or does the international community really have to turn their words into actions here I don't think it's Israel's responsibility I mean I hold a pretty right-wing opinion when it comes to Gaza and I think that we should we should take Gaza back and we should Israel not we I'm sorry Israel should should annex Gaza right back into Israel we you know Israel gave this land as an olive branch for peace it didn't work out in fact it failed miserably so I think that we should Israel should pivot very very kind of hard on that front but I think you raise a very good point the international community is the first to raise their voice and condemn Israel for everything that they're doing and the first ones to put out statements supporting the Palestinian people but what are they actually doing to support the Palestinian people why won't countries like Egypt or like Jordan take take in refugees from from Gaza it really doesn't make much sense but you know there there is one state it's the state of Israel and there are some you know million plus Arabs that that live live in Israel you know so if there are individuals that that want to be part of Israel I think Israel would probably welcome them with open arms as long as they are willing to acknowledge Israel's right to exist and be part a productive part of society otherwise you know yeah maybe it is time for Egypt or Jordan or some other of these countries to step up and put their money where their mouth is well the good news is that I put you on the spot purely for your opinion but it would be challenged by a lot of those in Israel who would argue that they have no interest in retaking the Gaza Strip as you obviously mentioned Israel does not want the responsibility over the two two million plus Palestinians in the strip and of course is calling on its allies in the US and the international community as well to really help out with that and if I can just in the last 30 seconds that we've got left with you do you as an American and as a Jew believe that the Biden administration is doing enough to support Israel at the moment you know it's on a Monday yes on a Tuesday no on a Wednesday yes it's been a in my opinion on kind of a lot of double talk and a lot of mixed messaging and when we we've got to bring all this kind of like back to center right Hamas Hezbollah the Houthis Palestine Jihad all these rogue terrorist groups in my opinion and depending on many others would not be able to operate if it was not for the logistical financial and material support that they received from the Islamic Republic of Iran so that is the elephant in the room here and unfortunately we've seen the Biden administration continue to really do a lot to enable and appease the Islamic Republic of Iran and I think that's really what we have to start talking about. Brian Leib the CEO of Hennessy