 Welcome to the special edition on I-24 News. I'm back to 11th all coming July from our Tel Aviv studios. Thanks for joining me at this hour. It is day 88 of the war. On the main front, residents in Gaza say that Israeli aircraft and tanks stepped up strikes in the southern part of the strip overnight. Thus, after it announced plans to pull back some of its troops from the ground. A move, the United States says, signaled a gradual shift to lower intensity operations in the north of the enclave. In the north of the country overnight, the IDF also responded to rockets that were fired from Syrian territory into Israel one day earlier, causing some material damage. Separately, Hezbollah said that four of its fighters were killed in southern Lebanon after the IDF struck the terror group's infrastructure. In the West Bank, the IDF in the early hours of Tuesday morning was operating in the cities of Jenin, Jericho, and Kalkilia. Clashes broke out in Jenin in the northern West Bank as the Israeli forces came under Palestinian gunfire and then responded with live ammunition. Well, let's cross our live to our correspondent Pierre Closh and Leu, who is standing by for us in the south of the country, Pierre. Lower intensity fighting in the north while the IDF pushes toward the south. Has there been any new instructions for the Gaza population that is now crammed into the south of the strip? No, not that we know of. We know that in the northern sector of the Gaza Strip in this direction, there's about, according to IDF estimation, 102,000 inhabitants who did not move toward the safe humanitarian zones that have been established in the northern, in the southern sector of the Gaza Strip. There's been problem to bring food and water and medicine to the northern sector of the Gaza Strip. That's what we know from UN organizations in the past days and weeks. Behind me right now in the northern sector of the Gaza Strip, in two strongholds held by Hamas battalions in the neighborhoods of Aldaraj and Tufakh neighborhoods, they're still fighting. And you can see maybe with Igor Basilenko, the aftermath of an airstrike that just happened a few moments ago in this area of Gaza City. But the thrust of the ground offensive is still the central refugee camps near Direl Balak and the southern city of Hanyunas. At this point, there are, according to Palestinian media affiliated to Hamas, airstrikes in Hanyunas. Overnight, there were heavy airstrikes in the area of Hanyunas as well as in the refugee camps of the central sector of the Gaza Strip, but yeah. Right, and Pierre Kogat says that a total of 163 humanitarian aid trucks entered Gaza on Monday. Are we talking about the trucks going predominantly into the southern part of the Strip where citizens are? Or are there some people that have remained behind or have not been allowed to evacuate at the hands of Hamas in the north and the center of the Strip? Well, we know that 85 percent of the population of about 2.2 million inhabitants of the whole Gaza Strip are crammed in the southern areas, mainly Rafah on the Egyptian-Israeli border and west of Rafah in the safe humanitarian zone of Al-Muassi, which was dedicated by the IDF as such. Now, regarding those trucks, this is not yet the kind of humanitarian aid that the UN would want to have inside the Gaza Strip. We were talking about a minimal amount of 200 trucks. As you said, right now, crossing into Gaza, there's about 160 trucks, 75 of them came directly from the Israeli territory at the Kerem Shalom crossing into the Gaza Strip. But it seems, according to Kogat, the Ministry of Defense Agency that deals with the Palestinians, that the UN itself has problems in bringing the aid into their centers of distribution for a few reasons. The roads are obviously not in good shape. Hamas loots those humanitarian trucks and doesn't allow the population. There was an artillery outgoing just now. The Hamas doesn't allow the population to get that food, medicine, water. And the centers of distribution are not very well organized to the extent that a lot of the aid goes to Hamas operatives and, in a sense, prolongs the war. But given that, there is no aid that is coming into the northern sector of the Gaza Strip. At least we don't know of any such aid crossing from Egypt and Israel from to the southern sector of the Gaza Strip and moving north to the places where there is lower intensity warfare at this point, at least. Correspondent Pierre Clush and giving us the latest from the south of Israel, thank you very much for that. And joining me now from Herzliya, Central Israel, is retired Colonel Mary Eisen, the director of the International Institute for Counterterrorism at Reichmann University. Mary, good morning to you. Good morning, Batja. The Biden administration has reiterated time and time again that it is not dictating terms or a timeline to Israel. But confirming recently that they did in fact push Israel for lower intensity fighting in Gaza, along with troop withdrawal. Is there a difference of agendas here? Israel is saying outright that this war is going to continue for months, but it appears the Biden administration is trying to rein them in. There's a difference between saying that they're asking us to stop completely, which they're not. And between the United States saying that they want to go from high intensity to low intensity. Batja, as you and I know, as we've said this here before, Israel itself has said that we want to change a bit the way that we're fighting. This is both in coordination with the United States, but it has to do with Israel, our capabilities and our desires. We have had an enormous amount of reserve duty soldiers that have been fighting for the last three months. And Israel in that sense, if it's here at the university, a lot of university students who are called up, if it's about the economy, you need to both give time, time for them to get out, to go home to their families to try to do a bit in their work. And in that sense, it's to build the war in such a way that it will still continue in long term, but not necessarily with all of the troops of the reserves being called up all the time. So I don't think it contradicts. I think that we are doing hand in hand, and we are going to continue fighting with our troops, with the U.S. backing, but it won't necessarily be the high intensity that we've seen until now. Now the U.S. carrier that was sent to the Mediterranean after Hamas's October 7th onslaught is set now to return to base. Meanwhile, Iran is stationing warships in the Red Sea. Are we seeing a sense here of Iran sort of marking their territory and should Israel be concerned? But I think that Israel should be concerned. I think we should all be concerned about Iran. I think that Iran is the element that all of us kind of are avoiding, and you and I should be talking about it. Iran has been pulling strings, both with the low intensity, I don't like that term, of what Hezbollah has been doing from Lebanon into Israel, the firing that we've been seeing day by day of different Shiite forces from Syria into Israel, the firing in the last week from Shiite Iranian-backed forces from Iraq towards Israel, let alone the closing of international shipping routes by Hoti, which are totally Iranian-backed. So when we see the official Iranians going on and out, I think that we need to call it out to be very clear. These are not easy times, and Iran needs to be called out for all that they're doing, and they need to directly, I want to say in my terms, feel the pain. That's a horrible way, perhaps, to put it, but that they need to understand that they are accountable. They are the ones pulling so many strings right now of the different violent events happening in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and certainly the shipping routes through the Red Sea. Which also comes on the backs of reports that Yemen's Huti rebels attacked an American warship in the Red Sea. It's one thing, as you mentioned, that Israelis should possibly be concerned, but why then would American warships that are stationed in the Mediterranean sea that obviously have some kind of trajectory to the Red Sea then withdraw their stance or their standing, in particular, if they're coming under fire in the Red Sea? The decisions that the United States makes in that sense are things that I look at it, my God, they're a world power. You have something that's growing, which is very challenging. Almost 15% of world shipping goes through the Red Sea, through the Suez Canal, and but if it doesn't go through there, it's going to impact all of Europe and the United States. We're talking about oil and gas and goods. The Suez Canal is such an important way to go through and the Yemenite, more correctly, the Houthis in Yemen are the ones that are trying to completely, beyond disrupt, stop all of the free travel international shipping routes that's going through. So the United States is looking at it big picture. In addition to that, all of these different Iranian proxies are targeting Israel. For them, it's very easy. Say the word Israel and it's as if that's okay. It's not okay. This is not about Israel. This is about Iran trying to destabilize, disrupt international shipping, oil and gas supplies, everything that goes on in that sense through the Suez Canal, and in addition to consistently attack Israel but not directly. Iran wants to do all of this without it being directed. The United States chooses in that sense to do different actions all behind it. They are a world power. We're a regional power. Let's work hand in hand together. They have way more power than we do certainly in the sea arena. Mary, stay with me. I do want to shift gears here slightly. The interrogation of terrorists in an investigation by the IDF's unit 504 has exposed the shocking tactics used by Hamas to exploit Gaza civilians. Two terrorists from different factions within Gaza, Hamas as well as the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, have divulged details on how Hamas threatened Palestinian residents of Gaza to meet the needs of the terrorist organization. Take a look. Still with me, retired Colonel Mary Eisen, and here in the studio, our senior editor, Israel Guy. I'd like to start with you. This is just one of two videos that were released recently by Israeli security officials. The second one being a video that showed that the Hamas terror group was actually defying the IDF warnings for citizens to move south by making sure that civilians stay in the north and the center of the strip. You mentioned before the broadcast that you no longer shock that the world doesn't believe in the proof and the evidence that we given them. But surely we should be outraged at the fact that the world asked for proof and evidence. Here it is on a silver platter and it's still being disputed. I think it really depends who you're asking. Obviously, if you go to those people in the streets of New York that we saw the other day, obviously they don't care about the facts. But the American officials that need to know what's going on, most of Israel's allies in the west are very well aware of the cynical use of the civilian population by Hamas. This also goes to show how for so long, I think over recent years, there used to be this distinction between, well, these are Hamas operatives and these are Gaza civilians. Yes, there are civilians and those who are not even active in any of the Hamas activities. Nonetheless, Hamas is the one in control of the Gaza Strip. Nothing happens in Gaza without Hamas deciding. That was the same, by the way. With those protests that we saw on the fence prior to October 7th, there were calls trying to claim that these were civilians protesting against the situation in Gaza. No, that's not the situation. Everything that comes out of Gaza is under Hamas control. The use of those civilians is just another one of the practices that Hamas uses. And the IDF sees that right now, where so many of the civilian infrastructure that it comes across are either will be trapped or have been used to launch rockets, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So this is just the day-to-day reality that I don't think Israel is particularly focused on persuading the world at this stage if anyone wasn't outraged by what we've seen on October 7th and the aftermath and what is being revealed these days. Well, it does not matter. Israel has a goal of eliminating Hamas's at least military capabilities and also its ability to govern the Gaza Strip, whether the world likes it or not. This is something that the Israeli government has to do and the war cabinet needs to think about the next stages of how to execute that exactly. Absolutely. And speaking on that exact point, Mary, the security cabinet and the war cabinet here in Israel, I expected to discuss the day after being today on Tuesday ahead of a possible visit by the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Some of these clips are snippets that are released to the public. The United States obviously gets a much fuller picture of exactly who Israel is dealing with in the Gaza Strip. And the Palestinian Authority, although both parties like to claim is the more moderate of the factions, also tends, albeit differently, to call for the destruction of Israel. So what should Israelis be expecting when the Israeli government, the war cabinet, is discussing the day after? What does it mean from an actual point of view on the ground? There are such different voices inside the Israeli war cabinet right now that in that sense, I'm going to say it is the pluralism of a democracy, let alone the different approaches that have been in this government from the beginning of 2023. And here we are in 2024 in this war. There are those who want us to this inside the war cabinet right now who say it's Israel, Israel's going to be there. And there are those different voices. And I'm not here to amplify them. But we need to understand that inside that type of meeting, there are voices inside the room who say the Gaza population needs to leave the Gaza Strip. I don't think that that's realistic. There are 2.2 million people there. And the entire international community opposes that approach. But it is one of the voices in the room. There are additional voices there that say Israel needs to be responsible for the physical demilitarizing aspect. That's what Guy was mentioning before, of the need for us to be the ones who are taking away the weapons, the capabilities, those terror military capabilities. We need to do it because we don't believe anybody else. But Israel does not want to run the day to day life. And that's when you get to the term that we call revitalized Palestinian authority. Other people will just say Palestinians, Palestinian leaders, I don't know what it will be. But Israel does not want to be the one who runs the day to day life for 2.2 million people at the moment. Well, who's running it? I mean, even from what Pierre was talking about the forum with Kogan, their international humanitarian organizations, they're not running the Gaza Strip. They're supplying water, shelter, food, medicine, the minimum, so that the people there are alive and taken care of. We're talking about the day after. Somebody has to rebuild, make the roads roads again, open up schools at some stage, have some kind of civil administration. And for that, there is a growing gap. I don't know how to resolve it. It's inside the Israeli cabinet between voices who say it's not going to be us. It can't be the Palestinian authority, then who? And I pose it as a question. I think that that's something that needs to be bridged. I think that there's actually quite a big gap between Israeli positions in this case and between the United States. And as you said, the Secretary of State is coming, and they're going to discuss it and go forward. But because Israel does not want to do it, it does mean that somebody else has to do it. Now it's a question of who it is, what we call it. I think it'll be something Palestinian. I'm just not sure how it will be called. We are looking at live images, as Mary is speaking, of inside the Gaza Strip. And Guy, Mary mentioned rebuilding. We know that the Israeli military has said that they are preparing for some residents that have been evacuated from the south to return home. Is there a sense of almost not necessarily a lack in trust in Israeli security officials, but a lack of trust in the situation being as volatile as it is with the many of these residents possibly returning home, that something could break out yet again? I think there's a lot of psychology involved, as we see in the recent month. The rocket fire towards outside of Gaza has been pretty scarce, very random. Obviously, IDF forces are all over that area. There's also no fear of infiltration. Having said that, the Israeli army and the government have to promise the residents their security and a sense of security and the security that was lost on October 7th. These are communities that have been displaced for over three months now. And we're talking about entire families with children, elderly, people that need all sorts of help, whether it be education or medical help, etc., etc. They've been taken away from their homes, from their communities, having to live outside in distant cities, in Tel Aviv or in other places. For the most part, they've been taken care of, but it's a difficult decision for them. They want to see a major change in the situation. One of the weak points in some of the communities, for example, was the security teams. Those who had an active security team were able to fend off the terrorists on that Saturday morning, and those that were not suffered some devastating losses. So one of the main things that is going to change now is the way that the IDF helps those security teams and the technology that it supplies them, everything that can supply the residents with the sense of security, so that they will feel safe going back to their homes and living their lives once again, still in the shadow of that war. Of course, if you're in Ashkelon or into the road these days, you hear the bombardments, you hear there's a war going on around you. And nonetheless, if the IDF can supply security slowly, but surely they will come back. And Mary, earlier we spoke about the different agendas between the Israeli and the American delegations, but we know that there is an Israeli delegation reported in Cairo to discuss possible hostage deal. How far apart are Israel and Hamas in reaching some kind of an agreement? How big is the gap? First of all, we don't know. And I think that one of the aspects that has to do with the hostages is that there's a lot of rumors, but we don't necessarily know. Let's be clear cut. Israel wants, needs, desires, is willing to take action to get the 129 hostages back. Of those 129, we don't know how many are alive or not. We need them back. They are us. We also need to destroy Hamas. They don't contradict, but that means that you can parallel, be in the Gaza Strip, acting against Hamas, acting against the different tunnels, the capabilities, and you can be in Cairo, in, you know, not in a direct way. Israel does not talk to Hamas directly. It's through negotiation teams. You meet one. The other meets one. And you try to see where you find common ground. Israel has already stated that we're willing to make hard choices. There's no question that in this sense that's part of what Hamas has definitely tried to do throughout this conflict. They started it on October 7 by kidnapping in a horrific way hundreds of hostages. Over 100 have been released again. And this is a very tricky sort of aspect. And I need them all to come home just like you do. So I think that the positions are quite far apart. And now it's a question of negotiations, what you're willing to give up on, what you're not willing to give up on. We need, for our domestic front, we need that cohesion that says that Israel goes all out to bring back our hostages. And we need, for the communities that Guy was talking about before, for the Israeli defense forces to eliminate step by step slowly the Hamas capabilities and governing capabilities inside the Gaza Strip. These don't contradict each other. They're just very, very long term. So we will meet at the end. We will get those hostages back. I hope sooner rather than later. I have to admit I'm not optimistic about it being something very soon. Retired Colonel Mary Eisen, the director of the International Institute for Counterterrorism at Reichmann University and our senior editor, Guy Israel here in studio. Thank you both so much for joining me here this morning and for your analysis. That does bring us to the end of this special edition. But you can tune in again at the top of the hour for more updates, mostly here in Israel, but also in the region on day 88 of war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. For anything else that you missed, though, make sure to check out our website at i24news.tv, the tune in again at the top of the hour for more updates. 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 lines, but the general perception is something that certainly needs to to be fought as well. Entrevistas exclusivas reportes desde la zona de guerra, la reacción de los países hispano parlantes. News 24, el único medio en español que te mantiene informado y conectado con la comunidad latina en Israel. News 24, únicamente en i24news. Welcome to this special edition on i24news. I'm Batti Leventhal, coming July from our Tel Aviv Studios. Thanks for joining me at this hour. It is day 88 of the war. On the main front, residents in Gaza say that Israeli aircraft and tanks stepped up strikes in the southern part of the Strip overnight. Thus after it announced plans to pull back some of its troops from the ground. A move the United States said signaled a gradual shift to lower intensity operations in the north of the enclave. In the north of the country overnight, the IDF also responded to rockets that were fired from Syrian territory into Israel one day earlier, causing some material damage. Separately, Hezbollah said that four of its fighters were killed in southern Lebanon after the IDF struck the terror group's infrastructure. In the West Bank, the IDF in the early hours of Tuesday morning was operating in the cities of Jenin, Jericho and Kalkilia. Clashes broke out in Jenin in the northern West Bank as the Israeli forces came under Palestinian gunfire and then responded with live ammunition. Well, let's cross now live to our correspondent Pierre Closchenle, who is standing by for us in the south of the country, Pierre. Lower intensity fighting in the north while the IDF pushes toward the south. Has there been any new instructions for the Gaza population that is now crammed into the south of the Strip? No, not that we know of. We know that in the northern sector of the Gaza Strip in this direction, there's about, according to IDF estimation, 102,000 inhabitants who did not move toward the safe humanitarian zones that have been established in the northern, in the southern sector of the Gaza Strip. And there's been problem to bring food and water and medicine to the northern sector of the Gaza Strip. That's what we know from UN organizations in the past days and weeks. Behind me right now, in the northern sector of the Gaza Strip, in two strongholds held by Hamas battalions in the neighborhoods of Aldaraj and Tufach neighborhoods, they're still fighting. And you can see maybe with Igor Basilenko the aftermath of an airstrike that just happened a few moments ago in this area of Gaza City. But the thrust of the ground offensive is still the central refugee camps near Direl Balach and the southern city of Hanyunas. At this point, there are, according to Palestinian media, affiliated to Hamas airstrikes in Hanyunas. Overnight, there were heavy airstrikes in the area of Hanyunas as well as in the refugee camps of the central sector of the Gaza Strip. Right. And Pierre Kogatz says that a total of 163 humanitarian aid trucks entered Gaza on Monday. Are we talking about the trucks going predominantly into the southern part of the Strip where citizens are? Are there some people that have remained behind or have not been allowed to be evacuated at the hands of Hamas in the north and the center of the Strip? Well, we know that 85 percent of the population of about 2.2 million inhabitants of the whole Gaza Strip are crammed in the southern areas, mainly Rafah on the Egyptian-Israeli border and west of Rafah in the safe humanitarian zone of Al-Muassi, which was dedicated by the IDF as such. Now, regarding those trucks, this is not yet the kind of humanitarian aid that the UN would want to have inside the Gaza Strip. We were talking about a minimal amount of 200 trucks, as you said right now, crossing into Gaza. There's about 160 trucks. 75 of them came directly from the Israeli territory at the Kerem Shalom crossing into the Gaza Strip. But it seems, according to Kogatz, the Ministry of Defense Agency that deals with the Palestinians, that the UN itself has problems in bringing the aid into their centers of distribution for a few reasons. The roads are obviously not in good shape. Hamas loots those humanitarian trucks and doesn't allow the population. There was an artillery outgoing just now. Hamas doesn't allow the population to get that food, medicine, water. And the centers of distribution are not very well organized to the extent that a lot of the aid goes to Hamas operatives and, in a sense, prolongs the war. But given that, there is no aid that is coming into the northern sector of the Gaza Strip. At least we don't know of any such aid crossing from Egypt and Israel from to the southern sector of the Gaza Strip and moving north to the places where there is lower intensity warfare at this point, at least. Correspondent Pierre Clashendale giving us the latest from the south of Israel. Thank you very much for that. And joining me now from Herzliya, Central Israel is retired Colonel Mary Eisen, the director of the International Institute for Counterterrorism at Reichmann University. Mary, good morning to you. Good morning. Good morning. The Biden administration has reiterated time and time again that it is not dictating terms or a timeline to Israel, but confirming recently that they did in fact push Israel for lower intensity fighting in Gaza along with troop withdrawal. Is there a difference of agendas? Here, Israel is saying outright that this war is going to continue for months, but it appears the Biden administration is trying to rein them in. There's a difference between saying that they're asking us to stop completely, which they're not, and between the United States saying that they want to go from high intensity to low intensity. Batya, as you and I know, as we've said this here before, Israel itself has said that we want to change a bit the way that we're fighting. This is both in coordination with the United States, but it has to do with Israel, our capabilities, and our desires. We have had an enormous amount of reserve duty soldiers that have been fighting for the last three months, and Israel in that sense, if it's here at the university, a lot of university students who are called up. If it's about the economy, you need to both give time, time for them to get out, to go home to their families, to try to do a bit in their work. And in that sense, it's to build the war in such a way that it will still continue in long term, but not necessarily with all of the troops of the reserves being called up all the time. So I don't think it contradicts. I think that we are doing hand in hand, and we are going to continue fighting with our troops, with the U.S. backing, but it won't necessarily be the high intensity that we've seen until now. Now, the U.S. carrier that was sent to the Mediterranean after Hamas's October 7th onslaught is set now to return to base. Meanwhile, Iran is stationing warships in the Red Sea. Are we seeing a sense here of Iran sort of marking their territory, and should Israel be concerned? Matt, I'm concerned. I think that Israel should be concerned. I think we should all be concerned about Iran. I think that Iran is the element that all of us kind of are avoiding, and you and I should be talking about it. Iran has been pulling strings, both with the low intensity, I don't like that term, of what Hezbollah has been doing from Lebanon into Israel, the firing that we've been seeing day by day of different Shiite forces from Syria into Israel, the firing in the last week from Shiite Iranian-backed forces from Iraq towards Israel, let alone the closing of international shipping routes by Houthi, which are totally Iranian-backed. So when we see the official Iranians going on and out, I think that we need to call it out to be very clear. These are not easy times, and Iran needs to be called out for all that they're doing. And they need to directly, I want to say in my terms, feel the pain. That's a horrible way, perhaps, to put it, but that they need to understand that they are accountable. They are the ones pulling so many strings right now of the different violent events happening Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and certainly the shipping routes through the Red Sea. Which also comes on the backs of reports that Yemen's Houthi rebels attacked an American warship in the Red Sea. It's one thing, as you mentioned, that Israelis should possibly be concerned, but why then would American warships that are stationed in the Mediterranean Sea that obviously have some kind of trajectory to the Red Sea then withdraw their stance or their standing, in particular if they're coming undefined in the Red Sea? The decisions that the United States makes in that sense are things that I look at it, my god, they're a world power. You have something that's growing, which is very challenging. Almost one-fifteen percent of world shipping goes through the Red Sea, through the Suez Canal. But if it doesn't go through there, it's going to impact all of Europe and the United States. We're talking about oil and gas and goods. The Suez Canal is such an important way to go through and the Yemenite, more correctly, the Houthis in Yemen are the ones that are trying to completely, beyond disrupt, stop all of the free travel international shipping routes that's going through. So the United States is looking at it big picture. In addition to that, all of these different Iranian proxies are targeting Israel. For them it's very easy. Say the word Israel and it's as if that's okay, it's not okay. This is not about Israel. This is about Iran trying to destabilize, disrupt international shipping, oil and gas supplies, everything that goes on in that sense through the Suez Canal and in addition to consistently attack Israel but not directly. Iran wants to do all of this without it being directed. The United States chooses in that sense to do different actions all behind it. They are a world power. We're a regional power. Let's work hand in hand together. They have way more power than we do certainly in the sea arena. Mary, stay with me. I do want to shift gears here slightly. The interrogation of terrorists in an investigation by the IDF's unit 504 has exposed the shocking tactics used by Hamas to exploit Gaza civilians. Two terrorists from different factions within Gaza, Hamas as well as the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, have divulged details on how Hamas threatened Palestinian residents of Gaza to meet the needs of the terrorist organization. Take a look. Still with me, retired Colonel Mary Eisen. And here in the studio, our senior editor, Gaya Azrael. Gaya, I'd like to start with you. This is just one of two videos that were released recently by Israeli security officials. The second one being a video that showed that the Hamas terror group was actually defying the IDF warnings for citizens to move south by making sure that civilians stay in the north and the center of the strip. You mentioned before the broadcast that you no longer shock that the world doesn't believe in the proof and the evidence that we've given them. But surely we should be outraged at the fact that the world asked for proof and evidence. Here it is on a silver platter and it's still being disputed. I think it really depends who you're asking. Obviously, if you go to those people in the streets of New York that we saw the other day, obviously they don't care about the facts. But the American officials that need to know what's going on, most of Israel's allies in the west are very well aware of the cynical use of the civilian population by Hamas. This also goes to show how for so long, I think over recent years, there used to be this distinction between, oh, well, these are Hamas operatives and these are Gaza civilians. Yes, there are civilians and those who are not even active in any of the Hamas activities. Nonetheless, Hamas is the one in control of the Gaza strip. Nothing happens in Gaza without Hamas deciding. That was the same, by the way, with those protests that we saw on the fence prior to October 7th. There were calls trying to claim that these were civilians protesting against the situation in Gaza. No, that's not the situation. Everything that comes out of Gaza is under Hamas control. The use of those civilians is just another one of the practices that Hamas uses. And the IDF sees that right now where so many of the civilian infrastructure that it comes across are either booby-trapped or have been used to launch rockets, et cetera, et cetera. So this is just the day-to-day reality. I don't think Israel is particularly focused on persuading the world at this stage if anyone wasn't outraged by what we've seen on October 7th and the aftermath and what is being revealed these days. Well, it does not matter. Israel has a goal of eliminating Hamas's at least military capabilities and also its ability to govern the Gaza strip, whether the world likes it or not. This is something that the Israeli government has to do. And the war cabinet needs to think about the next stages of how to execute that exactly. Absolutely. And speaking on that exact point, Mary, the security cabinet and the war cabinet here in Israel, I expected to discuss the day after being today on Tuesday, a head of a possible visit by the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Some of these clips are snippets that are released to the public. The United States obviously gets a much fuller picture of exactly who Israel is dealing with in the Gaza strip. And the Palestinian Authority, although both parties like to claim is the more moderate of the factions, also tends, albeit differently, to call for the destruction of Israel. So what should Israelis be expecting when the Israeli government, the war cabinet, is discussing the day after? What does it mean from an actual point of view on the ground? There are such different voices inside the Israeli war cabinet right now that in that sense, I'm going to say it is the pluralism of a democracy, let alone the different approaches that have been in this government from the beginning of 2023. And here we are in 2024 in this war. There are those who want us to to this inside the war cabinet right now who say it's Israel. Israel is going to be there. And there are those different voices. And I'm not here to amplify them, but we need to understand that inside that type of meeting, there are voices inside the room who say the Gaza population needs to leave the Gaza strip. I don't think that that's realistic. There are 2.2 million people there. And the entire international community opposes that approach. But it is one of the voices in the room. There are additional voices there that say Israel needs to be responsible for the physical demilitarizing aspect. That's what Guy was mentioning before of the need for us to be the ones who are taking away the weapons, the capabilities, those terror military capabilities. We need to do it because we don't believe anybody else. But Israel does not want to run the day to day life. And that's when you get to the term that we call revitalized Palestinian authority. Other people will just say Palestinians, Palestinian leaders. I don't know what it will be, but Israel does not want to be the one who runs the day to day life for 2.2 million people. At the moment, well, who's running it? I mean, even from what Pierre was talking about the forum with Kogan, their international humanitarian organizations, they're not running the Gaza strip. They're supplying water, shelter, food, medicine, the minimum so that the people there are alive and taken care of. We're talking about the day after. Somebody has to rebuild, make the roads roads again, open up schools at some stage, have some kind of civil administration. And for that, there is a growing gap. I don't know how to resolve it. It's inside the Israeli cabinet between voices who say it's not going to be us. It can't be the Palestinian authority than who. And I pose it as a question. I think that that's something that needs to be bridged. I think that there's actually quite a big gap between Israeli positions in this case and between the United States. And as you said, the Secretary of State is coming, and they're going to discuss it and go forward. But because Israel does not want to do it, it does mean that somebody else has to do it. Now it's a question of who it is, what we call it. I think it'll be something Palestinian. I'm just not sure how it will be called. We are looking at live images, as Mary is speaking, of inside the Gaza Strip. And Guy, Mary mentioned rebuilding. We know that the Israeli military has said that they are preparing for some residents that have been evacuated from the south to return home. Is there a sense of almost not necessarily a lack in trust in Israeli security officials, but a lack of trust in the situation being as volatile as it is with the many of these residents possibly returning home, that something could break out yet again? I think there's a lot of psychology involved, as we've seen. The recent month, the rocket fire towards outside of Gaza has been pretty scarce, very random. Obviously, IDF forces are all over that area. There's also no fear of infiltration. Having said that the Israeli army and the government have to promise the residents their security and a sense of security and the security that was lost on October 7th. These are communities that have been displaced for over three months now. And we're talking about entire families with children, elderly, people that need all sorts of help, whether it be education or medical help, et cetera, et cetera. They've been taken away from their homes, from their communities, having to live outside in distant cities, in Tel Aviv or in other places. For the most part, they've been taken care of. But it's a difficult decision for them. They want to see a major change in the situation. One of the weak points in some of the communities, for example, was the security teams. Those who had an active security team were able to fend off the terrorists on that Saturday morning. And those that were not suffered some devastating losses. So one of the main things that is going to change now is the way that the IDF helps those security teams and the technology that it supplies them, everything that can supply the residents with the sense of security so that they will feel safe going back to their homes and living their lives once again. Still in the shadow of that war, of course, if you're in Ashkelon or in Sderot these days, you hear the bombardments. You hear there's a war going on around you. And nonetheless, if the IDF can supply security slowly, but surely they will come back. And, Mary, earlier we spoke about the different agendas between the Israeli and the American delegations. But we know that there is an Israeli delegation reported in Cairo to discuss possible hostage deal. How far apart are Israel and Hamas in reaching some kind of an agreement? How big is the gap? First of all, we don't know. And I think that one of the aspects that has to do with the hostages is that there's a lot of rumors, but we don't necessarily know. Let's be clear-cut. Israel wants, needs, desires is willing to take action to get the 129 hostages back of those 129. We don't know how many are alive or not. We need them back. They are us. We also need to destroy Hamas. They don't contradict, but that means that you can parallel, be in the Gaza Strip, acting against Hamas, acting against the different tunnels, the capabilities, and you can be in Cairo in, you know, not in a direct way. Israel does not talk to Hamas directly. It's through negotiation teams. You meet one, the other meets one. And you try to see where you find common ground. Israel has already stated that we're willing to make hard choices. There's no question that in this sense, that's part of what Hamas has definitely tried to do throughout this conflict. They started it on October 7 by kidnapping in a horrific way hundreds of hostages. Over 100 have been released again. And this is a very tricky sort of aspect. And I need them all to come home just like you do. So I think that the positions are quite far apart. And now it's a question of negotiations, what you're willing to give up on, what you're not willing to give up on. We need, for our domestic front, we need that cohesion that says that Israel goes all out to bring back our hostages. And we need, for the communities that Guy was talking about before, for the Israeli Defense Forces to eliminate step by step slowly the Hamas capabilities and governing capabilities inside the Gaza Strip. These don't contradict each other. They're just very, very long term. So we will meet at the end. We will get those hostages back. I hope sooner rather than later. I have to admit I'm not optimistic about it being something very soon. Retired Colonel Mary Eisen, the director of the International Institute for Counterterrorism at Reichmann University and our senior editor Guy Israel here in studio. Thank you both so much for joining me here this morning and for your analysis. That does bring us to the end of this special edition, but you can tune in again at the top of the hour for more updates, mostly here in Israel, but also in the region on day 88 of war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. For anything else that you missed, though, make sure to check out our website at i24news.tv, but tune in again at the top of the hour for more updates. Israel is in a state of war, families completely done down in their beds. We have no idea where we see as our soldiers are fighting on the front lines, but the general perception is something that certainly needs to to be fought as well. Special news edition on i24news. I'm back to 11th all coming July from our Tel Aviv Studios. Thanks for joining me at this hour. It is day 88 of the war. On the main front, residents in Gaza say that Israeli aircraft and tanks stepped up strikes in the southern part of the Strip overnight. This after it announced plans to pull back some of its troops from the ground. A move the United States said signaled a gradual shift to low intensity operations in the north of the enclave. In the north of the country overnight, the IDF also responded to rockets that were fired from Syrian territory into Israel one day earlier, causing some material damage. Separately, as Bola said, that four of its fighters were killed in southern Lebanon after the IDF struck the terror group's infrastructure. In the West Bank, the IDF in the early hours of Tuesday morning was operating in the cities of Jenin, Jericho and Calculia. Clashes broke out in Jenin in the northern West Bank as the Israeli forces came under Palestinian gunfire and then responded with live ammunition. Or with me here in studio to break down all these updates is Rafael Uruchelmi, a former senior IDF intelligence officer and a security analyst. Rafael, good morning to you. The IDF reserves officer was moderately hurt in West Bank clashes and I believe there were four Palestinian terrorists as well that were killed. Yes, these terrorists were spotted through technological means at the disposal of the IDF. Their specific location was given to the troops by soldiers who sit in a special war room and use this technical information they receive. It can be video footage from surveillance cameras. It can be exchange of phone calls between terrorists and spotting and triangulating the position with the telephones. Many different possibilities are there but what happened last night is that the troops were guided to the specific spot where these terrorists were. They were waiting unfortunately for the troops. There were exchanges of fire so we had an officer wounded. This happened in the city of Calculia which is one of the hotspots in the West Bank. It's known for nurturing terrorists. There were more actions perpetrated in the West Bank during the night. We have to notice that since the beginning of the present war the command of the Central Command is quite successful in swatting terrorist attacks, in arresting or eliminating quite a high number of terrorists or suppressing weapons, destroying infrastructure. Unfortunately, it's a very, very long-term job. There are thousands of them so it reminds us a little of Hamas. It looks a little what we're doing today in the West Bank. What will the day after in Gaza look like? How the IDF will operate surgically with incursions in, out to make the strip quiet and safe for the inhabitants of Israel alongside it. But it looks a little like the scenario we could be facing in the day after in Gaza, similar to this West Bank, which is right now proving successful. The top IDF general has said that the Gaza fighting will continue albeit in different forms or varying forms. At the moment we have IDF air strikes in the Gaza Strip. They are tanks in the Gaza Strip and we've got IDF personnel, soldiers on foot going door to door. What does he mean or what are the forms could we be looking at in terms of a lower intensity of fighting that we've been reporting on? So right now we are seeing already people, reservists being sent back home. We are seeing tanks retreating after, you know, a lot has been done by the book. A lot has been done a bit out of the box. But most of the surprises that the Hamas suffered at the hands of the IDF were things that came from what we learned as we were moving on. We learned a lot, a lot during the first days of the war and the IDF had even to change a little its tactics. So by now we know that we do not need maybe as many men and as such a massive presence of tank and artillery. We can do the job in a different way according to of course the neighborhoods because in different neighborhoods the fighting is different. If you are in a residential middle class neighborhood of Gaza with cottages and villas, then it's a different game than in a very narrow, Casbah style neighborhood or industrial zone yet again it's a different way of operating. So we're going to adapt us maybe the fighting more to the geography if you want your urban geography of the place. We do not have any choice now anyway because the Biden administration is putting quite a bit of pressure on the IDF to lower the intensity of the fight anyhow. But I think it's a good thing for us on that particular matter I would say that it's a good advice and maybe time has come to lower really the intensity because we are getting a little too many casualties on our side that could be avoided and we need also the reservists to go back home to go back to work to go back to their families. So okay we're stopping maybe a little the momentum and we're going to slow down the pace which was a very impressive and fast pace of assault but we're just going to continue to work and there will be many different ways of tackling the problem. Some of them will be even improvisation on the spur of the moment which is usually the strong point of the IDF. The IDF comes with lots of plans in a war not enough the plan anyway hold after two or three days everything is changed because of the situation and where the IDF is good and strong is improvising in changing swiftly the mode of operation. Raphael stay with me because I want to continue this topic obviously more in-depth when we come back but I want to press now live to our correspondent Pierre Kloschenle who is standing by for us in the south. Pierre we've been speaking about the fact that there has been a lower intensity of fighting after very heavy fighting in the northern and the central part of the strip obviously that has also meant that it's destroyed the capabilities or at least most of the capabilities of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad to fire rockets into Israel but they still are continuing to trickle through the border and over into Israel. Right I mean there hasn't been a any rocket strike on Israeli territory emanating from the Gaza Strip since the since midnight the passing of the 2023 to 2024 but yet there are still rocket launches and the army just said that some rocket launches in the central sector of the Gaza Strip where the thrust of the offensive is going on there where they have been neutralized so there are still capabilities in Hamas's hands and Palestinian Islamic Jihad to strike Israeli territory nonetheless you mentioned the northern sector with a lower intensity warfare and there's still pockets of resistance in the Jebalia refugee camp it was just announced by the IDF that the Israeli army annihilated scores of terrorists in that refugee camp in the northern sector which means that there are still pockets of resistance there's still some infrastructure and the work of dismantling the network of tunnels in the northern sector is a long haul it's going to take a long time it's a long process maybe too long for some Israeli military pundits but it's it shows the density of Hamas's network of tunnel in the northern sector now the thrust of the offensive is in three areas behind me in the two neighborhoods of Al-Daraj and Tufar fighting the last battalion of Hamas in the northern sector and in the in the central sector of the three refugee camps around Dirl Balak El-Muassi Nusserat and El-Burej a lot of airstrikes overnight according to Palestinian media affiliated to Hamas the ground offensive goes on there for about two weeks now and in Hanyunas since December 2nd there are seven or eight brigades of the IDF that are operating within and without Hanyunas also a lot of airstrikes overnight according to Palestinian media affiliated to Hamas. Pierre what is the situation in terms of the civilians in the Gaza Strip the IDF handing out instructions over the last couple of months for them to head toward the south but as the IDF puts most of their forces in the center and the south are the citizens being told to move elsewhere? At this moment there's about 85 percent of the whole population of the Gaza Strait which numbers 2.2 million inhabitants that are crammed in basically two areas in the border town of Rafah with Egypt on one hand and west of Rafah in the El-Muassi safe humanitarian zone which was dedicated by the IDF as a place for the displaced population to seek shelter. There are also a lot of people that are in different schools, UN organization clinics, hospitals that have seek shelter there in the southern sector of the Gaza Strip and in the northern sector of the Gaza Strip there's still between 100,000 and 200,000 people who refused to move from the combat zone when the northern sector was most active a month ago for instance and are still there so the population is basically in the southern sector which makes the ground operation in the southern sector all the more sensitive because the IDF has said repeatedly over time that it's not waging a war on the civilian population on the non-involved population it's waging a war against Hamas, Palestinian, Islamic jihad and various terror groups so it has no interest per se to inflict casualties on the civilian population. Correspondent Pierre Colossian giving us the latest from the south of the country thank you very much for that still with me in studio Rafale you're a Xiaomi Rafale you mentioned earlier that we could be seeing a sort of an instance of what the day after in Gaza could look like but Israeli officials have mentioned time and time again they have no interest in reoccupying the Gaza Strip so if there is going to be an ability for the IDF to be able to get into the Gaza Strip once this is done does that not border on or at least conflict the fact that Israeli representatives are saying they do not want a presence in the Gaza Strip again well there are three phases to this problem the first phase is to achieve the goal of the present war meaning the Hamas cannot stay in power in Gaza the Hamas can never again rule over Gaza once this is achieved we can declare the war ended and then we enter the phase of how do we keep low on order in the Gaza Strip and rebuild in a serene way in a peaceful way at this stage we will have to wait for a solution in between there is no body else than us that can do the job right now it's only the Israelis who can apply law and order at the very first days during the very first days following the war but of course this is a temporary measure until a solution is found and that solution could be of any kind it could be an international force blue helmets for the United Nations it could be a coalition of Arabic countries friendly with Israel who would send police or army to keep the law on order in the Gaza Strip it could be also given to the Palestinian autonomy if the Palestinian army shows the inner goodwill and and the capacity of doing this job we see that in the West Bank they do not really succeed it could be the Egyptians why not why aren't they doing anything so there are many the last solution that is now being considered is a local militia they are very powerful families in Gaza very powerful heads of tribes and clans that have manpower and that could influence the Palestinian society and could have some kind of a grip on what's going on there so this is the day after after meaning there has to be a solution that is long lasting but until there will be we have no choice but than do the job ourselves we would like to get out of Gaza as fast as possible never to hear about it again but unfortunately nobody nobody wants Gaza that's it so let's be frank and honest the Egyptians they dread and that any Gaza would even set foot on the the sacred desert to you know the sun is just a desert but they still don't want the Gazans to go there even for your humanitarian purpose Arabic countries with all their money they're giving charity but they're not really doing much the international community and all the outcasts you hear from there they're not doing much and in the end it's a hot potato that stays between the fingers of the Israelis a sad situation but as you mentioned obviously an honest one that no one wants to extend a bigger helping hand the biggest flight after terrorism this is the biggest blast of the Palestinian people all the hypocrisy people say they support the Palestinians but they don't well actually the ones who support them the most with electricity water and you name it the world is very very hypocritical yeah and unfortunately we're seeing that playing out former senior IDF intelligence officer and security NSRFL your show me thank you so much for being with me here in studio now it's never easy saying goodbye to a loved one as they pass from this life into the next farewells to people who are murdered is even harder to comprehend and more so when they've been tortured dismembered and burnt to the extent that so many under the hands of Hamas terrorists were on october 7th to some of the bereaved these families are actually considered lucky as they actually had a body of their loved ones and they were able to be identified dozens of families in Israel in the past three months have been notified their relatives have been murdered meaning Hamas robbed them of their loved ones and saying goodbye but they also stole the sacred funeral rites that have long-offered mourners some dignity enclosure in the midst of such unbearable grief and that is because often there were no bodies left more in this report I just never thought or imagined that I would ever face the situation it's really not a simple decision and it's not a decision to be taken lightly at all it has enormous significance Dr. Hagar Mizrachi did not learn this in medical school to make one of the most shocking decisions of her career to pronounce death without first seeing a body the event is foreign to the world in general and to the world of medicine in particular because we have very strict rules on how to determine death there is a pulse and an ecg should be done we still look for all the signs and at all the doubts to resolve them in order to give the family an answer that is clear and unambiguous until the harsh news about judy were received she had been thought kidnapped the last time she made contact was during the morning walk with her husband near neroz last week the family was informed of gadi's death now it's judy one of the open cases that dr. Mizrachi and the committee of which he is a member for many weeks one of the very complex cases we received a description of the circumstances of the incident but we also heard the phone call she made to the maghen davida dome hotline we read whatsapp messages with friends and family and watched relevant videos we understood that there was a very very serious injury here we sat more than once to try to understand what happened that black sabbath raised many dramatic issues one of which is whether it is possible to declare the death of a hostage while in captivity some were murdered and taken to the gaza strip some were taken there wounded and did not survive the injury others were murdered in gaza the ministry of health has established a committee to assess the situation of the hostages headed by dr. agar mizrachi a committee of experts trying to decide what happened to kidnapped citizens collecting every scrap of information watching hours of video we are on this committee by virtue of our position as doctors we want evidence whose essence is a medical basis it's not just watching videos it's literally sitting and analyzing and looking for breathing movements you look for movements of the eyelids movements of the body a reaction to pain simply analyzing the movies frame by frame we also deal mainly with analyzing gunshot wounds where they hit where organs were hit and everything together with the fact that there is no medical treatment leads us to our conclusions this is how they came to determine that aviva tzili of rakedar and in bar haiman were murdered unlike legal matters were reasonable doubt is enough here the three doctors on the committee dr. mizrachi dr. kurul and dr. marine ceo of charet set a hospital need to be completely convinced before they tell the family we sit and if we don't come to a conclusion then we say we haven't yet decided additional material will arrive hamas will release something some additional information will be received we will incorporate the new bits and watch one more time from beginning to end and then we'll make a decision each decision is made unanimously how much certainty do you need to determine is 99 percent enough we wait and check the points until we are all convinced for me it is 100 percent 100 percent as far as i'm concerned not knowing is the worst thing i can't stay up in the air i need to know i need to know dany engel was informed that his brother ronan was kidnapped with his family from their home in niroz but his gut feeling said he was probably killed after all ronan was armed fighting the terrorists who entered the apartment and no one has seen him since it was very alarming me too in this whole situation i hung on to some kind of optimism and forced myself not to eulogize him or to talk about him in the past tense so not to create you know the situation that there is no ronan four days after his wife and daughters returned from captivity the news was received ronan was murdered and the body was snatched the death was determined according to a video and other findings that were in the house kareena said that there was a large pool of blood where ronan was standing other people who returned said that they saw his body being dragged outside out of the house i have this kind of closure they told me and beyond any doubt ronan is gone it's it's the better option than not knowing and continuing to hope the message the eulogize family received about the death of gai the 26-year-old musician who was at the party in raeem was a little different in his case there was no video only the knowledge that he was injured and kidnapped but about a month ago they were informed that maya reggae who returned from captivity gave detailed testimony about their son i asked them tell me are you really serious you want me to state as an axiom that my son died in light of the fact that she was a prisoner who was in the room with gai that she saw him through the curtain and she was full of drugs and i have no idea what and in light of all the psychological warfare they are doing listen i'm not ready to accept it but i would love to meet with maya reggae they really tried to give him cpr and he died from his wounds and at first i refused to believe it and after they took him i said that i had to see that it was really him i have this duty to go and talk to his family in the end i'm the only person who knows what really happened so i moved the curtain and saw that he really wasn't with us that he was gone after the parents heard maya the subtleties the details how she described how they put him in a white bag for the dead they were convinced they sat shiva and said goodbye to their boy saying goodbye is it's hard to bear it's not goodbye when you can say i'm saying goodbye because i saw that he died we didn't see we didn't see that guy is indeed no longer with us we separated from him based on testimony based on information the returning hostages brought with them a lot of new information to the committee about the fate and condition of those who were left behind but they say they are not satisfied with this evidence as a sole parameter for example we knew that someone had been shot and we saw the type of injury and we understood that in this condition he was taken to the Gaza Strip and in this condition we know that in order to treat the gunshot we need very intensive very advanced treatment if at all and over time and on and on it's a culmination of things especially if one of the abductees later states that he has passed away as long as this body does not arrive in Israel it's not doubt really it's not a question of doubt he won't be knocking on the door tomorrow and entering the house but for me the story hasn't ended the bodies of the hostages who did return to Israel were thoroughly examined by Dr. Mizrachi's committee to confirm the circumstances of their death the CT scan shows us whether there are bullets whether there are clots so far bodies have arrived and apparently Hamas said they were killed because of an IDF attack this is not true these are not the conclusions it is difficult in some cases to determine the exact cause of death but it does not appear that people were injured and the injuries match injuries from shelling the committee deals not only with the dead but also with those who return alive from captivity as a doctor Agar Mizrachi also tries to understand something about the medical treatment they received to her surprise she discovered that they were not given only prescription drugs but also dangerous ones apparently they were given treatment not exactly known in Israel which among other things causes some kind of sedation there was also ketamine in some of the cases ketamine is a drug that is given under anesthesia for surgery and today it is a drug that is used of course illegally and indeed there was testimony of people who came received ketamine unnecessarily as a form of sedation i'm not sure you want to emerge from captivity as a drug addict there was a prior claim that the terrorists had been given drugs before i don't have any proof of this but i can tell you honestly i can't understand from what i've seen how they did it without it i say they are not animals because it is unimaginable that's all we have time for on this special edition at this hour but tune in again at the top of the hour for more updates on day 88 of the war between Israel and Hamas 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 welcome to the special news edition on i-24 news i'm back to 11th all coming July from our television studios thanks for joining me at this hour it is day 88 of the war on the main front residents in Gaza saying that Israeli aircraft and tanks stepped up strikes in the southern part of the strip overnight thus after it announced plans to pull back some of its troops from the ground a move the united states said signaled a gradual shift to low intensity operations in the north of the enclave in the north of the country overnight the IDF also responded to rockets that were fired from syrian territory into israel one day earlier causing some material damage separately as bolas said that four of its fighters were killed in southern Lebanon after the IDF struck the terror group's infrastructure in the west bank the IDF in the early hours of Tuesday morning was operating in the cities of janine jericho and calcilia clashes broke out in janine in the northern west bank as the israeli forces came under palestine and gunfire and then responded with live ammunition or with me here in studio to break down all these updates is rafael urashelmi a former senior idf intelligence officer and a security analyst rafael good morning to you the idf reserves officer was moderately hurt in west bank clashes and i believe there were four palestine and terrorists as well that were killed yes uh mysterious were spotted uh through technological means at the disposal of the idf uh there are a specific location was given to the troops by soldiers who sit in a special war room and use this technical information they receive it can be video footage from surveillance cameras it can be exchange of phone calls between terrorists and spotting a triangulating the position with the the telephones many different possibilities are there but what happened last night is that the troops were guided to the specific spot where these terrorists were they were waiting unfortunately for the troops there were exchanges of fire so we had an officer wounded this was this happened in the city of calcilia which is one of the hot spots in in the west bank it's known for nurturing terrorists there were more actions perpetrated in the in the west bank during the night we have to notice that since the beginning of the present war the commander the command of the central command is quite successful in swatting terrorist attacks in arresting or eliminating quite a high number of terrorists or suppressing weapons destroying infrastructure unfortunately it's a very very long-term job there are thousands of them so it reminds us a little of the ramas it looks a little what we're doing today in the west bank what will the day after in Gaza look like how the idea will operate surgically with incursions in out to make the strip quiet and safe for the inhabitants of Israel alongside it but it looks a little like the scenario we could be facing in the day after in Gaza similar to this west bank which is right now proving successful the top IDF general has said that the Gaza fighting will continue albeit in different forms or varying forms at the moment we have IDF air strikes in the Gaza strip there are tanks in the Gaza strip and we've got IDF personnel soldiers on foot going door to door what does he mean or what are the forms could we be looking at in terms of a lower intensity of fighting that we've been reporting on so right now we are seeing already people reservists being sent back home we are seeing tanks retreating after you know a lot has been done by the book a lot has been done a bit out of the box but most of the surprises that the ramas suffered at the hands of the idea where things that came from what we learned as we were moving on we learned a lot a lot during the first days of the war and the idea had even to change a little its tactics so by now we know that we do not need maybe as many men and as such a massive presence of a tank and artillery and we can do the job in a different way according to of course the neighborhoods because in different neighborhoods the fighting is different if you are in a residential middle class neighborhood of Gaza with cottages and villas then it's a different game than in a very narrow Casbah style neighborhood or industrial zone yet again it's a different way of operating so we're going to adapt us maybe the fighting more to the geography if you want your urban geography of the of the place we do not have any choice now anyway because the Biden administration is putting quite a bit of pressure on the idea of to lower the intensity of the fight anyhow but I think it's a good thing for us on that on that particular matter I would say that it's a good advice and maybe time has come to to lower really the intensity because we are getting a little too many casualties on our side that could be avoided and we need also the reservists to go back home to go back to to work to go back to their families so okay we're stopping maybe a little the momentum and we're going to slow down the pace which was a very impressive and fast pace of assault but we're just going to continue to work and there will be many different ways of tackling the problem some of them will be even improvisation on the spur of the moment which is usually the strong point of the idea of the idea comes with lots of plans in a war none of the plan anyway hold after two or three days everything is changed because of the situation and where the fdf is good and strong is in improvising changing swiftly the mode of operation Raphael stay with me because I want to continue this topic obviously more in depth when we come back but I want to cross now live to our correspondent Pierre Kloschenle who is standing by for us in the south pier we've been speaking about the fact that there has been a lower intensity of fighting after very heavy fighting in the northern and the central part of the strip obviously that is also meant that it's destroyed the capabilities or at least most of the capabilities of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic jihad to fire rockets into Israel but they still are continuing to trickle through the border and over into Israel right I mean there hasn't been a any rocket strike on Israeli territory emanating from the Gaza strip since the since midnight the passing of the 2023 to 2024 but yet there are still rocket launches and the army just said that some rocket launches in the central sector of the Gaza strip where the thrust of years of the offensive is going on there where they have been neutralized so there are still capabilities in Hamas's hands and Palestinian Islamic jihad to strike Israeli territory nonetheless you mentioned the northern sector with a lower intensity warfare and there's still pockets of resistance in the Jebelia refugee camp it was just announced by the IDF that the Israeli army annihilated scores of terrorists in that refugee camp in the northern sector which means that there are still pockets of resistance there's still some infrastructure and the work of dismantling the network of tunnels in the northern sector is a long haul it's going to take a long time it's a long process maybe too long for some Israeli military pundits but it's it shows the density of Hamas's network of tunnel in the northern sector now the thrust of the offensive is in three areas behind me in the two neighborhoods of Al-Daraj and Tufar fighting the last battalion of Hamas in the northern sector and in the in the central sector of the three refugee camps around the Al-Balagh Al-Muassi Nusserat and Al-Burej a lot of airstrikes overnight according to Palestinian media affiliated to Hamas the ground offensive goes on there for about two weeks now and in Hanunez since December 2nd there are seven or eight brigades of the IDF that are operating within and without Hanunez also a lot of airstrikes overnight according to Palestinian media affiliated to Hamas Pierre what is the situation in terms of the civilians in the Gaza Strip the IDF handing out instructions over the last couple of months for them to head toward the south but as the IDF puts most of their forces in the center and the south are the citizens being told to move elsewhere at this moment there's about 85 percent of the whole population of the Gaza Strait which numbers 2.2 million inhabitants that are crammed in basically two areas in the border town of Rafah with Egypt on one hand and west of Rafah in the Al-Muassi safe humanitarian zone which was dedicated by the IDF as a place for the displaced population to seek shelter there are also a lot of people that are in different schools UN organization clinics hospitals that have seek shelter there in the southern sector of the Gaza Strip and in the northern sector of the Gaza Strip there's still between 100,000 and 200,000 people who refused to move from the combat zone when the northern sector was most active a month ago for instance and are still there so the population is basically in the southern sector which makes the ground operation in the southern sector all the more sensitive because the IDF has said repeatedly over time that it's not waging a war on the civilian population on the non-involved population it's waging a war against Hamas, Palestinian, Islamic jihad and various terror groups so it has no interest per se to inflict casualties on the civilian population. Correspondent Pierre Colossian giving us the latest from the south of the country thank you very much for that still with me in studio Rafale you're a Xiaomi Rafale you mentioned earlier that we could be seeing sort of an instance of what the day after in Gaza could look like but Israeli officials have mentioned time and time again they have no interest in reoccupying the Gaza Strip so if there is going to be an ability for the IDF to be able to get into the Gaza Strip once this is done does that not border on or at least conflict the fact that Israeli representatives are saying they do not want a presence in the Gaza Strip again well there are three phases to this problem the first phase is to achieve the goal of the present war meaning the Hamas cannot stay in power in Gaza the Hamas can never again rule over Gaza once this is achieved we can declare the war ended and then we enter the phase of how do we keep low on order in the Gaza Strip and rebuild in a serene way in a peaceful way at this stage we will have to wait for a solution in between there is no body else than us that can do the job right now it's only the Israelis who can apply low on order at the very first days during the very first days following the war but of course this is a temporary measure until a solution is found and that solution could be of any kind it could be an international force blue helmets for the United Nations it could be a coalition of Arabic countries friendly with Israel who would send police or army to keep the law on order in the Gaza Strip it could be also given to the Palestinian autonomy if the Palestinian army shows the enough goodwill and the capacity of doing this job we see that in the West Bank they do not really succeed it could be the Egyptians why not why aren't they doing anything so there are many the last solution that is now being considered is a local militia they are very powerful families in Gaza very powerful heads of tribes and clans that have manpower and that could influence the Palestinian society and could have some kind of a grip on what's going on there so this is the day after after meaning there has to be a solution that is long lasting but until there will be we have no choice than do the job ourselves we would like to get out of Gaza as fast as possible never to hear about it again but unfortunately nobody nobody wants Gaza that's it so let's be frank and honest the Egyptians they dread that any Gaza would even set foot on the sacred desert you know the sun is just a desert but they still don't want the Gazans to go there even for your humanitarian purpose Arabic countries with all their money they're giving charity but they're not really doing much the international community and all the outcasts you hear from there they're not doing much and in the end it's a hot potato that stays between the fingers of the Israelis a sad situation but as you mentioned obviously an honest one that no one wants to extend a bigger helping hand to the biggest flight after terrorism this is the biggest blast of the Palestinian people all the hypocrisy people say they support the Palestinians but they don't we were actually the ones who support them the most with electricity water and you name it the world is very very hypocritical yeah and unfortunately we're seeing that playing out form a senior IDF intelligence officer and security NSRFL your show me thank you so much for being with me here in studio now it's never easy saying goodbye to a loved one as they pass from this life into the next farewells to people who are murdered is even harder to comprehend and more so when they've been tortured dismembered and burnt to the extent that so many under the hands of Hamas terrorists were on October 7th to some of the bereaved these families are actually considered lucky as they actually had a body of their loved ones and they were able to be identified dozens of families in Israel in the past three months have been notified their relatives have been murdered meaning Hamas robbed them of their loved ones and saying goodbye but they also stole the sacred funeral rites that have long offered mourners some dignity enclosure in the midst of such unbearable grief and that is because often there were no bodies left more in this report I just never thought or imagined that I would ever face the situation it's really not a simple decision and it's not a decision to be taken lightly at all it has enormous significance Dr. Hagar Mizrachi did not learn this in medical school to make one of the most shocking decisions of her career to pronounce death without first seeing a body the event is foreign to the world in general and to the world of medicine in particular because we have very strict rules on how to determine death there is a pulse and an ECG should be done we still look for all the signs and at all the doubts to resolve them in order to give the family an answer that is clear and unambiguous until the harsh news about Judy were received she had been thought kidnapped the last time she made contact was during the morning walk with her husband near Niroz last week the family was informed of Gadi's death now it's Judy one of the open cases that Dr. Mizrachi and the committee of which she is a member for many weeks one of the very complex cases we've received a description of the circumstances of the incident but we also heard the phone call she made to the magandavida dome hotline we read whatsapp messages with friends and family and watched relevant videos we understood that there was a very very serious injury here we sat more than once to try to understand what happened that black Sabbath raised many dramatic issues one of which is whether it is possible to declare the death of a hostage while in captivity some were murdered and taken to the Gaza Strip some were taken they're wounded and did not survive the injury others were murdered in Gaza the ministry of health has established a committee to assess the situation of the hostages headed by Dr. Agar Mizrachi a committee of experts trying to decide what happened to kidnapped citizens collecting every scrap of information watching hours of video we are on this committee by virtue of our position as doctors we want evidence whose essence is a medical basis it's not just watching videos it's literally sitting and analyzing and looking for breathing movements you look for movements of the eyelids movements of the body a reaction to pain simply analyzing the movies frame by frame we also deal mainly with analyzing gunshot wounds where they hit where organs were hit and everything together with the fact that there is no medical treatment leads us to our conclusions this is how they came to determine that Aviva Tzili Ofra Kedar and Inbar Haiman were murdered unlike legal matters where reasonable doubt is enough here the three doctors on the committee Dr. Mizrachi Dr. Kugel and Dr. Marine CEO of Sharitz at a hospital need to be completely convinced before they tell the family we sit and if we don't come to a conclusion then we say we haven't yet decided additional material will arrive Hamas will release something some additional information will be received we will incorporate the new bits and watch one more time from beginning to end and then we'll make a decision each decision is made unanimously how much certainty do you need to determine is 99 percent enough we wait and check the points until we are all convinced for me it is 100 percent 100 percent as far as i'm concerned not knowing is the worst thing i can't stay up in the air i need to know Danny Engel was informed that his brother Ronan was kidnapped with his family from their home in Iroos but his gut feeling said he was probably killed after all Ronan was armed fighting the terrorists who entered the apartment and no one has seen him since it was very alarming me too in this whole situation i hung on to some kind of optimism and forced myself not to eulogize him or to talk about him in the past tense so not to create you know the situation that there is no Ronan four days after his wife and daughters returned from captivity the news was received Ronan was murdered and the body was snatched the death was determined according to a video and other findings that were in the house Karina said that there was a large pool of blood where Ronan was standing other people who returned said that they saw his body being dragged outside out of the house i have this kind of closure they told me and beyond any doubt Ronan is gone it's it's the better option than not knowing and continuing to hope the message the eulogize family received about the death of guy the 26 year old musician who was at the party in Reim was a little different in his case there was no video only the knowledge that he was injured and kidnapped but about a month ago they were informed that Maya Regev who returned from captivity gave detailed testimony about their son i asked them tell me are you really serious you want me to state as an axiom that my son died in light of the fact that she was a prisoner who was in the room with Guy that she saw him through the curtain and she was full of drugs and i have no idea what and in light of all the psychological warfare they are doing listen i'm not ready to accept it but i would love to meet with Maya Regev they rarely tried to give him CPR and he died from his wounds and at first i refused to believe it and after they took him i said that i had to see that it was really him i have this duty to go and talk to his family in the end i'm the only person who knows what really happened so i moved the curtain and saw that he really wasn't with us that he was gone after the parents heard Maya the subtleties the details how she described how they put him in a white bag for the dead they were convinced they sat Shiva and said goodbye to their boy saying goodbye is it's hard to bear it's not goodbye when you can say i'm saying goodbye because i saw that he died we didn't see we didn't see that guy is indeed no longer with us we separated from him based on testimony based on information the returning hostages brought with them a lot of new information to the committee about the fate and condition of those who are left behind but they say they are not satisfied with this evidence as a sole parameter for example we knew that someone had been shot and we saw the type of injury and we understood that in this condition he was taken to the Gaza Strip and in this condition we know that in order to treat the gunshot we need very intensive very advanced treatment if at all and over time and on and on it's a culmination of things especially if one of the abductees later states that he has passed away as long as this body does not arrive in Israel it's not doubt really it's not a question of doubt he won't be knocking on the door tomorrow and entering the house but for me the story hasn't ended the bodies of the hostages who did return to Israel were thoroughly examined by Dr. Mizrachi's committee to confirm the circumstances of their death the CT scan shows us whether there are bullets whether there are clots so far bodies have arrived and apparently Hamas said they were killed because of an IDF attack this is not true these are not the conclusions it is difficult in some cases to determine the exact cause of death but it does not appear that people were injured and the injuries match injuries from shelling the committee deals not only with the dead but also with those who return alive from captivity as a doctor Agar Mizrachi also tries to understand something about the medical treatment they received to her surprise she discovered that they were not given only prescription drugs but also dangerous ones apparently they were given treatment not exactly known in Israel which among other things causes some kind of sedation there was also ketamine in some of the cases ketamine is a drug that is given under anesthesia for surgery and today it is a drug that is used of course illegally and indeed there was testimony of people who came received ketamine unnecessarily as a form of sedation i'm not sure you want to emerge from captivity as a drug addict there was a prior claim that the terrorists had been given drugs before i don't have any proof of this but i can tell you honestly i can't understand from what i've seen how they did it without it i say they are not animals because it is unimaginable that's all we have time for on this special edition at this hour but tune in again at the top of the hour for more updates on day 88 of the war between Israel and Hamas Israel is in a state 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 this means to the guerra espadas de hierro entrevistas exclusivas report es desde la zona de guerra la reacción de los países hispanoparlantes news 24 el único medio en español que te mantiene informado y conectado con la comunidad latina en israel news 24 únicamente en i-24 news a special edition on i-24 news i'm batter 11th all coming to live from our television studios thanks for joining me at this hour it is day 88 of the war on the main front residents in Gaza say that Israeli aircraft and tanks stepped up strikes in the southern part of the strip overnight this after it announced plans to pull back some of its troops from the ground a move the united states said signaled a gradual shift to lower intensity operations in the north of the enclave meanwhile this tuesday morning a joint strike operation by the israeli navy air force and ground troops took out Hamas operatives along the gaza coast who were planting explosives well let's cross our life to our correspondent peer clash and lo who is standing by for us in the south pier what more do we know about this joint strike the fact that they are Hamas operatives that are working on the coastline is israel prepared to deal with those as well well you know there is a strategic access on the coastal road a coastal road which is called the Aruna Rashid road along the mediterranean sea and it seems that according to the IDF there are compounds and terror targets west of Direl Balak in the central sector of the Gaza Strip and those presumed terror targets were stricken by the navy and the air force over night and there was a quite intense bombardments of presumed terror targets in the central sector of the Gaza Strip on the three refugee camps El Burej El Mourazi and El Nucerat as well as Direl Balak overnight and Palestinian media affiliated to Hamas are talking about one hundred wounded and seventy people dead but of course they do not make the distinction between non-involved civilian population and terrorists so it's very difficult to assess the the effect of those airstrikes on terror groups and they do that on purpose obviously now on the northern sector where there is a lower intensity warfare and five brigades are being pulled out of the ground operation there there have been clashes with scores of terrorists in the Jabalia refugee camp which were annihilated maybe overnight maybe the day before because the IDF does not give a time frame about these clashes with IDF ground forces now five brigades are getting out two of them are reserve brigades and three of them are conscript soldiers that are going to go back to their training so we're talking about thousands of troops that are getting out of the northern sector of the Gaza Strip Palestinian media affiliated to Hamas are talking about the pulling out of some armored vehicles from the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood northwest of Gaza city in the central sector as I mentioned they're still heavy fighting as well as in and as well as within and without hanyuness where the thrust of the offensive is taking place right now but also in Gaza city the last stronghold of Hamas in two neighborhoods al-Daraj and al-Tufah where the IDF is grinding this but this lone battalion of Hamas who is still operating inside Gaza city that's that has been going on for over a week and a half now and the expectation is that sooner or later that battalion will be totally annihilated and that means that the whole of Gaza city as well as the as the northern sector will be under full operational control of the IDF although it takes time to dismantle the whole infrastructure of of Hamas in the northern sector especially the tunnel network. Corresponding Pierre Clashendale thank you very much for that thorough update there in the south of the country and in the north of the country overnight the IDF also responded to rockets that were fired from Syrian territory into Israel one day earlier some causing material damage separately Hezbollah said that four of its fighters were killed in southern Lebanon after the IDF struck the terror groups infrastructure in the West Bank the IDF in the early hours of Tuesday morning were operating in the cities of Janine Jericho and Calculia clashes broke out in Janine in the northern West Bank as the Israeli forces came under Palestinian gunfire and then responded with live ammunition well with me here in studio is retired Colonel Amit Asar former member of the Israeli security agency good morning to you I'd like to start by asking you about the West Bank the numbers indicate that over 2500 have been arrested in the West Bank since the start of the war 1300 of which are affiliated with Hamas yes the IDF is dealing with the threat of Hamas on the southern flank and it's also dealing with Hamas and Hezbollah on the northern flank but now we've also got it on the eastern flank it's not now it's from the beginning because we know that Hamas is holding a very big strength in the West Bank and we have a lot of tourists within the West Bank cities within the West Bank refugee camps more of it and if you are watching also what we see the support that they have in the West Bank we know now that more than 82 percent of the West Bank civilians are supporting what Hamas did in the 7th of October so we know now and we knew from the beginning that Hamas is very very have a lot of strength in the West Bank now it's very obvious that there is a lot of terrorists in the West Bank and most of them are in the cities in the big cities and we see a lot of activity of IDF inside the Tulkarian West at camps and the Janine camps and the Nablus and also in other places in the in the West Bank and it's part of our war and we know that we are there from the beginning obviously a massive criticism which bears very little truth in it from the international community is that Israel is committing genocide always an apartheid state and I think that also stems from the fact that there's a misconception as to the difference between Israeli Arabs and Palestinians Israeli Arabs of which are full citizens with full rights in the state of Israel how can you explain a little but perhaps to the audience where this confusion stems in the sense of a lot of the workers a lot of the people living in the West Bank do they hold blue Israeli identification cards are they considered Israeli Arab or are they in fact Palestinian and that's under a different jurisdiction okay this is a very complicated thing that we have to understand from the basic issue the basic issue is the legitimate or legitimate of Israel here in the region if we are talking about the Israeli Arab Israeli they are also said if you will ask them it's not my opinion it's what they said that they are Palestinian but still the attitude that they have is that Israel is legitimate in this area when you are watching the West Bank Palestinian that it's just after the border that you see that there is no legitimate in the education in the education of kids for fighting for hatred for what we see is from the sea to the to the river who's holding it is the Palestinian in the West Bank or in Gaza but what we see in the Israeli Palestinians is the full cooperation with Israeli legitimate here in the region as still when we are talking about what you said the blue identity we have a little bit of problem with the East Jerusalem people because East Jerusalem Palestinian is more like West Bank people than a Israeli Palestinian and what we see from the beginning of the 7th of October war we see in the Israeli Palestinian Arab Israeli that lives in Israel and lives side by side with the Jewish community that they understand that the reason different that they have to be very careful with it when they are saying that they are Palestinian they have to say in the same sentence we are Palestinian but Israeli have a legitimate here in the region and it's a big different now because we saw in the past a lot of problems that they had some problem with the brothers in the other side of the fence and they said that things sometimes that it sounds like they're legitimate of Israel but now they understand that they have to stick with legitimate of Israel as a state here in Israel and they are honored the Israelis that lives here that means that we can give them also their honor to live with us we are open our hands for peace who doesn't want us here who is saying that we are not legitimate we have to fight them because we have to defend ourselves but who's not saying this say of legitimate we're saying that he wants to live with us with an honor and with a peace we are holding everybody with our open hands and they feel it Israel has over the last couple of years as you've mentioned now that we've broken down at least on the surface the difference between Israeli Arabs who identify as Palestinians would obviously recognize Israel's legitimate right to exist versus the Palestinians that are technically under either Palestinian Authority control or Hamas's control in the Gaza Strip Israel still however has been giving permits to work in the country because livelihoods both in the West Bank that is under Palestinian Authority control and under Hamas control in Gaza is evidently not where it should be given that they've been given billions of dollars of funding and it goes to other areas and so Israel's taken the responsibility to give them work permits now we seeing a shortage of that given the attacks that unfolded on October 7th to the point that Israel is considering now bringing in foreign workers from both India and China surely there should be some kind of Palestinian angle uprising against their own leadership that here they have access to livelihoods to their well-being and now that's being cut off because of the decisions made by their leadership I think that this is a sign for the Palestinian to understand that what happens now in the Gaza Strip have to sign for the sign for them and I think to to move to another to another place in their ideas because as you said we are giving a permission of 10,000 people in the 6th of January that will get in from the from the West Bank into Israel to work we are giving them the opportunity for prosperity for for having good life with our money to work in our side but as we saw what happened in the in the Gaza Strip we hope that they understand that they can't do it again and we hope because from my point of view it's a lot of problem as I said before 82 of the percent of the the West Bank people thinks that Hamas is is right 70 percent of them is not condemning the the action in the 7th of October of Hamas which means that when we are giving 10,000 permission in the 6th of January it's few days from now it's the 6th of January they will get 10,000 people inside Israel we have 7,000 of them is thinking like Hamas members and we can't permit it and we have to fight it in their idea in their mind and if we are talking about workers we will get workers outside of the country they will have to understand that they will lose this opportunity and I hope I hope they will change their mind I mean it's as I stay with me because I do want to continue this conversation but I want to switch gears ever so slightly interrogation of terrorists in an investigation by the IDF's unit 504 has exposed the shocking tactics used by Hamas to exploit Ghazan civilians two terrorists from different factions within Gaza Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic jihad have divulged details on how Hamas threatened Palestinian residents of Gaza to meet the needs of the terrorist organizations take a look I I All right. We came here to sit in the place where we are from. And they wanted to use it. So I came here on the second way. I don't know what time it is. I swear I didn't see him. I wish he was with us. I swear to God, I don't see him. I don't see him from the inside. I don't see him from the inside. We live a very different life. The first thing that came to my mind was that we were scared. That the army didn't want to do anything. So I came here with water and food. Still with me here in studio retired Colonel Amit Assar, Amit the whole world demanded proof and evidence. It's been handed to them on a silver platter and yet many are still disputing it. Yes, I think that the hatred and the anti-Semitism in the world is holding people not to see. They're holding the eyes to see just the underdog of the Palestinian and if we are strong and if Israel is strong, it's a strong country. The stronger country in the region, we are holding and doing some harm to the underdog Palestinian. This will always stay like that. But still what we saw now is an evidence. You can see in the eyes of the person that sits and interrogate. It's just not interrogation. It's more interview. You can feel from what he said. And he's a regular civilians and it's a good evidence. But still somebody can say that we put some words in his mouth and he's sitting in front of interrogators or he's talking like that. And you can twist it back as against us and say he is not talking truth. He is talking like that because he is in our hands. Still I think that we have to show the world this evidence. We have to show and to sound this sound of voice of the innocent, so-called people in the Gaza Strip that Hamas is holding them as a shield. As you saw, people are staying in their homes with their kids and Hamas members are shooting from their windows thinking that the IDF will not shoot into a place that there is children. It's a human shield and it's just showing us what is the nature of Hamas. But still I want to add a little thing about this person that was speaking in the interrogation. What we saw in the interrogation is making himself as an innocent. But we have to understand that all the civilians in Gaza is holding the attitude of the Hamas, is not saying the Hamas is not doing something well. They are cooperating with the Hamas, most of the Gaza Strip and also most of what we saw in the West Bank. So we have to be very careful with what he's saying in the interrogation as an innocent people. But still it's a good evidence for showing the world to understand what is the community that the people in Gaza is suffering from the Hamas hands. The suffering, as we spoke about earlier in the studio in different broadcasts, is at the hands of Hamas who the IDF Israeli authority says is under full control of the Gaza Strip. And thus anything that emanates from the Gaza Strip is under Hamas' responsibility and jurisdiction. What happens the day after? We've discussed that Hamas, the Palestinian authority, might not be viable options. What about the so-called clans in Gaza, the wealthy families? They don't necessarily blend well into the political scheme of things, but could they run the strip? I will give you my opinion, because to see the future, we can't. But my opinion, the best is first we have to understand that IDF will not go out of Gaza Strip until we will be sure that we are safe and there is no security threat from Gaza. No Hamas members, nobody that wants to hurt Israel. That means that IDF will be still in the Gaza Strip in points. Maybe it will go out from central places, but he will be there. This for sure for a long time. Now, what will happen politically is very interesting and we have to be very creative. One of the suggestions that he's putting now on the table, it's like an emirate. Emirate means that you are spreading the Gaza Strip to families. We will give the families the opportunity to run the life of the people that surround them in spots. And everyone will be connected to the main, let's say, authorization of somebody that will cooperate everything from the back and it will be the global community. And will not be any kind of government like the Palestinian authorities, of course, because still it's not the government that we want and of course the Hamas. So we have to be creative about the day after. First, security will be on the IDF hands and then municipality will give to somebody that can do it. Still on the political front, but shifting from Gaza into Israel. Israel's cats has just become the 22nd foreign minister changing in the midst of the war. Yes, they should be commended, that they stuck to the original plan, that the rotation went forward. But is this necessary in the midst of a war? Or should we not be focused on the actual military front as opposed to the political front? Yes, there is a big argument that we're having in our place in political way. And what we have to concentrate on is war. It's supporting our soldiers in the front. It's supporting it because all Israel are in war. Even if it's not just the regular soldiers, we have a lot of an IDF that comes from homes, from businesses and doing service in Gaza Strip and not just in Gaza Strip in the West Bank and we are preparing ourselves to another mission in the North. Everybody have to be concentrated in war, meaning supporting our soldier in the front line. That we have to- But perhaps the argument could be that the foreign ministry is defending or at least protecting and supporting the soldiers on the front line by Hasbara, by public relations abroad. Yeah, we have to consider this only. All the political issues we have to put on the side. We can't do any political- And we saw that when we did it, the enemy thought that we are spreading, that we have complicated the issue in Israel between ourselves and they thought that we are weak and they started the war in the 7th of October. We have to be united and we have to be united after in the back of our soldiers. That's what we have to do now. A former member of the Israeli Security Agency, Amit Asad, thank you so much for taking the time to be with me in studio and for your analysis. And that does bring us to the end of this special edition broadcast on day 88 of the war, just a short recap before we return at the top of the hour with more updates on the main front residents in Gaza say that Israeli aircraft and tanks stepped up strikes in the southern part of the strip overnight. Thus, after the IDF announced plans to pull back some of its troops from the ground, more specifically the north and center of the enclave. This is a move that the United States has signaled a gradual shift to lower intensity operations in those areas. Meanwhile, this Tuesday morning, a joint strike operation by the Israeli Navy, Air Force and ground troops took out Hamas operatives along the Gaza coast who were there planting explosives. Stay with us, we'll be right back at the top of the hour with more updates on the 88th day of the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. A state of war families completely gunned 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 be fought as well. Welcome to the special edition on I-24 News. I'm Batch 11th or coming to you live from our Tel Aviv studios. Thanks for joining me at this hour. It is day 88 of the war. On the main front, residents in Gaza say that Israeli aircraft and tanks stepped up strikes in the southern part of the strip overnight. This afternoon, it announced plans to pull back some of its troops from the ground. A move the United States said signaled a gradual shift to lower intensity operations in the north of the enclave. Meanwhile, this Tuesday morning, a joint strike operation by the Israeli Navy, Air Force and ground troops took out Hamas operatives along the Gaza coast who were planting explosives. Well, let's cross our live to our correspondent Pierre Clash and Lohu is standing by for us in the south. Pierre, what more do we know about this joint strike? The fact that there are Hamas operatives that are working on the coastline, is Israel prepared to deal with those as well? Well, you know, there is a strategic access on the coastal road, a coastal road which is called the Aruna Rashid Road along the Mediterranean Sea. And it seems that according to the IDF, there are compounds and terror targets west of Direl-Balach in the central sector of the Gaza Strip and those presumed terror targets were streaked by the Navy and the Air Force overnight. And there was a quite intense bombardment of presumed terror targets in the central sector of the Gaza Strip on the three refugee camps El Burej, El Mourazi, and El Nucerat, as well as Direl-Balach overnight. And Palestinian media affiliated to Hamas are talking about 170 people dead. But of course they do not make the distinction between non-involved civilian population and terrorists. So it's very difficult to assess the effect of those airstrikes on terror groups and they do that on purpose, obviously. Now, on the northern sector where there is a lower intensity warfare and five brigades are being pulled out of the ground operation there, there have been clashes with scores of terrorists in the Jabalia refugee camp which were annihilated maybe overnight, maybe the day before because the IDF does not give a time frame about these clashes with IDF ground forces. Now, five brigades are getting out. Two of them are reserve brigades and three of them are conscript soldiers that are going to go back to their training. So we're talking about thousands of troops that are getting out of the northern sector of the Gaza Strip. Palestinian media affiliated to Hamas are talking about the pulling out of some armored vehicles from the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood northwest of Gaza City. In the central sector, as I mentioned, there's still heavy fighting as well as within and without hanyuness where the thrust of the offensive is taking place right now. But also in Gaza City, the last stronghold of Hamas in two neighborhoods, Aldaraj and Altoufar where the IDF is grinding this lone battalion of Hamas who is still operating inside Gaza City. That has been going on for over a week and a half now and the expectation is that sooner or later that battalion will be totally annihilated and that means that the whole of Gaza City as well as the northern sector will be under full operational control of the IDF although it takes time to dismantle the whole infrastructure of Hamas in the northern sector, especially the tunnel network. Correspondent Pierre Clashendale, thank you very much for that thorough update there in the south of the country. And in the north of the country overnight, the IDF also responded to rockets that were fired from Syrian territory into Israel one day earlier, some causing material damage. Separately, Hezbollah said that four of its fighters were killed in southern Lebanon after the IDF struck the terror group's infrastructure. In the West Bank, the IDF in the early hours of Tuesday morning were operating in the cities of Genine, Jericho and Calculia. Clash's broke out in Genine in the northern West Bank as the Israeli forces came under Palestinian gunfire and then responded with live ammunition. Well, with me here in studio is retired Colonel Amit Asar, former member of the Israeli Security Agency. Good morning to you. I'd like to start by asking you about the West Bank. The numbers indicate that over 2,500 have been arrested in the West Bank since the start of the war. 1,300 of which are affiliated with Hamas. Yes, the IDF is dealing with the threat of Hamas on the southern flank, and it's also dealing with Hamas and Hezbollah on the northern flank, but now we've also got it on the eastern flank? It's not now. It's from the beginning because we know that Hamas is holding very big strength in the West Bank and we have a lot of terrorists within the West Bank cities, within the West Bank refugee camps, more of it. And if you are watching also what we see, the support that they have in the West Bank, we know now that more than 82% of the West Bank civilians are supporting what Hamas did in the 7th of October. So we know now, and we knew from the beginning that Hamas is very, very... have a lot of strength in the West Bank. Now, it's very obvious that there is a lot of terrorists in the West Bank and most of them are in the cities, in the big cities, and we see a lot of activity, a lot of IDF inside the Tulkarian West Camps and the Jenin camps and the Nablus and also in other places in the West Bank, and it's part of our war. And we know that we are there from the beginning. Obviously, a massive criticism which bears very little truth in it from the international community is that Israel is committing genocide, always an apartheid state, and I think that also stems from the fact that there is this conception as to the difference between Israeli Arabs and Palestinians, Israeli Arabs of which are full citizens with full rights in the state of Israel. Can you explain a little perhaps to the audience where this confusion stems in the sense of a lot of the workers, a lot of the people living in the West Bank? Do they hold blue Israeli identification cards? Are they considered Israeli-Arab or are they in fact Palestinian and thus under a different jurisdiction? A very complicated thing that we have to understand from the basic issue. The basic issue is the legitimate or legitimate of Israel here in the region. If we are talking about the Israeli, Arab-Israeli, they are also said, if you will ask them, it's not my opinion, it's what they said, that they are Palestinian. But still, the attitude that they have is that Israel is legitimate in this area. When you are watching the West Bank Palestinian that it's just after the border that you see that there is no legitimate in the education of kids for fighting, for hatred, for what we see is from the sea to the river whose holding it is the Palestinian in the West Bank or in Gaza. But what we see in the Israeli Palestinians is the full cooperation with Israeli legitimate here in the region. Still, when we are talking about what you said, the blue identity, we have a little bit of problem with the East Jerusalem people because East Jerusalem Palestinian is more like West Bank people than an Israeli Palestinian. And what we see from the beginning of the 7th of October war, we see in the Israeli, Palestinian Arab-Israeli that lives in Israel and lives side by side with the Jewish community that they understand that there is a difference and they have to be very careful with it when they are saying that they are Palestinian they have to say in the same sentence we are Palestinian but Israeli have a legitimate here in the region and it's a big difference now because we saw in the past a lot of problems that they had some problem with the brothers in the other side of the fence said that things sometimes that it sounds like the legitimate of Israel but now they understand that they have to stick with the legitimate of Israel as a state here in Israel and they are honored the Israelis that lives here that means that we can give them also their honor to live with us. We are open our hands for peace who doesn't want us here who is saying that we are not legitimate we have to fight them because we have to defend ourselves but who is not saying this say of the legitimate who is saying that he wants to live with us with an honor and with a peace we are holding everybody with our open hands and they feel it. Israel has over the last couple of years as you've mentioned now that we've broken down at least on the surface the difference between Israeli Arabs who identify as Palestinians but obviously recognize Israel's legitimate right to exist versus the Palestinians that are technically under either Palestinian authority control or Hamas's control in the Gaza Strip Israel still however has been giving permits to work in the country because livelihoods both in the West Bank that is under Palestinian authority control and under Hamas control in Gaza is evidently not where it should be given that they've been given billions of dollars of funding and it goes to other areas and so Israel's taken the responsibility to give them work permits now we're seeing a shortage of that given the attacks that unfolded on October 7th to the point that Israel is considering now bringing in foreign workers from both India and China surely there should be some kind of Palestinian angle uprising against their own leadership that here they have access to livelihoods to their well being and now that's being cut off because of the decisions made by their leadership I think that this is a sign for the a Palestinian to understand that what happens now in the Gaza Strip have to sign for the sign for them I think to move to another place in their ideas because as you said we are giving a permission of 10,000 people in the 6th of January that will get from the West Bank into Israel to work we are giving them the opportunity for prosperity for having good life with our money to work in our side but as we saw what happened in the Gaza Strip we hope that they understand that they can't do it again and we hope because from my point of view it's a lot of problem as I said before 82% of the West Bank people thinks that Hamas is right 70% of them is not condemning the action in the 7th of October of Hamas which means that when we are giving 100,000 permission in the 6th of January it's few days from now in the 6th of January they will get 10,000 people inside Israel we have 7,000 of them is thinking like Hamas numbers and we can't permit it and we have to fight it in their idea in their mind and if we are talking about workers of the country they will have to understand that they will lose this opportunity and I hope they will change their mind I mean it's as I stay with me because I do want to continue this conversation but I want to switch gears ever so slightly interrogation of terrorists in an investigation by the IDF's Unit 504 has exposed the shocking tactics used by Hamas to exploit Gaza's civilians two terrorists from different factions in the Palestinian Islamic jihad have divulged details on how Hamas threatened Palestinian residents of Gaza to meet the needs of the terrorist organizations take a look the violence that was under the ground the first one that the army heard was Gaza was Gaza Gaza Gaza Gaza Gaza Gaza Gaza Gaza Gaza Gaza Gaza Gaza Gaza Gaza Gaza Gaza r r r Still with me here in studio, retired Colonel Amit Assa, Amit the whole world demanded proof and evidence. It's been handed to them on a silver platter and yet many are still disputing it. Yes, I think that the hatred and the anti-semitism in the world is holding people not to see. They're holding their eyes to see just the underdog of the Palestinians and if we are strong and if Israel is strong, it's a strong country in the stronger country in the region, we are holding and doing some harm to the underdog Palestinian. This will always stay like that, but still what we saw now is an evidence. You can see in the eyes of the person that sits and interrogates. It's just not interrogation. It's more interview. You can feel from what he said and he's a regular civilians and it's a good evidence, but still somebody can say that we put some words in his mouth and he's sitting in front of interrogators or he's talking like that and you can twist it back as against us and say he is not talking truth, he is talking like that because he is in our hands. Still I think that we have to show the world this evidence. We have to show and to sound, this sound of voice of the innocent so-called people in the Gaza Strip that Hamas is holding them as a shield. As you saw, people are staying in their homes with their kids and Hamas members are shooting from their windows thinking that the IDF will not shoot into a place that there is children. It's a human shield and it's just showing us what is the nature of Hamas, but still I want to add a little thing about this person that was speaking in the interrogation. What we saw in the interrogation is making himself as an innocent, but we have to understand that all the civilians in Gaza is holding the attitude of the Hamas is not saying the Hamas is not doing something well. They are cooperating with the Hamas most of the Gaza Strip and also most of what we saw in the West Bank, so we have to be very careful with what he is saying in the interrogation as an innocent people, okay? But still it's a good evidence for showing in the world to understand what is the community that the people in Gaza is suffering from the Hamas hands. The suffering as we spoke about earlier in the studio in different broadcasts is at the hands of Hamas who the IDF Israeli authority says is under full control of the Gaza Strip, and thus anything that emanates from the Gaza Strip is under Hamas's responsibility and jurisdiction. What happens the day after? We've discussed that Hamas, the Palestinian authority might not be viable options. What about the so-called clans in Gaza, the wealthy families? They don't necessarily blend well into the political scheme of things, but could they run the strip? I will give you my opinion, because to see the future we can't, but my opinion the best is first we have to understand that IDF will not go out of Gaza Strip until we will be sure that we are safe and there is no security threat from Gaza, no Hamas members, nobody that wants to hurt Israel. That means that IDF will be still in the Gaza Strip in points. Maybe it will go out from central places, but he will be there. This for sure for a long time. Now what will happen politically is very interesting and we have to be very creative. One of the suggestions that he's putting now on the table, it's like an emirate, emirate meanings that you are spreading the Gaza Strip to families. We will give the families the opportunity to run the life of the people that's surrounding them in spots and everyone will be connected to the main, let's say, authorization of somebody that will cooperate everything from the back and it will be the global community and will not be any kind of government like the Palestinian authorities, of course, because they're still, it's not the government that we want and of course the Hamas. So we have to be creative about the day after. First, security will be on the IDF hands and then municipality will give to somebody that can do it. I'm still on the political front, but shifting from Gaza into Israel. Israel's cats has just become the 22nd foreign minister changing in the midst of the war. Yes, they should be commended that they stuck to the original plan that the rotation went forward, but is this necessary in the midst of a war? Should we not be focused on the actual military front as opposed to the political front? Yes, there is a big argument that we having in our place in political way and what we have to concentrate now is war. It's supporting our soldiers in the front, supporting it because all Israel are in war. Even if it's not just the regular soldiers, we have a lot of an IDF that comes from homes, from businesses and doing service in Gaza Strip and not just in Gaza Strip in the West Bank and we are preparing ourselves to another mission in the North. Everybody has to be concentrated in war, meaning supporting our soldier in the front line. That's we have to- Perhaps the argument could be that the foreign ministry is defending or at least protecting and supporting the soldiers on the front line by Hasbara, by public relations abroad. Yeah, we have to consider this only. All the political issues we have to put aside. We can't do any political- and we saw that when we did it, the enemy thought that we are spreading, that we have complicated the issue in Israel between ourselves and they thought that we are weak and they started the war in the 7th of October. We have to be united and we have to be united after in the back of our soldiers. That's what we have to do now. A former member of the Israeli Security Agency, Amit Asad, thank you so much for taking the time to be with me in studio and for your analysis. And that does bring us to the end of this special edition broadcast on day 88 of the war. Just a short recap before we return at the top of the hour with more updates on the main front residents in Gaza, say that Israeli aircraft and tanks stepped up strikes in the southern part of the strip overnight. Thus, after the IDF announced plans to pull back some of its troops from the ground, more specifically the north and center of the enclave. This is a move that the United States has signaled a gradual shift to lower intensity operations in those areas. Meanwhile, this Tuesday morning, a joint strike operation by the Israeli Navy, Air Force and ground troops took out Hamas operatives along the Gaza coast, who were there planting explosives. Stay with us. We'll be right back at the top of the hour with more updates on the 88th day of the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. A state of war, families completely gunned down in their beds. We have no idea where she is. Our soldiers are fighting on the front lines, but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well. Another special edition here on I-24 News. I'm Bacha Leventhal, coming July from Tel Aviv. Thanks for joining me this hour. It's day 88th of the war. On the main front, residents in Gaza say that Israeli aircraft and tanks stepped up strikes in the southern part of the strip overnight. Thus, after the IDF announced plans to pull back some of its troops from the ground, a move the United States has signaled a gradual shift to lower-intensity operations in the north and center of the enclave. Meanwhile, this Tuesday morning, a joint strike operation by the Israeli Navy, Air Force and ground troops took out Hamas operatives along the Gaza coastline, who were there planting explosives. Well, joining me right here in studio is retired colonel Dr. Jacques Neria, the former deputy head of assessment for Israeli military intelligence and the former foreign policy adviser to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Good morning to you. Good morning. And thank you for joining me. Obviously, big news at this hour coming out of the north, which we'll get to in just a second in terms of the updates. But the IDF confirming strikes in Syria overnight. This really goes against their long-standing policy of not commenting at all on any activity happening in Syria or Lebanon. You know, Syria is something very special from time to time. You hear that when, for instance, the Air Force commander just finishes his job and now he retires, he said that we have conducted more than 500 air raids in Syria. And then you realize that Israel has been acting in Syria. Then you hear from former prime minister that we have been acting in Iran, that we have been bombing in Iraq. So I think that there's nothing so much special about this taking responsibility. The fact is that Israel has decided, it seems so since the beginning of this war, to stop the Syria from being a springboard for the transfer of weapons from Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon and from Syria to the Iranian militias in the Golan. And if this is the decision, so you have to strike the depots. You have to strike the places where the positions and certain air defense positions that could, in a way, interfere in the flight of our planes in Syria. Basically, I think that Israel has decided to flare, that the Syrian front is going to, in a way or another, is flaring up. And so it has to take the advance. We are day after day being struck by missiles that from Syria into the Golan. And I think that, basically, Israel has understood that in order to separate between Iran on the one hand and Hezbollah, you have to strike Syria. Because if Syria is stricken and the fact that Syria is crippled because of Israeli bombardments, then the whole crescent that Iran is trying to build would be just impossible to do so. And the fact that to try to surround Israel and to choke it by a combined front, Syrian and Lebanese, would definitely be here. Iran would be unable to do so. Well, there's no denying that Israel has not only the capabilities, but also the resources to deal with Iranian proxies in Syria, in Lebanon, in Iraq, in Yemen. Seven. Even in the West Bank. But should it have to, is the question. Surely the idea of should deal Iran some kind of fatal blow, so that it can continue to focus on its main front being in the Gaza Strip? I think that, basically, right now, facing Iran would be another game. Definitely, this is a game that not Israel is, it is not limited to Israel, but it has to be done with the Americans also. Because they are just hurting American interest in Syria, in Iraq, in the Gulf, and, of course, in the Red Sea. But, basically, what we have to do is just to strike at Hezbollah, at Syria, at the Iranian militias there, and at the Iranian advisors that are present there. In the last week, where 13 of them were killed in Syria, and more than 23 were killed on the way to Syria from Iraq. I think that this decision is, as you say, that we are able to do so. And if we are able to do so, we have to make our enemy understand that we are ready to interfere. We are no more in the week's situation that we have no resolve. We don't want to fight. We don't want that war. This is what we have been saying for the last two years. And the interpretation of this statement by the Arabs, and certainly by Hezbollah and Iran, that Israel is weak. And because it's weak, and because of the internal schism inside Israel, between left and right, about the traditional reform, then it is the time to strike. So when you ask your question, should we do that? Is there a reason for that? We have to react to what they are saying. They are saying that they want to annihilate Israel. They want to eliminate Israel. This is what they are saying all the time. And they said, and I remember one of the last speeches of Hassan Asala, I said the countdown has begun for Israel. Twenty years from now, Israel will not be with us anymore. So we have to fight beginning now. And there's no reason why should we throw, for instance, from the Lebanese border. Chuck, stay with me, because I want to continue this conversation in more depth. But first, I do want to get an update from our correspondent, Pierre Klauschenlo, who is standing by for us in the South. Pierre, we've been speaking about it over the course of the last few hours, the fact that the IDF is looking to possibly lower its intensity in terms of the fighting in the Strip. Explain to us a little bit about the difference in terms of where the fighting is concentrated now in the north, the center, and the south, and how it plans exactly on doing that. Right. In the northern sector of the Gaza Strip, in this direction, we've seen tanks near Kibbutz-Nachal Oz redeploying inside Israeli territory. And that's part of the redeployment due to the low intensity fighting in the northern sector of the Gaza Strip, although it's conditional because in the past few days, scores of terrorists have been annihilated in the refugee camp of Jebalia, which is on the northern outskirts of Gaza City in the northern sector. But yet, the army is planning the redeployment inside Israel of three brigades of conscript who are going to undergo their training and two brigades of reserve soldiers until the end of the week. They will be freed and will be able to participate into the economic life of the country until the next call-up, which could happen during the course of this year because this year has been decreed by the Israeli army as a year of war. The three main focal points of the ground offensive, and I'm talking now about high-intensity warfare, is the Aldaraj Tufaq in Gaza City, the last stronghold of Hamas in the northern sector of the Gaza Strip. You can see the pillars of black smoke emanating from that area. Fighting has been going on against the battalion of Hamas in the past 10 days or so, but it seems that it's coming to a close in this area, because one of the brigades has already decreed that they've accomplished their mission inside the Aldaraj Tufaq neighborhoods of Gaza City. There was just an artillery outgoing earlier. We heard an Israeli air force jet operating over our head, possibly targeting a presumed target of Hamas, another artillery outgoing. So you see that this front is quite active. Further south, in the central sector of the Gaza Strip, in El Burej, Al-Muassi, and Al-Nusairat refugee camp in the area of Direl Balak, they were heavy bombardments overnight against presumed terror targets. Palestinian media affiliated to Hamas are talking about 70 fatalities and over 100 casualties, and yet they do not make any distinction between non-involved Palestinian populations and the Hamas terrorists. So it's very difficult to know how many civilians were killed and how many terrorists in those air strikes. Further south, in Canunas, seven or eight IDF brigades are operating within and without the city, which could be the make or break of Hamas, really. There is a whole regiment there of three or four battalions in the central sector, three battalions of Hamas in Canunas, three or four battalions, and the IDF is trying to annihilate those battalions. I'm saying the make or break of Hamas because this is where the IDF estimates that the political and military leadership of Hamas is hiding in the network of tunnels probably protected with Israeli hostages that have been taken during the October 7 massacre. And the IDF is trying to break that chain of command in order to reduce the capability of Hamas in inflicting casualties on the IDF and also reduce the possibility that from an organized wife and trying to transform the organized warfare inflicted by Hamas to a guerrilla mode that will be only involving isolated cells of Hamas just as it's happening in the northern sector of the Gaza Strip. Correspondent Pierre Clashendliet giving us a thorough breakdown of the IDF's current operations in the Gaza Strip. Thank you very much for that. As we mentioned briefly earlier, the updates in the north of the country. Overnight, the IDF also responded to rockets that were fired from Syrian territory into Israel one day earlier, causing some material damage. Separately, Hezbollah said that four of its fighters were killed in southern Lebanon after the IDF struck the terror group's infrastructure. And in the West Bank, the IDF in the early hours of Tuesday morning were operating in the cities of Jenin, Jericho and Calculia. Clash's broke out in Jenin in the northern West Bank as the Israeli forces came under Palestinian gunfire and then responded with live ammunition. And still with me here in studio is retired colonel Dr. Jacques Neria. Jacques, the numbers speak for themselves in the last three months or almost four months now of the war. 2,500 around have been arrested in the West Bank, of which 1,300, if I'm not mistaken, have pledged some kind of allegiance or affiliation to Hamas. This is not an issue anymore that is on the outskirts of Israel's borders. This is within its territory. Yeah, but this is nothing. This is not you. I mean, we've been fighting terrorism in the West Bank since almost two years now. And remember that we began the first incursion into the Jenin refugee camp. This was a novelty in the landscape. And now this is a daily routine. We are just conducting operations in most of the West Bank because we know that if we don't do that, then Hamas is going to take over and the Palestinian Authority, which has no authority at all in this area, would be submerged and erased. This is why we have to remember we have about 500,000 Israelis who live in the West Bank. We have to protect them. This is our duty because we send them them. We allow them to be there to establish themselves in those in those cities, those localities, sometimes very far from any other the other the reasonable city. I mean, the observation post outposts, they are there. So we have to to to give them the security they need. And if so, we have to act as swiftly and quickly as possible if and lacking the coordination, the cooperation of the Palestinian Authority, we have to just to count on ourselves. I want to move a little bit into the international arena because there's a report that's just come out now from Turkish media saying that 33 people were arrested on suspicion for spying for Israel. Now, usually in the past, we've been some of the first to break the news that Israel and Turkey have been working together to either bring down some kind of a Hamas or any Iranian group in the country. Now, we see that the tables are turning and we've heard President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president being relatively outspoken against Israel in its war and in quote unquote, his words genocide being committed in the Gaza Strip. Yeah, very mild with the with the word that you use concerning Erdogan. I mean, he's just insulting Israel every day. He's he's comparing Netanyahu to Hitler. I mean, where are we? I mean, this is the this is the behavior of of a serious and the head of state, certainly not. And if we have to count all the the the spies, so-called spies that have been arrested by by by Turkey in the last year, we would fill here a prison. I mean, every day and every second week, they say they have arrested the Mossad agents and Turkish. I mean, they're working that just doing the work up against their opposition. This is the Turkish opposition Kurds and so on against the regime. And this is the way they just I would say whiten the action by saying that these are the spies or agents of Israel. And even here at the studios after looking at a lot of the wires being Reuters, AFP, AP, a lot of the agencies that we get a fortune of materials from the majority of them this morning are actually not focusing on the situation in the Middle East, but there's news coming out of Asia, Japan, South Korea. On the one hand that could be said is good news for Israel because it means international pressure could be dying out a little bit. So Israel can continue to do what it needs to do in the Gaza Strip without having sort of the hindrance of the international media on its backs. But on the other hand, it does sort of detract away from a situation of the day after Gaza should no longer be Israel's responsibility. The world needs to be able to chip in now and assist the Palestinians. Well, we should be very careful in stating such statements because I mean, the actual wave is anti Israel and in the whole world. I mean, you could see that they even South Africa has applied to the International Court of Justice. I mean, accusing us of genocide. This is crazy. I mean, and I think that for the first time, Israel is going to appear there. And so let us use this said this floor in order to expose Hamas with all the cruelties, all the horrors and everything. This is this is the right place to do so. And of course, I mean, when when Russia the bombs Kiev and kills 15 civilians and Russia conducts other actions in in in Ukraine, and you have a tsunami in Japan, that everybody is looks at looks for the moment only there. They don't forget the war in the with the in Gaza or the war with Hezbollah. They are looking at the situation. But I mean, with less intensity, as you say, but it doesn't mean that they have forgotten that they have changed their mind as to Israel as to accept Israel and that Israel has the right to defend itself. I mean, the self defense right for everybody. So let us not I mean, ignore the waves that we hear and think that this is has been forgotten. And we have all the permission to do whatever we want in the area. This is not the case. Israel continuously needs to defend itself from defending itself. And the worry, at least among many critics, is if they do go to the ICJ or the ICC to appeal to say, well, actually, here's all this proof and evidence. Look what Hamas is doing in terms of the atrocities that it will be used as ammunition against Israel. This is definitely not we are going to dismiss the this motion that has presented by by by South Africa. Certainly the South Africa is not the the state that has to give us any morality on what's going on. Certainly not. So the judging of what's happening inside the South Africa, I think that they have been they should be more modest in the way they just approach politics. This is one thing. And I think that basically we have to use every possible mean in order to expose the horrors and the cruelty. I mean, look, I mean, the women's organization, the one refused to cooperate with Israel, knowing knowing that the women have been raped, have been raped and that rape has been used as a sexual sexual weapon by by Hamas. And they are not using doing anything, even not the declaration. So this is what we have to do. We have all the time to fight our way. Of course, we are 16 million Jews in the world. And the Muslim world is what one point one point six million billion Muslims. This is an asymmetry. But still we have we have sympathy all over the world. And we have to use those those channels in order to just make our way the make the people make the world understand our position and just that we we seek justice. Retired colonel Dr. Chakneria, thank you for your analysis and for breaking all of that down here in studio. Thank you. Now prior to the events of October 7th, one 21 year old was working on his event organizing app as many do in the startup nation. But following the Nova Music Festival massacre of which he survived, he changed his app on a dime from event organizing to fundraising. On New Year's Eve, they caught their first big fish raising money for the now 21 Israeli children made orphans at the hands of Hamas. Our Emily Francis brings us the story. Shalom. Good evening to everyone. My name is Arad and I'm not supposed to be here. A bittersweet New Year's Eve to say the least. I wish for everyone not to lose hope, not to stop improving and not to stop finding ways to help. The Jaffa Hotel was a scene of hope as hundreds found a way to celebrate life in the midst of darkness. And the message that we send from here to everyone is that our enemies will not define us. They will not stop us from living our lives. The Echoes of Hope fundraiser raised nearly $3 million for the Israeli Children's Fund, all going to the nearly 350 children who became orphans on October 7th. And so we all had mixed emotions about coming tonight, but we stand here united on one cause. And this one cause was all made possible because 21-year-old tech entrepreneur Arad Fruchter is still alive. It's like feeling born without knowing how it feels to be born. It's like this kind of feeling that's like everything and nothing at the same time because it's like I won life. I won the opportunity to live again. Before October 7th, Arad launched his event planning app called ZYGO, which has now morphed to fundraising at the same time. My passion was my app and becoming a better person. I feel like that's my essence of being, becoming better and better and better. Arad's resilience is a testament to the will to live and prosper after going through the biggest trauma since the Holocaust. He was among the 4,000 people at the Supernova Music Festival on October 7th. 629 missiles. I was in the dance floor with one of my friends. He closed me away and he said, listen, we have to find all our friends. You have to find everyone. And I'm like, okay, okay, okay. I want to like land the ground and cover my head. We go to all the people, all our friends and one of my friends starts screaming. We have to get into the car and drive. On that fateful morning, Hamas terrorists killed more than 360 people at the festival and kidnapped about 40 to Gaza. I was scared. I told them to drive. We started driving and seven minutes after we started driving, we hit the first point. We got the car. It was four lanes, became two lanes. We started seeing bodies and cars all over the road. I scream at my friends. They're shooting at us. We all ducked. They started 10 terrorists. Maybe I'm not sure exactly the amount of numbers. They started shooting at us. Arad's friend got shot in the leg and a heroic off-duty IDF soldier, Edo Saad, managed to get Arad and his five friends to safety in a banana field. We entered a banana field and we sat down because my friend was bleeding and he was like in excruciating and crazy pain. Gunshots, gunshots, gunshots. We walked more inside. Gunshots, gunshots, gunshots. Till we got to the end of it. We got to a point where there's nowhere else to go forward and we were just sitting there, like sitting ducks. We were just waiting. We were calling the police, no one to answer, no idea what to do. We were just sitting there. Sitting there, everyone is praying for their god. There's like the saying, there's no a-fiest in the pit hall. That's exactly what you experienced and we're just praying. Please, something happened. My friend is bleeding and bleeding and bleeding and we're just starting to, we're just hoping to find someone to come and save us. The person we were with, he called one of his friends that was, that lives there in the area. He came with his car, picked us up in the car and drove us away. And the way back, we go to the first place that Israel kind of like took, it was outside of Stirot. We start and we start seeing all these bodies. Rod's father Ari, a social entrepreneur, could not be more proud of his son and the miracle that he is still alive. I was really, really lucky that I was sheltered from all that potential anguish and grief. Knowing that my son was in danger because I didn't know he was in danger. I knew he was at a festival, I didn't know which festival. And at 6.30 in the morning when my phone blew up from the rockets, you know, I waited a bit, turned the TV on to see what was happening. And at 7 o'clock, I realized that she's really crazy. I need to check to make sure my kids are okay. Did you think you were gonna die? I was positive I was gonna die. I know I was gonna die, but I was saying like, my grave is digged, so I don't know what to do. I was like, I had this thought, okay, I will call my parents and my family to say my goodbyes. I was like, if I call them, it's pouring the dirt on myself in the grave. And Arad right away messaged me saying I can't talk. So I figured he's at a festival, having fun, he's dancing. And it was Sincha Torah, so I thought I want to go to the big Knesset. And I really need to have fun, Yaakov. And around the corner for me, the big Knesset is actually in the bomb shelter. Nearly three months later, Arad is going through a healing journey and says that laughter, the gym and work are the best medicines. My routine kind of made me feel like I'm a person. This experience is not who I am. I'm me, and this is something I experience and my life is going to continue because I'm not going to let my life be stopped here. How have you changed? I think I became a more wholesome kind of guy. I feel like I'm showing more love to people. I'm taking on more risks. Now that you know that you are close to death, does it make you less afraid of dying? It makes me, it makes me okay with it because I feel like I'm okay with the situation. I'm okay if I'm gonna die, but I'm gonna have, I'm gonna do what I need to do now because if this second is my last second, I want to say I'm okay with it. I don't want it to be. I want to be, do more. There's always more to be done, but I've done enough. I didn't let myself down as a person. I'm okay with who I am, and that's really how I want to live my life. This experience really taught me that. Thank you everyone, and I wish that 2024 will be full of echoes of hope. In Jaffa, Emily Francis, I-24 News. And that does bring us to the end of this broadcast. If anything, you must make sure to check out our website at i-24news.tv. Of course, you can also continue to tune in at the top of the hour where our host Jeff Smith will be taking over the reins here of day 88 of the war with more updates. But just a short recap on the main front. Residents in Gaza say that Israeli aircraft and tanks stepped up strikes the southern part of the strip overnight. Thus, after it announced plans to pull back some of the troops from the ground in specifically the north and the center of the strip. Also released for publication that was embargoed until 11 a.m. local time, of which it is now. The IDF said that troops of the 460th Armored Brigade recently raided the homes of Hamas Gaza City Brigade Command, where troops found not only weaponry, but also infrastructure pertaining to Hamas. It says that during the fighting over the area, troops encountered and killed dozens of Hamas terrorists located tunnel shafts, caches of weapons, as well as intelligence materials. We'll have more updates you're currently looking at live visuals of the Gaza skyline. Stay tuned, much more to come. 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 lines, but the general perception is something that certainly needs to to be fought as well. So edition here on i-24news. I'm back to 11th all coming July from Tel Aviv. Thanks for joining me this hour. It's day 88 of the war. On the main front, residents in Gaza say that Israeli aircraft and tanks stepped up strikes in the southern part of the strip overnight. This after the IDF announced plans to pull back some of its troops from the ground. A move the United States has signaled a gradual shift to low intensity operations in the north and center of the enclave. Meanwhile, this Tuesday morning, a joint strike operation by the Israeli Navy, Air Force and ground troops took out Hamas operatives along the Gaza coastline, who were there planting explosives. Well, joining me right here in studio is retired colonel Dr. Jacques Neria, the former deputy head of assessment for Israeli military intelligence and the former foreign policy advisor to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Good morning to you. And thank you for joining me. Obviously, big news at this hour coming out of the north, which we'll get to in just a second in terms of the updates. But the IDF confirming strikes in Syria overnight. This really goes against their longstanding policy of not commenting at all on any activity happening in Syria or Lebanon. Syria is something very special from time to time. You hear that when, for instance, the Air Force commander just finishes his job and now he retires. He said that we have conducted more than 500 air raids in Syria. And then you realize that Israel has been acting in Syria. Then you hear from former prime minister that we have been acting in Iran, that we have been bombing in Iraq. So I think that there's nothing so much special about this taking responsibility. The fact is that Israel has decided, it seems so, since the beginning of this war, to stop the Syria from being a springboard for the transfer of weapons from Iran to Hezbollah and Lebanon and from Syria to the Iranian militias in the Golan. So and if this is the decision, so you have to strike the depots. You have to strike the places where the positions and certainly certain air defense positions that could, in a way, interfere in the flight of our planes in Syria. Basically, I think that Israel has decided to flare that the Syrian front is going to, in a way or another, is flaring up. And so it has to take the advance. We are day after day being struck by missiles that fired from Syria into the Golan. And I think that basically Israel has understood that in order to separate between Iran on the one hand and Hezbollah, you have to strike Syria because if Syria is stricken and the fact that Syria is crippled because of Israeli bombardments, then the whole crescent that Iran is trying to build would be just impossible to do so. And the fact that to try to surround Israel and to choke it by a combined front, Syrian and Lebanese would definitely be here. Iran would be unable to do so. Well, there's no denying that Israel has not only the capabilities, but also the resources to deal with Iranian proxies in Syria, in Lebanon, in Iraq, in Yemen. Even in the West Bank, but should it have to is the question. Surely the idea of should deal Iran some kind of fatal blow so that it can continue to focus on its main front being in the Gaza Strip? I think that basically right now the facing Iran would be another another game. There's definitely this is a game that not Israel is it is not limited to Israel, but it has to be done with the Americans also because they are just hurting American interest in Syria, in Iraq, in the Gulf and of course in the in the Red Sea. But basically what we have to do is just to strike at Hezbollah, at Syria, at the Iranian militias there and at the Iranian advisors that are present there in the last week where the 13 of them were killed in Syria and more than 23 were killed on the way to to Syria from from Iraq. I think that this is this decision is, as you say, that we are able to do so. And if we are able to do so, we have to make our enemy understand that we are ready to interfere. We are no more in the weeks situation that we are. We have no resolve. We don't want to fight. We don't want that. Well, this is what we have been saying for the last two years and the interpretation of this this statement by the Arabs and certainly by Hezbollah and Iran that Israel is weak. And because it's weak and because of the internal shism inside Israel between left and right about the judicial reform, then it is the time to strike. So when you ask your question, should we should we do that? Is there a reason for that? We have to react to what they are saying. They are saying that they want to annihilate Israel, want to eliminate Israel. This is what they are saying all the time. And they said, I remember the one of the last speeches of Hassan Asala, he said the countdown, the countdown has begun for Israel. 20 years from now Israel will not be there with us anymore. So we have to fight beginning now. And there's no reason why should we throw, for instance, for the from the Lebanese border. Chuck, stay with me because I want to continue this conversation in more depth. But first, I do want to get an update from our correspondent Pierre Klauschenlo, who is standing by for us in the south. Pierre, we've been speaking about it over the course of the last few hours. The fact that the IDF is looking to possibly lower its intensity in terms of the fighting in the strip explains to us a little bit about the difference in terms of where the fighting is concentrated now in the north, the center and the south and how it plans exactly on doing that. Right, in the northern sector of the Gaza Strip, in this direction, we've seen tanks near Kibbutz Nakhal Oz redeploying inside Israeli territory. And that's part of the redeployment due to the low intensity fighting in the northern sector of the Gaza Strip, although it's conditional because in the past few days, scores of terrorists have been annihilated in the refugee camp of Jibalia, which is on the northern outskirts of Gaza City in the northern sector. But yet, the army is planning the redeployment inside Israel of three brigades of conscript who are going to undergo their training and two brigades of reserve soldiers until the end of the week. They will be freed and will be able to participate into the economic life of the country until the next call-up, which could happen during the course of this year because this year has been decreed by the Israeli army as a year of war. The three main focal points of the ground offensive, and I'm talking now about high-intensity warfare, is the Al-Darash Tufar in Gaza City, the last stronghold of Hamas in the northern sector of the Gaza Strip. You can see the pillars of black smoke emanating from that area. Fighting has been going on against the battalion of Hamas in the past 10 days or so, but it seems that it's coming to a close in this area because one of the brigades has already decreed that they've accomplished their mission inside the Al-Darash Tufar neighborhoods of Gaza City. There was just an artillery outgoing earlier. We heard an Israeli air force jet operating over our head, possibly targeting a presumed terror target of Hamas, another artillery outgoing, so you see that this front is quite active. Further south, in the central sector of the Gaza Strip, in El-Burej, Al-Muassi, and Al-Nusra Refugee Camp in the area of Direl Balak, there were heavy bombardments overnight against presumed terror targets. Palestinian media affiliated to Hamas are talking about 70 fatalities and over 100 casualties, and yet they do not make any distinction between non-involved Palestinian populations and the Hamas terrorists, so it's very difficult to know how many civilians were killed and how many terrorists in those air strikes. Further south, in Hanyunas, seven or eight IDF brigades are operating within and without the city, which could be the make or break of Hamas, really. There is a whole regiment there of three or four battalions in the central sector, three battalions of Hamas in Hanyunas, three or four battalions, and the IDF is trying to annihilate those battalions. I'm saying the make or break of Hamas because this is where the IDF estimates that the political and military leadership of Hamas is hiding in the network of tunnels, probably protected with Israeli hostages that have been taken during the October 7 massacre. And the IDF is trying to break that chain of command in order to reduce the capability of Hamas in inflicting casualties on the IDF and also reduce the possibility that from an organized wife and trying to transform the organized warfare inflicted by Hamas to a guerrilla mode that will be only involving isolated cells of Hamas just as it's happening in the northern sector of the Gaza Strip. Correspondent Pierre Clashenslayer giving us a thorough breakdown of the IDF's current operations in the Gaza Strip. Thank you very much for that. As we mentioned briefly earlier, the updates in the north of the country. Overnight, the IDF also responded to rockets that were fired from Syrian territory into Israel one day earlier, causing some material damage. Separately, Hezbollah said that four of its fighters were killed in southern Lebanon after the IDF struck the terror group's infrastructure. And in the West Bank, the IDF in the early hours of Tuesday morning were operating in the cities of Jenin, Jericho, and Kalkiliya. Clashens broke out in Jenin in the northern West Bank as the Israeli forces came under Palestinian gunfire and then responded with live ammunition. And still with me here in studios, retired colonel Dr. Jacques Neria. Jacques, the numbers speak for themselves in the last three months, almost four months now of the war. 2,500 around have been arrested in the West Bank, of which 1,300, if I'm not mistaken, have pledged some kind of allegiance or affiliation to Hamas. This is not an issue anymore that is on the outskirts of Israel's borders. This is within its territory. Yeah, but this is nothing. This is not you. I mean, we've been fighting terrorism in the West Bank since almost two years now. And remember that we began the first incursion into the Jenin refugee camp. This was a novelty in the landscape. And now this is a daily routine. We are just conducting operations in most of the West Bank because we know that if we don't do that, then Hamas is going to take over. And the Palestinian Authority, which has no authority at all in this area, would be submerged and erased. This is why we have to and remember we have about 500,000 Israelis who live in the West Bank. We have to protect them. This is our duty because we send them them. We allow them to be there to establish them themselves in those in those cities, those localities, sometimes very far from any other the other reasonable city. I mean, the observation post outposts, they're there. So we have to give them the security they need. And if so, we have to act as swiftly and quickly as possible. And lacking the coordination, the cooperation of the Palestinian Authority, we have to just to count on ourselves. I want to move a little bit into the international arena because there's a report that's just come out now from Turkish media saying that 33 people were arrested on suspicion for spying for Israel. Now, usually in the past, we've been some of the first to break the news that Israel and Turkey have been working together to either bring down some kind of a Hamas or an Iranian group in the country. Now we see that the tables are turning and we've heard President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president being relatively outspoken against Israel in its war and in quote unquote, his words, genocide being committed in the Gaza Strip. Yeah, very mild with the word that you used concerning the one. He's just insulting Israel every day. He's comparing Netanyahu to Hitler. I mean, where are we? I mean, this is the behavior of a serious and the head of state, certainly not. And if we have to count all the spies, so-called spies that have been arrested by Turkey in the last year, we would fill here a prison. I mean, every day and every second week, they say they have arrested the Mossad agents and Turkish. I mean, they're working, they're just doing the work of against their opposition. This is the Turkish opposition, Kurds and so on, who are against the regime. And this is the way they just, I would say, whiten the action by saying that these are the spies or agents of Israel. And even here at the studios, after looking at a lot of the wires being Reuters, AFP, AP, a lot of the agencies that we get a fortune of materials from, the majority of them this morning are actually not focusing on the situation in the Middle East. But there's news coming out of Asia, Japan, South Korea. On the one hand, that could be said is good news for Israel because it means international pressure could be dying out a little bit. So Israel can continue to do what it needs to do in the Gaza Strip without having sort of the hindrance of the international media on its backs. But on the other hand, it does sort of detract away from a situation of the day after. Gaza should no longer be Israel's responsibility. The world needs to be able to chip in now and assist the Palestinians. Well, we should be very careful in stating such statements because, I mean, the actual wave is anti-Israel in the whole world. I mean, you could see that even South Africa has applied to the international courts of justice, I mean, accusing us of genocide. This is crazy. I mean, I think that for the first time, Israel is going to appear there. And so let us use this floor in order to expose Hamas with all the cruelties, all the horrors and everything. This is the right place to do so. And of course, I mean, when Russia, the bombs Kiev and kills 15 civilians and Russia conducts other actions in Ukraine, and you have a tsunami in Japan, and everybody looks for the moment. Only they don't forget the war in Gaza or the war with Hezbollah. They are looking at the situation. But, I mean, with less intensity, as you say. But it doesn't mean that they have forgotten. They have changed their mind as to Israel, as to accept Israel, and that Israel has the right to defend itself. I mean, the self-defence right for everybody. So let us not, I mean, ignore the waves that we hear and think that this has been forgotten, and we have all the permission to do whatever we want in the area. This is not the case. Israel continuously needs to defend itself from defending itself. And the worry, at least among many critics, is if they do go to the ICJ or the ICC to appeal to say, well, actually, here's all this proof and evidence. Look what Hamas is doing in terms of the atrocities, that it will be used as ammunition against Israel. This is definitely not. We are going to dismiss this motion that was presented by South Africa. Certainly, South Africa is not the state that has to give us any morality on what's going on. Certainly not. So the judging of what's happening inside South Africa, I think that they should be more modest in the way they just approach politics. This is one thing. And I think that basically we have to use every possible mean in order to expose the horrors and the cruelty. I mean, look, I mean, the women's organization in the world refused to cooperate with Israel, knowing that the women have been raped, have been raped, and that rape has been used as a sexual weapon by Hamas. And they are not using, they are doing anything, even not the declaration. So this is what we have to do. We have all the time to fight our way. Of course, we are 16 million Jews in the world, and the Muslim world is 1.6 billion Muslims. This is an asymmetry, but still we have sympathy all over the world. And we have to use those channels in order to just make the people, make the world understand our position, and just that we seek justice. Retired colonel, Dr. Chakneria, thank you for your analysis and for breaking all of that down here in studio. Thank you. Now, prior to the events of October 7th, one 21-year-old was working on his event organizing app as many do in the startup nation. But following the Nova Music Festival massacre of which he survived, he changed his app on a dime, from event organizing to fundraising. On New Year's Eve, they caught their first big fish, raising money for the now 21 Israeli children made orphans at the hands of Hamas. Awemini Francis brings us the story. Shalom, good evening to everyone. My name is Arad, and I'm not supposed to be here. A bittersweet New Year's Eve, to say the least. I wish for everyone not to lose hope, not to stop improving, and not to stop finding ways to help. The Jaffa Hotel was a scene of hope as hundreds found a way to celebrate life in the midst of darkness. And the message that we send from here to everyone is that our enemies will not define us. They will not stop us from living our lives. The Echoes of Hope fundraiser raised nearly $3 million for the Israeli Children's Fund, all going to the nearly 350 children who became orphans on October 7th. And so we all had mixed emotions about coming tonight, but we stand here united on one cause. And this one cause was all made possible because 21-year-old tech entrepreneur Arad Fruchter is still alive. It's like feeling born without knowing how it feels to be born. It's like this kind of feeling that's like everything and nothing at the same time. Because it's like I won life. I won the opportunity to live again. Before October 7th, Arad launched his event planning app called ZYGO, which has now morphed to fundraising at the same time. My passion was my app and becoming a better person. I feel like that's my essence of being, becoming better and better and better. Arad's resilience is a testament to the will to live and prosper after going through the biggest trauma since the Holocaust. He was among the 4,000 people at the Supernova Music Festival on October 7th. 629 missiles. I was in the dance floor with one of my friends. He pulls me away and he says, listen, we have to find all our friends. You have to find everyone. And I'm like, okay, okay, okay. I want to lay on the ground and cover my head. We go to all the people, all our friends. And one of my friends starts screaming, we have to get into the car and drive. On that fateful morning, Hamas terrorists killed more than 360 people at the festival and kidnapped about 40 to Gaza. I was scared. I told him to drive. We started driving and seven minutes after we started driving, we hit the first point. We got the car. It was four lanes, became two lanes. We started seeing bodies and cars all over the road. I screamed at my friends. They're shooting at us. We all ducked. They started 10 terrorist, maybe I'm not sure exactly the number starting shooting at us. Arad's friend got shot in the leg and a heroic off-duty IDF soldier, Edo Saad, managed to get Arad and his five friends to safety in a banana field. We entered the banana field and we sat down because my friend was bleeding and he was like excruciating and crazy pain. Gunshots, gunshots, gunshots. We walked more inside. Gunshots, gunshots, gunshots. We got to the end of it. We got to a point where there's nowhere else to go forward. And we were just sitting there, like sitting ducks. We're just waiting. We were calling the police. No one to answer. No idea what to do. We're just sitting there. Sitting there, everyone is praying for their god. There's like this saying, there's no a-fiest in a pithole. That's exactly what you experienced. And we're just praying. Please, something happened. My friend is bleeding and bleeding and bleeding and we're just starting to, we're just hoping to find someone to come and save us. The person we were with, he called one of his friends that was, that lives there in the area. He came with his car, picked us up in the car and drove us away. And the way back, we go to the first place that Israel kind of like took, like was outside of Stirot. We start and we start seeing all these bodies. Arad's father, Ari, a social entrepreneur, could not be more proud of his son and the miracle that he is still alive. I was really, really lucky that I was sheltered from all that potential anguish and grief knowing that my son was in danger because I didn't know he was in danger. I knew he was at a festival, I didn't know which festival. And at 6.30 in the morning when my phone blew up from the rockets, you know, I waited a bit, turned the TV on and see what was happening. And at 7 o'clock, I realized that he's really crazy. I need to check to make sure my kids are okay. Did you think you were gonna die? I was positive I was gonna die. I know I was gonna die, but I was saying, like, my grave is digged. So I don't know what to do. I was like, I had like these thoughts, okay, I will call my parents and my family to say my goodbyes. I was saying, if I call them, it's pouring the dirt on myself in the grave. And Arad right away messaged me saying I can't talk. So I figured he's at a festival having fun, he's dancing, and it was Simcha Torah. So I thought I want to go to the big Knesset. And I really want to go to the big Knesset. Nearly three months later, Arad is going through a healing journey and says that laughter, the gym and work are the best medicines. My routine kind of kind of like made myself feel like I'm a person. This experience is not who I am. I'm me and this is something I experience and my life is going to continue because I'm not going to let my life be stopped here. How have you changed? I think I became a more wholesome kind of guy. I feel like I'm showing more love to people. I'm taking on more risks. Now that you know that you are close to death, does it make you less afraid of dying? It makes me, it makes me okay with it because I feel like I'm okay with the situation. I'm okay if I'm going to die, but I'm going to have, I'm going to do what I need to do now because if this second is my last second, I want to say I'm okay with it. I don't want it to be. I want to be, do more. There's always more to be done, but I've done enough. I didn't let myself down as a person. I'm okay with who I am and that's really how I want to live my life. This experience really taught me that. Thank you everyone and I wish that 2024 will be full of echoes of hope. In Jaffa, Emily Francis, I-24 News. And that does bring us to the end of this broadcast. For anything you miss, make sure to check out our website at i-24news.tv. Of course, you can also continue to tune in at the top of the hour where our host Jeff Smith will be taking over the reins here of day 88 of the war with more updates, but just a short recap on the main front. Residents in Gaza say that Israeli aircraft and tanks stepped up strikes the southern part of the strip overnight. This after it announced plans to pull back some of the troops from the ground in specifically the north and the center of the strip. Also released for publication that was embargoed until 11 a.m. local time of which it is now the IDF said that troops of the 460th Armoured Brigade recently raided the homes of Hamas Gaza City Brigade Command where troops found not only weaponry but also infrastructure pertaining to Hamas. It says that during the fighting over the area troops encountered and killed dozens of Hamas terrorists located tunnel shafts, caches of weapons, as well as intelligence materials. We'll have more updates you're currently looking at live visuals of the Gaza skyline. Stay tuned, much more to come. In Iran opponents of the regime had just quietly marked a year since Masa Amini was murdered by security forces for failing to cover her hair, a killing which had sparked an unprecedented challenge to the Islamic regime. Trade between Israel and the United Arab Emirates was booming in the West Bank amid a spike in terrorist attacks. The IDF was carrying out almost daily raids on Palestinian cities like Jenin and Nablus. Peace seemed more distant than ever. Then, on October 7th, the Jewish holiday of Sibirah Torah, everything changed. Our Middle East correspondent Aira Osirhan has this report. October 7th, there were high hopes for big changes in the Middle East. Talk of U.S. mediated peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia, which in turn would spread to other Arab countries, created much anticipation. But then, after thousands of Hamas terrorists rampaged through southern Israeli communities and IDF bases, slaughtering, burning and kidnapping, everything in their path, the delicate house of cards collapsed. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia affirms its categorical rejection of the continuation of aggression, occupation and the forced displacement of Gaza's population. The Kingdom holds the occupation authorities responsible for the crimes committed against the Palestinian people and their properties. We are certain that the only way to guarantee security, peace and stability in the region is to end the occupation siege and settlements. But sidelining Israel's Saudi normalization for the unforeseeable future was only one of the effects of that dark October 7th on the region. It also saw the solidification of the Iranian axis of proxies. From Iraq to Lebanon, all the way to Yemen, Tehran's branches all began to attack Israel. We're in a multi-arena war. We are being attacked from seven different sectors, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Judea and Samaria, Iraq, Yemen and Iran. We have already responded and taken action. And I say here in the most explicit way, anyone who acts against us is a potential target. There is no immunity for anyone. In an attempt to get a better understanding of how the region as a whole was affected by the October 7th attacks, I-24 News reached out to journalists in the region to give their perspective. One of them is a journalist from Yemen. We blurred his face and distorted his voice for his safety, speaking with an Israeli-based news outlet. Perhaps the most surprising front to many has been the continuous drone and missile attacks by the Houthis in Yemen towards Israeli territory and then at international commercial ships navigating through the Red Sea. The Yemeni armed forces affirmed their continued support for the Palestinian people as part of the religious, moral and humanitarian duty and confirmed the continuation of operations in the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea against Israeli ships or those heading to the ports of occupied Palestine until the food and medicine needed by the Gaza Strip are brought in. But according to the journalist in Yemen, the Houthis are simply the ones pulling the trigger in service of their patrons. Beyond emboldening the Iranian axis, the October 7th attacks also seem to have affected the streets in many of the region's capitals in support of the Palestinians. I see a lot of change among the awareness of ordinary people who never really paid attention to political issues of the Palestinian situation. I've seen, especially in Arab countries, in Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, many of the countries are really much more involved now. And I think we've seen also progressives and young people around the world taking up the Palestinian cause in a much more powerful way than we've ever seen before. The war in Gaza has put a strain on Israel's existing peace agreements with Jordan and Egypt. The both peace streets have held on so far, but on a very thin ice. I think that there is strong opposition in both countries to their countries continuing the peace agreements. But more importantly, I think people want civilian lives to be saved. Besides threats, there are some silver linings that have emerged from the horrific attacks on Israel and ensuing war in Gaza. Not only the American-led Maritime Coalition aimed at ensuring the safe navigation in the Red Sea, but that Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan all intercepted Houthi drones and missiles over their territories underway to Israel. An indication that Jerusalem does have shared strategic interests in the balance of power in the Middle East. Well, I think Arab countries are trying to be peacemakers as much as they can. They're trying to provide material support to people who are in terrible need. And I don't think we've seen a major shift, especially in countries that have had normalization relations with Israel. The leaders are still insisting on keeping some form of relationship, even though public opinion has changed. And so, with the war in Gaza in full steam, and further escalation of the Hezbollah horizon, the October 7th attacks seem to have changed not only Israel, but the region as a whole. Now, Israel finds itself at a critical juncture, a regional war, or increased regional cooperation. Whether or not it's up to Israel to decide what the outcome will be, that still remains to be seen. Well, to discuss how the conflict has impacted cooperation between Israel and its Gulf allies, we can head to Abu Dhabi. We're joined by Laway al-Sharif, peace activist and expert in Arab-Israeli relations. Great to see you, Laway. Thank you very much for joining us. So, looking back, has this been a success for Iran in terms of derailing the peace between Israel and its partners in the Gulf? Temporarily, Laura. First of all, good to see you. Good to see everyone. And I hope, inshallah, that the new year will be a prosperous year where peace will be dominant in the region, that is at Hashem. So, I'm very optimistic about that. But answering back to your question, I said, yes, temporarily. I think things were moving fast. When the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia talked about the peace, that every day Saudi Arabia is getting closer to peace, having peace with Israel, and also bringing benefits to the Palestinians as well. This is something that we have to mention. The UAE was doing lots of work with Israel and things now are on hold because of this war. But it's not, you know, Laura, let me tell you something. I believe the leaders of this region realized so well that it's inevitable to have a permanent peace in the Middle East with Israel being a player in the region. This is what the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia said, and this is what other leaders believe. And it's also a permanent policy by the UAE to minimize the conflicts, to minimize the tensions and making peace and neutralizing all the conflicts. So it's been posed just temporarily. Well, one Gulf state has been in the headlines more than others over the past few months, and that is Qatar. This war has exposed its close ties to both Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. Has that raised concerns in the Gulf? Well, you know, Qatar now has, after Al-Ula agreement, Qatar agreed to many things to come along with its Gulf neighbors. And I believe many prominent analysts see that Qatar is or has a lot more to do with this. But I believe that the leadership of Qatar will come to a stage where they realize that there has to be a permanent peace in the Middle East, where Israel is part of it. And whatever the tensions that are going right now, I believe they will be solved very soon. I believe the leadership of Qatar really wants to have a stable Middle East, even though some things or some other things on the surface don't necessarily indicate so, but eventually because they agreed on Al-Ula agreement. And I believe that it's in their interest to support a stable Middle East. The UAE has taken a very different path and has really paved the way in terms of getting humanitarian relief to Gaza, the first country to set up field hospitals inside the Gaza Strip. Why has that been so important, do you think, to the leadership? Because the leadership wanted to send a very important message that it is true that the leadership of the UAE cares a lot about the peace in the region, making peace with Israel in 2020. It's a big believer in the Abraham Accords, but it did not, does not and will not abandon the Palestinian people as people. This is a very important thing. The UAE criminalizes Muslim Brotherhood movement. The UAE criminalizes political Islam movements, but it would never criminalize the Palestinian people. And it would stand with the Palestinian people and with their suffering. And it would do whatever it can do to minimize this kind of suffering. This is why it established the field hospital. This is why it sent so many aides, the gallant night, Operation Gallant Night initiated by the President of the UAE, sent this important message. So it's very important to know, Laura, that the Palestinian people, the UAE cares for them. And we all do, and we all believe that the Palestinian people living in dignity is very important for any peace process that will move forward after the war, Lowai. Thank you very much indeed, Lowai Al-Sharif. A happy and blessed afternoon to you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Lowai. To all the I-24 staff. Thank you so much. Same to you. Well, as Israel responded to those attacks by Hamas, Egypt's proximity to Gaza meant that it was thrust into the conflict. Early on, Cairo rejected any attempt to allow Gaza refugees into the Sinai Peninsula, even temporarily. It facilitated aid transfers through the Rafa crossing and sought to mediate the hostage release deal. Egypt and Israel have a peace treaty dating back to 1979. How's this war put that treaty under strain? Well, joining us now, Dalia Ziada is an award-winning Egyptian writer and political analyst. Great to see you, Dalia. Thank you for joining us. And Egypt, first of all, is very much against any kind of resettlement of garrisons in Sinai, even temporarily. Why is Egypt so opposed to hosting Palestinian refugees on its territory? Thank you, Laura, and happy new year to everyone, to you and to everyone. It's always a pleasure to be with you. It's a good question, actually, Egypt's policies adopted by the Egyptian state toward the war in Gaza and how to deal with the Palestinians, how to deal with the potential of peace in the middle of this war is characterized by confusion. There is a lot of confusion in the decisions made by the Egyptian state. Most of it is determined by domestic issues. One of the main highlights for this confusion is how Egypt is looking at the refugee crisis that is resulting from this war. Egypt, on one side, speaks all the time about the importance of ensuring that the Palestinian people are safe, ensuring that the Palestinian refugees will be treated properly, but at the same time, it refuses to open the borders for the Palestinian people to get into Sinai, to receive medical aid, or perhaps to stay temporarily until they go back. On one side, Egypt has, I would call it legitimate concerns, but I think they are somehow exaggerated, was exaggerated for domestic political reasons. Some of these legitimate concerns is the fears that Hamas militants may leak into Sinai with refugees who are trying to get into the country or the Palestinian people, I mean, who are trying to get into the country. Another concern is the economic burden of hosting the Palestinians at this time while Egypt is suffering a severe economic crisis. But I think all of these are not reasons good enough for the Egyptian state to refuse to host the Palestinian people, at least temporarily, in Sinai. Because in 2014, for example, we have seen a similar situation when the Egyptian state opened the door for the Palestinians. They stayed for a while and received medical aid and so on. And when the war ended, they returned it back to Gaza. Well, quite. And I mean, in the midst of this conflict, President Assisi was returned to power in elections. He faced no real threat to his power. But is there a risk now in Egypt that Hamas' sister organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, could take advantage of the situation? Laura, unfortunately, what the massacres that Hamas committed on October 7th created a momentum for Islamists, extremist Islamists all over the region. And it allowed them to go back to the surface again to leave the public opinion in Arab countries. In my country, Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood has been launching attacks on everyone who spoke against Hamas, including myself. They are now influencing media. They are all over social media. They are bringing back to the front the rhetoric of this Muslim versus Jewish war. And I think this will not hurt only Israel on the long term or even the medium term. It will also hurt the Arab state that has been fighting against this extremist Islamic rhetoric for a while, including Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia. That's why it's important for these countries to realize that their exaggeration in binding to the public rhetoric that's going on right now against Israel is actually hurting them. It's not only it's not it's not gaining them any political ground in their countries, but actually it is hurting them. And just briefly, Dalia, Israel and Egypt have had strong cooperation for years in terms of security. And will that cooperation stay intact, do you think? To be honest, there are a lot of bruises to the relationship between Egypt and Israel. I'm sorry to say that and to see that. But I think Egypt still has the main reason why these bruises exist mainly is because post-countries acted in a way that was misunderstood by the other country. So I think, yes, it will influence the relationship for a while, but thank God it has not broken the bond of trust yet between Egypt and Israel. So it's important for the two countries to take the initiatives to fix that before it's too late. Don't wait until the war is over. Just work now on rebuilding this bond of trust by working on the Palestinian issue or the Israel-Palestinian conflict together. Dalia, thank you very much indeed and a very happy new year to you. Dalia Diada, thank you. Thank you and have a new year to all of you. Thanks a lot. Thank you. While peace between Israel and the Palestinians seems more remote than ever, many of those who were murdered in the Kibbutzim on October 7th were pro-peace activists who drove Gazans to Israeli hospitals. And a recent poll of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank shows the vast majority supported the October 7th attacks. Samea Sinijlawi is a fatah activist and the chairman of the Jerusalem Development Fund. He joins us now. Thank you very much for being with us, Samea. Good to see you. And it all seems pretty bleak at this stage, doesn't it? Do you have any hope for a peaceful solution between Israelis and Palestinians in 2024? Well, definitely. Despite the fact that maybe this was the saddest year in our history, sadness have been prevailing for the last three months. We have been seeing victims that have lost their lives on both sides. I have never imagined that this conflict will come to a level where our victims will have no names and no graves. So it's beyond the imagination what has happened on the 7th of October and later. But I think there is no other option but for both Israelis and Palestinians to live together and coexist and try to get out of this together. And I'm optimistic that maybe 2024 will be the year for security and peace for Israelis and Palestinians. This war has stopped a process, a huge diplomatic process that was supposed to enhance peace in the Middle East. It was supposed to bring the Saudis into the Abraham Accords and through this process also to push the Palestinian issue. And this was stopped by the war and I'm confident that this war will stop through reactivating this process again. It is with the intention and the good will of the international community and regional neighbors. Maybe we will be able to stop the war and begin momentum again to the expanding the normalization and peace to include the Saudis, the Palestinians. And it's five, six birds that can be shot by one stone. If the Saudis are able to bring the Israelis and Palestinians and come together into a regional peace accord. There's more international interest. Then there will be no way for Hezbollah or the Houthis or the Iranians to be interfering more and more in the stability of the region. So in one stone, we can hit similar birds. Thank you, Samet. And I just want to ask you, you know, in your mind, what will a post Hamas Gaza look like? Several Palestinian names have been talked about. Muhammad Dahlan is one of them. Do you have any preference for who could be a potential leader for the Palestinian people? Well, I'm sure it's going to be a collective leadership, partnership among names like Muhammad Dahlan, Nasr Qudwa, Marwan Balghouti. You know, the young generation of Fatih that has been waiting so long for a change in the leadership, a generation that is more pragmatic, that is more accountable, that is more transparent, that will try to be attached to the people, convincing to the Palestinian people and be positive in finding ways of cooperation with all the regional countries and working very hard with an Israeli partner to try to exit from this circle of violence. Both the Palestinians and Israelis desperately need to live in peace, security, human dignity rights. And I'm sure that responsible leadership, including a new leadership from the Palestinian side, and maybe we are expecting also change of leadership in Israel because Israelis are also not very much happy from their current leadership and would like to see more moderate leadership on the Israeli side. If this happens, then the star will align together and we will have the needed conditions for progress towards peace. I'm confident 2024 we will be able to get out of these feelings of anger, sadness, and be more into tolerance towards accepting the other side, working with the other side. We will achieve peace very soon despite these sad days. Let's hope you are right, Samir. Let's hope we have a much more peaceful 2024. Happy New Year to you. Thank you very much, Samir Sinijlawi there. Well, on February 6, Turkey was struck by a devastating earthquake which killed more than 50,000 people. Israel was one of the first nations to respond with search and rescue teams, but in Israel's hour of need, Ankara chose not to return the favor. Turkey's President Erdogan instead lashed out at the Jewish state and said it was wrong to call Hamas terrorists by the end of the year. He said Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu was no different to Hitler. Well, joining me to talk about that, Hayetan Yenorochek is a Turkey expert at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security. Thank you for being with us. Hayetan, good to see you. And other than Iran, I mean, President Erdogan has been the fiercest critic of Israel, hasn't he, since October 7. And this despite the fact that Turkey, of course, is a NATO and U.S. ally. Just explain the thinking behind Erdogan's position. Well, first of all, I would like to make a point here that you mentioned in the beginning of the broadcast regarding the earthquake. We witnessed such a huge, sharp U-turn. This is really unbelievable. Before the war, we also witnessed a bilateral summit between Benjamin Netanyahu and President Erdogan at the sidelines of the United Nations. And now, unfortunately, we have seen the end of the normalization that could usher a new era, a golden era between Israel and Turkey. And, of course, nowadays we have to deal and we have to cope with the circumstances, with the ramifications of this current fighting in the Gaza Strip. And as you mentioned, Mr. Erdogan adopted a very pro-Hamas, a very pro-Palestinian approach. And I believe that this is something related to his past. He is considered as an Islamist. We know him very well. He is considered as a Muslim Brotherhood ideology person. And, of course, this is making things much more complicated. He doesn't believe not anymore. I mean, he does not believe that Israel is a strong state in the Middle East. This is a very important paradigm change in the eyes of the Turks. And besides that, when I'm looking at these latest statements, I also see that there's also another alarming phenomenon, which is the banalization of the Holocaust. For instance, yesterday, the Turkish president openly criticized the Israeli Premier, the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, that he's similar to Adolf Hitler. I think this is, of course, from an Israeli point of view and from a Western point of view. Of course, this is something really unacceptable. And we are seeing the same kind of behavior in the Turkish press. For instance, a couple of weeks ago, I happened to see a news coverage at the Miliyat newspaper that they compared the Gaza Strip with Auschwitz. And they keep comparing the Israeli soldiers with the Nazis. So this is very problematic. So we'll have to see if that relationship improves in 2024, won't we? Dr Cohen? I'm very skeptical, but let's hope. Dr Cohen, Yenna Rochek, thank you very much. Thank you for having me. Time for a short break. When we come back, Israel is also at war on its northern front and with Yemen's Houthis. Born that next. 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 lines, but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well. News 24 en Español trae el análisis y la información de los acontecimientos de la guerra, espadas de hierro. Entrevistas exclusivas reportes desde la zona de guerra, la reacción de los países hispanoparlantes. News 24, el único medio en Español que te mantiene informado y conectado con la comunidad latina en Israel. News 24, únicamente en I-24 News. Draw story to the world. There will be a program on I-24 News and as if the war with Hamas was not enough, Israel also has to contend with a better trained, better armed Iranian proxy to the north. The Lebanese Shi'ite group Hezbollah began attacking Israel on October 8th. The United States moved two aircraft carriers to the region to serve as a deterrent. There have been tit for tat clashes close to the border ever since, forcing thousands of civilians on both sides to flee their homes. Well, for more, we're joined by David Dowd, Hezbollah and Lebanon's senior fellow at the foundation for the defense of democracy. It's great to see David and the Hezbollah leader ever since October 8th. Hassan Nasrallah has been criticised, even mocked in the Arab world for not doing more to support Gaza. At the same time, he's lost well over 100 fighters in the conflict with Israel. Would you say his standing this year has been damaged in the region? I think it depends on the perspective you're looking at it from, I think, within resistance access circles. He's at least Hezbollah's own circles. He's doing what Hezbollah is capable of doing. And it's not a minor contribution. The attacks that have been occurring on the northern border, which has escalated in recent days since the killing of the Iranian official in Syria, have succeeded in dividing Israeli forces along two fronts. This has slowed the effort in Gaza. It is calling up more reserves as taxed the Israeli economy. It has led to the displacement of thousands of Israeli civilians. There is a war on the northern front, effectively. And Hezbollah has opened it unilaterally. Well, clearly, Israel will not accept the status quo going into 2024 with Hezbollah there, poised to carry out another October 7th in the north. Is an all out war inevitable, David, or can it be avoided? I think it can be avoided in the short term, but I do think it is inevitable. Hezbollah is an organisation that by its DNA is uniquely dedicated to the destruction of the state of Israel, of all countries. It is threatening and has been threatening since February 11th, sorry, February 16th, 2011. Secretary General Hassan Mastrol has been threatening what he has called the liberation of the Galilee. This is an attack that would unfold exactly like October 7th. They are eventually along with the rest of the Resistance Act as partners, preparing for a future major regional war against the Jewish state, which they hope will destroy Israel. This is something that they are saying will come that they are preparing for. So war is inevitable. It's a matter of when it'll happen. This big war will happen. So if Israel is capable of delaying it for now or deterring Israel or Hezbollah for now, so long as the organisation exists, the threat of a major war remains. And Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied that the US President Joe Biden had prevented him from attacking Hezbollah early on. Is US support for Israel more of a hindrance than a help when it comes to dealing with the threat in the north? I think it's a complicating factor in many ways. The United States has a certain fixation, if you will, on this idea of saving Lebanon. This idea that Lebanon is a partner that it must be distinguished from Hezbollah and that the more you strengthen the Lebanese state, the more you can weaken Hezbollah. It's an approach that we've had in the United States since at least 2005. It's one that hasn't borne fruit, but the idea sticks. I think US efforts since the beginning of the war, since October 7th, have aimed at, as you know, containing the war to the Israel Gaza front and minimizing damage or minimizing opening other fronts. Lebanon is included in that. We've sent Senior Envoy Amos Hoxton there. We've sent Lloyd Austin to Israel, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to Israel. There have been previous reports that have indicated US concern that Israeli, not Hezbollah, Israeli attacks are going to be the ones that escalate on the northern front. There were reports earlier than the Wall Street Journal one that you're referring to, and the other one that suggested that Defense Minister Galant had asked Prime Minister Netanyahu launch a preemptive strike on Hezbollah and Lebanon. I don't know how preemptive it would be given the attacks that are going on, but that the one thing that restrained Prime Minister Netanyahu was pressure from the American administration not to bring Lebanon into the circle of hostilities. So I think American support or at least American interference as it relates to the northern front has constrained Israel's hand from doing what it should or needs to do. We appreciate it. Thank you, David Dowd at the FDD. Thank you. Well, there is another front in this war, a Saudi-led coalition fought Yemen's hostilities for seven years but failed to defeat them. Now they've declared war on Israel, firing missiles at the Red Sea city of Elat, and sometimes misfiring and hitting Egypt instead, while its fighters use UAVs and drones to attack commercial shipping in the Red Sea. The United States has created a multinational task force to protect shipping. The Houthis, though, appear undeterred. Well, Houthis expert Dr. Elizabeth Kendall from Gertan College at Cambridge University joins us now. Thank you very much indeed for being with us. Dr. Kendall, from being kind of a thorn in the side of the moderate Gulf states, the Houthis have gone on to become a major menace to global shipping, presenting a real threat to the world economy. Do you foresee their demise in 2024, or are they just too difficult to defeat? I do not foresee their demise. I think that they've managed to pitch their attacks to create maximum disruption, but without quite pushing America and its allies over into being in a position where they can take existential action against the Houthis. So I think the Houthis are going to continue. And the reason for that is that they've managed to find a method of grabbing maximum international attention, a method of ensuring that what's happening in Gaza and in Israel is linked to much broader international interests that are at once to do with global trade, shipping, financial markets. And they've carried with them some in the Arab world who feel that they're sticking up for the Palestinian underdog and the only ones who are actually managing to make waves and perhaps persuade the Israel America and their allies that they might need to make some concessions. So no, no end in sight here. And if we go back to before this war, I mean, the Houthis have just signed a peace deal with the Saudis. They had a level of sympathy in the United States, which still hasn't designated them as a terrorist organization. But now they're attacking, you know, not just Israeli linked ships, but Indian ships, American ships, British ships. And is there a risk in this international attention? There is certainly a risk that this calibrated escalation continues. And it could easily spiral out of control. For example, if the Houthis miscalculate, if they end up sinking a ship, if they end up actually killing crew, then I don't think there would be any option but for military retaliation. The thing about what's recently happened in the domestic war that you just mentioned is that the Houthis and the internationally recognized government supported by the Saudi side in Yemen in the domestic war have managed to reach an agreement. This happened, well, it was announced on the 23rd of December, which means that they are now on allegedly on a path towards a ceasefire and towards Yemeni political processes. Now, that makes the West's position much more difficult in taking action against the Houthis, whether that's military action or whether that's designating them, redesignating them as a foreign terrorist organization. Because what might happen is that that pushes the Houthis to opt out of the recent agreement that's about a week old now. And therefore the West will be blamed for having done that rather than the Houthis. So what's been happening inside Yemen on the domestic front has greatly strengthened the Houthis' hand on the international front. Dr. Elizabeth Kendall, thank you so much. You're welcome. Well, Iran has unleashed a wave of war and conflict across the region via its proxies from Gaza to Lebanon to Iraq. Yemen and Syria, it has managed to, albeit temporarily, freeze Israel's further integration in the region. And it is ramping up uranium production as well, according to the UN's nuclear watchdog, the IAEA. Well, joining us now, Shukriya Brados is an international security analyst and specialist on Iran. Thank you very much for being with us, Shukriya. Great to see you. Would you say that 2023 has wound up being a good year for the Islamic Republic? And will we see a reckoning in 2024? Thank you for having me. You know, we have a discussion whenever we go, they're asking us, okay, what is the Islamic regime's gain? Is that successful in that policy of destroying Middle East stability? My answer depends on how you define the interest. If you define Iranian regime's interest in destroying the Middle East, yeah, they've been successful on that. Because the regime's foreign policy is based on how you're going to un-stabilize the region based on the two goals. First, forcing Americans to withdraw from the region, and secondly, to destroy Israel. That's their goal. And for inside of Iran, we know the regime's, since they achieved the power in 1979 till now, they haven't been successful in giving people the simple service as a government responsibility. So that's the reason the inside of Iran, they are fail-safe outside of Iran in the region. They've been successful in supporting their militia group. When the Western countries, European and America were busy with making deal how to have a diplomatic solution for Iran's problem in the region, they tried to get, to approach to this regime without knowing, or I'm sure they know, but they tried to, with the definition of the people, some people in the think tanks in DC, they try to show them, okay, there are two sides of the Iranian regime. One is reformist and they are willing to deal with the Western countries. And one is the hard liner. So let's support the reformist so we can avoid the hard liner to achieve power in Iran. But what we saw in this, after 7th of October, it become clear for the Western countries, America, that Iranian regime is not the different inside the regime's structure. It's the one regime with the goal of the how to destroy what Americans are trying to build in the region, trying to civilize for the, not just for the American and Israel's interests, for the Middle East countries like Gulf countries, Saudi Arabia, for instance, is as an example of how these countries trying to have a better relation with Iran, trying to bring Iran to the relations and the economic and to have a more diplomatic relation. So in terms of the response from the United States under President Biden, would you say that response has been too weak? How has it been read in Tehran? Has Iran kind of been testing the Americans? And how would they rate the response? Unfortunately, the first day when Biden arrived to the office, because his policy was defined based on the Obama's policy to deal with the regime. So regime founders, okay, the easiest government most supporting the deal is in the power in the White House. So what they did, they tried to increase the attack on U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria. And what we have seen in the latest attacks on the ISIS coalition, the coalition-based ISIS in Erbil, the attack on U.S. forces, we have three injured and one of the severe injured of the U.S. forces in Iraq. And then the attack followed by another attack in the close to Erbil province. But what was U.S. reaction after the three of these, its force been injured was attacking the Qatayb al-Hasbullah bases in Iraq, which was second attack on this Qatayb al-Hasbullah bases. But that's a retaliation or that attack on these militia groups, bases not going to stop Islamic regime to attack U.S. bases again. And let's remember we are approaching to Qasem Soleimani's anniversary of the killing of Qasem Soleimani. And if U.S. not stands strongly against these attacks, we will have a more attack from Iranian-backed militia groups not just in Iraq. We know when they're trying to retaliate or they swear to have a Qasem Soleimani's revenge in Iraq. But we will have an increasing attack in Syria, Iraq, and for Horses attack in the international ships route two. Okay. Shukria. Thank you very much indeed. We appreciate it. Shukria, Brados. Thank you and happy New Year to you. Happy New Year to you. Thank you. Well, before their world was turned upside down on October 7th, Israelis had been very much preoccupied with domestic politics. Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government seemed determined to push through a controversial judicial overhaul, ignoring massive street protests and numerous warnings from Washington. It's no secret the relationship between the Prime Minister and President Biden was under strain, but in Israel's darkest hour, those differences were swept away and its strongest ally did not disappoint. Well, to talk more about that relationship and the outlook for 2024, I'm joined by Clifford D. May, the founder and president of the foundation for the defense of democracy. Thank you very much for joining us. Good to see you again. And I mean, it's true, isn't it? America was at Israel's side just days after the Hamas attacks and has been steadfast in its support ever since. But looking at the bigger picture, is Washington's reluctance to tackle Iran or even talk about Iran putting Israel in peril long term? Well, yes, I think it's putting Israel in peril. I think it's putting the U.S. in peril. I think it's vital if you're going to do strategy, if you're going to do foreign policy, is to recognize the reality you face. And the reality you face is you have had in Iran a very oppressive regime, a regime that's oppressive to its own people, a regime that is a danger to the people of the region. Lebanon is essentially a colony of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Bashar al-Assad in Syria has been restored to power. He's killed over 500,000 of his people. He also is a client of Iran, the Houthi rebels who are shooting at ships who are entering the Red Sea, heading towards the Suez Canal. That's a client of Iran, Maas is a client of Iran, Hezbollah, we can go on and on. And Iran is now in a relationship both with Putin's Russia and with Communist China. One should be recognizing that and then thinking about how to deal with that, and in particular what it would mean should the Islamic Republic of Iran acquire nuclear weapons. This should be more than Israel's problem, but no question that it is very much Israel's problem and a sort of ring of fire is around Israel right now. And that ring of fire is comprised entirely really of clients of the Islamic Republic of Iran. When you look at American polls, a most recent one shows that most Americans do support Israel, but that figure slips dramatically when you look at the under 25s. Is American support for Israel in decline in the long term? It's certainly in danger and it's in danger because of what we've seen take place over more than a generation on our university campuses. And that's the growth of a sort of neo-Marxist ideology, sometimes called woke DEI, critical race theory. Essentially it says that in this world there are simply oppressors and oppressed victims and victimizers. If you are the oppressed, anything you do is justified. If you are an oppressor, nothing you do to defend yourself can ever be justified. The basis of who is a victim and who is a victimizer has most to do with ethnicity, skin color. There are the white oppressors. Jews are considered to be adjacent to white oppressors. Israel is considered a colonial country even though it is ridiculous to think that a Jew in the Jewish quarter or Jerusalem, Jew in the Judean hills or Jew in the Judean desert is somehow a colonizer or an imperialist. Actually, I believe I imagine you will understand and believe that Israel is for the first time in thousands of years is a rejection of colonialism and imperialism because for 2000 years the land that is Israel was under various empires from different parts of the world. That is not what Israel is. But what the people are learning on college and learning I put in quotes because it is more indoctrination is not that and that is a real danger to Israel and it is a real danger to the United States because these young people in college at the age of 18 who have read very little are told you do not need to learn much, you do not need to study history, you just need to be woke, you just need to know who the good guys are, who the bad guys are and get out in the street in protest in favor of those you like and against those you do not like. This is a rejection of international law and it is a rejection of a lot of things that our colleges need a lot of work to be cleaned up and become what they should be, citadels of great learning. And just very briefly, both Netanyahu and Biden face political challenge in 2024. What is your outlook for the relationship? Well, my hope is that the relationship between the US and Israel stays very strong. Israel is America's most reliable ally and in many ways it is most valuable ally. That said, I have no idea whether Netanyahu stays in power or whether Biden stays in power. That kind of political prognostication is probably is beyond me. The two men seem to have a not a bad relationship, not a rather great relationship perhaps, but I am not going to tell you how the 2024 elections are going to turn out in the United States. I don't know. As I think you know, a majority of Americans don't want to see another campaign of President Biden versus ex-President Trump. And yet that looks like what we're heading towards. Very on. People don't want it. That's what the people are going to get. And I certainly am not qualified to talk about Israeli politics and how that plays out. Clifford D. May, we appreciate it. Thank you very much. A very happy new year to you. Same to you. Well, war never really left us, but in the last two years, its scale and its impact on international stability has ratcheted up. Western militaries have been reorienting themselves from counterinsurgency to combating peers such as Russia and China. What lessons will they draw from the fighting in Ukraine and around Israel's borders as well? With more, here's our correspondent, Robert Swift. The Israel-Gaza fence was protected by some of the best border security technology in the world. Remote gun turrets, underground sensors to detect tunneling and surveillance bloons. The aqua barrier was built on the assumption that we have a very technology, singing, visiting the other thing that we will tell us when someone is approaching the fence. This one collapsed. Hamas simply went through it with demolition charges and pickup trucks, overwhelming the defences with force of numbers and a few drones. Believing that its high-tech defences sufficed, Israel let other more basic considerations fall by the wayside. Israel adopted in the last, I think, 20 years a symmetric balance between technology and the number of units' main power that it needs on the field. It looks like Israel thought in its calculation that the high technology will bring advantage to the battlefield instead of represent of main power inside it. Since the October 7th attack, a number of former Israeli generals have argued for an expanded IDF budget and footprint. Ukraine, fighting on a very different battlefield, also sees its manning levels as a problem. Unfortunately, main power is still super important because we get back to the scales of massive armies, of million-strong armies, which is absolutely weird, which is absolutely unnatural to the state of our modern society. Locked in a stalemate with a larger foe, its chief of staff argues that advances in technologies like electronic warfare are needed to break the deadlock. In the 21st century, the development of science and as a result the advancement of armaments and military equipment inevitably led to the changes in the tactics of its use. The enemy didn't stay behind either. You see what is happening specifically in the last few days. We have a powerful confrontation specifically in the technological aspect. Both of the wars defining 2023 show a blurring of low and high technologies on the battlefield. In Ukraine, the first large example of state-on-state drone warfare, the Hawitzer, the Shovel and the Trench, as seen on the fields of the First World War, are as important as the quadcopter. And in Gaza, urban siege warfare reminiscent of Stalingrad is being waged by the Middle East's most technologically advanced military. But low and high-tech solutions should not be viewed as opposites in conflict, but as complementary. Israel will continue to be a country that relies very much on technology, but we have to understand that there are areas and places that you cannot rely only solely on technology. You have to go sometimes back to human beings and sometimes to technologies that are not always the cutting edge. The infantry soldier on the ground, present in war for millennia, can become a high-tech tool when equipped with the latest weapons, sensors and communications devices. Even a badly equipped insurgent can become part of the developing information war space when kitted out with a GoPro and an internet connection. Kyiv has repeatedly demonstrated the significance of this front in modern war. Ukraine and Gaza's battles have shown that often a low-tech solution can be the best counter to a high-tech innovation. So we have a pretty weird situation in which simple but smart and cheap solutions really change things on the battlefield. As can be seen in the use of trenches or cage armor to protect from the prying eyes and drop munitions of drones, both wars have also shown that quantity has a quality all of its own and that high-tech doesn't need to mean expensive. Whether that means in terms of expendable munitions or massed infantry, a lesson that Western militaries, many of which have downsized in recent decades, may wish to heed. Don't be in a hurry, as Israel did, to move ahead and to make your armed forces, let's say, much smaller in order to give the technology to serve you instead of them. No, it's coming together. As the threat of state-on-state warfare grows, Western militaries will take heed to the developing technological shifts on the battlefields of Ukraine and Israel. Or sooner or later, learn the hard way. It's not true that the era of wars is over. Unfortunately, that's not true. No peace is guaranteed, absolutely not peace is guaranteed. And moreover, there is an illusion that Western nations can have small armies, well-armed armies of motivated professionals who want to do that. Unfortunately, that may not be true because the epoch of universal peace that we hoped for in the West in here, it seemed to be over. Well, that brings us to the end of this special program. Thank you for watching and from all of us here, a very peaceful and prosperous 2024 to you. Keep with us on I-24 News. Goodbye.