 I-24 News's ongoing coverage of Israel at war. I'm Ariel Levin Waldman. Another Israeli soldier has fallen in the fierce fighting in Gaza, that's Sergeant First Class Yaakov Azari, of the 401st Armored Brigade. Azari marks the 31st IDF casualty in the ground operation in Gaza so far. Israel's Prime Minister announced that the IDF was tightening the noose around Gaza City, striking far deeper into the Hamas terror groups underground fortress than ever before. Despite growing international pressure in the Inyahu vows, there will be no truce nor ceasefire until Hamas releases all hostages and that no fuel will enter Gaza to power Hamas' war machine. This comes as the Biden administration has formally requested Israel allow humanitarian pauses in the fighting. Israel maintains they will not give Hamas that ability to regroup. The northern border moves ever closer to all-out war with Hezbollah as well. 20 rockets fired at the Galilee and Golan Heights, even as the IDF strikes Hezbollah terror cells, firing guided missiles at the border. Cross-border fire has only intensified in recent weeks, as Hezbollah fires in greater volume and greater ranges into Israeli territory, aided by Hamas in the north. This escalation comes despite the United States sending two carrier strike groups and a nuclear submarine to the region in an effort to deter Iran and Hezbollah from committing their full power to the fight. Back on Monday, Hamas and Lebanon fired rockets as deep into Israel as Haifa. Here's US President Joe Biden demanding a pause in the fighting. Now turn our eye to the southern border where our correspondent Robert Swift is standing by. Robert, it's good to have you with us. Give us a quick note. We're having some minor technical difficulties we try to re-establish our connection. So instead, we are going to discuss this topic now. Okay, we have just re-established our connection with Robert in the field. Robert, it's good to have you with us. I want to open with what the latest developments are on the Gaza front. Yeah, so it seems at the minute that the fighting taking place here is intensified. We've been here and sustained machine gun fire to the behind us. To the behind me, you can essentially see the north of the Gaza Strip, Bay Tanun, where there is that sustained machine gun fire going in. There is also a fair number of explosions either. It seems that that's more likely to be Israeli artillery fire as we don't currently hear jets over our heads. But compared to say two nights ago when I was here, the intensity of the gunfire here from the Israeli side appears to have picked up a notch. And Rob, when the Israeli army says that they have encircled Gaza City and they're tightening the news, what exactly does this mean? What is being accomplished on the ground right now? Well, essentially the infantry and the armor units are moving forward. But even as those troops are on the ground, it doesn't necessarily mean they have full control of that territory. It's still very, you know, it's an ongoing battle. Now, first of all, bear in mind, you've got some civilians that are still in that area despite the evacuation order. But at the same time, and there you can hear additional artillery going in, now it sounds like, at the same time, due to the Hamas tunnels, the battle is constantly 360 degrees. So the Israeli military may have encircled Gaza, but it's still being, Hamas can still attack it from all directions. That's, you know, that's the nature of urban combat. And it's the threat that those tunnels pose. So while the Israeli military is trying to isolate the Gaza city from the rest of the Gaza Strip, you know, that is an ongoing process. And that process is what we can hear going on behind me now. Definitely the sound and the signs of some long fighting ahead. Rob, we're gonna come back to you over the course of the day as the situation there in the South changes. But first, we are going to turn to Professor Kobe Michael, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies, former Deputy Director General of the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs. Thank you for being with us, Kobe. Let's walk through that same question. What exactly does it mean to have Gaza city encircled? And ultimately, what does the IDF accomplish from here? Good morning. We are in a long journey and we have to understand that we are in a very, very complex war, very unique urban war. We are facing the biggest ever fortified compound under the ground of the Gaza Strip. And we have to operate very cautiously and very slowly. First of all, in order to avoid from casualties in our side and secondly, to avoid from casualties or collateral damage in the other side. And then we have to operate according to a very accurate intelligence, which is also accumulated during the operation itself on the ground. But I think that we are making a very good progress and it looks that Hamas loses control. And at the end of the day, we must reach to the central centers of gravity of Hamas, which is the compound of Shifa Hospital and other hospitals there. The heaviest compounds of Hamas are located there. Once we will reach them and we will dismantle them, I think that this will be a very impressive and important achievement. On that topic, the big question is still how? The IDF has said they're striking that underground infrastructure deeper than ever before, but ultimately they're not actually dismantling enough of it. Hamas brags that they have 400, 500 kilometers of underground infrastructure, underground fortress. Without taking that all out, Hamas survives the war. It's not necessarily accurate. We don't have to dismantle all the 500 kilometers of tunnels. We have to destroy the centers of gravity. There are many, many kilometers of tunnels, but there are some tunnels which are very crucial. These are the central compounds of Hamas, which are located under the hospitals mainly. Once those will be destroyed, then the other tunnels are much less important because all the operational rooms, the command and control rooms, the weapons storages, and the most crucial leaders, be it military leaders or political leaders, are concentrated there. So we have to concentrate on these centers of gravity, and then the other kilometers of tunnels will be less important. So ultimately what's the strategy for hitting those centers of gravity given that they are the most fortified positions in those tunnels? First of all, to evacuate the hospitals. And this is what we are doing. And I think that we have a partial success. We saw it yesterday with some hundreds or maybe even more than hundreds of people with white flags that are making their way from the north, from these compounds, from the hospitals, to the south. And this is an indication to the weakness of Hamas because Hamas is not able anymore or at least is less able to prevent these people from leaving these compounds. And the establishing of field hospitals in the southern parts of the Gaza Strip will help us as well because people will have a place, those who are in the hospital will have place in an alternative hospital. It will take time, but at the end of the day, I think that these compounds will be evacuated and we will be able to go in to these compounds and to dismantle the compounds under the ground. And I think that this will be a very significant achievement. Now, Kobe, the big question is fighting Hamas in those tunnels given that they boast 40,000 armed fighters under their command. And how many of them would we actually have to get to before we can break Hamas? And how many can we actually say we've gotten so far? I cannot provide you with accurate figures, but I think that we are talking about thousands of Hamas terrorists that were already killed. They don't inform Hamas, I mean, don't inform about them and they prefer to introduce them as innocent civilians, okay, because they are looking for the right image in the international community. But I think that we are talking about thousands and I cannot provide you with the exact number of how many thousands we have to kill furthermore, but I think that the number are less important, but it's more important are the compounds themselves. We have to paralyze the organization in a way that it will not be able to continue operating effectively, that they will lose their capacities of command and control, that they will lose their morale, and that they will lose the capacities to continue launching rockets and fighting our troops. And I think that we are in the right way. We see that the numbers of the rockets that they are launching are getting lesser and lesser, fewer and fewer, and most of them are from the south parts of the Gaza Strip, not from the north parts of the Gaza Strip. And I think that the image of the catastrophe, the image of the destruction is well internalized by the entire Palestinian constituency in the Gaza Strip. And it looks that we are not far from the day that the people of Gaza themselves will go against Hamas. Well, let's certainly hope that you're correct in that assessment, Kobe. I think all of Israel hopes for some semblance of peace and not too distant future. Kobe, thank you very much for that analysis and for being with us. We are going to analyze some more angles here with our correspondent and producer, Guy Azarelli in the studio. Guy, good to have you with us. We want to discuss the idea of, well, actually before we have this discussion, we do finally have a connection with our reporter in the north as well. So stand by for a moment because we're first going to turn to Mary McAuliffe, our correspondent in northern Israel. Mary, some heavy rocket fire over the night. Ultimately, tell us what's going on on the northern front as well. That's right, Ariel. So last night saw the third night in a row that double digit rockets were fired in northern Israeli communities. We don't have any reports of injuries or casualties from that rocket strike. But what we do know is that the IDF responded forcefully in response, launching a number of retaliatory strikes using both artillery and shelling, a number of different Hezbollah positions in infrastructure and depots inside southern Lebanon. And then also later in the evening, launching a number of airstrikes again on Hezbollah positions. This continues to be the consensus that we're seeing here, the calculation between these two groups. Hezbollah continues to fire rockets, shelling also IDF observation posts, and then Israel in response doing precision strikes on these Hezbollah targets just across the border. Now, one of the things that we've seen over the course of the past few weeks is the distance that Hezbollah as well as Hamas is firing is extending deeper and deeper into Israel with rockets this week going as far as Haifa. Ultimately, where's the red line before Israel has to decide that they can't tolerate this tit for tat response and have to actually deal a knockout blow? Well, Israel actually hasn't essentially given a red line. It's just said that its forces has remained on high alert here that while their job is to push forward in Gaza, the job of the troops here is to hold this defensive line to make sure they defend from any threats coming from its northern border. Hezbollah for its part has warned that it's carefully watching the operation in Gaza, carefully watching what the IDF is doing, especially also here. And we did have an Israeli airstrike that killed three children and a grandmother. The mother remains in hospital a few days ago. And one of Hezbollah's red lines was the killing of civilians. The IDF said it struck a car that was carrying a suspicious person, but it is investigating the issue. But we do know that since that strike, Hezbollah has absolutely stepped up its rocket fires. We've seen not just the quantity, but also the range of these rockets, as you mentioned, going all the way as far south as Haifa. So certainly the IDF remains on high alert here and is carefully watching the situation. But right now we have seen them do very calculated responses to all threats coming from the northern border and launching these precision strikes on Hezbollah targets and trying to do what they can to limit civilian casualties. That doesn't mean there hasn't been civilian casualties both on the southern, the Lebanese side of the border, as well as the Israeli side of the border. We've seen casualties among civilians and soldiers. Has there been an evolution in the Israeli response? You mentioned that this has calculated precision strike methodology, but as Hezbollah increases the range and increases the frequency, is Israel also escalating its response? To us from our vantage points, at least it doesn't seem that way. That doesn't mean that there isn't something going on along the scenes. We know yesterday there were a number of IDF fighter jets that were flying at a very low altitude over southern Lebanon. This is something that has been a bit of a new phenomenon. We've still seen a number of different Israeli strikes, but last week I can tell you when I was also here on the northern border, it was absolutely the heaviest air strikes I had ever felt since being here in this area. And that was before the number of rocket launches. So I think whatever's going on between the scenes between Israel and Hezbollah, we're not exactly sure. We just know that every time we have a strike, we will continue to see the other side retaliate and respond forcefully or not forcefully. But for now, most of the IDF strikes have been really, really precision point into these Hezbollah targets just along the border. And Hezbollah primarily has also been hinting IDF observation points. But again, that's not to say there haven't been rockets at civilian areas because they're absolutely have and two Israelis have died. Absolutely, it's a very tense situation up there. We'll be back with you over the course of the day as it develops and as more information comes in. Thank you very much, Mary. And we are going to turn now to our correspondent producer, Guy Azareli, in studio to go further into that discussion we were about to have before. The idea that Israel, saying they're going to be responsible for the security situation in Gaza after the war, what exactly does that mean? Not everyone is sure about that. And that is something that is still being discussed, of course, within the war cabinet and the Israeli government in general, one thing is very clear, the situation as it was prior to October 7th, cannot return the idea that a murderous terror group like Hamas will continue to thrive and operate just a mile away from Israeli communities will no longer be. And that is not just a political statement from Netanyahu, this is the residents of the southern communities saying they will not go back to their homes unless the situation changes dramatically. What does that mean on the ground? Well, first of all, the main target of Israel and the IDF in this operation is to eliminate all of Hamas' military capability and its governance over the Gaza Strip. Now, regardless of who will be in charge of the Gaza Strip in terms of its civil administration, not clear yet. One thing that is clear is that the IDF will have security control over that area. It can be something similar to what we have in the West Bank in Area B, for example, where the IDF has the ability to enter whenever is needed to take down terror cells, to break down terror infrastructure, et cetera, et cetera. The idea that the terror group can continue to fire rockets for 20 years, as we've seen up until now, well, obviously it cannot exist anymore. And for so many years, Israel has had the conception that it can live with that threat of rockets and turned a blind eye to the fact that millions of Israelis, in fact, were under that threat for so many years. And thinking that Hamas is satisfied with that, well, no, when a jihadist Islamist terror group has in its charter the goal of eliminating the state of Israel, slaughtering Jews, this is what they eventually will do when they have the means and the right time to do so, as was proven on October 7th. And obviously, much more complicated when it comes to Hezbollah, because we have a very similar enemy there, only 10 times stronger as well, and we're hearing the same claims from the residents of Metula and other communities in the northern border. How will we go back to our homes when this murderous terror group is on our borders, wanting to eliminate us, and also being inspired by the success of Hamas. And that is another issue that, you know, if Israel thought that it can live side by side with Hezbollah for all those years now, that Hezbollah has seen what Hamas was able to do, what the fear is much more serious for the residents and the motivation for Hezbollah is as well when the moment is right for them. Guy, we're gonna continue this discussion in a moment, but it's a good point, actually, a good turning point to remind our audience what exactly that situation looks like, our correspondent, Arih Shapira, visited Natif House, Arih. That's a community close to the Gaza border and one that lost 20 of its members on October 7th during the onslaught. Gonna take a look inside that Kibbutz and show us, well, ultimately, what the price of complacency was. Mushav Natif was around the Gaza border. It seems that time has stood still here since October 7th. 20 members of the small community were murdered by Hamas terrorists who arrived by paragliders. This house was burned to the ground with a couple inside. Her studio, where she made peace artworks, was not damaged. Natif Asaray has known many challenges throughout the years. The original community was established in 1973 in the Sinai Peninsula, back then under Israeli control. In 1979, Israel and Egypt signed a peace agreement and Israel agreed to hand Sinai back to Egypt and to evacuate the Israeli settlers there. Once we heard about the evacuation plans, we fought the government in ways that even the hilltop youth are not using today. We had many protests. We even brought tractors to Jerusalem as a protest. But the protest against the Israeli government failed and residents of Natif Asaray had to find a new home. They declined an offer to relocate to an area in southern Israel and decided to move here adjacent to the northern edge of the Gaza Strip. They offered us a new location in southern Israel, but we refused because we were farmers and our agriculture was based on growing on beach sand. We had an amazing experience in this type of agriculture for nine years and we wanted to continue it, so we moved here. And as you can see, it is the same beach line as the previous location. We are also working now on dunes. Despite the sensitive location, Smodar, a member of the community, says that in the early days, Natif Asaray was a place of peace. In 1982, Gaza was under Israeli military rule. We hung out in Gaza without any problem. The army protected us. There were no borders. We used to shop in Gaza and Jabalia refugee camp. In 2005, Israel pulled out of the Gaza Strip and Natif Asaray became a border community. Ever since then, several deadly rounds of terror have occurred here, but nothing prepared the residents for the horrific events of October 7th. They put walls and walls, but Hamas got here from the air. There is a huge crisis of confidence here. I used to say that Natif Asaray is 95% heaven and 5% hell. Now it turned to 100% hell. Smodar says that the residents of Natif Asaray had early signs of the attack, days before it took place. Before the onslaught, we told the army that Hamas was training constantly. They told us to calm down and that everything would be fine. On October 3rd, four days before the attack, we heard them training and shooting towards the sea. We recognized their training, but these were new sounds. Some of the residents who were evacuated after October 7th said that they want to return to Natif Asaray, though it may be too soon to discuss this possibility. Meanwhile, those who remained here are fighting to keep this beautiful, wounded place alive. I'm going to turn back to Guy in studio. I know this was a closer matter to your heart than most as you live not too far from there. Yes, the Moshev of Natif Asaray is one of the communities closest to the border of Gaza on the northern part of the Gaza Strip. For so many years, the residents of Natif Asaray have been complaining to the IDF about breaches to their security. One of the main targets of the first attack, the initial moments of the attack on Saturday morning, was striking an IDF facility in Natif Asaray from a Hamas observation tower that was stationed there for many months. It was taken down once by the IDF and then was rebuilt. And the IDF did not care less to take it down. They were able to take down infrastructure that was vital for the defense of this border and then were able to infiltrate the community both with paragliders and with other means, including ground troops. It is the tragedy of this attack. That is the fact that the residents in Natif Asaray have been wanting peace with their neighbors for so many years. And one of the most devastating parts is the fact that they've employed people from Gaza for so many years. We've seen up to 17,000 Gazans entering Israel every day and most of their work were in these communities on their border. Well, what was the result? The result was that when the attack came, the Hamas operatives penetrated Natif Asaray and other communities that had very detailed maps about each and every one of those homes. How many residents in each home? Where was their dog? Where was the weapon? That information came from those people that they trusted from these workers who entered Israel every day. The residents of Natif Asaray and those communities wanted to live a peaceful, neighbor life with those Gazans. Very sadly, many of them have exploited that opportunity and gave detailed information to the Hamas operatives on where to slaughter the Jews. That was the result and that was the tragedy. As we said, the residents of Natif Asaray, like the other Moshefs and Kibbutzes in the area, as well as the city of Zderot, will not accept another situation in which Gazans are able to infiltrate Israel as easily as they did on October 7th. And because we only have a minute and a half, I want to continue on that. Ultimately and realistically, what do we think this new Israel, this new Middle East is going to have to look like for this war to be won and for Israelis to feel safe again? It's the million dollar question. Benjamin Netanyahu, I think in his first statement, since the start of the war said they are going to change the Middle East, the reality in the Middle East. What would that take? If you want to change the reality in the Middle East, you need to eliminate threats, immediate threats on Israel that include both Hamas and Hezbollah. Is Israel willing already to engage in a war with Hezbollah, which would be much more severe, would have much greater ramifications on Israel in terms of the human suffering and also the results for Lebanon? I don't know that this is something that Israel wants to initiate. Having said that, Israel did not want to initiate a war with Hamas and the result was over 1,400 Israelis slaughtered on that Saturday and a war that has no end in sight. I mean, one of the lessons that Israel has learned is despite an unwillingness to take casualties because of the small population, the price of appeasement and of standing by and hoping is so much higher. For sure, that was the reality as we saw right now. I think that part of the reason why so many Israelis have been drafted and we've seen such high turnouts of IDF reservists for this war is the understanding in the really wide spectrum of the Israeli population, how vital this war is for the safety of the state of Israel. And we're seeing that with the willingness to serve and to defend Israel and to change the equation. I absolutely hope that translates into the resolve to continue as things get hard in the days ahead. Thank you very much, Guy, and for everybody else. We are out of time. We'll see you again at the top of the next hour. Thanks for watching. Over 1,300 people murdered and more than 3,000 injured and the war with Hamas continues. We bring you firsthand testimonies from the front lines, from those who survived and all the records of the atrocities by Hamas. Follow us as Israel fights terror from the south and north. Get the inside scoop on what's going on, only on I-24 News. This week on News 24, Israel's low attack. News 24 in Spanish brings the analysis and the information of the events of the war, Iron Spades, exclusive interviews and reports from the war zone, the reaction of the Spanish-speaking countries. News 24, the only medium in Spanish that keeps you informed and connected with the Latin community in Israel. News 24, only on I-24 News. You know the phrases from where they come from. Look here. And the package for when. And load what you already know where they're going. On international charges, Altis, your people in R.D. Access our website, recargas.altis.com.b, select the charges and type the number you want to place the charge on. Also, they receive the double balance in charges of eight dollars or more. Altis, the global network of the Dominicans. I-24 News is ongoing coverage of Israel at war. I'm Ariel Levin Waldman. Another Israeli soldier has fallen in the fierce fighting in Gaza. That's Sergeant First Class, Yaakov Azeri of the 401st Armored Brigade. Azeri marks the 31st IDF casualty in the ground operation in Gaza so far. Israel's Prime Minister announced that the IDF was tightening the noose around Gaza City, striking far deeper into the Hamas terror groups underground fortress than ever before. Despite growing international pressure in the Yahu vows, there will be no truce nor ceasefire until Hamas releases all hostages and that no fuel will enter Gaza to power Hamas' war machine. This comes as the Biden administration has formally requested Israel allow humanitarian pauses in the fighting. Israel maintains they will not give Hamas that ability to regroup. The northern border moves ever closer to all out war with Hezbollah as well. 20 rockets fired at the Galilee and Golan Heights even as the IDF strikes Hezbollah terror cells firing guided missiles at the border. Cross-border fire has only intensified in recent weeks as Hezbollah fires in greater volume in greater ranges into Israeli territory aided by Hamas in the north. This escalation comes despite the United States sending two carrier strike groups and a nuclear submarine to the region in an effort to deter Iran and Hezbollah from committing their full power to the fight. Back on Monday, Hamas and Lebanon fired rockets as deep into Israel as Haifa. Here's US President Joe Biden demanding a pause in the fighting. Now turn our eye to the southern border where our correspondent Robert Swift is standing by. Robert, it's good to have you with us. Give us a quick note. We're having some minor technical difficulties as we try to reestablish our connection. So instead, we are going to discuss this topic now. Okay, we have just reestablished our connection with Robert in the field. Robert, it's good to have you with us. I want to open with what the latest developments are on the Gaza front. Yeah, so it seems at the minute that the fighting taking place here is intensified. We've been here in sustained machine gun fire to the behind us. To the behind me, you can essentially see the north of the Gaza Strip Bay Tanoon where there is that sustained machine gun fire going in. There is also a fair number of explosions either it seems that that's more likely to be Israeli artillery fire as we don't currently hear jets over our heads. But compared to say two nights ago when I was here, the intensity of the gunfire here from the Israeli side appears to have picked up a notch. And Rob, when the Israeli army says that they have encircled Gaza City and they're tightening the news, what exactly does this mean? What is being accomplished on the ground right now? Well, essentially the infantry and the armored units are moving forward. But even as those troops are on the ground, it doesn't necessarily mean they have full control of that territory. It's still very, you know, it's an ongoing battle. Now, first of all, bear in mind, you've got some civilians that are still in that area despite the evacuation order. But at the same time, and there you can hear additional artillery going in, now it sounds like, at the same time, due to the Hamas tunnels, the battle is constantly 360 degrees. So the Israeli military may have encircled Gaza, but it's still being, Hamas can still attack it from all directions. That's, you know, that's the nature of urban combat and it's the threat that those tunnels pose. So while the Israeli military is trying to isolate Gaza City from the rest of the Gaza Strip, you know, that is an ongoing process. And that process is what we can hear going on behind me now. Definitely the sound and the signs of some long fighting ahead. Rob, we're gonna come back to you over the course of the day as the situation there in the South changes. But first, we are going to turn to Professor Kobe Michael Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies, former Deputy Director General of the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs. Thank you for being with us, Kobe. Let's walk through that same question. What exactly does it mean to have Gaza City encircled? And ultimately, what does the IDF accomplished from here? Good morning. We are in a long journey and we have to understand that. We are in a very complex war, very unique urban war. We are facing the biggest ever fortified compound under the ground of the Gaza Strip. And we have to operate very cautiously and very slowly. First of all, in order to avoid from casualties in our side and secondly to avoid from casualties or collateral damage in the other side. And then we have to operate according to a very accurate intelligence, which is also accumulated during the operation itself on the ground. But I think that we are making a very good progress and it looks that Hamas loses control and at the end of the day, we must reach to the central centers of gravity of Hamas, which is the compound of Shifa Hospital and other hospitals there. The heaviest compounds of Hamas are located there. Once we will reach them and we will dismantle them, I think that this will be a very impressive and important achievement. On that topic, the big question is still how? The IDF has said they're striking that underground infrastructure deeper than ever before, but ultimately they're not actually dismantling enough of it. Hamas brags that they have 400, 500 kilometers of underground infrastructure, underground fortress. Without taking that all out, Hamas survives the war. It's not necessarily accurate. We don't have to dismantle all the 500 kilometers of tunnels. We have to destroy the centers of gravities. There are many, many kilometers of tunnels, but there are some tunnels which are very crucial. These are the central compounds of Hamas, which are located under the hospitals mainly. Once those will be destroyed, then the other tunnels are much less important because all the operational rooms, the command and control rooms, the weapon storages, and the most crucial leaders, be it military leaders or political leaders, are concentrated there. So we have to concentrate on these centers of gravity and then the other kilometers of tunnels will be less important. So ultimately, what's the strategy for hitting those centers of gravity given that they are the most fortified positions in those tunnels? First of all, to evacuate the hospitals. And this is what we are doing. And I think that we have a sort of partial success. We saw it yesterday with some hundreds or maybe even more than hundreds of people with white flags that are making their way from the north, from these compounds from the hospitals to the south. And this is an indication to the weakness of Hamas because Hamas is not able anymore or at least is less able to prevent these people from leaving these compounds. And the establishing of field hospitals in the southern parts of the Gaza Strip will help us as well because people will have a place, those who are in the hospital will have place in an alternative hospital. It will take time, but at the end of the day, I think that these compounds will be evacuated, and we will be able to go in to these compounds and to dismantle the compounds under the ground. And I think that this will be a very significant achievement. Now, Kobe, the big question is fighting Hamas in those tunnels given that they boast 40,000 armed fighters under their command. And how many of them would we actually have to get to before we can break Hamas? And how many can we actually say we've gotten so far? I cannot provide you with accurate figures, but I think that we are talking about thousands of Hamas terrorists that were already killed. They don't inform Hamas, I mean, don't inform about them and they prefer to introduce them as innocent civilians, okay? Because they are looking for the right image in the international community. But I think that we are talking about thousands. And I cannot provide you with the exact number of how many thousands we have to kill furthermore. But I think that the number are less important, but it's more important are the compounds themselves. We have to paralyze the organization in a way that it will not be able to continue operating effectively, that they will lose their capacities of command and control, that they will lose their morale and that they will lose the capacities to continue launching rockets and fighting our troops. And I think that we are in the right way. We see that the numbers of the rockets that they are launching are getting lesser and lesser, fewer and fewer. And most of them are from the south parts of the Gaza Strip, not from the north parts of the Gaza Strip. And I think that the image of the catastrophe, the image of the destruction is well internalized by the entire Palestinian constituency in the Gaza Strip. And it looks that we are not far from the day that the people of Gaza themselves will go against Hamas. Well, let's certainly hope that you're correct in that assessment, Kobe. I think all of Israel hopes for some semblance of peace and not too distant future. Kobe, thank you very much for that analysis and for being with us. We are going to analyze some more angles here with our correspondent and producer, Guy Azraeli in the studio. Guy, good to have you with us. We want to discuss the idea of, well, actually before we have this discussion, we do finally have a connection with our reporter in the north as well. So stand by for a moment, because we're first going to turn to Mary McAuliffe, our correspondent in northern Israel. Mary, some heavy rocket fire over the night. Ultimately, tell us what's going on on the northern front as well. That's right, Ariel. So last night saw the third night in a row that double digit rockets were fired in northern Israeli communities. We don't have any reports of injuries or casualties from that rocket strike. But what we do know is that the IDF responded forcefully in response, launching a number of retaliatory strikes using both artillery and shelling a number of different Hezbollah positions in infrastructure and depots inside southern Lebanon. And then also later in the evening, launching a number of airstrikes again on Hezbollah positions. This continues to be the consensus that we're seeing here, the calculation between these two groups. Hezbollah continues to fire rockets, shelling also IDF observation posts, and then Israel in response doing precision strikes on these Hezbollah targets just across the border. Now, one of the things that we've seen over the course of the past few weeks is the distance that Hezbollah as well as Hamas is firing is extending deeper and deeper into Israel with rockets this week going as far as Haifa. Ultimately, where's the red line for Israel has to decide that they can't tolerate this tit-for-tat response and have to actually deal a knockout blow? Well, Israel actually hasn't essentially given a red line. It's just said that its forces has remained on high alert here that while their job is to push forward in Gaza, the job of the troops here is to hold this defensive line to make sure they defend from any threats coming from its northern border. Hezbollah for its part has warned that it's carefully watching the operation in Gaza, carefully watching what the IDF is doing, especially also here. And we did have an Israeli airstrike that killed three children and a grandmother. The mother remains in hospital a few days ago. And one of Hezbollah's red lines was the killing of civilians. The IDF said it struck a car that was carrying a suspicious person, but it is investigating the issue. But we do know that since that strike, Hezbollah has absolutely stepped up its rocket fires. We've seen in not just the quantity, but also the range of these rockets, as you mentioned, going all the way as far south as Haifa. So certainly the IDF remains on high alert here and is carefully watching the situation. But right now we have seen them do very calculated responses to all threats coming from the northern border and launching these precision strikes on Hezbollah targets and trying to do what they can to limit civilian casualties. That doesn't mean there hasn't been civilian casualties, both on the southern, the Lebanese side of the border, as well as the Israeli side of the border. We've seen casualties among civilians and soldiers. Has there been an evolution in the Israeli response? You mentioned that this is calculated precision strike methodology, but as Hezbollah increases the range and increases the frequency, is Israel also escalating its response? To us, from our vantage points, at least it doesn't seem that way. That doesn't mean that there isn't something going on along the scenes. We know yesterday there were a number of IDF fighter jets that were flying at a very low altitude over southern Lebanon. This is something that has been a bit of a new phenomenon. We've still seen a number of different Israeli strikes, but last week I can tell you when I was also here on the northern border, it was absolutely the heaviest air strikes I had ever felt since being here in this area. And that was before the number of rocket launches. So I think whatever's going on between the scenes between Israel and Hezbollah, we're not exactly sure. We just know that every time we have a strike, we will continue to see the other side retaliate and respond forcefully or not forcefully. But for now, most of the IDF strikes have been really, really precision point into these Hezbollah targets just along the border. And Hezbollah primarily has also been hitting IDF observation points. But again, that's not to say there haven't been rockets at civilian areas because they're absolutely have and two Israelis have died. Absolutely, it's a very tense situation up there. We'll be back with you over the course of the day as it develops and as more information comes in. Thank you very much, Mary. And we are going to turn to our correspondent producer, Guy Azraeli, in studio to go further into that discussion we were about to have before. The idea that Israel saying they're going to be responsible for the security situation in Gaza after the war. What exactly does that mean? Not everyone is sure about that. And that is something that is still being discussed, of course, within the war cabinet and the Israeli government in general. One thing is very clear, the situation as it was prior to October 7th cannot return the idea that a murderous terror group like Hamas will continue to thrive and operate just a mile away from Israeli communities will no longer be. And that is just not just a political statement from Netanyahu. This is the residents of the southern communities saying they will not go back to their homes unless the situation changes dramatically. What does that mean on the ground? Well, first of all, the main target of Israel and the IDF in this operation is to eliminate all of Hamas's military capability and its governance over the Gaza Strip. Now, regardless of who will be in charge of the Gaza Strip in terms of its civil administration, not clear yet. One thing that is clear is that the IDF will have security control over that area. It can be something similar to what we have in the West Bank in Area B, for example, where the IDF has the ability to enter whenever is needed to take down terror cells, to break down terror infrastructure, et cetera, et cetera. The idea that the terror group can continue to fire rockets for 20 years, as we've seen up until now, well, obviously cannot exist anymore. And for so many years, Israel has had the conception that it can live with that threat of rockets and turn the blind eye to the fact that millions of Israelis in fact were under that threat for so many years and thinking that Hamas is satisfied with that. Well, no, when a Jihadist Islamist terror group has in its charter the goal of eliminating the state of Israel, of slaughtering Jews. This is what they eventually will do when they have the means and the right time to do so, as was proven on October 7th. And obviously much more complicated when it comes to Hezbollah, because we have a very similar enemy there, only 10 times stronger as well. And we're hearing the same claims from the residents of Metula and other communities in the northern border. How will we go back to our homes when this murderous terror group is on our borders wanting to eliminate us and also being inspired by the success of Hamas? And that is another issue that, you know, if Israel thought that it can live side by side with Hezbollah for all those years, now that Hezbollah has seen what Hamas was able to do, well, the fear is much more serious for the residents than the motivation for Hezbollah is as well when the moment is right for them. Guy, we're gonna continue this discussion in a moment, but it's a good point, actually, good turning point to remind our audience what exactly that situation looks like. Our correspondent, Uri Shepira, visited Natif HaSara, that's a community close to the Gaza border and one that lost 20 of its members on October 7th during the onslaught. Gonna take a look inside that Kaboots and show us, well, ultimately, what the price of complacency was. Moushav Natif HaSara on the Gaza border. It seems the time has stood still here since October 7th. 20 members of the small community were murdered by Hamas terrorists or arrived by paragliders. This house was burned to the ground with a couple inside. Her studio where she made peace artworks was not damaged. Natif HaSara has known many challenges throughout the years. The original community was established in 1973 in the Sinai Peninsula, back then under Israeli control. In 1979, Israel and Egypt signed a peace agreement and Israel agreed to hand Sinai back to Egypt and to evacuate the Israeli settlers there. Once we heard about the evacuation plans, we fought the government in ways that even the hilltop youth are not using today. We had many protests. We even brought tractors to Jerusalem as a protest. But the protest against the Israeli government failed and residents of Natif HaSara had to find a new home. They declined and offered to relocate to an area in southern Israel and decided to move here, adjacent to the northern edge of the Gaza Strip. They offered us a new location in southern Israel, but we refused because we were farmers and our agriculture was based on growing on beach sand. We had an amazing experience in this type of agriculture for nine years and we wanted to continue it. So we moved here. And as you can see, it is the same beach line as the previous location. We are also working now on dunes. Despite the sensitive location, Smodar, a member of the community, says that in the early days, Natif HaSara was a place of peace. In 1982, Gaza was under Israeli military rule. We hung out in Gaza without any problem. The army protected us. There were no borders. We used to shop in Gaza and Jabalia refugee camp. In 2005, Israel pulled out of the Gaza Strip and Natif HaSara became a border community. Ever since then, several deadly rounds of terror have occurred here, but nothing prepared the residents for the horrific events of October 7th. They put walls and walls, but Hamas got here from the air. There is a huge crisis of confidence here. I used to say that Natif HaSara is 95% heaven and 5% hell. Now it turned to 100% hell. Smodar says that the residents of Natif HaSara had early signs of the attack days before it took place. Before the onslaught, we told the army that Hamas was training constantly. They told us to calm down and that everything would be fine. On October 3rd, four days before the attack, we heard them training and shooting towards the sea. We recognized their training, but these were new sounds. Some of the residents who were evacuated after October 7th said that they want to return to Natif HaSara, though it may be too soon to discuss this possibility. Meanwhile, those who remained here are fighting to keep this beautiful, wounded place alive. I'm going to turn back to Guy in studio. I know this is a closer matter to your heart than most as you live not too far from there. Yes, the Moshev of Natif HaSara is one of the communities closest to the border of Gaza on the northern part of the Gaza Strip. For so many years, the residents of Natif HaSara have been complaining to the IDF about breaches to their security. One of the main targets of the first attack, the initial moments of the attack on Saturday morning, was striking an IDF facility in Natif HaSara from a Hamas observation tower that was stationed there for many months. It was taken down once by the IDF and then was rebuilt. And the IDF did not care less to take it down. They were able to take down infrastructure that was vital for the defense of this border and then were able to infiltrate the community, both with paragliders and with other means, including ground troops. It is the tragedy of this attack. That is the fact that the residents in Natif HaSara have been wanting peace with their neighbors for so many years. And one of the most devastating parts is the fact that they've employed people from Gaza for so many years. We've seen up to 17,000 Gazans entering Israel every day and most of their work were in these communities on their border. Well, what was the result? The result was that when the attack came with the Hamas operatives penetrated Natif HaSara and other communities, they had very detailed maps about each and every one of those homes, how many residents in each home, where was their dog, where was the weapon. That information came from those people that they trusted from these workers who entered Israel every day. The residents of Natif HaSara and those communities wanted to live a peaceful neighboring life with those Gazans. Very sadly, many of them have exploited that opportunity and gave detailed information to the Hamas operatives on where to slaughter the Jews. That was the result and that was the tragedy. As we said, the residents of Natif HaSara, like the other Moshefs and Kibbutzes in the area, as well as the city of Zderot, will not accept another situation in which Gazans are able to infiltrate Israel as easily as they did on October 7th. And because we only have a minute and a half, I wanna continue on that. Ultimately and realistically, what do we think this new Israel, this new Middle East is going to have to look like for this war to be won and for Israelis to feel safe again? It's the million dollar question in Benjamin Netanyahu. I think in his first statement, since the start of the war said they are going to change the Middle East, the reality on the Middle East. What would that take? If you want to change the reality in the Middle East, you need to eliminate threats, immediate threats on Israel that include both Hamas and Hezbollah. Is Israel willing already to engage in a war with Hezbollah, which would be much more severe, would have much greater ramifications than Israel in terms of the human suffering and also the results for Lebanon? I don't know that this is something that Israel wants to initiate. Having said that, Israel did not want to initiate a war with Hamas and the result was over 1400 Israelis slaughtered on that Saturday and a war that has no end in sight. I mean one of the lessons that Israel has learned is despite an unwillingness to take casualties because of a small population, the price of appeasement and of standing by and hoping is so much higher. For sure, that was the reality as we saw right now. I think that part of the reason why so many Israelis have been drafted and we've seen such high turnouts of IDF reservists for this war is the understanding in the really wide spectrum of the Israeli population, how vital this war is for the safety of the state of Israel and we're seeing that with the willingness to serve and to defend Israel and to change the equation. I absolutely hope that translates into the resolve to continue as things get hard in the days ahead. Thank you very much Guy and for everybody else. We are out of time. We'll see you again at the top of the next hour. Thanks for watching. Israel is officially in a state of war. This is a very active scene and we need to get in the car as we're talking. More than a hundred soldiers and civilians have been kidnapped. Help us, we don't want to do it. We just don't know anything. Entire families, including babies and children and elderly were butchered in their beds. Awaken the giant and we are ready and we are strong. Everyone is showing up. This is the unity. Tel Aviv and welcome to I-24 News' ongoing coverage of Israel at war. I'm Ariel Levin Waldman. Another Israeli soldier has fallen in the fierce fighting in Gaza. That would be Sergeant First Class Yako Azari of the 401st Armored Brigade. Azari now marks the 31st casualty in the ground operation in Gaza. Israel's Prime Minister announced the IDF was tightening the noose around Gaza City, striking far deeper into the Hamas terror groups underground fortress than ever before. This, despite growing international pressure and Nanyahu vowing, there will be no truce nor ceasefire until Hamas releases all hostages and that no fuel will enter Gaza to power Hamas' war machine. This coming as the Biden administration has formally requested Israel allow humanitarian pauses in the fighting. Israel maintains they will not give Hamas the ability to regroup. The northern border moves ever closer to an all-out war with Hezbollah as well. 20 rockets fired the Galilee and Golan Heights even as the IDF strikes Hezbollah terror cells firing guided missiles at forces on the border. Cross-border fires only intensified in recent weeks as Hezbollah fires in greater volume and at greater ranges into Israeli territory, aided by Hamas in the north. This escalation coming despite the United States sending two carrier strike groups and a nuclear submarine to the region in an effort to deter Iran and Hezbollah from committing their full power to the fight. On Monday, Hamas and Lebanon fired rockets as deep into Israel as Haifa. Here is US President Biden demanding a pause in the fighting. I think there's a talk from that. I did ask him for a pause in the past. Yes, it's the way you hear some other people. And we're going to open with our eye on the northern front where our correspondent, Mary McAuliffe, is standing by at the northern border. Mary, thank you very much for being with us. Give us the latest developments in the war in the north. Good morning, Arielle. It's been a fairly quiet morning here just moments ago. We heard the first sounds of artillery in the distance. Clearly, the IDF is operating in this area as well. We don't have any statements yet coming out from the IDF. Also, before that, we heard fighter jets in the air. But overnight, it was relatively quiet. The last activity we had here was the IDF conducting a number of strikes in areas of southern Lebanon, primarily the Ait al-Shab and Ramesh areas. These are areas we've seen routinely hit by the IDF as it responds to fire coming from the Hezbollah group inside southern Lebanon. We know Hezbollah has been trying to hit a number of different IDF observation posts as well as military infrastructure and troops in the area. But as you mentioned in your lead yesterday, we saw a number of rockets fired at northern communities. There were no reports of injuries, but we know the IDF responded forcibly to what it said was a source of the attacks using both artillery shelling and airstrikes as well as drone strikes. Mary, we keep on hearing about these anti-tank missile squads being taken out by drone strikes. But we always hear about artillery being used to respond to Hezbollah fire. Has artillery actually accomplished anything so far in the north? Well, we know it's been used to put pressure on these groups who, as you said, they have been using, they've been hitting these tear cells that have been trying to fire the anti-tank missiles. Those anti-tank missiles have a range of about four kilometers. So this is why most of the communities here have been evacuated in this area because we have routinely over the past few weeks also seen artillery both from Israeli but also from tape missiles coming from on the other side of the border as Hezbollah fires mortars at IDF positions also setting off rocket sirens and alerts inside these northern Israeli communities. We know a number of Hezbollah fighters have been killed well over 60 Hezbollah fighters. A total of some 81 have been killed inside Southern Lebanon since October 8th, which is when fighting first began between Hezbollah and Israel on this northern border. So we know absolutely the IDF has been launching these precision strikes and successfully taking out a number of them. And again, I just wanna state that the majority of those casualties have either been members of Hezbollah. They're the vast majority but also from other Palestinian terror groups in the area have also been eliminated because the IDF says they were planning or had successfully launched attacks inside Israeli territory. Well, thank you very much, Mary, for that update from the northern front and we'll be back with you over the course of the day as that front develops further. But before anything else, we are going to go to some analysis in the studio where we are joined by Amir Oran, Defense and Government Commentary and also our senior Adler Guy Azrael. Thank you both very much for being with us. I actually wanna open with you, Amir, because the big question on everyone's mind is, is Hezbollah going to commit to this? Everyone seems to believe the answer is most emphatically yes. The question is, when? Well, if you construct the question this way, you probably perceive a ladder or an escalator where Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, steps gingerly first at the bottom, then in the middle and finally goes to an all-out war. It may develop this way, but the chances are that he will not do that because Israel is waiting and expecting that and probably has some cars up its sleeve. And for him, it is best to keep Israel waiting, keep the 350,000 reserve soldiers being called up some for the south, many, perhaps most for the north, to keep them on alert, the Israeli economy stalling, Israeli society waiting to see what's happening. So if one looks at it rationally, at least by our rationale, we won't see an all-out war short of a miscalculation by either side. Well, one of the challenges Israel has said that they cannot accept Hezbollah on the border the day after this war, which means that it seems at least inevitable from the political establishment that it has to be taken care of, that can't be done without a full-scale escalation. Ultimately, how do you square this, particularly with the United States breathing down Israel's neck, not to preempt? It goes to the Gaza war first. What Israel wants to achieve, having lost the first round in a very painful way on October the 7th, Israel wants to destroy the Hamas regime in Gaza in such a devastating way that it will serve as a lesson to anybody else, including Hezbollah. But Israel diplomatically doesn't have the power to force such a solution, including a return to U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 from August of 2006, which forbade Hezbollah and any other armed group to go south of the Litani River. Hezbollah simply ignores it and unifil the U.N. force does not enforce it nor does the Lebanese government. So maybe they will reach some sort of understanding to stop shooting each other but deploying Hezbollah only north of the Litani. Right now, it seems like a dream which will not come true. And we're gonna continue this discussion in a few brief moments, but before we do, we are going to turn our eye to the southern border where our correspondent, Robert Swift, is standing by. Robert, can you give us the latest developments on that from what I understand, a high-level Hamas commander was eliminated in the Israeli strikes recently? That's correct. Just update you on the current activity as it stands right now. Essentially, since I've last spoken to you about an hour ago, the fighting here has not stopped. I'll just step to the side so you can see some of the fighting which is going on behind us. We've heard 50-caliber machine gun fire, airstrikes have been a fairly constant activity. There's one building which you can maybe see smoke coming from now, which we've seen two, if not three airstrikes on that one building alone. So the fighting is very much ongoing here and is actually an intensity higher than it was when I was here two days ago. It's not clear if that's due to the time of the day, it being daylight hours now rather than nighttime, or if this represents an uptick in the scale of the fighting. But yeah, as you say, during the airstrikes overnight, we, the IDF announced that it was able to kill an important Hamas commander. This, an individual, he was the chief of the weapons manufacturing for Hamas. Israel will hope that that will dent Hamas' capability with regards to IEDs and rockets. But to be honest, that is an ongoing process. It was to be seen how much Hamas' ability to fight is being crippled, essentially. Now, the IDF appears to have had good success in penetrating into the Gaza Strip, but at the minute it remains a question as to whether this is essentially because the IDF have overwhelmed Hamas, or if it's because Hamas has chosen not to fight with its full force. We're all aware of the extensive networks of tunnels that are under the Gaza Strip, and there's some reporting to suggest that Hamas may be in fact holding some of its forces in reserve and essentially just fighting the IDF troops that are in Gaza with small units, using anti-tank weapons and IEDs to target the armored vehicles of the IDF whilst not throwing its full weight in. Well, thank you very much, Robert, and we will come back to you over the course of the day as the situation on the ground there changes. First though, we are going to turn back to our studio discussion panel on me. I want to pick back up with you briefly because I want to address that last point where we're talking about hitting these Hamas commanders. Every single military operation that Israel has had in Gaza, they boast, they've hit these levels of commanders. It's damaged the enemy's fighting capacity. Are they still the same B and C lester as we've hit before, or is this just finally a major development that might actually mean something strategically? So you hear contradictory views from people with expertise in the field and over the years looking historically at these processes. Usually if you have a military machine or a terror organization, it can work regardless of who's in charge of the field operations. And here, we haven't heard of any real senior Hamas official of the very top leadership being located, let alone killed. These are the battalion and brigade commanders of Hamas, the so-called backbone of the organization. And there might be, as you said, a small dent in activity. But it will go on. There are very, very few people of the likes of Qassam Soleimani or Imad Mourna, whose elimination hamper the organization's work, and even that for a time. But here, Israel wants to get rid of the machine altogether. This will not be achieved without Sinoir and his coterie being eradicated. That's a long trek ahead for the IDF. I'm going to turn now to you as well, guy, because one of the things that is all happening as the world is demanding ceasefires, is demanding humanitarian pauses. And reports now from Axios, I believe, showing a sort of disconnect between levels of the American government calling for originally a three-day humanitarian pause, then saying America's commit to Israel not pausing as if it's going to interrupt military activities. What's going on with this? So first, just a reminder of yours. We're talking about at least 240 Israelis kidnapped by Hamas on the deadly October 7th massacre, including children as young as now 10 months old baby. So the latest report of Axios' reports of a conversation between Biden and Netanyahu, in which Biden urged Netanyahu to agree to a three-day pause in the fighting in order to bring about the release of some of the hostages. So according to that proposal, they're talking about the release of 10 to 15 hostages using that three-day pause, during which Hamas will also, according to the report, will verify the identities of the hostages and will deliver a list of the names of people it is holding. Well, Netanyahu responded to Biden, saying he does not trust Hamas' intentions, does not believe they already agree to a deal. And also, there's a fear that Israel, with a possible pause in the fighting, would lose much of its current international support, the momentum that it has to go back into fighting after a three-day halt. But just speaking about the possibility of that pause, well, I can take you back to August 1st, 2014. I was on a bus of foreign journalists on our way to Kerem Shalom crossing during a pause in the fighting between Israel and Hamas. Well, during that drive to Kerem Shalom, our bus was stopped and had to U-turn, because Hamas used the opportunity of that pause to attack a group of Israeli soldiers killing three of them and kidnapping Hadar Golding. So the very vivid memory of what Hamas does in case of such humanitarian or temporary pauses in war is still very evident in the collective memory of the Israeli public and of the IDF in particular, and especially after the atrocities that we've seen over the past month. Any idea of trusting Hamas to deliver a humanitarian good of some sort is very questionable to the very least. And I want to just break in here to tell our audience there's been a development, rocket sirens going off in Israel's south in the area of Kisufim. I'm going to return back to our studio panel. Amir, you looked like you had something you wanted to add to Guy's analysis. Well, the IDF is a very effective military machine, and it can get what it is planning to do, even with a one-day pause or a similar ceasefire. The momentum is important, but for the Israeli public, the fate of the hostages is paramount. And even a small indication that there is hope that some people are being released, that the full list, which will spell the end of uncertainty for many people, it will be a joyous event for others, of course, a very soulful one, because they will know that their loved ones are no longer alive. And the Israeli public has been putting a lot of pressure on the government. And actually what Netanyahu said, of course, he phrased in the negative. But you can read it the other way around. No hostage release, no ceasefire. If there is a hostage release, not the hostage, all of them release, there will be some sort of a pause. Whether it's for a few hours, for a day, for a night, Israel and the IDF can live with that. And I'll just add that we're talking about roughly 180 of those hostages being held by Hamas, around 40 held by a Palestinian Islamic jihad, and several dozens others in the hands of other militant groups, including regular civilians who joined the party, the blood party of that October 7th, who came into Israel slaughtering Israelis and also kidnapping some of them. But we are hearing also from the headquarters of the hostages' families in response to Biden's offer, saying we support any initiative for temporary pause for the release of the hostages. They demand of the Israeli government to stand on the principle that any pause in fighting, whether it's for long or short term, will be conditioned on the immediate release of the kidnaps. But the headquarters objects strongly to any pause for talks that are only meant to waste time and psychological warfare against the families. The Director of Central Intelligence, Bill Berns, is in the area in order to effect a back channel negotiation on the hostages. He has been in Israel, met with Netanyahu, and he's counterpart, the Mossad chief, Dadi Banner. And obviously, he's going elsewhere. Who knows? Egypt, Qatar. And some deal will be struck. Whether it will be satisfactory remains to be seen. And because we're on the topic of the hostages, there is another voice I would like to bring in now. That is, Moran, alone, six family members of his had been kidnapped from near Oz. Moran, I don't really have words that describe that. If you're with us now, can you explain? Just describe what happened initially on that day for you and your family. Yeah, on Saturday, we woke up to missile launch here in Holland. And every time that happened, we immediately called my sister to ask how is she. And this specific Saturday, my older sister, Danielle, also went there to Dushabat, spent Shabbat with my other sister, with John and her family. And so we texted them immediately, hey, how are you? And they said, we're not sure. They told us there are terrorists in the kibbutz. And we're in the safe room. We're not sure what's going on. And that was like this for about an hour. After an hour, she said that they can hear the terrorists in their neighbor house. And now that we already understand what went on there, then I also understand that what she didn't mention is that she can hear all the probably shouting and gunshots around them. And I can only imagine. After half an hour, she sent us a message that they can hear the terrorists in their house. They're not sure they're going to make it. And that they love us. And after an hour and a half, which was the longest one hour and a half in my life, she texted us that the terrorists are, she sent a voice message saying that the terrorists are burning the house. And smoke is getting under the safe room door. Probably in order to smoke them out. And they don't think they're going to make it. And they love us. And what I mean to say is, she just sent two messages. Health were dying. That was the last message that we heard from them. We assumed that my older sister Danielle and her daughter Emilia was there as well, because they stayed at the same house. But our communication was only in front of someone. And after about a week, which during that week, we kind of gathered clues from videos for release. And from other places, after a week, we got the message from the army that all the six were recognized as kidnapped. In addition to that, my brother-in-law brother, Ariel was also kidnapped along with his girlfriend. So overall, seven rows in second week of the members. We're hearing so much right now from people like yourself, families of kidnapped persons, Israelis taken over there, of what the government could and should do to bring people back home. Where do you fall on this debate? I haven't heard anything that assures me that these terrorists are willing for any kind of a deal or negotiation. I hear a lot of rumors. I hear a lot of headlines. But these are the same people that massacred 1,200 people. 1,400 people. I don't really understand why we're talking about deal at the moment. I think that pressuring them for a deal, as I see it, is our only option at the moment. Because I don't trust anything that they say that they want to. And sending, releasing two by two is not a humanitarian gesture. It's just lashing in our faces. Releasing the video with my sister in it is their way to do a psychological warfare. We're not dealing with people that want to talk to us. We're dealing with people that's trying to do whatever they can for their survival. And so unless they are releasing kids and women without any discussion first, or for that matter, all civilians, I don't really trust that we can do anything at the moment. And so I trust that the Israeli government are doing whatever they can, both military but also diplomatically, in order to make sure that, first of all, these animals will not be able to hurt us again. But also that they do care about our family's health and safety. And I'm not a military person, I'm not a political person. I can just pray and put my trust in my government and the army. But I would definitely want to put my trust in this terrorist, which every day is saying something different. I know it's not an easy question. It's in fact a sort of perverse question in many ways. But when you saw that video with your sister, did it at least give you some relief that she was alive? Is there any hope that it gave you? And first of all, you can see that she's in distress. It wasn't easy to see that video. But yeah, I knew that day, I knew something that I didn't know before. And so it's that she's alive. She doesn't look well. And I don't listen to the words that she's saying, but her anger is real. And let's remember that they are 31 days in captivity at the moment. So I can understand the anger, but anger also points to energy and to spirit. And I want to hope that her spirit is still strong. And I want to assume that that's also because maybe she's with her daughter. And I know you're thinking a lot of things once you see that. And yeah, it was some sort of encouraging, I think. But still, she's one. And that's a lot. But they still have five, six family members there, which I have zero idea what's their status. The Red Cross is not sending us anything. They're not able to enter as far as I understand. Although meanwhile, we are supplying humanitarian aid to Gaza. I don't understand this equation. I don't understand how we don't get any information. But on the other side, they are getting exactly what they want. So yeah. It's very little at one consider that, Maureen. I guess all we can say is that we're all praying with you. We're all praying for you and your family and hoping for the safe return of all of our people, regardless of what methodology is needed to bring that about. Thank you for sharing your story. I know it wasn't easy. I guess for the rest of us in the last minute that we have, how does Israel move forward from this? Well, there are two alternative theories for what Hamas and the other organizations or individual people there are doing, holding the captives. One is that they are simply in the business of torturing of humiliating Israel and of letting everything happen on top of the massacre. And the other is that they are waiting for a deal eventually. We will see. I guess we will. Thank you both for being here for the analysis for everyone else, though. We are out of time, at least for now. But we will see you again at the top of the next hour with more. Until then, thanks for watching and tune back in again very soon. 1,300 people murdered and more than 3,000 injured and the war with Hamas continues. We bring you first-hand testimonies from the front lines, from those who survived, and all the records of the atrocities by Hamas. Follow us as Israel fights terror from the south and north. Get the inside scoop on what's going on. Only on I-24 News. This is a very active scene, and we need to get in the car as we're talking. More than 100 soldiers and civilians have been kidnapped. Tell us what we don't want to do. We just don't know anything. Entire families, including babies and children and elderly, were butchered in their beds. Awaken the giant, and we are ready, and we are strong. Everyone is showing up. This is the unity. Coming from Tel Aviv and welcome to I-24 News' ongoing coverage of Israel at war. I'm Ariel Levin Waldman. Another Israeli soldier has fallen in the fierce fighting in Gaza, that would be Sergeant First Class Yaakov Azari of the 401st Armored Brigade. Azari now marks the 31st casualty in the ground operation in Gaza. Israel's prime minister announced the IDF was tightening the noose around Gaza City, striking far deeper into the Hamas terror group's underground fortress than ever before. This, despite growing international pressure on Netanyahu vowing, there will be no truce nor ceasefire until Hamas releases all hostages, and that no fuel will enter Gaza to power Hamas' war machine. This coming as the Biden administration has formally requested Israel allow humanitarian pauses in the fighting. Israel maintains they will not give Hamas the ability to regroup. The northern border moves ever closer to an all-out war with Hezbollah as well. 20 rockets fired at the Galilee and Golan Heights, even as the IDF strikes Hezbollah terror cells firing guided missiles at forces on the border. Cross-border fires only intensified in recent weeks as Hezbollah fires in greater volume and at greater ranges into Israeli territory, aided by Hamas in the north. This escalation coming despite the United States sending two carrier strike groups and a nuclear submarine to the region in an effort to deter Iran and Hezbollah from committing their full power to the fight. On Monday, Hamas and Lebanon fired rockets as deep into Israel as Haifa. Here's U.S. President Biden demanding a pause in the fighting. We didn't get a chance to talk from that. I did ask him for a pause in the past. Yes, it's the way you hear something. And we're going to open with our eye on the northern front where our correspondent Mary MacAuliffe is standing by at the northern border. Mary, thank you very much for being with us. Give us the latest developments in the war in the north. Good morning, Arielle. It's been a fairly quiet morning here just moments ago. We heard the first sounds of artillery in the distance. Clearly, the IDF is operating in this area as well. We don't have any statements yet coming out from the IDF. Also, before that, we heard fighter jets in the air. But overnight, it was relatively quiet. The last activity we had here was the IDF conducting a number of strikes in areas of southern Lebanon, primarily the Ait al-Shab and Ramesh areas. These are areas we've seen routinely hit by the IDF as it responds to fire coming from the Hezbollah group inside southern Lebanon. We know Hezbollah has been trying to hit a number of different IDF observation posts as well as military infrastructure and troops in the area. But as you mentioned in your lead yesterday, we saw a number of rockets fired at northern communities. There were no reports of injuries, but we know the IDF responded forcibly to what it said was a source of the attacks using both artillery shelling and airstrikes as well as drone strikes. Mary, we keep on hearing about these anti-tank missile squads being taken out by drone strikes, but we always hear about artillery being used to respond to Hezbollah fire. Has artillery actually accomplished anything so far in the north? Well, we know it's been used to put pressure on these groups who, as you said, they've been hitting these tear cells that have been trying to fire the anti-tank missiles. Those anti-tank missiles have a range of about four kilometers. So this is why most of the communities here have been evacuated in this area because we have routinely, over the past few weeks, also seen artillery both from Israeli but also from tape missiles coming from on the other side of the border as Hezbollah fires mortars at IDF positions also setting off rocket sirens and alerts inside these northern Israeli communities. We know a number of Hezbollah fighters have been killed well over 60 Hezbollah fighters, a total of some 81 have been killed inside Southern Lebanon since October 8th, which is when fighting first began between Hezbollah and Israel on this northern border. So we know absolutely the IDF has been launching these precision strikes and successfully taking out a number of them. And again, I just want to state that the majority of those casualties have either been members of Hezbollah, they're the vast majority, but also from other Palestinian terror groups in the area have also been eliminated because the IDF says they were planning or had successfully launched attacks inside Israeli territory. Thank you very much, Mary, for that update from the northern front and we'll be back with you over the course of the day as that front develops further. But before anything else, we are going to go to some analysis in studio where we are joined by Amir Oran, Defense and Government Commentary and also our senior editor, Guy Azrael. Thank you both very much for being with us. I actually want to open with you, Amir, because the big question on everyone's mind is, is Hezbollah going to commit to this? Everyone seems to believe the answer is most emphatically yes. The question is what? Well, if you construct the question this way, you probably perceive a ladder or an escalator where Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, steps gingerly first the bottom, then in the middle and finally goes to an all out war. It may develop this way, but the chances are that he will not do that because Israel is waiting and expecting that and probably has some cards up its sleeve. And for him, it is best to keep Israel waiting, keep the 350,000 reserve soldiers being called up, some for the south, many, perhaps most for the north, to keep them on alert, the Israeli economy stalling Israeli society waiting to see what's happening. So if one looks at it rationally, at least by our rationale, we won't see an all out war short of a miscalculation by either side. But one of the challenges Israel has said that they cannot accept Hezbollah on the border the day after this war, which means that it seems at least inevitable from the political establishment that it has to be taken care of that can't be done without a full scale escalation. Ultimately, how do you square this, particularly with the United States breathing down Israel's neck and not to preempt? It goes to the Gaza war first. What Israel wants to achieve, having lost the first round in a very painful way on October the 7th, Israel wants to destroy the Hamas regime in Gaza in such a devastating way that it will serve as a lesson to anybody else, including Hezbollah. But Israel diplomatically doesn't have the power to force such a solution, including a return to UN Security Council Resolution 1701 from August of 2006, which forbade Hezbollah and any other armed group to go south of the Litani River. Hezbollah simply ignores it and unifil the UN force does not enforce it nor does the Lebanese government. So maybe they will reach some sort of understanding to stop shooting each other but deploying Hezbollah only north of the Litani. Right now, it seems like a dream which will not come true. And we're gonna continue this discussion in a few brief moments, but before we do, we are going to turn our eye to the southern border where our correspondent Robert Swift is standing by. Robert, can you give us the latest developments on that from what I understand, a high-level Hamas commander was eliminated in Israeli strikes recently? That's correct. Just update you on the current activity as it stands right now. Essentially, since I've last spoken to you about an hour ago, the fighting here has not stopped. I'll just step to the side so you can see some of the fighting which is going on behind us. We've heard 50 caliber machine gun fire, air strikes have been a fairly constant activity. There's one building which you can maybe see smoke coming from now, which we've seen two, if not three, air strikes on that one building alone. So the fighting is very much ongoing here and is actually at an intensity higher than it was when I was here two days ago. It's not clear if that's due to the time of the day, it being daylight hours now rather than nighttime or if this represents an uptick in the scale of the fighting. But yeah, as you say, during the air strikes overnight, we, the IDF announced that it was able to kill an important Hamas commander. This, an individual, he was the chief of the weapons manufacturing for Hamas. Israel will hope that that will dent Hamas' capability with regards to IEDs and rockets. But to be honest, that is an ongoing process. It was to be seen how much Hamas' ability to fight is being crippled, essentially. Now, the IDF appears to have had good success in penetrating into the Gaza Strip. But at the minute, it remains a question as to whether this is essentially because the IDF have overwhelmed Hamas or if it's because Hamas has chosen not to fight with its full force. We're all aware of the extensive networks of tunnels that are under the Gaza Strip. And there's some reporting to suggest that Hamas may be, in fact, holding some of its forces in reserve and essentially just fighting the IDF troops that are in Gaza with small units using anti-tank weapons and IEDs to target the armored vehicles of the IDF whilst not throwing its full weight in. Well, thank you very much, Robert. And we will come back to you over the course of the day as the situation on the ground there changes. First, though, we are going to turn back to our studio discussion panel. Amir, I want to pick back up with you briefly because I want to address that last point where we're talking about hitting these Hamas commanders. Every single military operation that Israel has had in Gaza, they boast, they've hit these levels of commanders. It's damaged the enemy's fighting capacity. Are these still the same B and C lester as we've hit before? Or is this just finally a major development that might actually mean something strategically? So you hear contradictory views from people with expertise in the field and over the years looking historically at these processes. Usually, if you have a military machine or a terror organization, it can work regardless of who's in charge of the field operations. And here, we haven't heard of any real senior Hamas official of the very top leadership being located, let alone killed. These are the battalion and brigade commanders of Hamas, the so-called backbone of the organization. And there might be, as you said, a small dent in activity, but it will go on. There are very, very few people of the likes of Qassam Soleimani or Imad Murnia whose elimination hampers the organization's work, and even that for a time. But here, Israel wants to get rid of the machine altogether. This will not be achieved without Sinoir and his coterie being eradicated. That's a long trek ahead for the IDF. I'm gonna turn now to you as well, Guy, because one of the things that is all happening as the world is demanding ceasefires, is demanding humanitarian pauses. And reports now from Axios, I believe, showing a sort of disconnect between levels of the American government calling for originally a three-day humanitarian pause, then saying that America's commit to Israel not pausing as if it's gonna interrupt military activities. What's going on with this? So first, just a reminder of yours, we're talking about at least 240 Israelis kidnapped by Hamas on the deadly October 7th massacre. Including children as young as now 10 months old baby. So the latest report of Axios' reports of a conversation between Biden and Netanyahu in which Biden urged Netanyahu to agree to a three-day pause in the fighting in order to bring about the release of some of the hostages. So according to that proposal, they're talking about the release of 10 to 15 hostages using that three-day pause, during which Hamas will also, according to the report, will verify the identities of the hostages and will deliver a list of the names of people it is holding. Well, Netanyahu responded to Biden saying he does not trust Hamas' intentions, does not believe they're ready to agree to a deal. And also there's a fear that Israel with a possible pause in the fighting would lose much of its current international support, the momentum that it has to go back into fighting after a three-day halt. But just speaking about the possibility of that pause, while I can take you back to August 1st, 2014, I was on a bus of foreign journalists on our way to Kerem Shalom crossing during a pause in the fighting between Israel and Hamas. Well, during that drive to Kerem Shalom, our bus was stopped and had to U-turn because Hamas used the opportunity of that pause to attack a group of Israeli soldiers, killing three of them and kidnapping Hadar Golding. So the very vivid memory of what Hamas does in case of such humanitarian or temporary pauses in war is still very evident in the collective memory of the Israeli public and of the IDF in particular, and especially after the atrocities that we've seen over the past month. Any idea of trusting Hamas to deliver a humanitarian good of some sort is very questionable to the very least. And I want to just break in here to tell our audience there's been a development, rocket sirens going off in Israel's south in the area of Kisufim. I'm going to return back to our studio panel. I'm here. You look back. You had something you wanted to add to Guy's analysis. Well, the IDF is a very effective military machine. And it can get what it is planning to do, even with a one-day pause or a similar ceasefire. The momentum is important, but for the Israeli public, the fate of the hostages is paramount. And even a small indication that there is hope, that some people are being released, that the full list, which will spell the end of uncertainty for many people, it will be a joyous event for others. Of course, a very soulful one, because they will know that their loved ones are no longer alive. And the Israeli public has been putting a lot of pressure on the government. And actually what Netanyahu said, of course, he phrased in the negative, but you can read it the other way around, no hostage release, no ceasefire. If there is a hostage release, not the hostage, all of them release, there will be some sort of a pause. Whether it's for a few hours, for a day, for a night, Israel and the IDF can live with that. And I'll just add that we're talking about roughly 180 of those hostages being held by Hamas, around 40, held by a Palestinian Islamic jihad, and several dozens others in the hands of other militant groups, including regular civilians who joined the party, the blood party of that October 7th, who came into Israel slaughtering Israelis and also kidnapping some of them. But we are hearing also from the headquarters of the hostages' families in response to Biden's offer, saying we support any initiative for temporary pause for the release of the hostages. They demand of the Israeli government to stand on the principle that any pause in fighting, whether it's for long or short term, will be conditioned on the immediate release of the kidnaps. But the headquarters objects strongly to any pause for talks that are only meant to waste time and psychological warfare against the families. The director of Central Intelligence, Bill Burns, is in the area in order to effect a back channel negotiation on the hostages. He has been in Israel, met with Netanyahu, and he's counterpart, the Mossad chief, Dadi Banea. And obviously, he's going elsewhere. Who knows? Egypt, Qatar. And some deal will be struck. Whether it will be satisfactory remains to be seen. And because we're on the topic of the hostages, there is another voice I would like to bring in now. That is, Moran Aloni, six family members of his had been kidnapped from near O's. Moran, I don't really have words that describe that. If you're with us now, can you explain, just describe what happened initially on that day for you and your family? Yeah. On Saturday, we woke up to Mr. Alonso here in Holland. And every time that happened, we immediately called my sister to ask how is she. And this specific Saturday, my older sister, Danielle, also went there to Dushabat, spent a night with my other sister, with John, and her family. And so we texted them immediately. Hey, how are you? And they said, we're not sure. They told us there are terrorists in the kibbutz. And we're in the safe room. We're not sure what's going on. And that was like this for about an hour. After an hour, she said that they can hear the terrorists in their neighbor house. And now that we already understand what went on there, then I also understand that what she didn't mention is that she can hear all the probably shouting and gunshots around them. And I can only imagine. After half an hour, she sent us a message that they can hear the terrorists in their house. They're not sure they're going to make it. And that they love us. And after an hour and a half, which was the longest one hour and a half in my life, she texted us that the terrorists are, she sent a voice message saying that the terrorists are burning the house and smoke is getting under the safe room door, probably in order to smoke them out. And they don't think they're going to make it and that they love us. And what I mean to say there is two messages help were dying. That was the last message that we heard from them. We assume that my older sister Danielle and her daughter Emilia was there as well, because they stayed at the same house. But our communication was only in front of someone. And after about a week, which during that week, we kind of gathered clues from videos for the East and from other places, after a week, we got the message from the army that they were, all the six were recognized as kidnapped. In addition to that, my brother-in-law brother, Ariel was also kidnapped along with his girlfriend. So overall, seven blows and second thing we're hearing so much right now from people like yourself, families of kidnapped persons, Israeli has taken over there, of what the government could and should do to bring people back home. Where do you fall on this debate? I haven't heard anything that assures me that these terrorists are willing for any kind of a deal or negotiation. I hear a lot of rumors. I hear a lot of headlines. But these are the same people that massacre 1,200 people. 1,400 people. I don't really understand why we're talking about deal at the moment. I think that pressuring them for a deal, as I see it, is our only option at the moment. Because I don't trust anything that they say that they want to. And sending, releasing two by two is not a humanitarian gesture. It's just lashing in our faces. Releasing the video with my sister in it is their way to do a psychological warfare. We're not dealing with people that want to talk to us. We're dealing with people that's trying to do whatever they can for their survival. And so unless they are releasing kids and women without any discussion first, or for that matter, all civilians, I don't really trust that we can do anything at the moment. And so I trust that the Israeli government are doing whatever they can, both military but also diplomatically, in order to make sure that first of all, these animals will not be able to hurt us again. But also that they do care about our family's health and safety. And I'm not a military person. I'm not a political person. I can just pray and put my trust in my government and the army. But I would definitely want to put my trust in this terrorist, which every day is saying something different. I know it's not an easy question. It's in fact a sort of perverse question in many ways. But when you saw that video with your sister, did it at least give you some relief that she was alive? Is there any hope that it gave you? First of all, you can see that she's in distress. It wasn't easy to see that video. But yeah, I knew that day I knew something that I didn't know before. And so it's that she's alive. She doesn't look well. And I don't listen to the words that she's saying, but her anger is real. And let's remember that they are 31 days in captivity at the moment. So I can understand the anger, but anger also points to energy and to spirit. And I want to hope that her spirit is still strong. And I want to assume that that's also because maybe she's with her daughter. And you're thinking a lot of things once you see that. And yeah, it was some sort of encouraging, I think. But still, she's one. And that's a lot. But they still have five, six family members there, which I have zero idea what's their status. The Red Cross is not sending us anything. They're not able to enter as far as I understand. Although meanwhile, we are supplying humanitarian aid to Gaza. I don't understand this equation. I don't understand how we don't get any information. But on the other side, they are getting exactly what they want. So yeah. It's very little at one consider that, Maureen. I guess all we can say is that we're all praying with you. We're all praying for you and your family and hoping for a safe return of all of our people, regardless of what methodology is needed to bring that about. Thank you for sharing your story. I know it wasn't easy. I guess for the rest of us in the last minute that we have, how does Israel move forward from this? There are two alternative theories for what Hamas and the other organizations or individual people are doing, holding the captives. One is that they are simply in the business of torturing us, of humiliating Israel, and of letting everything happen on top of the massacre. And the other is that they are waiting for a deal eventually. We will see. I guess we will. Thank you both for being here for the analysis for everyone else, though. We are out of time, at least for now. But we will see you again at the top of the next hour with more. Until then, thanks for watching. And tune back in again very soon. 1,300 people murdered and more than 3,000 injured. And the war with Hamas continues. We bring you first-hand testimonies from the front lines, from those who survived, and all the records of the atrocities by Hamas. Follow us as Israel fights terror from the south and north. Get the inside scoop on what's going on. Only on I-24 News. I-24 News is ongoing coverage of Israel at war. I'm Ariel Levin Waldman. We have some breaking news from the northern border where rocket alert sirens are going off now. And we're going to continue with more information on that in just a little bit. On the southern front, another Israeli soldier has fallen in the fierce fighting in Gaza. That being Sergeant 1st Class Yaakov Azari of the 401st Armored Brigade. Azari remarks the 31st IDF casualty in the ground operation in Gaza. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Ninayev announced that the IDF was tightening the noose around Gaza City, striking far deeper into Hamas' terror groups underground fortress than ever before. Despite growing international pressure, Ninayev vows there will be no truce, nor will there be any ceasefire until Hamas releases all hostages and that no fuel will enter Gaza to power Hamas' war machine. This all comes as the Biden Administration has formally requested Israel allow humanitarian pauses in the fighting. Israel maintains they will not give Hamas this ability to reboot. The northern border is moving ever closer, though, to an all-out war with Hezbollah as well. In addition to those sirens that we just mentioned going off on the northern border, 20 rockets were fired at the galley and the Golan Heights that coming as well as the IDF striking. Hezbollah terror cells firing guided missiles at the border, but this cross-border fire has only intensified in recent weeks as Hezbollah fires in greater volume and greater ranges into Israeli territory, aided all the while by Hamas in the north. The escalation is coming despite the United States sending military assets in the form of two carrier strike groups and a nuclear submarine to the region in an effort to deter Iran and Hezbollah from committing their full power to the fight. On Monday, Hamas and Lebanon fired rockets deep into Israel, as deep as Haifa, in fact. Here's the U.S. president demanding a pause in the fighting. We're going to choose to talk from that. You're asking for a pause in the past. Yes. It's the way you hear something. And our correspondent, Robert Swift, is at the Israel-Gaza border with this update for us. So you'll be able to hear behind me the explosions that are taking place inside Gaza City. I'm going to step to the side so you can see a panorama of the activity that's taking place there. And you'll be able to see the extent of the damage inside Gaza City. This is the north of Gaza City that we're looking at. First, if on the far right-hand side, you'll actually notice that rather than being all urban area, there's a lot of agriculture. Not the majority, but quite a large chunk of the Gaza Strip is actually agricultural ground. You'll see even there's a herd of horses in there as well as crops that we can see. And the open terrain here is partly what allowed the IDF to make such quick advances in the opening days of their ground incursions. They just swept through this terrain with their armored vehicles. But when they arrived at the urban areas, that's when things have slowed down significantly and were involved in the urban fighting that you can see to the front. So if you'll focus in on the black smoke which is emanating on the right-hand side, this is what appears to have been an airstrike which went in a few minutes ago. This is one of many airstrikes that we've seen over the last couple of hours whilst we've been here. Some buildings we've actually seen have been hit by multiple airstrikes. And if you'll notice the buildings to the left of that airstrike, you can actually see the extent of the damage with many of these buildings actually collapsed in on themselves. Some of them look like a pile of Jenga bricks. There's extensive damage there which has been wrought by the Israeli artillery and by the Israeli air force during the course of this fighting. Just to the left, if we continue panning, you'll see that this urban interface continues and it's on the left-hand side actually that we're here in the majority of the fighting. It's been relatively quiet in the last couple of minutes prior to this for about two hours. We've been hearing sustained machine gun fire coming from this area and this seems to be where the focus of the Israeli fighting is taking place currently. We're seeing dust and smoke emanating from the buildings there and here in a lot of activity and this appears to be certainly the focus of the fighting in this section of the northern Gaza Strip as the Israeli military continues its efforts to essentially circle Gaza City, isolate it from the remainder of the Strip and by doing that, focusing its firepower and its combat forces in that area to essentially overwhelm the isolated Hamas forces. And that ground war is grinding on as the United States urges Israel to develop a plan for what to do after Hamas is defeated. How will Gaza Strip ultimately be regulated? And what Israel's role in guaranteeing security will be? Well, let's hear from US National Security Spokesperson John Kirby on this. We're having active discussions with our Israeli counterparts about what post-conflict Gaza ought to look like. The President maintains his position that a reoccupation by Israeli forces is not the right thing to do. We'll let them speak to their intentions, but we are definitely having conversations about what the post-conflict environment ought to look like and what governance in Gaza ought to look like. One thing there's absolutely no daylight on is Hamas can't be part of that equation. You can't go back to October 6. We still believe that a general ceasefire is not appropriate at this time. And by general ceasefire, we're talking about everybody laying down their arms for an indefinite period of time in the anticipation of peace talks and some sort of negotiated settlement. And we just don't believe that it's the right time for that right now. We do think it is the time to continue to pursue pauses in the fighting of a temporary nature for specific purposes. And for more on this, we are going to have a discussion in studio we have with us, Raphael Urashalmi, former Senior Intelligence Officer with the IDF, as well as Guy Asriel, our Senior Eddler. Thank you both for being in here. I want to open with you, Raphael. Big question, what does security responsibility ultimately mean and how is that going to be affected? Well, on the day after that war, we have to make sure that Hamas or any other terrorist faction cannot rule over Gaza, cannot come back and have an Islamic state, as is the case right now. So that's the first thing. Then we have to ensure overall security of this area, the Gaza Strip, in the absence, at least at first of proper government. It might be that the Gaza Strip returns under the authority of the Palestinian autonomy with the regime in place in Ramallah, but this will take time. And for sure, one thing we know, the security services at the disposal of the Palestinian autonomy and the PLO are not sufficient to ensure the security of the Gaza Strip. So it will take time to reinforce them with personnel, budget, training, equipment. In the meanwhile, some kind of a force has to ensure security of the Strip. We do not see that blue helmets, for instance, of the United Nations would do very much. We have the experience of the UNIFIL in south Lebanon, UNDOF in Syria, the MFO in Sinai. These people are very nice observers. They report what they see. Mostly they don't see much. They miss a lot of stuff. This is for sure not a good solution to ensure security and they would not be able, in any case, to act according to their mandate against terrorists. So would we consider an international force of some kind? Would the Egyptians give a hand? Because the Egyptians, they need the security in the Strip just as much as we do. It's next to Sinai. It could be, again, the bastion of the Muslim Brotherhood. Really, for now, Mr. Kirby, very nice what he's saying. Please give us the solution, because apart from the idea, if I don't see, who else can ensure, at first, of course, in the first weeks or months, the security in the Gaza Strip, that doesn't mean we're going to occupy militarily the Strip, not at all. We're going to have just a presence there to ensure law and order, as we do have in Judea and Samaria, wherever else is needed. It's not nothing to do with an occupation. Then for the administrative and political part, then these options are open, whether it will be the Palestinian autonomy again, whether it will be a new kind of regime. This will depend also on what the Gaza Strip will look like after the war. I believe that the Gaza people, first of all, should be able to leave Gaza, because so far they were stuck into the Gaza Strip, and I can assure you that many, many of them, unfortunately, it's mostly the young and the people with degrees that want to leave Gaza forever, they don't want to stay there. They're not interested in living there. It's an isolated, poor place. Now it's half destroyed anyway. So they should be allowed to leave, and I think we can diminish by a lot the number of people who will have to be reinstated in the normal way of life inside the Gaza Strip. I mean, it's not that we're chasing them or anything. I think we're giving them the freedom to choose and believe me, many are choosing that way. I remind you that during normal times, many young Palestinians pay a fee of around $5,000 to smugglers, Bedouin smugglers, and the bribery for Egyptian border police to escape Gaza, to leave somewhere else, Canada and the States, wherever. And also there is another immigration out of Gaza from the brain and the elite, meaning people with degrees, for instance doctors, will go to a medical congress with their family under the pretense of this medical congress or under the pretense of research abroad, will leave and never come back. So this is something very important to take into account, but of course it means we'll be left with mostly the poor part of the Gaza population, which is a huge responsibility to rebuild properly without any terrorist regime above them. And I believe that if we play a right for the humanitarian card with these Gaza population, we can build for them a brighter future, in which case it's a brighter future for all of us. And I'm going to want to discuss this a little further, but first I have to turn our eyes to the northern border where our correspondent Mary McAuliffe is standing by. Mary, it's good to have you with us. I understand there was a rocket alert not that long ago from the north. That's right. You're also just in recent moments, a siren ringing out in Aramsha. This is an area just meters away from the northern border with Lebanon. And this is also an area that we've seen a number of different sirens ringing out in recent weeks because it is so close to the border and there's also, of course, a number of different IDF installations in that area, a number of different observation posts. So we have routinely seen this area hit by attempted mortar attacks, also attempted anti-tank missiles fired into this area. So we are still trying to check the details of what exactly caused those sirens to ring out. We know yesterday there were at least 20 sirens, 20 rockets which were fired into northern Israel from Lebanon. So we are still checking to see if those are rockets or if that was triggered by other military activity or from Hezbollah activity on the ground. And ultimately we have been seeing an increase in Hezbollah activity on the ground as well. Describe what changes we've seen over the past few days and what sort of response they're getting from the Israeli military. That's right. So then past three days we've seen double-digit rockets being fired into northern Israel from Hezbollah. And this is after there was a very deadly strike inside southern Lebanon. The IDF said that it had tried to hit a vehicle. It said that was carrying a suspicious person. Instead that strike killed three children and their grandmother. Their mother remains in hospital. Since then we've seen a very forceful response from Hezbollah firing a number of different rockets. Not just Hezbollah as well. Also Hamas who operates in southern Lebanon as well. Also firing rockets into these communities. One Israeli civilian has died this past week since that recent escalation bringing the total number of Israeli civilians killed to two in the course of this since October 8th. In response the IDF says it is continuing to do what it has been doing which is to strike forcefully at what they say is the source of these launches. So they've been striking terror cells who are launching anti-tank missiles or attempting to launch anti-tank missiles. And they've been using really all methods at their disposal to do so. And to try and pinpoint and source to try and prevent from any attacks. They're using fighter jets which we can hear in the sky around us. Also artillery all throughout this border area heavily targeting these areas in southern Lebanon where they do believe Hezbollah is operating. Thank you very much for that update from the North. Mary will be back with you over the course of the day. I'm going to return to the studio with our discussion panel. I'm going to open up with you again Rafael because we just heard the latest from the northern border. Ultimately Israel understands that the status quo Hezbollah directly on the border cannot continue in light of October 7th. But the United States is demanding Israel not preempt to what options are left to get Hezbollah off the border. I think the ultimate decision lies with Jerusalem and not Washington. With all due respect it's our country and our security. I don't really see how the Americans can expect us to leave the Hezbollah at our gates and after we have displaced more than 70,000 people from their homes to ask them to come back to face the exact same situation from then before the left. So obviously something has to be done. If the Americans want to avoid pre-emptive strike from Israel and extension of the conflict they should ensure that first of all the blue helmets of the UN of the UNIFIL force placed in southern Lebanon do their job meaning that there should be a no-man's land a buffer zone without any Hezbollah presence between the south of Lebanon and Israel. This has not been achieved and this is the mandate of the blue helmets is to have this zone free of terrorist military activity. It should be demilitarized and it's not. So that's the first thing. But even if we do that the threat remains because the range of the missiles at the disposal of the Hezbollah is such that it can reach any part of Israel. So I don't see any other solution than striking in a pre-emptive manner. The fact that it hasn't been done so I would like to think that it's because of operational necessities of the IDF and that the political will is to strike even though there is some international on American pressure. I think the Americans will have no choice if we start a war with the Hezbollah. What happens if the Hezbollah starts? I mean what's the difference? So in this case they have to join not necessarily offensively but at least to help us in aerial defense and that's why the destroyers that are there in the Mediterranean from the United States fleet can help a lot against the huge arsenal of the Hezbollah. They have very advanced systems that can help us with our systems together to protect Israel. They should at least do that and I think they will. They will not let us down if we start a pre-emptive strike and we have no other choice. I'd like to see what the alternative is. I'd be very happy to hear. Well I'm going to turn back to you as well Guy because we're discussing the Americans reaction. The American demands are not always the most realistic it seems for Israel's security needs and I want to turn back to Gaza because of that we're discussing the idea of this longer form security responsibility and the Americans seem to be pushing the idea of nation building almost when it's talking about governance. The Americans failed nation building in Afghanistan they failed nation building in Iraq and they failed in budgets in the trillions of dollars. What hope would Israel have to fill in those kinds of shoes? Well to be perfectly honest with you what happens with Gaza the day after is something that is being discussed with the Israeli war cabinet and of course with the Americans yet to tell you that Israel has a very clear idea of what it wants to do in Gaza after the war that is far from it. We heard from a Saudi official just this morning saying it will be impossible to discuss the future of Gaza before the war ends and we still have no idea when will that be. Obviously Israel has defined the goals of this war to eliminate Hamas military capabilities but also eliminate its governance over the Gaza Strip that could be a matter of months they are still surrounding the city of Gaza with very small incursions into the city still far from achieving those ultimate goals and that is before we even got to the southern part of the Gaza Strip where most of the civilians are seeking shelter right now so it's still a very long way to go Americans can have their concerns can have their discussions with the Israelis ultimately Israel is the one that will have to decide but we're hearing it from Israelis as well that it would take cooperation from Arab states from neighboring states to find out some sort of a solution that would at least ensure some sort of international presence in terms of the civil administration but when it comes to the security control well Israel has no one else to trust but itself one of the things I want to bring up is the time frame we're looking at because we've discussed months after but that doesn't seem to really cover the needs here we're talking about excising Hamas and its ideology from Gaza we're talking about the terrorist organization that writes the children's school books and teaches people from a young age to kill Jews everywhere they find them that's going to take decades to fully root out of the population how long can even the Arab countries be responsible for I don't think anyone has any aspirations to kill the ideology ideology will continue as long as there are enough people that our brain washed enough to follow those same ideas of eliminating the state of Israel of slaughtering Jews the charter of Hamas and that is similar to other groups like ISIS we've seen even if you kill the heads of the group the ideology does continue I don't think there'll be any insight for that but having said that we're seeing very similar incitement in the West Bank as well and that is part of the problem when we're speaking about the idea of control of the Palestinian authority as Rafael alluded to here well the same very similar ideologies are being very present in the West Bank not to mention that Hamas is the most popular movement on the Palestinian straight these days according to many services that we're seeing according to elections in the Palestinian universities in the West Bank we have not seen general elections in the West Bank for many years because of the fear that Hamas will take over there and ultimately Rafael if they're not targeting the ideology if the ideology remains what stops Hamas or something close enough from just popping up in a year five or ten we are the ones who have to stop it you have to remember that Hamas will be even if it's eradicated or dismantled in the Gaza Strip it's present heavily in the south of Lebanon it's present in Judea and Samaria in my opinion it will be even present in Paris and in London so the Hamas people will continue to operate they do so already from abroad a lot there is always the possibility that they might present themselves as a political party under a different name and be elected all this is theoretical I really think that it's absolutely feasible to prevent them to come back in a position of power over the Gaza Strip or even over the Palestinian territories would there be elections one of the things that hasn't been done enough it's a rebuke that I have towards the Israeli governments is that we didn't cultivate a new generation of leaders in the Palestinian population there are an elite class of Palestinians who have studied abroad who are open minded who do business with Israeli companies these people should be the next generation of leadership of the Palestinian people not that old school from the Arafat era that is still prevailing Mr Abu Mazen is an old terrorist especially after 85 is difficult and we need a new generation of Palestinian leaders that's our work to do we can do it with the Americans we can do it with the CIA we should have given much more power to the opposition to the Hamas in Gaza it could have been done with the help of the American secret services now is the time to do it we need a new generation one of the examples which is not the best with a person who has worked with the Israelis in the past who we can speak with for certain things and cooperate these are the people we are going to need to make sure that the jihadist Islamist cause doesn't surface up and replace because what happened and I conclude with this what happened was what was called the Palestinian cause a nationalistic independent seeking cause became a religious jihadist it's an integral cause nothing to do with the Palestinian people it's just got to do with Allah Akbar so that's not the same and I want to remind our viewers what that looks like we're going to be showing this next report Israeli archeologists having to use their skills for a heart-wrenching mission identifying what's left of their fellow citizens our Erika Jackson has more on how their hard work is identifying the bodies of the Palestinian massacred in Israel archeologists who normally investigate the remains of ancient burnt sites are on a much more difficult and personal mission they're now using their skills to join the search for the missing in burnt homes and cars after Hamas terrorists infiltrated Israel from Gaza massacring over 1,400 people who are mostly civilians on October 7th villages and at a music festival in the desert in the southern part of the country near the Gaza border we used the tools that we had at our disposal tools that we've developed in our daily work as archeologists so we took them and headed out to help as much as we can this is the cell phone of the person that we are evidently searching for he has his driver's license he has his credit card according to the archeologists while it's one thing to expose remains that are thousands of years old it's another to search for evidence of fellow citizens here we probably have a burnt skeleton the remains of many bones these are difficult images we're used to seeing things from hundreds and thousands of years ago and now we're dealing with modern atrocities their work has been described as an emotional challenge but the labor is for a greater purpose archeologists have so far identified at least 10 people who were previously believed to have been missing and some have already been buried we've managed to retrieve dozens of remains of individuals numerous of which have already been identified and have helped provide closure for some of these families who hardly lost their loved ones I think it's the least we can do and the fact that we have the ability as archeologists to apply our professional expertise to this specific case is something of a special calling a special calling to provide answers for as many families as possible regarding the fate of their loved ones all set of victims as well as hostage I'm going to turn back to Guy Azrael because you've been following the situation on the hostages in the latest this first of all a very devastating report there but just to speak about the hostages we're talking about over 240 Israelis being held captive in the Gaza Strip a report yesterday suggest that the president Biden has urged Netanyahu to agree to a three day pause in the fighting in order to bring progress to the release of some of the hostages between 10 and 15 hostages Well, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has responded to Biden says he does not trust Hamas intentions and does not believe they are ready to agree to a deal also alluding to the fact that there is fear that Israel could be losing much of its current international support if it stops fighting for three days and then go back to fighting so that is not a realistic option for Israel to mention Hamas does not trust war in that sense absolutely getting the momentum again is going to be very difficult that's all the time we have for now though but we will see you again in our next show at the top of the next hour so until then thank you very much for watching and we will see you again very soon with all the latest on the war is officially in a state of war this is a very active scene and we need to get in the car as civilians have been kidnapped help us we don't want to do it we just don't know anything entire families including babies and children and elderly were butchered in their beds awaken the giant and we are ready and we are strong everyone is showing up this is the unity for news is ongoing coverage of Israel at war I'm Ariel Levin Waldman with some breaking news from the northern border where rocket alert sirens are going off now and we are going to continue with more information on that in just a little bit on the southern front another Israeli soldier has fallen in the fierce fighting in Gaza at being sergeant first class Yaakov Azeri of the 401st Armored Brigade Azeri marks the 31st IDF casualty in the ground operation in Gaza Mishal's Prime Minister Benjamin Ninaya announced that the IDF was tightening the noose around Gaza city striking far deeper into mass terror groups underground fortress than ever before Israel is not allowing international pressure Ninaya who vows there will be no truce nor will there be any ceasefire until Hamas releases all hostages and that no fuel will enter Gaza to power Hamas's war machine this all comes as the Biden administration has formally requested Israel allow humanitarian pauses in the fighting Israel maintains they will not give Hamas this ability to regroup the northern border is moving ever closer though to an all out war with Hezbollah as well in addition to those sirens that we just mentioned going off on the northern border 20 rockets were fired at the galley and the Golan Heights that coming as well as the IDF striking Hezbollah terror cells firing guided missiles at the border but this cross border fire has only intensified in recent weeks as Hezbollah fires in greater volume and greater ranges into Israeli territory aided all the while by Hamas in the north the escalation is coming despite the United States sending hostages in the form of two carrier strike groups and a nuclear submarine to the region in an effort to deter Iran and Hezbollah from committing their full power to the fight when Monday Hamas and Lebanon fired rockets deep into Israel as deep as Haifa in fact here's the US president demanding a pause in the fighting and our correspondent Robert Swift is at the Israel-Gaza with this update for us so you'll be able to hear behind me the explosions that are taking place inside Gaza City I'm going to step to the side so you can see a panorama of the activity that's taking place there and you'll be able to see the extent of the damage inside the Gaza City this is the north of Gaza City that we're looking at first if on the far right hand side you'll actually notice that rather than being all urban area there's a lot much, not the majority but quite a large chunk of the Gaza Strip is actually agricultural ground you'll see even there's a herd of horses in there as well as crops that we can see and the open terrain here is partly what allowed the IDF to make such quick advances in the opening days of their ground incursion as they just swept through this terrain with their armoured vehicles but when they arrived at the urban areas that's when things have slowed down significantly and were involved in the urban fighting that you can see to the front now so if you'll focus in on the black smoke which is emanating on the right hand side this is what appears to have been an airstrike which went in a few minutes ago this is one of many airstrikes that we've seen over the last couple of hours whilst we've been here some buildings we've actually seen have been hit by multiple airstrikes and if you'll notice the buildings to the left of that airstrike you can actually see the extent of the damage with many of these buildings actually collapsed in on themselves some of them look like a pile of Jenga bricks there's extensive damage there which has been wrought by the Israeli artillery and by the Israeli air force during the course of this fighting just to the left if we continue panning you'll see that this urban interface continues and that it's on the left hand side actually that we're hearing the majority of the fighting it's been relatively quiet in the last couple of minutes but prior to this for about two hours we've been hearing sustained machine gun fire coming from this area and this seems to be where the focus of the Israeli fighting is taking place currently we're seeing dust and smoke emanating from the buildings there and hearing a lot of activity and this appears to be certainly the focus of the fighting in this section of the northern Gaza Strip as the Israeli military continues its efforts to essentially circle Gaza City isolate it from the remainder of the strip and by doing that focusing its firepower and its combat forces in that area to essentially overwhelm the isolated Hamas forces and that ground war is grinding on as the United States urges Israel to develop a plan for what to do after Hamas is defeated how will Gaza Strip ultimately be regulated how will it be governed and what Israel's role in guaranteeing security will be well let's hear from US National Security Spokesperson John Kirby on this we'll have an active discussions with our Israeli counterparts about what post-conflict Gaza ought to look like the president maintains his position that a reoccupation forces is not the right thing to do we'll let them speak to their intentions but we are definitely having conversations about what the post-conflict environment ought to look like and what governance in Gaza ought to look like one thing there's absolutely no daylight on is Hamas can't be part of that equation can't go back to October 6th we still believe that a general ceasefire is not appropriate at this time and by general ceasefire we're talking about everybody laying down their arms you know for an indefinite discussion of peace talks and some sort of negotiated settlement and we just don't believe that it's the right time for that right now we do think it is the time to continue to pursue pauses in the fighting of a temporary nature for specific purposes and for more on this we are going to have a discussion in studio we have with us Rafael Urashalmi former senior intelligence officer with the IDF as well as Guy Asriel our senior Edelaer thank you both for being in here I want to open with you Rafael big question what does security responsibility ultimately mean and how is that going to be affected well the day after that war we have to make sure the Hamas or any other terrorist faction cannot rule over Gaza cannot come back and have like an Islamic state as is the case right now so that's the first thing then we have to ensure overall security of this area the Gaza Strip in the absence at first of proper government it might be that the Gaza Strip returns under the authority of the Palestinian autonomy with the regime in place in Ramallah but this will take time and for sure one thing we know the security services at the disposal of the Palestinian autonomy and the PLO are not sufficient to ensure the security of the Gaza Strip so it will take time to reinforce them with personnel budget training equipment in the meanwhile some kind of a force has to ensure security of the Strip we do not see that blue helmets for instance of the United Nations would do very much we have the experience of the UNIFIL in south Lebanon UNDOF in Syria the MF4 in Sinai these people are very nice observers they report what they see mostly they don't see much they miss a lot of stuff this is for sure not a good solution to ensure security and they would not be able in any case to act according to their mandate against terrorists so would we consider an international force of some kind would the Egyptians give a hand because the Egyptians they have need the security in the Strip just as much as we do it's next to Sinai it could be again the bastion of Muslim Brotherhood really for now Mr Kirby very nice what he's saying please give us the solution because apart from the idea if I don't see who else can ensure at first of course in the first weeks or months the security in the Gaza Strip that doesn't mean we're going to occupy militarily the Strip not at all we're going to have just a presence there to ensure law and order as we do have in Judea and Samaria wherever else is needed it's not nothing to do with an occupation then for the administrative and political part then these options are open whether it will be the Palestinian autonomy again whether it will be a new kind of regime this will depend also of what the Gaza Strip will look like after the war I believe that the Gazan people first of all should be able to leave Gaza because they were stuck into the Gaza Strip and I can assure you that many many of them unfortunately it's mostly the young and the people with degrees that want to leave Gaza forever they don't want to stay there they're not interested in living there it's an isolated poor place now it's half destroyed anyway so they should be allowed to leave and I think we can diminish by a lot the number of people who will have to be instated in the normal way of life inside the Gaza Strip I mean it's not that we're chasing them or anything I think we're giving them the freedom to choose and believe me many are choosing that way I remind you that during normal times many young Palestinians pay a fee of around $5,000 to smugglers Bedouin smugglers and briberies for Egyptian border police to escape Gaza to leave somewhere else Canada and the states wherever and also there is another immigration out of Gaza from the brain and the elite meaning people with degrees for instance doctors will go to a medical congress with their family under the pretense of this medical congress or under the pretense of research abroad will leave and never come back so this is something very important to take into account but of course means will be left with mostly the poor part of the population which is a huge responsibility to rebuild properly without any terrorist regime above them and I believe that if we play a right humanitarian card with this Gaza population we can build for them a brighter future in which case it's a brighter future for all of us. And I'm going to want to discuss this a little further but first I have to turn our eyes to the northern border where our correspondent Mary McAuliffe is standing by Mary it's good to have you with us when you're standing there was a rocket alert not that long ago from the north that's right you're also just in recent moments a siren ringing out in Aramsha this is an area just meters away from the northern border with Lebanon and this is also an area that we've seen a number of different sirens ringing out in recent weeks this is so close to the border and there's also of course a number of different IDF installations in that area a number of different observation posts so we have routinely seen this area hit by attempted mortar attacks also attempted anti-tank missiles fired into this area so we are still trying to check the details of what exactly caused those sirens to ring out we know yesterday there were at least 20 sirens which 20 rockets which were fired into northern Israel from Lebanon so we are still checking to see if those are rockets or if that was triggered by other military activity or from Hezbollah activity on the ground and ultimately we have been seeing an increase in Hezbollah activity on the ground as well describe what changes we've seen over the past few days and what sort of response they're getting from the Israeli military that's right so then past three days we've seen double digit rockets being fired into northern Israel from Hezbollah and this is after there was a very deadly strike inside southern Lebanon the IDF said that it had tried to hit a vehicle carrying a suspicious person instead that strike killed three children and their grandmother their mother remains in hospital since then we've seen a very forceful response from Hezbollah firing a number of different rockets not just Hezbollah as well also Hamas who operates in southern Lebanon as well also firing rockets into these communities one Israeli civilian has died this past week since that recent escalation bringing the total number of Israeli civilians killed to two in the course of this since October 8th in response the IDF says they're continuing to do what it has been doing which is to strike forcefully at what they say is the source of these launches so they've been striking terror cells who are launching anti-tank missiles or attempting to launch anti-tank missiles and they've been using really all methods at their disposal to do so and to try and pinpoint and source to try and prevent from any attacks or using fighter jets which we can hear in the sky around us also artillery all throughout this border area heavily targeting these areas in southern Lebanon the update from the North Mary will be back with you over the course of the day I'm going to return to the studio with our discussion panel I'm going to open up with you again Rafael because we just heard the latest from the northern border ultimately Israel understands that the status quo Hezbollah directly on the border cannot continue in light of October 7th but the United States is demanding Israel not preempt to what options are left to get Hezbollah off the border I think the ultimate decision lies with Jerusalem not Washington with all due respect it's our country and our security I don't really see how the Americans can expect us to leave the Hezbollah at our gates and after we have displaced more than 70,000 people from their homes to ask them to come back to face the exactly same situation and from then we for the left so obviously something has to be done if the Americans want to avoid a pre-emptive strike from Israel an extension of the conflict they should ensure that first of all the blue helmets of the UN of the Unifil force placed in southern Lebanon do their job meaning that there should be a no-man's land a buffer zone without any Hezbollah presence between the south of Lebanon and Israel this has not been achieved and this is the mandate of the blue helmets is to have this zone free of terrorist military activity it should be demilitarized and it's not so that's the first thing but even if we do that the threat remains because the range of the missiles and the disposal of the Hezbollah is such that it can reach any part of Israel so I don't see any other solution than striking in a pre-emptive manner the fact that hasn't been done so I would like to think that it's because of the operational necessities of the IDF and that the political will is to strike even though there is some international and American pressure I think the Americans will have no choice if we start war with the Hezbollah what happens if the Hezbollah starts I mean what's the difference so in this case they have to join not necessarily offensively but at least to help us in aerial defense not there in the Mediterranean from the United States fleet can help a lot against the huge arsenal of the Hezbollah they have very advanced systems that can help us with our systems together to protect Israel they should at least do that and I think they will they will not let us down if we start a pre-emptive strike and we have no other choice I'd like to see what the alternative is I'd be very happy to hear and I want to turn back to you as well Guy because we're discussing the Americans reaction the American demands are not always the most realistic it seems for Israel's security needs and I want to turn back to Gaza because of that we're discussing the idea of this longer form security responsibility and the Americans seem to be pushing the idea of nation building almost when it's talking about governance the Americans failed nation building in Afghanistan they failed nation building in Iraq and they failed in budgets in the trillions of dollars they failed in those kinds of shoes to be perfectly honest with you what happens with Gaza the day after is something that is being discussed both within the Israeli war cabinet and of course with the Americans to tell you that Israel has a very clear idea of what it wants to do in Gaza after the war that is far from it we heard from a Saudi official just this morning saying it will be impossible to discuss the future of Gaza before the war ends and we still have no idea when will that be obviously Israel has defined the goals of this war to eliminate Hamas's military capabilities but also eliminate its governance over the Gaza Strip that could be a matter of months they are still surrounding the city of Gaza with very small incursions into the city still far from achieving those ultimate goals and that is before we even got to the southern part of the Gaza Strip or most of the civilians are seeking shelter right now so it's still a very long way to go the Americans can have their concerns, can have their discussions with the Israelis ultimately Israel is the one that will have to decide but we're hearing it from Israelis as well that it would take cooperation from Arab states, from neighboring states to find out some sort of a solution that would at least ensure some sort of international presence in terms of the civil administration but when it comes to the security control well Israel has no one else to trust but itself one of the things I want to bring up is the time frame we're looking at because we've discussed months after but that doesn't seem to really cover the needs here we're talking about excising Hamas and its ideology from Gaza we're talking about the terrorist organization that writes the children's school books at the age to kill Jews everywhere they find them that's going to take decades to fully root out of the population how long can even the Arab countries be responsible for preventing that I don't think anyone has any aspirations to kill the ideology ideology will continue as long as there are enough people that are brainwashed enough to follow those same ideas of eliminating the state of Israel of slaughtering Jews the charter of Hamas to other groups like ISIS we've seen even if you kill the heads of the group the ideology does continue I don't think there'll be any insight for that but having said that we're seeing very similar incitement in the West Bank as well and that is part of the problem when we're speaking about the idea of control of the Palestinian authority as Rafael alluded to here well the same very similar ideologies are being very present in the West Bank not to mention that Hamas is the most popular movement on the Palestinian straight these days according to many services that we're seeing according to elections in Palestinian universities in the West Bank we have not seen general elections in the West Bank for many years because of the fear that Hamas will take over there and ultimately Rafael if they're not targeting the ideology if the ideology remains what stops Hamas or something close enough from just dropping up in a year 5 or 10 that's where the ones have to stop it you have to remember that Hamas will be even if it's eradicated or dismantled in the Gaza Strip it's present heavily in the south of Lebanon it's present in Judea and Samaria in my opinion it will be even present in Paris and in London so the Hamas people will continue to operate they do so already from abroad a lot there's always the possibility that they might present themselves as a political party under a different name and be elected all this is theoretical I really think that it's absolutely feasible to prevent them to come back in a position of power over the Gaza Strip or even over the Palestinian territories would there be elections one of the things that hasn't been done enough it's a rebuke that I have towards the Israeli governments is that we didn't cultivate a new generation of leaders in the Palestinian population there are an elite class of Palestinians who have studied abroad who are open minded who do business with Israeli companies these people who should be the next generation of leadership of the Palestinian people are not that old school from the Arafat era that is still prevailing Mr. Abu Mazen is an old terrorist he will not change especially after 85 is difficult and we need a new generation of Palestinian leaders that's our work to do we can do it with the Americans we can do it with the CIA we should have given much more power to the opposition to the Hamas in Gaza it could have been done with the help of the American services now is the time to do it we need a new generation one of the examples which is not the best but is mentioned is Mr. Mohammed Dahlan with a person who has worked with the Israelis in the past who we can speak with for certain things and cooperate these are the people we are going to need to make sure that the jihadist Islamist cause doesn't surface up and replace because what happened and I conclude with this what happened was what was called the Palestinian cause a nationalistic independence seeking cause became a religious jihadist integralist cause nothing to do with the Palestinian people it's just got to do with Allah wabbar so that's not the same and I want to remind our viewers what that looks like we're going to be showing this next report is really archaeologists having to use their skills for a heart-wrenching mission identifying what's left for our fellow citizens our Erika Jackson has more on how their hard work is identifying the bodies of people's loved ones following the October 7th massacre in Israel archaeologists who normally investigate the remains of ancient burnt sites are on a much more difficult and personal mission they're now using their skills to join the search for the missing in burnt homes and cars after Hamas terrorists infiltrated Israel from Gaza massacring over 1400 people who were mostly civilians on October 7th in their villages and at a music festival in the desert in the southern part of the country near the Gaza border we used the tools that we had at our disposal tools that we've developed in our daily work as archaeologists so we took them and headed out to help as much as we can this is the cell phone of the person that we are evidently searching for he has his driver's license he has his credit card according to the archaeologists while it's one thing to expose remains that are thousands of years old it's another to search for evidence of fellow citizens here we probably have a burnt skeleton the remains of many bones we do it ourselves these are difficult images we're used to seeing things from hundreds and thousands of years ago and now we're dealing with modern atrocities their work has been described as an emotional challenge but the labor is for a greater purpose archaeologists have so far identified at least 10 people who were previously believed to have been missing and some have already been buried to retrieve dozens of remains of individuals numerous of which have already been identified and have helped provide closure for some of these families who hardly lost their loved ones I think it's the least we can do and the fact that we have the ability as archaeologists to apply our professional expertise to this specific case is something of a special calling a special calling to provide answers for as many families as possible regarding the fate of their loved ones whole set of victims as well as hostages I'm going to turn back to Guy Azrael because you've been following the situation on hostages in the latest yes first of all a very devastating report there but just to speak about the hostages we're talking about over 240 Israelis being held captive in the Gaza Strip a report yesterday suggests that the president Biden has urged Netanyahu to agree to a three day pause in the fighting in order to bring progress to the release of some of the hostages between 10 and 15 hostages well, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has responded to Biden says he does not trust Hamas's intentions and does not believe they are ready to agree to a deal also alluding to the fact that there is fear that Israel could be losing much of its current international support if it stops fighting for three days and then go back to fighting so that is not a realistic option for Israel not to mention Hamas is not trustworthy in that sense absolutely any need momentum again is going to be very difficult that's all the time we have for now though but we will see you again our next show at the top of the next hour so until then thank you very much for watching and we will see you again very soon with all the latest on the war 1300 people murdered and more than 3000 injured the war with Hamas continues we bring you first hand testimonies from the front lines from those who survived and all the records of the atrocities by Hamas follow us as Israel fights terror from the south and north get the inside scoop on what's going on only on I-24 news this ongoing coverage of Israel at war rarely soldier has fallen in the fierce fighting in Gaza that's Sergeant First Class Yaakov Hazari of the 401st Armored Brigade Hazari marks the 31st IDF casualty in the ground operation in Gaza Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Inyaho announced that the IDF was tightening the news around Gaza City striking far deeper into the Hamas terror groups underground fortress than ever before despite growing international pressure in Inyaho vows there will be no truce nor ceasefire until Hamas releases all hostages and that no fuel will enter Gaza to power Hamas' war machine this all comes as the Biden administration has formally requested Israel allow humanitarian pauses in the fighting Israel maintains they will not give Hamas the ability to regroup and that call from the United States has been joined by the entire G7 as of this morning the northern border moves ever closer to an all out war with Hezbollah 20 rockets fired at the galley and Golan over and more this morning even as the IDF strikes Hezbollah terror cells firing guided missiles at the border this cross border fire has only intensified in recent weeks Hezbollah firing in greater volume and at greater ranges into Israeli territory all the while aided by Hamas in the north the escalation comes despite the United States sending two carrier strike groups in a nuclear submarine to the region in an effort to deter Iran and Hezbollah from committing their full power to this fight on Monday Hamas and Lebanon fired rockets as deep into Israel as Haifa and here's US President Biden demanding a pause in the fighting our attention to the northern border where our correspondent Mary McCullough is standing by Mary walk us to the latest developments on that front good morning Ariel yes it's been a bit of a quieter morning here than what we've seen in the past week we did have sirens in the north since yesterday at about 6 p.m. when there were just as you mentioned 20 rockets fired into northern Israeli communities in the Goliath and Golan there were no reports of injuries from those attacks we know a number of those were intercepted by the Iron Dome but we do know in response IDF launched a number of retaliatory strikes inside southern Lebanon using both air strikes but also a number of different artillery strikes as well as now just publishing documentation of one of those strikes that they said targeted a rockets and weapons depot that was used by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon the IDF has said throughout the past few weeks of fighting it will continue to respond to all threats that are coming from its northern border and forces here have remained on high alert now Mary this escalation is coming despite the U.S. is best efforts to squash any escalation north of the border. What sort of reaction have we seen from the Americans in the region? It's definitely not just the military and defense expenditures that they've been moving into the area saying that they're posturing to be on alert for really any threat we know that the U.S. itself and the Biden administration has said that if there's going to be a major de-escalation in the region or major escalation in the region excuse me it's going to be because of these Iranian backed proxies that also includes the number of different Iranian backed proxies in Iraq and Syria which have launched dozens of attacks on American bases in recent weeks so this is definitely a high alert situation for the United States who is working around the clock to try and prevent that further escalation from breaking out yesterday we had a senior U.S. who was here on the ground he was in Beirut meeting with the Lebanese Prime Minister and the President for the U.S. will say. Now it's hard to imagine the situation does not turn into a war zone that this border does not turn into a situation like we're seeing down south and that kind of fighting between Israel and Hamas that all forces all hands are on deck here to try and prevent an escalation they're doing that diplomatically but also as you mentioned, of course by also moving a number of different forces into the region, the air strike but also due to the attacks on the U.S. bases. So there is absolutely fear and certainly high alert throughout this region, and the U.S. is working around the clock to try and prevent that. Absolutely, Mary. Keep yourself safe out there. Thank you for that report. We're going to turn now to a discussion panel in the studio. Joining us now is Rafael Urshami, former senior intelligence officer at the IDF, and Mark Schulman, editor-in-chief of History Central. Central and editor-in-columnist with Newsweek. Thank you both for joining us. I do want to start with you, Rafael, because your area of expertise is Lebanon as well. And we've been seeing this escalation on the North. Everyone believes that it is going to break out into a major scale, full frontal war against Hezbollah, sooner rather than later. Ultimately, even with these American assets in the region, the question is, who's going to blink first? Hezbollah or the U.S. here? Well, we're really hoping that we will take the initiative as towards the northern theater of operation. There's no reason why Hezbollah should have the initiative. The clash is unavoidable, and unavoidable especially for us, because we cannot displace 70,000 people because of a threat, and then telling them to come back, and this threat is still there. So that's the first thing. The second thing is that we must have a pre-emptive strike because the conflict with Hezbollah, if there will be one, will be mostly one by the one who starts with a heavy blow. We have deployed, and that gives me a kind of hope that we're going to do something. We have deployed artillery systems like the Ra'am, which is what we might call it, the mighty lightning in English, which is a very special, specific artillery system. Each battery has got 64 launching pipes in these bombs, especially very precise, and they would be using that kind of a conflict or the fact that they have been deployed, not yet used might be a preparation for that. We have to remember that we are now in the best possible posture to start a pre-emptive strike. We have a massive American presence in the Mediterranean. We have all our reservists called up, and these reservists from the northern coming, they have been trained recently for the last couple of years to fight that kind of threat in different scenarios. We are now in a war mode for our economy. In this war mode, we cannot have forever. There's a limit to how much the Israeli economy can withstand such a war mode of economy. So all this put together would say that now is the time. Now is the time to strike. There might be some operational necessities to take into account, like maybe not this minute, but maybe in a couple of days or in four days, according to what's happening in the south, according to certain logistical needs. The chief of the Israeli Air Force has said very clearly the day before yesterday that the Israeli Air Force has no problem attacking the north while being busy in the south. There's no problem about that. We haven't even called all the Air Force reservists yet. Considering the American pressure on the political level, because that's where the problem lies, is there a political will in Israel to take on the Hezbollah? I would suggest that it's our country. We decide what's good for us. And I don't see how the Americans can let us down. I know there are problems. You wouldn't mention them inside the United States, because it's an electoral year. On the other hand, the United States of America are here for a reason. And it's not just to help Israel. It's to ensure stability in the Middle East. If they do not ensure that stability, then it will play in the hands of the Chinese and the Russians. There are huge American interests here to protect and defend. And that's why I believe that if what is the difference if Hezbollah starts or we start, when it will happen, the Americans have to help us. I disagree completely. I don't think it's a good idea for us to do a preemptive strike at this point, A, not until we finish with Gaza, two, and not until we get US support for a preemptive strike as opposed to a defensive. They're there to deter. If the Hezbollah strikes, they will clearly come to our aid and support. And they have firepower to stand up to that. If we strike first, it becomes more problematic. What we can accomplish in a first strike is significant. But we can't win the war from a first strike. We know the air force is just as excellent as it is. Striking all the missile sites is something that's almost impossible. I actually believe we should wait a year or two until we have our laser system deployed, which will change the calculus in terms of defense versus offense. Right now, I don't know how many Tamir missiles we have left. I mean, we have some in a lot. But still, we've used an awful lot of missiles in the last four weeks. I'm sure we're starting to run low. We need to produce more of them. I would not get into a war with Hezbollah until we've replenished all our supplies. We have our laser system ready, because an awful lot of Hezbollah missiles will probably get through and we'll see destruction to our Tel Aviv and other places. And it's not going to be easy to avoid that. So I'm in favor of waiting. Trying to use diplomatic means first to get them to observe the UN agreement for that their troops remain to the north of the Lutani River, as they're supposed to. Put as much pressure as we can. Use the US and everybody else after we've completed with Gaza. And if that doesn't work, we can consider other moves. But I think we should wait until we've completed with Gaza before we do it. That's actually a great jumping off point to now turn our eyes to Gaza, because our correspondent Robert Swift is standing by at the Israel-Gaza border. Robert, thank you for being with us. Walk us through the latest developments on that front. So the intensity of the fighting taking place here, it seems to have slightly reduced in the last hour since we spoke. There are still ongoing airstrikes. There is occasional fire, and we can still hear drones overhead. But throughout the day, the intensity of the combat seems to, it peaks and it troughs as the events take place. Now, it's worth noting that the fighting has not just been during the hours of daylight. The Israeli military conducts airstrikes during the night. And last night, it killed Mosin Abu Zina, which the IDF have said was the head of Hamas's, essentially, weapons research and manufacturing department. And they've said that it's hoped that this will impact Hamas's ability to create rockets, improvise explosive devices, these sorts of weapons. And now, there has been two incidents of rocket fire this morning, both of them targeting Qesofim, which is a community sort of midway down the Gaza Strip in the south of Israel. Now, there was no injuries either of these incidents. So of course, you wouldn't expect to see an immediate impact on Hamas's ability to launch rockets off the back of the killing of this commander. However, it's hoped that the ability of them to do that in future will reduce as an important figure like this is eliminated. Now, we can see behind you in that frame just columns of smoke rising from Gaza City. Can you give us a sense of just how much has been hit there and how much of Hamas's capabilities have been damaged? Yeah, so behind me, sometimes you'll see smoke, particularly when there's a large airstrike. This will throw up what's essentially a very small mushroom cloud. Other times you'll see big dust clouds going up, long lines of dust like that. Often this is the movement of armored vehicles, the Israeli vehicles, as they maneuver around the battle space behind me. Now, with regards to what's the idea of doing currently, essentially they're trying to isolate Gaza City from the rest of Gaza Strip. In urban warfare, force concentration is extremely important. So the Israeli military will do that to concentrate its forces whilst isolating Hamas's fighters. In the north of Gaza, it's understood that there are kilometers and kilometers of tunnels under which, in which there are Hamas fighters. And the Israeli military is essentially trying to keep those areas trapped and then do its utmost to kill the Hamas fighters that are in those areas. That's what's been taking place last night and in recent days. And indeed, that's what's taking place throughout the day today. Well, thank you very much for that update, Rob. We will be coming back to you over the course of the day as the situation and that Gaza Front changes. We've got some more of this in the studio now. Mark, I want to turn to you because victory on the battlefield isn't always the same as victory in the court of public opinion. Those same images of Israel striking Hamas targets are also images of, well, a devastated Gaza. And now we're hearing that some like six in 10 Democrats are saying that, well, Israel is going too far. Right, absolutely. And we have a real problem with the Democratic Party that I would say is divided into two problems. We have the problem of the progressive wing, which believes that Israel is a colonial enterprise and anything you do to stop a colonial enterprise is OK. And that represents some percentage, maybe 20%, 15% of the Democratic Party. But beyond that, we also have problems with African-Americans, women's lib people, and others because of this idea of intersectionality. They overlap between those two groups, but this idea of intersectionality says if you're in favor of Black Lives Matter, if you're in favor of women's rights, if you're in favor of LGBT rights, then you have to be in favor of the Palestinians because the poor Palestinians fall into this minority group. So that makes up another part of the Democratic Party that may not be quite as thinking of us as colonials, but they have to be at the heart of the poor Palestinians. And then finally, of course, it's just a question of public opinion. We've all seen the push notifications that come from places like The New York Times and Wall Street Journal. And Hamas makes an announcement, 500 people killed. Immediately, we get a push notification on all our phones that says Israel killed 500 people. An hour later, when the actual story comes place, or day later, depending on which story it is, no one's read that. They've all just seen the push notifications. So the story in the narrative is we're killing thousands and thousands of people. That doesn't look good. It doesn't seem good. The pictures are certainly not good. We didn't release the worst of our pictures because of who we are. Hamas does everything they can to release pictures true or false. And there's no way of saying whether they're true or false in many of them. So you see those images. You hear those images. You see the notifications. And you say, well, it's just going too far. We forget what Israel did, what the Hamas did four weeks ago. That's ancient history. That's what's going on right now. And that's always been a problem. That's been a problem of Israel throughout. I saw an interesting cartoon the other day from London. Had Assad killed 600,000 Syrians, the streets are empty. And Mimar, another 100,000 are killed. And another place, another 500,000 are killed. Israel, oh, immediately, the streets are filled with protests against Israel. We have a special space in the eyes of too many people that we're supposed to be better than everybody else, or we're hated more than anybody else, some combination they're in. And immediately when you see those images, it's Israel's fault. They're going too far. And the challenge with this is these ill-informed people, these radicals, their vote counts just as much as everyone else. And it's an election year for the Democrats, particularly the primaries with Michigan's role in the primaries, being one of the major centers for Muslim Americans. This is going to be damaging for them. Well, it's more important where their roles are in terms of electoral college. Michigan is a swing state. And that's a great concern that Biden may lose support. It's not so much the issue of people going to go vote for Trump, let's say. That's not going to happen. Just stay home. That's the real concern. And the problem with the progressives is not only their numbers, and they vote like everybody else, but they tend to be the more activists. They're the ones who vote in primaries. They're the ones who get involved in demonstrations. So they're the activist wing of the Democratic Party. And so that's really a problem for the Democrats. Other people get people out to vote. And if they lose their enthusiasm, because Biden is being too supportive of us, I think he's going to be a little worried. That's going to have an impact. And those activists have pretty much yielded the most radical faction of Congress, which brings us to the censure of Rashida Tuleb by Congress just the other day. Right, absolutely. I mean, she was the 25th person in the history of the United States to be censured by the House of Representatives. I have no problem with her being pro-Palestinian, much less so with than all of the other progressives, because she's Palestinian. I mean, if I was a Palestinian, I wouldn't like us either particularly. So I accept the fact that she's anti us. However, when she posted a tweet that talked about from the river to the sea, and then claimed, no, it's only a one for freedom. I mean, she knows enough about this conflict. She's smart enough to know what the river to the sea means, eliminating Israel, eliminating us. So she should not be able to get away with that. And she was properly censored by the House of Representatives, and yes, only about 20 Democrats censured her as well. But I guess part of the issue is, of course, they don't feel like, generally speaking, censure has been used for almost criminal acts. She was an act of speaking, and that's always a question. Do you censure people, freedom of speech, and all those things? I mean, I'm glad they censured her, but I understand why some people were a little bit reluctant to censure acts of speech as opposed to acts. I guess one of the big challenges there is, because while some Republicans might be a little reluctant to add the censure there, the fact that it was 90% of them that still voted against it makes people worry. Is the Democratic Party forming ranks along this radical fringe, because they're going to need it in the elections? I don't think it's quite there yet. I think in this particular case they did, because of the reasons that I mentioned, I think it is a concern, and I think we have to be concerned going forward. I mean, we've had to be concerned ever since Netanyahu went to the Congress and basically attacked Obama. And we started losing significant Democratic support from that moment on, and all the things that we were talking about, the trends amongst the most liberal parts of the constituency are very troubling for us for the future, and we need to address them. I'm not right now, because we can't do anything right now. It's a more long-term project that's going to acquire some really intelligence on our part. Definitely, and the consequences of that could be further reaching. We're actually going to look at what the United States has been bringing. That would be its backing in the war against Hamas, the latest round of arms shipments from the US to Israel, the White House is informing Congress, sending about $320 million worth of precision bombs to Jerusalem's hands. Our correspondent, Robert Swift, has this. Smart, precise impact, cost-effective bombs, or spice for short. The Biden administration is reportedly planning on sending a $320 million package of these precision weapons to Israel. Israeli-designed, the systems will be transferred from Rafael USA to its Israeli parent company, the Wall Street Journal reported. Essentially an upgrade kit, the weapons boost the targeting and gliding capabilities of unguided bombs. With these smart systems, it's hoped Israel can more accurately strike Hamas weapons and infrastructure hidden among the Ghazan population. The shipment comes as diplomatic pressure mounts on both Israel and the US over the number of Ghazans being killed in Israeli strikes. With more accurate weapons, it's hoped Israel can better distinguish between its enemies and the civilians crowding the Ghazan battlefield. But smart bombs are only as precise as the intelligence directing them. And as the conflict continues to rage, the fog of war only thickens. I'm gonna turn back to our discussion panel here instead I wanna open with you, Rafael. Ultimately we just saw this precision weapons being tattered here. Does this significantly change Israel's strategic or tactical capabilities on the battlefield? Yes, it's a huge improvement if we can use the spice with the little Israeli gimmick that makes it even more precise and easier to guide. It will help us be more surgical in our hitting certain targets inside the Gaza Strip and avoid collateral damage. So it will allow us to have even more offensive attitude towards targets that are situated near hospitals, buildings. All this requires weapons such as the spice. Again, yet again because it's being improved lately in such a way that you can be very, very precise with it and only limit the hit to the target without collateral damage. So it's a game changer in that sense that we're trying to do all this right now with the weapons we have. This is an improvement and it is why I think the Americans have decided to provide us with it because it complies with what they expect from us, meaning avoid as much collateral damage as possible. It will not change the fact that the number of targets we hit, it will just make it more surgical, more precise. Which Mark ultimately means that Israel has a slightly wider window to work with before the United States ultimately pressures for a ceasefire. Right, I mean look, the problem is twofold. Number one, the American public is getting whatever information they're getting from the news media which is unfiltered, usually Hamas propaganda. So the numbers they hear, the 10,000 who are killed, we have no idea how many were killed. That's the Hamas health ministry which has not exactly been an accurate source for information but the news media just accepts it. They mention the fact that it's from the Hamas but people don't get to that second part. 10,000 killed, that's the first thing they see. So I mean absolutely it improves our ability to be more precise. I think we've lost the ability in the public of mind to say well this is very surgical, we're not hitting any, there's no collateral damage in our attack. That's obviously not the case. And of course you look at the destruction, clearly even if the buildings were empty, it's clearly we're being very destructive in order to achieve our aim. So it will help a little bit. The key is of course American decision makers and also key is President Biden, how strong can he be? How can he, how much is he willing to ignore his progressive wing so to speak? His coalition was successful in binding all of them together. Is he gonna make the calculation that can't go anywhere as anyway? And so this will be over in two months or three months and we'll be able to regain the progressive wing talking about abortion and other matters that unite them against Donald Trump and the Republican Party. I think that is probably the right course for him to take obviously from our perspective it is. But it's a bit dangerous from his perspective so we'll have to see. I actually wanna really investigate the progressive wing side of the Democratic coalition because we're seeing over the past few weeks sort of breakwater, a watershed moment for public perception of them. We've seen these rallies across the United States, tens of thousands of people strong where they're chanting on college campuses, not just free Palestine, but they're chanting from the river to the sea. They're chanting, gas the Jews at some of these. They're chanting genocidal slogans. Is this in a sense the lefts Charlottesville? And if so, is it time for the Democratic Party to perhaps abandon its progressive wing and try to claw back moderate Republicans? Yes, in a lot of ways. It's a time to take an offensive against what's going on in college campuses, which clearly is where a lot of this is coming, the teaching of revolutionary theory, colonialism, all these things, because we are a colonial empire as far as they're concerned. And based on revolutionary theory that they're learning on college campuses, we can all be killed because that's where they get rid of colonialists. There's a course in Columbia that every student has to take, and it's on the reading list, a book that basically calls for that. I think we also have to look at TikTok. The fact of the matter is this is also at high school. We're seeing high school students chanting these same things. And I think we need to look at the fact that high school and college students or younger college students get something in the area of 60% of the news from TikTok. And TikTok is, from what I understand, has been about 70% pro Hamas in the algorithms that people are seeing. Because they're more Muslim saying likes, but I also question where the Chinese government is in doing all of this. And TikTok is a very dangerous tool. Those who wanna ban it in the United States, we should support that, because TikTok is an element of the Chinese government, and it's a very problematic one, and we're seeing it right now. So you combine TikTok with the revolutionary theories that are taking place on the campuses, and these need to be addressed, and they address quickly. Because, of course, it's not only us we're talking about, there are all sorts of other issues that people have been brainwashed about, and people won't even realize until it's too late. I mean, I guess, in the last minute that we have, ultimately, what would China's goal be? Why would they, why are they served by promoting such a pro Hamas narrative? Okay, well, China seems to have changed its tune to some extent. They decided they can gain more influence in the Middle East by being against us. They've worked closely now, of course, with Iran, and they still wanna attack. But they've aligned themselves with Russia or Iran, and Russia or Iran includes Hamas and a Huzhbala, and that's the side they've picked in this conflict at this point. So anything they can do to disrupt us, they're in favor, and anything they can do to seed distrust in the United States, that's part of what they're trying to do, and we're seeing them being very effective in doing that. Definitely, it's the culmination of a decades-long strategy that's caused seemingly irreparable damage to much of America's electorate. Thank you both for being in the studio with us to break this all down. For everyone else, we are out of time, at least for now, but we will see you again in just about a half hour, at the top of the next hour. Until then, thanks for watching. We'll see you again soon. 1,300 people murdered and more than 3,000 injured, and the war with Hamas continues. We bring you first-hand testimonies from the front lines, from those who survived, and all the records of the atrocities by Hamas. Follow us as Israel fights terror from the South and North. Get the inside scoop on what's going on, only on I-24 News. For news is ongoing coverage of Israel at war. Rarely, soldier has fallen in the fierce fighting in Gaza that's Sergeant First Class Yaakov Hazary of the 401st Armored Brigade. Hazary marks the 31st IDF casualty in the ground operation in Gaza. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Inyaho announced that the IDF was tightening the noose around Gaza City, striking far deeper into the Hamas terror group's underground fortress than ever before. Despite growing international pressure, Inyaho vows, there will be no truce nor ceasefire until Hamas releases all hostages and that no fuel will enter Gaza to power Hamas' war machine. This all comes as the Biden administration has formally requested Israel allow humanitarian pauses in the fighting. Israel maintains they will not give Hamas the ability to regroup, and that call from the United States has been joined by the entire G7 as of this morning. The northern border moves ever closer to an all-out war with Hezbollah. 20 rockets fired at the galley in Golan, over and more into this morning, even as the IDF strikes Hezbollah terror cells firing guided missiles at the border. This cross-border fire has only intensified in recent weeks. Hezbollah firing in greater volume and at greater ranges into Israeli territory, all the while aided by Hamas in the north. The escalation comes despite the United States sending two carrier strike groups and a nuclear submarine to the region. In an effort to deter Iran and Hezbollah from committing their full power to this fight. On Monday, Hamas and Lebanon fired rockets as deep into Israel as Haifa, and here's US President Biden demanding a pause in the fighting. I think there's a chance to talk from that. I did ask him for a pause in the past. Yes, it's the way the years have been. Our attention to the northern border where our correspondent, Mary McAuliffe, is standing by. Mary, walk us through the latest developments on that front. Good morning, Ariel. Yes, it's been a bit of a quieter morning here than what we've seen in the past week. We did have sirens ring out in Aramshah. This is a community right on the Lebanon border, but the IDF is now saying that that was a false alarm. So we haven't had any sirens in the north since yesterday at about 6 p.m. When there were, just as you mentioned, 20 rockets fired into northern Israeli communities in the Galileo and Golan. There were no reports of injuries from those attacks. We know a number of those were intercepted by the Iron Dome, but we do know in response, the IDF launched a number of retaliatory strikes inside southern Lebanon using both airstrikes, but also a number of different artillery attacks. The IDF also now just publishing documentation of one of those strikes that they said targeted a rockets and weapons depot that was used by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. The IDF has said throughout the past few weeks of fighting, it will continue to respond to all threats that are coming from its northern border and forces here have remained on high alert. Now, Mary, this escalation is coming despite the U.S.'s best efforts to squash any escalation north of the border, sending two carrier groups and nuclear submarine. What sort of reaction have we seen from the Americans in the region? That's right, Ariel. It's definitely not just the military and defense expenditures that they've been moving into the area saying that they're posturing to be on alert for really any threat. We know that the U.S. itself and the Biden administration has said that if there's going to be a major de-escalation in the region or major escalation in the region, excuse me, it's going to be because of these Iranian-backed proxies that includes Hezbollah, of course, but it also includes the number of different Iranian-backed proxies in Iraq and Syria, which have launched dozens of attacks on American bases in recent weeks. So this is definitely a high alert situation for the United States who is working around the clock to try and prevent that further escalation from breaking out. Yesterday, we had a senior U.S. on by Amos Khachdin, who was here on the ground. He was in Beirut, meeting with the Lebanese Prime Minister and the President. For the U.S., they're saying that it's of the utmost important that this border does not turn into a war zone, that this border does not turn into a situation like we're seeing down south and that kind of fighting between Israel and Hamas, that all forces, all hands are on deck here to try and prevent an escalation. They're doing that diplomatically, but also as you mentioned, of course, by also moving a number of different forces into the region, the airstrike carrier, the submarine that was launched this week, but also a number of different smaller groups of U.S. forces who have been repositioned throughout the Middle East, as we do consider this war going on with Israel and Hamas, but also due to the attacks on the U.S. bases. So there is absolutely fear and certainly high alert throughout this region and the U.S. is working around the clock to try and prevent that. Absolutely, Mary. Keep yourself safe out there. Thank you for that report. We're going to turn now to a discussion panel in the studio. Joining us now is Rafael Urshami, former Senior Intelligence Officer at the IDF, and Mark Schulman, Editor-in-Chief of History, Central and Editor-in-Columnist with Newsweek. Thank you both for joining us. I do want to start with you, Rafael, because your era of expertise is Lebanon as well. And we've been seeing this escalation on the North. Everyone believes that it is going to break out into a major scale, full frontal war against Hezbollah, sooner rather than later. Ultimately, even with these American assets in the region, the question is, who's going to blink first? Hezbollah or the U.S. here? Well, we're really hoping that we will take the initiative as towards the northern theater of operation. There's no reason why the Hezbollah should have the initiative. The clash is unavoidable, and unavoidable especially for us, because we cannot displace 70,000 people because of a threat, and then telling them to come back, and this threat is still there. So that's the first thing. The second thing is that we must have a pre-emptive strike because the conflict with the Hezbollah, if there will be one, will be mostly one by the one who starts with a heavy blow. We have deployed, and that gives me a kind of hope that we're going to do something, and we have deployed artillery systems, like the Raam, which is called, we might call it the mighty lightning in English, which is a very special, specific artillery system. Each battery has got 64 launching pipes in these bombs, especially very precise, and they would be using that kind of a conflict or the fact that they're being deployed, not yet used, might be a preparation for that. We have to remember that we are now in the best possible posture to start a pre-emptive strike. We have a massive American presence in the Mediterranean. We have all our reservists called up, and these reservists from the Northern coming, they have been trained recently for the last couple of years to fight that kind of threat, and different scenarios. We are now in a war mode for our economy, and this war mode, we cannot have forever. There's a limit to how much the Israeli economy can withstand such a war mode of economy. So all this put together would say that now is the time, now is the time to strike. There might be some operational necessities to take into account, like maybe not this minute, but maybe in a couple of days, or in four days, according to what's happening in the South, according to certain logistical needs. The chief of the Israeli Air Force has said very clearly the day before yesterday that the Israeli Air Force has no problem attacking the North while being busy in the South. There's no problem about that. We haven't even called all the Air Force reservists yet. Considering the American pressure on the political level, because that's where the problem lies, is there a political will in Israel to take on the Hezbollah? I would suggest that it's our country, we decide what's good for us, and I don't see how the Americans can let us down. I know there are like problems, you would mention them inside the United States because it's an electoral year. On the other hand, the United States of America are here for a reason, and it's not just to help Israel, it's to ensure stability in the Middle East. If they do not ensure that stability, then it will play in the hands of the Chinese and the Russians. There are huge American interests here to protect and defend, and that's why I believe that if... What is the difference if Hezbollah starts or we start? When it will happen, the Americans have to help us. I disagree completely. I don't think it's a good idea for us to do a preemptive strike at this point, A, not until we finish with Gaza, two, and not until we get U.S. support for a preemptive strike as opposed to a defensive. They're there to deter. If the Hezbollah strikes, they will clearly come to our aid and support, and they have firepower to stand up to that. If we strike first, it becomes more problematic. What we can accomplish in a first strike is significant, but we can't win the war from a first strike. We know the Air Force is just, I mean, as excellent as it is, striking all the missile sites is something that's almost impossible. I actually believe we should wait a year or two until we have our laser system deployed, which will change the calculus in terms of defense versus offense. Right now, I don't know how many Tamir missiles we have left. I mean, we have some in a lot, but still we've used an awful lot of missiles in the last four weeks. I'm sure we're starting to run low. We need to produce more of them. I would not get into a war with Hezbollah until we've replenished all our supplies. We have our laser system ready because an awful lot of Hezbollah missiles will probably get through and we'll see destruction to our Tel Aviv and other places, and it's not going to be easy to avoid that. So I'm in favor of waiting, trying to use diplomatic means first to get them to observe the UN agreement so that their troops remain to the north of the Lutani River as they're supposed to, put as much pressure as we can, use the US and everybody else after we've completed with Gaza. And if that doesn't work, we can consider other moves, but I think we should wait until we've completed with Gaza before we do it. That's actually a great jumping off point. You now turn our eyes to Gaza because our correspondent, Robert Swift, is standing by at the Israel-Gaza border. Robert, thank you for being with us. Walk us through the latest developments on that front. So the intensity of the fighting taking place here, it seems to have slightly reduced in the last hour since we spoke. There are still ongoing airstrikes. There is occasional fire and we can still hear drones overhead. But throughout the day, the intensity of the combat seems to, you know, it peaks and it troughs as the events take place. Now, it's worth noting that the fighting has not just been during the hours of daylight. The Israeli military conducts airstrikes during the night. And last night, it killed Mosin Abu Zina, which the IDF have said was the head of Hamas' essentially weapons research manufacturing department. And they've said that it's hoped that this will impact Hamas' ability to create rockets, improvise explosive devices, these sorts of weapons. And now, there has been two incidents of rocket fire this morning, both of them targeting Qesofim, which is a community sort of midway down the Gaza Strip in the south of Israel. Now, there was no injuries at either of these incidents. So, of course, you wouldn't expect to see an immediate impact on Hamas' ability to launch rockets off the back of the killing of this commander. However, it's hoped that the ability of them to do that in future will reduce as an important figure like this is eliminated. Now, we can see behind you in that frame just columns of smoke rising from Gaza City. Can you give us a sense of just how much has been hit there and how much of Hamas' capabilities have been damaged? Yeah, so behind me, sometimes you'll see smoke, particularly when there's a large airstrike. This will throw up what's essentially a very small mushroom cloud. Other times, you'll see big dust clouds going up, long lines of dust like that. Often, this is the movement of armored vehicles, the Israeli vehicles, as they maneuver around the battle space behind me. Now, with regards to what's the idea of doing currently, essentially they're trying to isolate Gaza City from the rest of Gaza Strip. In urban warfare, force concentration is extremely important. So the Israeli military will concentrate its forces whilst isolating Hamas' fighters. In the north of Gaza, it's understood that there are kilometers and kilometers of tunnels in which there are Hamas' fighters. The Israeli military is essentially trying to keep those areas trapped and then do its utmost to kill the Hamas' fighters that are in those areas. That's what's been taking place last night and in recent days, and indeed, that's what's taking place throughout the day today. Well, thank you very much for that update, Rob. We will be coming back to you over the course of the day as the situation and that Gaza front changes. We've got some more of this in the studio now. Mark, I wanted to turn to you because victory on the battlefield isn't always the same as victory in the court of public opinion. Those same images of Israel striking Hamas' targets are also images of, well, a devastated Gaza. And now we're hearing that some like six in 10 Democrats are saying that, well, Israel's going too far. Right, absolutely. We have a real problem with the Democratic Party that's, I would say, is divided into two problems. We have the problem of the progressive wing, which believes that Israel is a colonial enterprise and anything you do to stop a colonial enterprise is OK. And that represents some percentage, maybe 20%, 15% of the Democratic Party. But beyond that, we also have problems with African-Americans, women's lib people, and others, because of this idea of intersectionality. I mean, they overlap between those two groups, but this idea of intersectionality says if you're in favor of Black Lives Matter, if you're in favor of women's rights, if you're in favor of LGBT rights, then you have to be in favor of the Palestinians because the poor Palestinians fall into this minority group. So that makes up another part of the Democratic Party that may not be quite as thinking of us as colonials, but they have to be in favor of the poor Palestinians. And then finally, of course, it's just a question of public opinion. We've all seen the push notifications that come from places like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. And Hamas makes an announcement, 500 people killed. Immediately, we get a push notification on all our phones. It says, Israel killed 500 people. An hour later, when the actual story comes place, or day later, depending on which story it is, no one's read that. They've all just seen the push notifications. So the story and the narrative is we're killing thousands and thousands of people. That doesn't look good. It doesn't seem good. The pictures are certainly not good. We didn't release the worst of our pictures because of who we are. Hamas does everything they can to release pictures true or false. And there's no way of saying whether they're true or false, many of them. So you see those images. You hear those images. You see the notifications. And you say, well, it's just going too far. You forget what Israel did, what the Hamas did four weeks ago. That's ancient history. That's what's going on right now. And that's always been a problem. That's been a problem of Israel throughout. I saw an interesting cartoon the other day from London. Had Assad killed 600,000 Syrians, the streets are empty. And Mimar, another 100,000 are killed. And another place, another 100,000 or 500,000 are killed. Israel? Oh, immediately the streets are filled with protests against Israel. We have a special space in the eyes of too many people that we're supposed to be better than everybody else. We're hated more than anybody else. It's some combination they're in. And immediately when you see those images, it's Israel's fault. They're going too far. And the challenge with this is these ill-informed people, these radicals, their vote counts just as much as everyone else. And it's an election year for the Democrats, particularly the primaries, with Michigan's role in the primaries being one of the major centers for Muslim Americans. This is going to be damaging for us. Well, it's more important where their roles are in terms of the electoral college. Michigan is a swing state. And that's a great concern that Biden made lose support. It's not so much the issue of people going to go vote for Trump, let's say. That's not going to happen, just stay home. That's the real concern. And the problem with the progressives is not only their numbers, and they vote like everybody else, but they tend to be the more activists. They're the ones who vote in primaries. They're the ones who get involved in demonstrations. So they're the activist wing of the Democratic Party. And so that's really a problem for the Democrats. Other people get people out to vote. And if they lose their enthusiasm because Biden is being too supportive of us, I think he's going to be a little worried that's going to have an impact. And those activists have pretty much yielded the most radical faction of Congress, which brings us to the censure of Rashida Tuleb by Congress just the other day. Right, absolutely. I mean, she was the 25th person in the history of the United States to be censured by the House of Representatives. I have no problem with her being pro-Palestinian, much less so within all of the other progressives, because she's Palestinian. I mean, if I was a Palestinian, I wouldn't like us either particularly. So I accept the fact that she's anti us. However, when she posted a tweet that talked about from the river to the sea, and then claimed, no, it's only a one for freedom. I mean, she knows enough about this conflict. She's smart enough to know what the river to the sea means, eliminating Israel, eliminating us. So she should not be able to get away with that. And she was properly censored by the House of Representatives. And yes, only about 20 Democrats censured her as well. But I guess part of the issue is, of course, they don't feel like, generally speaking, the censure has been used for almost criminal acts. She was an act of speaking, and that's always a question. Do you censure people, freedom of speech, and all those things? I mean, I'm glad they censured her, but I understand why some people were a little bit reluctant to censure acts of speech as opposed to acts. I guess one of the big challenges there is, because while some Republicans might be a little reluctant to add a censure there, the fact that it was 90% of them that still voted against it makes people worry. Is the Democratic Party forming ranks along this radical fringe because they're going to need it in the elections? I don't think it's quite there yet. I think in this particular case they did, because of the reasons that I mentioned, I think it is a concern, and I think we have to be concerned going forward. I mean, we've had to be concerned ever since Netanyahu went to the Congress and basically attacked Obama. And we started losing significant Democratic support from that moment on, and all the things that we're talking about, the trends the most liberal parts of the constituency are very troubling for us for the future, and we need to address them. Not right now, because we can't do anything right now. It's a more long-term project that's going to require some really intelligence on our part. Definitely, and the consequences of that could be further reaching. We're actually going to look at what the United States has been bringing. That would be its backing in the war against Hamas, the latest round of arms shipments from the US to Israel, the White House is forming Congress. It's sending about $320 million worth of precision bombs to Jerusalem's hands. Our correspondent, Robert Swift, has this. Smart, precise impact, cost-effective bombs, or spice for short, the Biden administration is reportedly planning on sending a $320 million package of these precision weapons to Israel. Israeli-designed, the systems will be transferred from Rafael, USA to its Israeli parent company, the Wall Street Journal reported. Essentially, an upgrade kit, the weapons boost the targeting and gliding capabilities of unguided bombs. With these smart systems, it's hoped Israel can more accurately strike Hamas weapons and infrastructure hidden among the Gazan population. We're here at the site of the rocket launchers. We're heading towards Safon, along the map. This is the shipyard, and this shipyard will enter this building, which is actually a shipyard that we even have to launch. The shipment comes as diplomatic pressure mounts on both Israel and the US over the number of Gazans being killed in Israeli strikes. With more accurate weapons, it's hoped Israel can better distinguish between its enemies and the civilians crowding the Gazan battlefield. But smart bombs are only as precise as the intelligence directing them. And as the conflict continues to rage, the fog of war only thickens. I'm going to turn back to our discussion panel here instead. I want to open with you, Rafael. Ultimately, we just saw this precision weapons being tattered here. Does this significantly change Israel's strategic or tactical capabilities on the battlefield? Yes, it's a huge improvement, if we can use the spice with the little Israeli gimmick that makes it even more precise and easier to guide. It will help us be more surgical in our hitting certain targets inside the Gaza Strip and avoid collateral damage. So it will allow us to have an even more offensive attitude towards the targets that are situated near hospitals, buildings. All this requires weapons such as the spice again, yet again, because it's being improved lately in such a way that you can be very, very precise with it and only limit the hit to the target without collateral damage. So it's a game changer in that sense that we're trying to do all this right now with the weapons we have. This is an improvement, and it is why I think the Americans have decided to provide us with it because it complies with what they expect from us, meaning avoid as much collateral damage as possible. It will not change the fact that the number of targets we hit, it will just make it more surgical, more precise. Which, Mark, ultimately means that Israel has a slightly wider window to work with before the United States ultimately pressures for a ceasefire. Right. I mean, look, the problem is twofold. Number one, the American public is getting whatever information they're getting from the news media, which is unfiltered, usually Hamas propaganda. So the numbers they hear, the 10,000 who are killed, we have no idea how many were killed. That's the Hamas Health Ministry, which has not exactly been an accurate source for information, but the news media just accepts it. They mention the fact that it's from the Hamas, but people don't get to that second part. 10,000 killed, that's the first thing they see. So I mean, absolutely, it improves our ability to be more precise. I think we've lost the ability in the public of mind to say, well, this is very surgical. We're not hitting any collateral damage in our attack. That's obviously not the case. And of course, you look at the destruction. Clearly, even if the buildings were empty, it's clearly we're being very destructive in order to achieve our aims. So it will help a little bit. The key is, of course, American decision makers, and also key is President Biden. How strong can he be? How much is he willing to ignore his progressive wing, so to speak? His coalition was successful in binding all of them together. Is he going to make the calculation that can't go anywhere as anyway? And so this will be over in two months or three months, and we'll be able to regain the progressive wing talking about abortion and other matters that unite them against Donald Trump and the Republican Party. I think that is probably the right course for him to take. Obviously, from our perspective, it is. But it's a bit dangerous from his perspective, so we'll have to see. I actually want to really investigate the progressive wing side of the Democratic coalition, because we're seeing over the past few weeks a sort of breakwater, a watershed moment for public perception of them. We've seen these rallies across the United States, tens of thousands of people strong, where they're chanting on college campuses, not just free Palestine, but they're chanting from the river to the sea. They're chanting, gas the Jews. At some of these, they're chanting genocidal slogans. Is this, in a sense, the left's Charlottesville? And if so, is it time for the Democratic Party to perhaps abandon its progressive wing and try to claw back moderate Republicans? Yes, in a lot of ways. It's time to take an offensive against what's going on in college campuses, which clearly is where a lot of this is coming, the teaching of revolutionary theory, colonialism, all these things, because we are a colonial empire as far as they're concerned. And based on revolutionary theory that they're learning on college campuses, we can all be killed, because that's where you get rid of colonialists. There's a course in Columbia that every student has to take, and it's on the reading list, a book that basically calls for that. I think we also have to look at TikTok. The fact of the matter is this is also at high school. We're seeing high school students chanting these same things. And I think we need to look at the fact that high school and college students, or younger college students, get something in the area of 60% of the news from TikTok. And TikTok, from what I understand, has been about 70% pro Hamas in the algorithms that people are seeing. Now, because they're more Muslim saying likes, but I also question where the Chinese government is in doing all of this. And TikTok is a very dangerous tool. Those who want to ban it in the United States, we should support that, because TikTok is an element of the Chinese government, and it's a very problematic one, and we're seeing it right now. So you combine TikTok with the revolutionary theories that are taking place on the campuses, and these need to be addressed, and they address quickly, because of course, it's not only us we're talking about. There are all sorts of other issues that people are being brainwashed about, and people won't even realize until it's too late. I mean, I guess when the last minute that we have, ultimately, what would China's goal be? Why are they served by promoting such a pro Hamas narrative? Okay, well, China seems to have changed its tune to some extent. They decided they can gain more influence in the Middle East by being against us. They've worked closely now, of course, with Iran, and they still want to attack, but they've aligned themselves with Russia or Iran, and Russia or Iran includes Hamas and includes Hezbollah, and that's the side they've picked in this conflict at this point. So anything they can do to disrupt us, they're in favor, and anything they can do to cede distrust in the United States, that's part of what they're trying to do, and we're seeing them being very effective in doing that. Definitely, it's the culmination of a decade.