 Good morning and welcome to I-24 News' ongoing coverage of Israel at War. I'm Ariel Levin-Waldman. Today, the United Nations Security Council will vote on a Gaza ceasefire resolution. The Arab-sponsored resolution calls for a halt to hostilities in Gaza, but was delayed because the United States said it would not pass with its earlier warning, which did not condemn Hamas for its crimes against humanity on October 7th. The United States holds veto power on the Security Council, and diplomats said negotiations were taking place to get the United States, Israel's closest ally, to either abstain or vote yes on the resolution. Indications are that the wording could shift to a temporary pause rather than a permanent ceasefire, this in accordance with stated U.S. policy, which also calls for the destruction of Hamas. The IDF announced that two more soldiers were killed in combat in Gaza. Master Sergeant Daniel Yakov Ben-Harosh and Captain Rotam Yosef raising the total number of slain troops since the ground operation in Gaza began to 131. Hamas released a new propaganda video in which elderly hostages are forced to read from a script, demanding Israel give in to any Hamas demands for their freedom. We will not show this clear psychological warfare on our channel. The video that Hamas released is a criminal terror video. It testifies to Hamas' cruelty towards innocent elderly civilians who are in need of medical care. The world must act in order to deliver medical aid and check on the state of the hostages. We are morally obliged to do every and all efforts in order to bring the hostages back home. Our heart is with all the hostages and their families all the time, Haim, Yolam and Amiram. I hope you hear me tonight. Know that we are doing everything, everything in order to bring you back safely. Some of your family members are already home. We will not rest until you too are returned. And we're going to open with our eye on the south where our correspondent Pierre Kloschenler is standing by just outside the city of Sterot on the border with Gaza. Walk us through the latest developments we've seen on that front. Well we're actually in near Kibbutz Bayeri which is facing south of Gaza City and Orange Meisler, our cameraman, can show you the strikes that are still pounding the area of the southern Gaza city, the Almugraka town, as well as the Salahadin axis, which in that particular sector leads to Hanyunas, which is now the shifting focal point of the ground operation that started here in this particular sector from December 2nd. There are still pockets of resistance in the Jebaliah refugee camp we hear from Palestinian media affiliated to Hamas. That west of the Jebaliah refugee camp there are fierce fighting. Sejaia is still being fought for, which is on the southeastern outskirts of Gaza City and they announced yesterday, the IDF announced yesterday, that the division, that the brigade that was in charge of the Betchanun area in the northern sector of the Gaza Strip, has been completely, fully been under operational control of the Israeli army after most of the terror infrastructure was destroyed and the area now has been ended over to the Gaza division. The focus now is on Hanyunas really, which is further to the left of your monitor, about 20 kilometers away from where we are now. There is an artillery outgoing as I'm talking and there, there are fierce fighting east and north of Hanyunas, according to Palestinian media. We hear also bombing in Rafar, Palestinian media affiliated to Hamas are saying that three houses were struck by the IDF Air Force and there are 25 casualties, fatalities in that bombing according to Palestinian media. Well, thank you very much for that update from the front, Pierre. We will be back with you over the course of the day as that situation develops. For more, though, we are joined for some analysis by Colonel Mary Eisen, the director of the Institutional Institute for Counterterrorism at Reichman University. Mary, thank you so much for joining us. Absolutely happy to be here. I want to open with the Hamas propaganda video featuring those three elderly hostages. It's pretty obvious what their goals in this to manipulate the Israeli public into acceding to the demands for a ceasefire on almost any terms. The question is, is it effective at getting that response? So, first of all, there's no question, and I think we'll both agree that it impacts us. In this case, I happen to know one of those people and to see what he looks like. Two and a half months in captivity and none of them are young is certainly going to impact us. The whole issue of a terror organization in taking hostages is to create the kind of visuals that they show when they show the hostages. It's to impact us. It's to scare us. It's to make us do things that we wouldn't do otherwise. In this case, because it was a mass hostage taking, we showed three of them that there are over 130 and don't have the exact number in that sense that are in the Gaza Strip. Women still have the children, the baby that we know nothing of, and what they're doing is they're trying to twist the aspect of terror. So at the end, yes, they are going to try to use this, and in that sense, that's why terror takes hostages. They want to use it. And now the question is not, do we stand firm? At the end, we need to get the hostages back. Then it becomes the art of negotiation and negotiating with the terror organization's means. Yes, standing a bit strong and firm opposite the photographs, but still absolutely understanding that we are going to have to pay a heavy price to be able to get back our citizens, to get back our people, to get back our grandfathers and our grand, you know, the babies, we are going to have to pay a price. So it's part of what's going on. Mary, in light of all the bad news you've had regarding hostages over the last week or so, is there still a prevailing hope among the military establishment and Israel's leaders that a military operation to retrieve the hostages is still possible? The military operation, in that sense, to retrieve the individuals we've said from the beginning, it's not that I'm part of the IDF, but what both these are, the Defense Forces, the Defense Establishment, have always said, is that the hostages are spread all over the place. They showed three. And as we've heard in the small amount of information that's been released, that the hostages were held separately all over the place. They were kidnapped from their homes in the north. They were up north. From the south, they were down south. They're in a variety of different places. So to do an operation would never be to bring all 130. It would be able to bring two here, three there with the kind of event that happened last week. Three hostages were killed by Israeli troops and such an erroneous, and I'll say in that sense, you know, a military bad decision, but it's a military decision in the time of war. This isn't going to impede or trying to do so, but it would never be that kind of a picture of, look, we've brought them all back at once. So I think that there will be the capability to do small places, hopefully, but that much more of it is about negotiating, about releasing from Israel the price that we would have to pay, which would be Palestinian prisoners. But at this stage, the military operation is very much impacting the Hamas. They are not in a position to be able to, like, just negotiate whatever they want. That military pressure definitely changes their capabilities. Mayor, we're going to discuss so much more in a brief moment, so stay with us. But first, I want to turn our eye to the North Live, where our correspondent, Zach Anders, is standing by on the border with Lebanon. Zach, walk us through the latest developments and escalations we've seen on that front. Good morning. Yesterday was another day of strikes from southern Lebanon, as many as seven different strikes, not all being claimed by Hezbollah, as these strikes appeared to late in the evening cause damage in Kiret Shemona with, apparently, what appears to be rockets. We still don't have confirmation whether this was bits of an intercepted rocket or the rocket itself hitting a kindergarten and another building starting a fire. The EMTs, the paramedics, and Magandavidam, the National Ambulance Service, saying that there were no injuries in both strikes. This, of course, happened late at night, so no one was in the kindergarten, fortunately. But another momentous day in some of these communities, many of them evacuated, but still these strikes and attacks continue. And Zach, where we're hearing reports, as you just mentioned, not all of which are Hezbollah-likely Hamas, that it's not just from Lebanon. New reports in Israeli media show Hamas possibly opening up a new front in Syria with a small squad they're building there. What have we seen of enemy activity in other surrounding countries? Well, we've actually seen quite a bit of activity from Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, and that's why the IDF says it was targeting earlier in the week, or last week, rather, positions inside southern Syria belonging to a Hezbollah senior official and also positions of the Syrian army. The Syrian army has been involving itself, apparently, in a couple of fronts with state television in Jordan last night, late last night, saying they foiled a plot to infiltrate their border with militants that had equipment, anti-tank mines, and that Jordanian security forces were there at the border to stop this. It's unclear who exactly these militants align themselves with or which faction they appear from, but it does seem, with the political situation being as it is in Lebanon and in Syria, that some of these groups have been operating with impunity and moving around these countries without being hassled or apprehended by the state's security forces themselves. So, these are events that likely we won't get much clarity for given the media landscape and the security situation in both countries for some time, but it is another serious concern here for the amount of activity, militant activity that's taking place in both countries, and you can see that more and more of these events happening with shuttling weapons around and firing from positions in the south of both countries. Well, thank you very much, Zach, for that report from the northern border. We'll be back with you over the course of the day as the situation there develops. We now return to Mary Eisen, though. Mary, that last question I asked for Zach reports in local media showing that Hamas has plans to open another front from Syria as well, having moved dozens of their operatives into position and moving equipment across Syria. A serious threat's more of the same, and from what I understand, the Syrian government doesn't exactly like Hamas operating out of their territory. Well, let's take us back, you know, almost a decade to what is the country called Syria that borders us to the northeast. Inside Syria, there was a horrific war for over a decade. The winner, if you can call it in that sense, of that war was the dictator who managed to survive. That's Bashar Assad. Syria under Bashar Assad, and continues to be that way to this day, is not what you would call a sovereign country that knows what's going on inside. Not only that, but aside from Hamas, Hezbollah for many, many years has been the one Hezbollah, the terror organization, the one in Lebanon that has been building Syrian's military. And so when we talk about Syrian's military that Zach mentioned before, that inside Jordan, they said that Syrian military forces were going to attack inside Jordan. Here I need to bring in both Hezbollah and Hamas. Hamas's headquarters used to be in Syria. When the war started in Syria in 2011, the heads of Hamas that we all know nowadays are mainly in Qatar and a bit in Turkey. They moved from Syria out of Syria because of the war. But there's always been a Palestinian Palestinian terror organization presence inside Syria. The heads of Palestinian Islam in Jihad were always hosted in Damascus. They haven't come back, but they still have that presence. There are Palestinian refugee camps from 1948 and from 67 inside Syrian territory. And because of that, Hamas does have a place that they could go to. They have places that they could both train and use. I don't see this as the main threat. The main threat from Hamas is both from the enormous amount of what they built in the Gaza Strip. The threat is also more, from my point of view, in Judea and Samaria, the West Bank, and slightly from Lebanon than what we see in Syria. In Syria, it's that combination of Hezbollah helping the military, of Hezbollah also helping the other Shiite groups that are in both the southern Golan Heights and throughout Syria. Thank you very much, Mary. Stay with us. We're going to be coming back to you, but first we have to discuss some of those other Shiite groups backed by Iran, that of course being the Houthis, the nations of the world, now banding together to stop the Iran-backed Houthis from ending international shipping through the Bab al-Mandeb Straits. The United States announced that it would lead a 10-nation task force to end Houthi missile and drone attacks. At risk is a full 12% of global sea trade. That's a threat to cripple the entire global economy. The announcement comes after the oil titan BP, which is responsible for 20% of global oil trade, announced the suspension of all oil trade through the Red Sea alongside multiple shipping giants that includes Maresk. And it's notable for Israel because about 30% of Israel's imports pass through the Red Sea. So in the Red Sea, we're leading a multinational maritime task force to uphold the bedrock principle of freedom of navigation. Iran's support for Houthi attacks on commercial vessels must stop. These attacks are reckless, dangerous, and they violate international law. And so we're taking action to build an international coalition to address this threat. And I would remind you that this is not just a US issue. This is an international problem, and it deserves an international response. And we're joined now by Dean Shmuel Alms, geopolitical energy analyst at Globes. Thank you very much, Dean, for joining us on this program. Walk us through just how much of the world's economy is at stake here due to the threats posed by the Houthis. If we look on the latest news, we speak about five out of seven biggest shipping companies worldwide that decided to stop using the Red Sea. They share out of all the world market, not just the European or the regional market. We speak about 60%. So it's huge. It's massive. And for my own opinion, this is the main reason why we see the latest news with this particular task force. Now, what I find notable is of the 10 nations that we saw and reports are that there are more than 10 nations. Some just don't want to be named. We don't see Egypt. We do not see the Saudis on the list, even though the Red Sea trade is Egypt's lifeline. The Saudis are also very much dependent on that. Why have we not seen them put their name on this list? We see just a flame as the one and only regional country in this fact. The main reason why the Saudis is out of this game is because of their negotiations with Iran and also with the Houthis also. From the last April, we saw a ceasefire in Yemen. And the Saudis hope to find some permanent solution for themselves because the Saudi Yemen border is totally open. This is a huge desert. Saudis got no chance to fix this border. And during the last seven years, we saw many Yemenite attacks on the Saudi border, not just ballistic missiles and of course UAVs, but also ground forces that went inside the Saudi land. Is there a way to calculate, to put a dollar figure on how much damage has been done by these five out of seven shipping companies just suspending all transit? How much global oil prices are going to raise, for instance? Yesterday, we saw that the price raised by about 1% to 2%. The European natural gas raised up by about 13% during about four days. Moreover, if you would like to understand, when we speak about Israel, the shipping prices will raise up at least 80%. So this is honestly totally insane. This is all the products that we import from China, for example, or cars also from South Korea. The prices will raised up for sure. So did you say 18 or 80, 80? 80% the shipping values were raised up by about 80%, not 80%. How is Israel supposed to maintain an economy at all given shipping cross-increase of that number? This is a great question. Why I think that Israel is very happy from Minister Lloyd's decision, because Israel, by the self, can't fix this problem. This is about 2,000 kilometers from Israel. So Israel doesn't have the real abilities to fix this problem. And maybe with the British and the French navies, they will fix it. At the same time, I've got to emphasize that because there is no real regional power houses inside the spec, I am very optimistic from the near future. If you're seeing all these shipping companies suspend their trade through the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden as a whole, is this not going to have serious economic blowback in Iran, too, as the masterminds of this? Are they not damaging themselves in the process? Absolutely not, because 91% out of the Iranian oil exports go to China. So it goes from the Persian Gulf to Urmus and then through the Indian Ocean to finally China. Moreover, if we look on the commodities exports, the most of the Iranian commodities exports go to about 15 neighbors of Iran. So Iran is very happy at the end of the day. Until now, we didn't see real impacts on Iran. It's very pathetic, because we know that Iran used, the IRGC used ships like Behrshad. This is intelligence ships inside the Red Sea. But they say over and over again, this is not us. This is the Houthis. This is the Yemenite. This is nonsense. And therefore, this is one of the main reasons that I think that Israel is very happy that the US took the leadership on this problem. Well, let's hope that that leadership comes with a permanent solution to it, Dean. Thank you very much for explaining just what's at stake here. Thank you, Ebenezer. And we're going to return to Mary Eisen, who has been waiting so patiently on the side while we discuss the Houthis. Mary, I want to return back to the situation in Gaza, but not just Gaza. We had been discussing Hamas and its origins, or at least its massive amount of command and control in Syria. They have similar sort of command and control being built in the West Bank as well. The day after the war in Gaza, with Hamas defeated there, obviously Hamas will still exist. They will still have command and control. Does that simply mean that Israel will be kicking the can down the road a decade while they build facilities in either Syria or in the West Bank? I don't think it's under the cover of the war against Hamas and the Gaza Strip. Israel is very active against what you just called the command and control of Hamas throughout the West Bank. In Judea and Samaria over the last two and a half months, the IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces, together with the police, with the Shin Bet, with all of the different security forces, they have been exceedingly active against what we call the command and control of Hamas in the West Bank, in the city of Jenin, in Tulkarn, in Nadlus, throughout the West Bank. And this is part of the campaign against, again, their Hamas military terror capabilities. They've been very effective. This is not something that they're leaving the arena, so they'll be able to go somewhere else. What we need to contend with is the ideology, the idea that there can be a terror organization that is a genocidal terror organization that wants to attack and physically terrorize and destroy the state of Israel. That's not all the Palestinians, and that means that we need to address that issue separately, because the biggest challenges, I think, are that I've noticed over the last few weeks, has been the enormous support of the younger generation in the West Bank to Hamas' military terror activities. And that's what should worry us, because that's about education, it's about social media, it's about the narratives, like, how can they support those acts? And the way it's being depicted is very different in the Arabic-speaking, not just Palestinian, but Arabic-speaking, media worldwide. So we are attacking those kinds of capabilities, both in the West Bank and in Lebanon or in Syria or anywhere around the world. But the future, the challenge is going to be education, social media, what youth understand and are willing to do. You mentioned that in the last about two minutes that we have left. That is a monumental struggle, because when we look at this conflict, when we look at these opinions, it feels like there's no hope that we're slated for an eternal conflict. Every single generation that never ends, is there a more optimistic answer? Is there a strategy for combating that sort of propaganda that's been built up for decades now? So I think that it's at the heart of what's been going on worldwide. And I think all of us, in this sense, 2023, for me, Mary has been a wake-up call in the sense that when we're talking about the horrific kind of dehumanizing anti-Semitism, let's take note of it, let's address it. And I'm going to say, optimistically, you and I are here. We're going to exist, and we will change the future. The big question is, of course, going to be how? Because it's not just Hamas, it's not just Iran. You have an entire Arab world that seems happy to fund this. And challenging them who outnumber us and out economy the Jewish state by orders of magnitude. And that's what we are going to have to handle. And I do think that, in that sense, we're aware. We are looking forward. In its own way, it is about education. And we're going to go down that road again and again and again. And we're going to hope there are good partners out there who are not alone. And in this state, it's not just the government or the administration in the United States. In most of Europe, certainly in Germany, we will go at this together with amazing allies. Well, certainly, let's hope that has, in fact, Colonel Mary Eisen. Thank you very much for your breakdown situation and your explanation. Thank you for being with us. We should all have a good day. Indeed. That said, we are just about out of time for this show. But we will see you again for our next broadcast. That is in just a half hour at 9 o'clock local time. Until then, you can catch up with so much more at www.i24news.tv slash en for all the stories that you will not catch anywhere else. Until then, thank you for watching. And we'll see you again very soon. Israel is in a state of war. Families completely gone down in their beds. We have no idea where is she. As our soldiers are fighting on the front lines, but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well. This week on News 24, Israel under attack. News 24 in Spanish brings the analysis and the information of the events of the war, Spades of Iron. Exclusive interviews and reports from the war zone. The reaction of the Spanish-speaking countries. News 24, the only Spanish media that keeps you informed and connected with the Latin community in Israel. News 24, only on I-24 News. Good morning and welcome to I-24 News' ongoing coverage of Israel at war. I'm Ariel Levin Waldman. Today, the United Nations Security Council will vote on a Gaza ceasefire resolution. The Arab-sponsored resolution calls for a halt to hostilities in Gaza, but was delayed because the United States said it would not pass with its earlier wording, which did not condemn Hamas for its crimes against humanity on October 7th. The United States holds veto power on the Security Council and diplomats said negotiations were taking place to get the United States, Israel's closest ally, to either abstain or vote yes on the resolution. Indications that the wording could shift to a temporary pause rather than a permanent ceasefire, this in accordance with stated U.S. policy, which also calls for the destruction of Hamas. The IDF announced that two more soldiers were killed in combat in Gaza, Master Sergeant Daniel Yako Ben-Harosh and Captain Rotem Yosef, raising the total number of slain troops since the ground operation in Gaza began to 131. Hamas released a new propaganda video in which elderly hostages are forced to read from a script demanding Israel give in to any Hamas demands for their freedom. We will not show this clear psychological warfare on our channel. The video that Hamas released is a criminal terror video. It testifies to Hamas' cruelty towards innocent elderly civilians who are in need of medical care. The world must act in order to deliver medical aid and check on the state of the hostages. We are morally obliged to do every and all efforts in order to bring the hostages back home. Our heart is with all the hostages and their families all the time, Chaim, Yoram and Amiram. I hope you hear me tonight. Know that we are doing everything, everything in order to bring you back safely. Some of your family members are already home. We will not rest until you too are returned. And we're going to open with our eye on the south where our correspondent Pierre Kloschenler is standing by just outside the city of Sterot on the border with Gaza. Pierre, walk us through the latest developments that you've seen on that front. Well, we are actually in near Kibbutz Bay Area, which is facing south of Gaza City. And Orange Mizer, our cameraman, can show you the strikes that are still pounding the area of the southern Gaza City, the Almugraka town, as well as the Salahadin axis, which in that particular sector leads to Chanyunas, which is now the shifting focal point of the ground operation that started here in this particular sector from December 2nd. There are still pockets of resistance in the Jabalia refugee camp. We hear from Palestinian media affiliated to Hamas that west of the Jabalia refugee camp, there are fierce fighting. The Sejaya is still being fought for, which is on the southeastern outskirts of Gaza City. And they announced yesterday, the IDF announced yesterday, that the division, that the brigade that was in charge of the Beth-Khanun area in the northern sector of the Gaza Strip has been completely, fully been under operational control of the Israeli army after most of the terror infrastructure was destroyed and the area now has been handed over to the Gaza division. The focus now is on Chanyunas really, which is further to the left of your monitor, about 20 kilometers away from where we are now. There's an artillery outgoing as I'm talking. And there, there are fierce fighting east and north of Chanyunas according to Palestinian media. We hear also bombing in Rafar. Palestinian media affiliated to Hamas are saying that three houses were stroke by the IDF Air Force and there are 25 casualties, fatalities in that bombing according to Palestinian media. Well, thank you very much for that update from the front, Pierre. We will be back with you over the course of the day as that situation develops. For more though, we are joined for some analysis by Colonel Mary Eisen, the director of the Institutional Institute for Counterterrorism at Reichmann University. Mary, thank you so much for joining us. Absolutely, happy to be here. I want to open with the Hamas propaganda video featuring those three elderly hostages. It's pretty obvious what their goals in this to manipulate the Israeli public into acceding to the demands for a ceasefire on almost any terms. The question is, is it effective at getting that response? So first of all, there's no question and I think we'll both agree that it impacts us. In this case, I happen to know one of those people and to see what he looks like. Two and a half months in captivity and none of them are young is certainly going to impact us. The whole issue of a terror organization in taking hostages is to create the kind of visuals that they show when they show the hostages. It's to impact us, it's to scare us. It's to make us do things that we wouldn't do otherwise. In this case, because it was a mass hostage taking, we showed three of them that there are over 130 and don't have the exact number in that sense that are in the Gaza Strip, both women, still have the children, the baby that we know nothing of. And what they're doing is they're trying to twist the aspect of terror. So at the end, yes, they are going to try to use this and in that sense, that's why terror takes hostages. They want to use it. And now the question is not, do we stand firm? The end, we need to get the hostages back. Then it becomes the art of negotiation and negotiating with the terror organizations means, yes, standing a bit strong and firm opposite the photographs but still absolutely understanding that we are going to have to pay a heavy price to be able to get back our citizens, to get back our people, to get back our grandfathers and our grand, that the babies, we are going to have to pay a price. So it's part of what's going on. Mary, in light of all the bad news you've had regarding hostages over the last week or so, is there still a prevailing hope among the military establishment and Israel's leaders that a military operation to retrieve the hostages is still possible? The military operation in that sense to retrieve the individuals we've said from the beginning, it's not that I'm part of the idea but what both these are, the defense forces, the defense establishment have always said is that the hostages are spread all over the place. They showed three and as we've heard in the small amount of information that's been released that the hostages were held separately all over the place. They were kidnapped from their homes in the north, they were up north, from the south, they were down south. They're in a variety of different places. So to do an operation would never be to bring all 130, it would be able to bring two here, three there with the kind of event that happened last week with three hostages were killed by Israeli troops and such an erroneous and I'll say in that sense, a military bad decision but it's a military decision in the time of war. This isn't going to repeat or trying to do so but it would never be that kind of a picture of look we've brought them all back at once. So I think that there will be the capability to do small places hopefully but that much more of it is about negotiating about releasing from Israel the price that we'd have to pay which would be Palestinian prisoners but at this stage the military operation is very much impacting the Hamas. They're not in a position to be able to like just negotiate whatever they want. That military pressure definitely changes their capabilities. Mary, we're going to discuss so much more in a brief moment so stay with us but first I want to turn our eye to the North Live where our correspondent Zach Anders is standing by on the border with Lebanon. Zach, walk us through the latest developments and escalations we've seen on that front. Good morning. Yesterday was another day of strikes from Southern Lebanon as many as seven different strikes not all being claimed by Hezbollah as these strikes appeared to late in the evening cause damage in Kiret Shemona with apparently what appears to be rockets we still don't have confirmation whether this was bits of an intercepted rocket or the rocket itself hitting a kindergarten and another building starting a fire the EMTs, the paramedics and Magandavidam the National Ambulance Service saying that there were no injuries in both strikes. This of course happening late at night so no one was in the kindergarten fortunately but another momentous day in some of these communities many of them evacuated but still these strikes and attacks continue. And Zach, we're hearing reports as you just mentioned not all of which are Hezbollah likely Hamas and it's not just from Lebanon new reports in Israeli media show Hamas possibly opening up a new front in Syria with a small squad they're building there. What have we seen of enemy activity in other surrounding countries? Well, we actually seen quite a bit of activity from Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon and that's why the IDF says it was targeting earlier in the week or last week rather positions inside Southern Syria belonging to a Hezbollah senior official and also positions of the Syrian army. The Syrian army has been involving itself apparently in a couple of fronts with state television in Jordan late last night saying they foiled a plot to infiltrate their border with militants that had equipment, anti-tank mines and that Jordanian security forces were there at the border to stop this. It's unclear who exactly these militants align themselves with or which faction they appear from but it does seem with the political situation being as it is in Lebanon and in Syria that some of these groups have been operating with impunity and moving around these countries without being hassled or apprehended by the state's security forces themselves. So these are events that likely we won't get much clarity for given the media landscape and the security situation in both countries for some time but it is another serious concern here for the amount of activity, militant activity that's taking place in both countries and you can see that more and more of these events happening with shuttling weapons around and firing from positions in the south of both countries. Well thank you very much Zach for that report from the Northern border. We'll be back with you over the course of the day as the situation there develops. We now return to Mary Eisen though. Mary that last question I asked for Zach reports in local media showing that Hamas has plans to open another front from Syria as well having moved dozens of their operatives into position and moving equipment across Syria. A serious threats more of the same and from what I understand the Syrian government doesn't exactly like Hamas operating out of their territory. Well let's take us back in almost a decade to what is the country called Syria that borders us to the northeast. Inside Syria there was a horrific war for over a decade. The winner if you can call it in that sense of that war was the dictator who managed to survive. That's Bashar Assad. Syria under Bashar Assad and continues to be that way to this day is not what you would call a sovereign country that knows what's going on inside. Not only that but aside from Hamas Hezbollah for many, many years has been the one Hezbollah, the terror organization and one in Lebanon that has been building Syrians military. And so when we talk about Syrians military that Zach mentioned before that inside Jordan they said that Syrian military forces were going to attack inside Jordan. Here I need to bring in both Hezbollah and Hamas. Hamas's headquarters used to be in Syria. When the war started in Syria in 2011 the heads of Hamas that we all know nowadays are mainly in Qatar and a bit in Turkey. They moved from Syria out of Syria because of the war. But there's always been a Palestinian terror organization presence inside Syria. The heads of Palestinian Islam and Jihad were always hosted in Damascus. They haven't come back but they still have that presence. There are Palestinian refugee camps from 1948 and from 67 inside Syrian territory. And because of that Hamas does have a place that they could go to. They have places that they could both train and use. I don't see this as the main threat. The main threat from Hamas is both from the enormous amount of what they built in the Gaza Strip. Their threat is also more from my point of view in Judea and Samaria, the West Bank and slightly from Lebanon than what we see in Syria. In Syria it's that combination of Hezbollah helping the military, of Hezbollah also helping the other Shiite groups that are in both the southern Golan Heights and throughout Syria. Thank you very much, Mary. Stay with us. We're gonna be coming back to you but first we have to discuss some of those other Shiite groups backed by Iran. But of course being the Houthis, the nations of the world, now banding together to stop the Iran backed Houthis from ending international shipping through the Bab on Mandib Straits. The United States announced that it would lead a 10 nation task force to end Houthi missile and drone attacks. At risk is a full 12% of global sea trade. That's a threat to cripple the entire global economy. The announcement comes after the oil titan BP which is responsible for 20% of global oil trade announced the suspension of all oil trade through the Red Sea alongside multiple shipping giants that includes Maersk. And it's notable for Israel because about 30% of Israel's imports pass through the Red Sea. So in the Red Sea we're leading a multinational maritime task force to uphold the bedrock principle of freedom of navigation. Iran's support for Houthi attacks on commercial vessels must stop. These attacks are reckless, dangerous and they violate international law. And so we're taking action to build an international coalition to address this threat. And I would remind you that this is not just a US issue. This is an international problem and it deserves an international response. And we're joined now by Dean Shmuel Alms, geopolitical energy analyst at Globes. Thank you very much, Dean, for joining us on this program. Walk us through just how much of the world's economy is at stake here due to the threats posed by the Houthis. If we look on the latest news, we speak about five out of seven biggest shipping companies worldwide that decided to stop using the Red Sea. They share out of all the world market, not just the European or the regional market. We speak about 60%. So it's huge, it's massive. And for my own opinion, this is the main reason why we see the latest news. So we did this particular task force. Now what I find notable is of the 10 nations that we saw and reports are that there are more than 10 nations, some just don't want to be named. We don't see Egypt, we do not see the Saudis on the list even though the Red Sea trade is Egypt's lifeline. The Saudis are also very much dependent on that. Why have we not seen them put their name on this list? We see just a thing as the one and only regional country in this fact. The main reason why the Saudis is out of this game is because of their negotiations with Iran and with also with the Houthis in also from the last April, we saw a ceasefire in Yemen and the Saudis hope to find some permanent solution for themselves because the Saudi Yemen border is totally open. This is a huge desert. The Saudis got no chance to fix this border. And during the last seven years, we saw many Yemenite attacks on the Saudi border, not just ballistic missiles and of course UAVs, but also ground forces that went inside the Saudi land. Is there a way to calculate, to put a dollar figure on how much damage has been done by these five out of seven shipping companies just suspending all transit? How much global oil prices are going to raise, for instance? Yesterday, we saw that the price raised by about 1% to 2%. European natural gas raised up by about 13% during about four days. And moreover, if you would like to understand when we speak about Israel, the shipping prices will raise up at least 80%. So this is honestly totally insane. This is all the products that we import from China, for example, or cars also from South Korea. The prices will raised up for sure. Did you say 18 or 80, 80? 80% the shipping values were raised up by about 80%, 80, not 80. How is Israel supposed to maintain an economy at all given shipping cross-increase of that number? This is a great question. Why I think that Israel is very happy from Minister Lloyd's decision because Israel by itself can't fix this problem. This is about 2,000 kilometers from Israel. So Israel doesn't have the real abilities to fix this problem. And maybe with the British and the French navies, they will fix it. At the same time, I've got to emphasize that because of there is no real regional power houses inside the spec, I am very optimistic from the near future. If you're seeing all these shipping companies suspend their trade through the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden as a whole, is this not going to have serious economic blowback in Iran too as the masterminds of this? Are they not damaging themselves in the process? Absolutely not because 91% out of the Iranian oil exports go to China. So it goes from the Persian Gulf to Oremuz and then drew the Indian Ocean to finally China. Moreover, if we'll look on the commodities exports, the most of the Iranian commodities exports go to about 15 neighbors of Iran. So Iran is very happy at the end of the day. Until now, we didn't see real impacts on Iran that it's very pathetic because we know that Iran used, IRGC used ships like Bershad, that this is intelligence ships inside the Red Sea, but they say over and over again, this is not us, this is the whoot, this is the Yemenite, this is nonsense. And therefore, this is one of the main reasons that I think that Israel is very happy that the US took the leadership on this problem. Well, let's hope that that leadership comes with a permanent solution to it, Dean. Thank you very much for explaining just what's at stake here. Thank you, Evanist. And we're going to return to Mary Eisen, who has been waiting so patiently on the side while we discuss the hooties. Mary, I want to return back to the situation in Gaza, but not just Gaza. We had been discussing Hamas and its origins, or at least its massive amount of command and control in Syria. They have similar sort of command and control being built in the West Bank as well. The day after the war in Gaza, with Hamas defeated there, obviously Hamas will still exist. They will still have command and control. Does that simply mean that Israel will be kicking the can down the road a decade while they build facilities in either Syria or in the West Bank? I don't think it's under the cover of the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Israel is very active against what you just called the command and control of Hamas throughout the West Bank. In Judea and Samaria over the last two and a half months, the IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces, together with the police, with the Shin Bet, with all the different security forces, they have been exceedingly active against what we call the command and control of Hamas in the West Bank, in the city of Jinni and in Tukar, in Nadlouz throughout the West Bank. And this is part of the campaign against again their Hamas military terror capabilities. They've been very effective. This is not something that they're leaving the arena so they'll be able to go somewhere else. What we need to contend with is the ideology, the idea that there can be a terror organization that is a genocidal terror organization that wants to attack and physically terrorize and destroy the state of Israel. That's not all the Palestinians, and that means that we need to address that issue separately. Because the biggest challenge, I think Ariel, that I've noticed over the last few weeks has been the enormous support of the younger generation in the West Bank to Hamas' military terror activities. And that's what should worry us because that's about education, it's about social media. It's about the narratives, like how can they support those acts? And the way it's being depicted is very different in the Arabic-speaking, not just Palestinian, but Arabic-speaking media worldwide. So we are attacking those kinds of capabilities both in the West Bank and in Lebanon or in Syria or anywhere around the world. But the future, the challenge is going to be education, social media, what youth understand and are willing to do. You mentioned that in the last about two minutes that we have left. That is a monumental struggle because when we look at this conflict, when we look at these opinions, it feels like there's no hope that we're slated for an eternal conflict every single generation that never ends. Is there a more optimistic answer? Is there a strategy for combating that sort of propaganda that's been built up for decades now? So I think that it's at the heart of what's been going on worldwide. And we think all of us in this sense, 2023, for me, Mary has been a wake-up call in the sense that when we're talking about the horrific kind of dehumanizing anti-Semitism, let's take note of it, let's address it. And I'm going to say optimistically, you and I are here, we're going to exist and we will change the future. The big question is, of course, going to be how? Because it's not just Hamas, it's not just Iran. You have an entire Arab world that seems happy to fund this and challenging them who outnumber us and out-economy the Jewish state by orders of magnitude. And that's what we are going to have to handle. And I do think that in that sense, we're aware, we are looking forward in its own way. It is about education and we're going to go down that road again and again and again. And we're going to hope there are good partners out there who are not alone. And in this state, it's not just the government or the administration in the United States. In most of Europe, certainly in Germany, we will go at this together with amazing allies. Well, certainly let's hope that has an effect. Colonel Mary Eisen, thank you very much for your breakdown situation and your explanation. Thank you for being with us. We should all have a good day. Indeed. That said, we are just about out of time for this show, but we will see you again for our next broadcast. That is in just a half hour at nine o'clock local time. Until then, you can catch up with so much more at www.i24news.tv slash en for all the stories that you will not catch anywhere else. Until then, thank you for watching and we'll see you again very soon. In a state of war, families completely done down in their beds. We have no idea where she has our soldiers are fighting on the front lines, but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well. 24 News is ongoing coverage of Israel at war. I'm Ariel Levin Waldman. Today, the United Nations Security Council will vote on a Gaza ceasefire resolution. The Arab sponsored resolution calls for a halt to hostilities in Gaza, but was delayed because the U.S. said it would not pass with its earlier wording, which did not bother to condemn Hamas for his crimes against humanity on October 7th. The United States holds veto power on the Security Council and diplomats said the negotiations were taking place to get the U.S., that's Israel's closest ally, to abstain or to vote yes on the resolution. The indications are that the wording could shift to a temporary pause rather than a permanent ceasefire, this in accordance with stated U.S. policy, which also still calls for the destruction of Hamas. The IDF announced two more soldiers were killed in combat in Gaza. Master Sergeant Daniel Yacov Ben-Harosh and Captain Rotem Yosef, raising the number of slain troops since the ground operation in Gaza began to 131. Hamas released a new propaganda video in which elderly hostages are forced to read a script demanding Israel give in to any of Hamas' demands for their freedom. We will not show this clear psychological warfare on our channel, but we will show the Israeli response. The video that Hamas released is a criminal terror video. It testifies to Hamas' cruelty towards innocent, elderly civilians who are in need of medical care. The world must act in order to deliver medical aid and check on the state of the hostages. We are morally obliged to do every and all efforts in order to bring the hostages back home. Our heart is with all the hostages and their families all the time, Chaim, Yoram and Amiram. I hope you hear me tonight. Know that we are doing everything, everything in order to bring you back safely. Some of your family members are already home. We will not rest until you too are returned. And we are going to open live in the north of Israel where our correspondent, Zach Andrews, is standing by along the Lebanon border. Zach, walk us through the latest developments we've seen on that front. Continued Hezbollah fire, including yesterday, hitting a kindergarten in another building, starting a fire in Kyriac, Shemona. No injuries and no reported casualties throughout the day. Hezbollah announcing yesterday that 111 of their militants have been killed since the fighting began. An additional 20-plus civilians and journalists have been killed in this conflict on both sides. There's action in Syria, southern Syria as well, and on the border with Jordan. Jordan officials on state television last night claiming that some Syrian militants were attempting to cross the border with heavy weapons and anti-tank mines. They were, that effort was thwarted. It's all against the backdrop of this escalation here that's stretched across three different nations. Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. Have we seen any updates in international efforts to try to de-escalate things with Lebanon? We know the French have vested interest and have been central in negotiations, but we haven't heard anything lately. Yeah, out of D.C. and New York, Axios is reporting that the U.S. is attempting to start this Hezbollah agreement with a six-mile buffer. That's something that we had heard of. Rumbles here for some time, but now it seems like it's officially coming from the White House stance, not this 1701 agreement that would create an even wider buffer all the way to the Lattani River. It seems like U.S. officials want to start with just a six-mile buffer. That's a significant number because it would put most of the weapons inside Hezbollah's arsenal out of range, including these ATGMs, the anti-tank guided missiles that we've seen launched time and time again, and it would give more time for the Iron Dome to intercept any of the rockets, the heavy rockets that are launched from Southern Lebanon. One of the big challenges here is that they've been launched from such close proximity that it does challenge the Patriot air defense system supplied by the U.S. with the amount of response time. It does not mean it's wholly ineffective, but it does become more challenging. And so this six-mile buffer does seem like a start to the negotiations. Of course, the Israelis, if you take some of the public statements, they do continue to push for that entire buffer to the Lattani River, so it will have to see where these negotiations go. Well, thank you very much, Zach, for that update from the Northern border. We're going to discuss this more in studio, though. We are joined now by Colonel Jack Neria, former deputy head of assessment with Israeli military intelligence, as well as Caleb Ben-David, host of I-24 News's The Rundown. Thank you both for being in the studio with me. I'm going to open with you, Jack, because we are hearing about these international efforts. Do we suspect any of these are going to bear fruit when it comes to pushing his bullet back, or will this have to come down to the military? Well, there are two parties in this equation. The negotiators, the initiators, and the other side is the Lebanese. On the one hand, we have the negotiators, the U.S. and the France and others. On the Lebanese side, there's no party to discuss with, because there's no government, there's no president. And according to the Lebanese constitution, only a president can agree to any agreement. Now, add to this the fact that Hezbollah has declared very openly, only yesterday, that it has no intention to obey any of those advices to withdraw, because as long as the war in Gaza keeps on going on, they will not budge. And certainly, from areas they believe that they are deeply Lebanese. As a Lebanese force, defending the Lebanese interests, they have no interest at all to withdraw from the area to the six miles that you are evoking here earlier. So the only way to convince Hezbollah is just by Manu militari, by the means of arms. And this could happen any day, because we've seen escalation going on day after day. And now the Israel is just targeting from its bank. Which was not the case a few days ago. It was only answering to the provocation of Hezbollah. Now Israel is initiating targeting definitely positions and warehouses and depots and command centers. And the flare-up is not limited only to Lebanon. It engulfs also Syria. And certainly Jordan is something that we have to look at because there's definitely an effort from the Hezbollah coalition together with Iran to infiltrate Jordan in order to use the Jordanian territory as a way to introduce weapons into the West Bank. And only yesterday and the day before yesterday, there was really battles that raged on the border between Syria and Jordan. And the Jordanians just caught the quantities of equipment, including heavy missiles, that were supposed to go into the West Bank. Do we believe that the Jordanian side is capable of maintaining that level of interception? Well, we trust the Jordanian army. They are very good soldiers. They are well-trained and well-equipped and they are very motivated. They are most of them Bedouins that are loyal to the king. I think that we have here a partner, I mean a potential ally because the interests of Jordan and Israel just coincide here. And definitely I believe that behind the corridors there's a talk going on between us and the Jordanians about the threat coming from the North. I want both of you to stay with me for a minute because first we are going to go to our correspondent in the South, Pierre Kloschen. There is standing by just near the Gaza border. Pierre, walk us through the latest developments we've seen on the Southern Front in this war. Right, we've seen earlier around and Orange Meiser will show you the area which is facing the south of the Gaza Strip. We've seen hair strikes on the refugee camp of Jebalia on the northern outskirts of the city and you've seen maybe Sejaia which is also the site of artillery pounding we've seen earlier on the southeastern outskirts of Gaza City and what Orange Meiser our cameraman is showing you right now is the area of south of Gaza City, the little town of Al Mugraqah where there's fierce fighting as well as the Salahadin axis which leads to Chanyunes which is 20 kilometers further down south. Now there's also heavy fighting on the outskirts of the central refugee camps of El Borej Nusserat and Direl Balach and also fierce fighting in Chanyunes itself in the heart of Chanyunes where the 98 Brigade of Commando units are fighting as well as on the eastern and northern sector of outskirts of Chanyunes. Further down south in Rafar, Palacian media affiliated to Hamas are talking about an air raid on three houses possibly against presumed Hamas targets on this town which is sitting on the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip in which 25 people were killed according to Palacian media in Gaza affiliated to Hamas but we have obviously no confirmation from the IDF about that. Ariel. Well thank you very much Pierre for that update from the south. We're gonna come back to the studio to discuss what the day after might look like in Gaza as the IDF continues to campaign against Hamas. Well the Israeli people are divided though not that divided on who should be in control after the war. A new poll done by Channel 12 showing that the overwhelming majority about 57% says it cannot be the Palestinian authority. About 19% say it can be and the rest just don't know. To discuss this further, we are joined here in studio Kayla Ben-David, host of the rundown to break down some of the numbers and some of the other polling that we've seen. Right, first of all the issue of the Palestinian authority. Of course we've heard the government, the current government say they don't want to see the Palestinian authority there. Bring its policies, the pay to slave policy of compensating families of people who commit terror attacks there and the same kind of incitement that is taught in schools. But there is a problem. Who is going to take care of the civil side of life in the Gaza Strip if not the Palestinian authority? There have been ideas floated. Maybe some of the so-called moderate Arab states that have signed the Abraham Accords or could sign such as Bahrain UAE and Saudi Arabia can be involved. But they've made it clear they won't take part unless the Palestinian authority is involved. There are reports coming of a plan of Washington now for some of the money from the Palestinian authority being diverted to officials in the Gaza Strip who at one point were working for the Palestinian authority prior to the Hamas takeover. Betzalos Motrips, the finance minister, has already said he'll resign. He's threatening to resign and bring down the government if that plan goes ahead. So I think it's going to be a very tricky, I wouldn't be surprised if somehow it's going to be officials or people connected with the Palestinian authority but they'll come up with a new name for them in Gaza. It may be some kind of, as you do in diplomacy, you kind of avoid the obvious by just giving it a new name. And they keep on throwing around the word a revitalized Palestinian authority. This might just go back to what you said, a new name, same people, but who is even available right now that the United States, Israel, can say, okay, we don't really like them but they're at least acceptable. There's nobody in the current leadership, Mahmoud Abbas, of course, for years, Mahmoud Abbas is not going to change. Mohammad Stuy, the prime minister, is even more militant, it would seem, than Mahmoud Abbas. One name that has come up is Mahmoud Dahlan, who was a former Fatah member with a following in Gaza and the West Bank who was basically forced into exile into the UAE by Mahmoud Abbas. But he's getting no indication. It's not clear he has any kind of following. So there is a problem again there. I suspect there's going to be some kind of effort maybe to be added by the Americans to find some individuals less known to the public that are less identified with the PA as who will be responsible for the civil sword in Gaza. And while we're on the subject of polling, I want to address some of the other ones. In the aftermath of the October 7th attack, Israel's political landscape has also been shattered. New polling also by Channel 12 showing the dominant Likud party would drop from its current 32 seats to just 18. Opposition leader, Yair Lapid, could be at just 15 himself. But Benny Gantz's National Unity Party would sweep up a full 37, the former general, becoming the main political powerhouse in Israel. And this is at a time when the majority of the country wants to see new elections brought forward, though not right now per se. I'm going to turn back to you, Caleb, to break down some of the polling we just discussed. Right, so I publicly would like to see new elections. Would like to see Benny Gantz probably replace Prime Minister Netanyahu. But looking at that, you have to say there's no motivation for those parties in government to go to elections because they'll lose seats. Only the ultra-orthodox parties stay the same and they have no reason to go to a possible more liberal left government that will be less sympathetic. Looking at those polls, you understand why the ultra-orthodox parties got their money in the most recent, their funding in the most recent budget to keep them in the government. Remember, it's very difficult to bring down a government now in Israel. You need no confidence vote of 61 voting against the government. Not abstaining, you have to vote against it. That would mean you would need five defectors from the current government to bring down a government, go to elections. Where would you even get them? There's only one even semi-feasible scenario that's been floated about, is that at least five members of Likud, that one who deposed Benjamin Netanyahu and reformed the party, do what they call a soft, no confidence motion. They were behind the scenes deal, maybe with Benny Gantz's party to bring down Benjamin Netanyahu, but put an interim Likud Prime Minister in place. But that would take a lot of political coverage from some of those figures that like Uli Edelstein and Danny Denone, et cetera, that really haven't seen yet to challenge Benjamin Netanyahu for leadership of the Likud. And in theory, if we do see a new government along the lines that we're seeing here, what would change policy-wise for Israel? Well, first of all, the Bose party's Benny Gantz would be from the center. He would have to bring in a coalition more from the center, maybe some dissent to theft from Yashiti. They may try to revive a peace process and so forth. Not likely that it would go anywhere, but at least maybe certainly they would try to do that. There's a possibility of a government without the ultra-orthodox because there are enough seats now. We see Yisrael Baitaino. We saw that at a Victor Lieberman's party now going up to, I think, eight, nine seats. So that would be another possible. Some legislation like enlistment or national service, cultural orthodox, something that people are talking about now. So there definitely could be changes. But again, I repeat, even though the public mood is there, it's very difficult to bring down a government now in Israel and there's almost no motivation for the members of the current government to go to elections in which they are gonna lose their seats. And so I wanna return back to the security discussion with you, Jack, because as we're discussing changes in Israel, change in the Palestinian Authority, there's still the fact that you need to change Hamas on the ground. And while the IDF is certainly demolishing a lot of their command and control structure in Gaza, the simple fact is they're not just in Gaza. We have discussed the possibility of the West Bank becoming Hamas territory as we just discussed the weakness of the current PA. We've seen a new report in Israel's Khan News this morning of Hamas building and activating brigades in Syria, even if you remove them from Gaza, what's stopping them from simply rebuilding and being in the exact same position in 10 years and somewhere else? Well, you're right. We might meet again Hamas in Lebanon or from the Lebanese border, we're from the Syrian border inside the West Bank. I mean, they are still there and they are very active. Hamas as a movement, a religious social movement and political movement is still quite vivid. And the fact that you remove it from Gaza doesn't mean that you kill it. This is definitely something that we have to live with. And the more we realize that in the West Bank we have to constantly put pressure on Hamas from the beginning of the war to now more than 2,400 terrorists have been arrested, and more than 300 Palestinian terrorists have been killed by Israel. So the pressure keeps on going by Israel. And this is essential. Otherwise, I mean, if we leave the terrain and without doing anything, then Hamas will take over in a moment. And if elections are being conducted today in the West Bank, be sure that Hamas will be the winner. So the Americans are well aware of it. And when they speak about the new Palestinian or vitalized Palestinian authority, they have in mind, this Palestinian authority is not what they mean. They mean something else to be discussed, to be negotiated. And I believe that as far as I know, the American administration, they would not come and impose a solution on Israel. But they would come to Israel and say, OK, you don't want our proposal. What do you propose? And I remember Clinton saying to Rabin, after the Hebron massacre, what do you propose? This is what we are asking. This is what we are presenting. We are not forcing you to accept. We're not imposing. This is the way the Americans pressurize. Say, what is your option? Give us some options. Give us something that we can work on. And while they are doing that, we know that they are discussing with the PA, actual PA, the training of new police in order to prepare them to go into Gaza after Israel withdraw from the Gaza, according to the American administration. This is what's going on right now. So on the one hand, we have to understand that we might meet Hamas as a political faction inside the new Palestinian authority, or we will have a Palestinian authority, a technocrat Palestinian authority, very different from what we know today. I just want to add to everybody needs to keep in mind that Hamas rose to power in Gaza while Israel was still in full military control of the Gaza Strip, at an extent that nobody's even talking about now. It was a creation of Israel. Right. Hamas kidnapped Israeli soldiers while Israel was in full occupation. It started firing rockets while Israel was in still full occupation. It started building tunnels while Israel was still there. I think Israeli officials should tamp in expectations. It is one thing to say, we are not going to allow Hamas to get to the level where it'll be able to carry out an attack on the scale of October 7th. That is an achievable military goal. But to call about eradicating Hamas is not a realistic goal. It wasn't when Israel was in full control of the Gaza Strip. It may want to being a terror group than a full out kind of militia that it is now. But expectations should be dampened. Well, expectations might be dampened. But of course, the stakes are still as high as anyone can imagine. Mentioning October 7th, we are going to bring some more testimony from that day. What happened at the Nova Music Festival in the Raheem Desert, where around 400 people were slaughtered. This is the story of Alina Tovberg, who was a makeup artist, a body painter there who found herself on the front line. She survived only through a series of miracles. Our Ori Shapira brings us her story. Alina Tovberg didn't believe in divine intervention until October 7th. For years, she's worked as a makeup artist and body painter. Working at the Nova Festival was only natural for her. We came to the field on Thursday and stayed for the entire weekend. We decided to stay at Nova. I was attracted to the wonderful people who came there, the perfect place and the unique atmosphere in the air. So I decided to stay. At 6.20 a.m., we saw this amazing sunrise. I was just finishing painting Eleanor, my last painting. I gave her a hug and a kiss and went on dancing on the floor. Everybody was waiting for the sunrise. 15 minutes earlier, my partner Tomer gave me a glass of tea and told me that he wanted to go to the car because he was tired. It seemed very strange to me because he never acts like that. But in retrospect, this is what for me resembled the first miracle that happened to me. I looked to the horizon and I saw heavy smoke, very dark. To see the smoke inside this beautiful place felt very strange to me. And I immediately closed my makeup kit. Suddenly, we started to hear booms. The music was still on. We could hear the bits. But we heard the shooting mixed with the trance music. After three to four minutes, they shut down the music. And the chaos began. It was a sharp transition. People were at their peak. And suddenly, everything was shut down. And you find yourself in a war. At a certain point, Alina's partner could not start his car. The group found itself in a survivor scenario. We split into two areas. In one place, I took care of girls who were in panic. In the other spot, Tomer tried to fix the car. He asked his brother to bring people to help. And he got a call from his brother and heard that he had to go to the car. And he told me that he had to go to the car. He asked his brother and heard that he'd been shot. Tomer understood that there were terrorists in the area. He managed to find someone who helped him fix the car. This angel is not with us today. We drove like crazy to Kibbutz Reim. A black truck tried to crash into us, but Tomer managed to escape. It was another miracle. It was a matter of seconds. Then we managed to get to Reim. He opened the gate for us. He didn't open the door. Alina says that everyone she's painted that night survived. One of the people Alina remembers the most is a young woman named Elinor, who Elina painted. When the Hamas attack began, Elinor hid inside the fridge and survived. In this short soundtrack, we hear the moments of horror when Elinor is saying goodbye to her eight-year-old son. I'll tell him I'm going to kill him. Elinor was like... I painted on Elinor, an image of a woman, full of light and hope. More than two months after October 7, Elina took part in an exhibition in Tel Aviv dedicated to the Nova Rave. She rebuilt the boot where she walked at that night. I remember every painting I made that night. Each painting I made that night became a part of me. It became a part of my family, a part of my story. There is Elina, and there is my art. And there is this night. And this night laid down roots. He suddenly... gave it to me. October 7th was the deadliest attack on Israel in its history. And we've just been discussing before that report how Hamas will very likely endure in some form after the war. If that's the case, I'm going to reopen to the discussion here. Is there a solution? Again, solutions, I would say. As I said, and I'm going to repeat, there is a way to prevent that from happening again, from October 7th from happening again. But there is no easy answer to say that we're just going to be... This is a war where Hamas is going to surrender or we announce the mission accomplished. We've defeated Hamas. No. This is going to be an ongoing battle that could last years and generations, not at the current pace, but certainly at a reduced pace. You know, Hamas is not the red brigades or there are some anarchists in the place. It's a closed circle that you can fight and eliminate. It is a popular movement. It's a social movement. It's a religious movement. These are the Muslim brethren. And they are present all over the Arab world. Most of the regime, most of the moderate Arab regimes, are happy with what's happening today. They wish Israel finishes with the job that eliminated Hamas with an offshot of the Muslim brethren in Egypt. They try to topple the regime in Egypt in 2011. I mean, this is what we're talking about. Well, let's hope there is something that resembles an answer at some point in the future. That said, we are out of time. We will see you in a half hour for our next broadcast, 10 o'clock local time. Thanks for watching. Israel is in a state of war. Families completely gunned down in their beds. We have no idea where we see as our soldiers are fighting on the front lines, but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well. 24 News' ongoing coverage of Israel at war. I'm Ariel Levin Waldman. Today, the United Nations Security Council will vote on a Gaza ceasefire resolution. The Arab sponsored resolution calls for a halt to hostilities in Gaza, but was delayed because the U.S. said it would not pass with its earlier wording, which did not bother to condemn Hamas for his crimes against humanity on October 7th. The United States holds veto power on the Security Council, and diplomats said that negotiations were taking place to get the U.S., that's Israel's closest ally, to abstain or to vote yes on the resolution. The indications are that the wording could shift to a temporary pause rather than a permanent ceasefire, this in accordance with stated U.S. policy, which also still calls for the destruction of Hamas. The IDF announced two more soldiers were killed in combat in Gaza, Master Sergeant Daniel Iakov Ben-Harosh and Captain Rotem Yosef, raising the number of slain troops since the ground operation in Gaza began to 131. Hamas released a new propaganda video in which elderly hostages are forced to read a script, demanding Israel give in to any of Hamas's demands for their freedom. We will not show this clear psychological warfare on our channel, but we will show the Israeli response. The video that Hamas released is a criminal terror video. It testifies to Hamas's cruelty towards innocent, elderly civilians who are in need of medical care. The world must act in order to deliver medical aid and check on the state of the hostages. We are morally obliged to do every and all efforts in order to bring the hostages back home. Our heart is with all the hostages and their families all the time, Chaim, Yoram and Amiram. I hope you hear me tonight. Know that we are doing everything, everything in order to bring you back safely. Some of your family members are already home. We will not rest until you too are returned. And we are going to open live in the north of Israel where our correspondent, Zach Andrews, is standing by along the Lebanon border. Zach, walk us through the latest developments we've seen on that front. Continued Hezbollah fire, including yesterday hitting a kindergarten and another building, starting a fire in Kyriac, Shemona, no injuries and no reported casualties throughout the day. Hezbollah announcing yesterday that 111 of their militants have been killed since the fighting began. An additional 20 plus civilians and journalists have been killed in this conflict on both sides. There's action in Syria, southern Syria as well and on the border with Jordan. Jordan officials on state television last night claiming that some Syrian militants were attempting to cross the border with heavy weapons and anti-tank mines. They were, that effort was thwarted. It's all against the backdrop of this escalation here that's stretched across three different nations, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. Have we seen any updates in international efforts to try to de-escalate things with Lebanon? We know the French have vested interest and have been central in negotiations, but we haven't heard anything lately. Yeah, out of DC and New York, Axios is reporting that the US is attempting to start this Hezbollah agreement with a six mile buffer. It's something that we had heard of. Rumbles here for some time, but now it seems like it's officially coming from the White House stance, not this 1701 agreement that would create an even wider buffer all the way to the Latani River. It seems like US officials want to start with just a six mile buffer. That's a significant number because it would put most of the weapons inside Hezbollah's arsenal out of range, including these ATGMs, the anti-tank guided missiles that we've seen launched time and time again, and it would give more time for the Iron Dome to intercept any of the rockets, the heavy rockets that are launched from Southern Lebanon. One of the big challenges here is that they've been launched from such close proximity that it does challenge the Patriot air defense system supplied by the US with the amount of response time. It does not mean it's wholly ineffective, but it does become more challenging. And so this six mile buffer does seem like a start to the negotiations. Of course, the Israelis, if you take some of the public statements, they do continue to push for that entire buffer to the Latani River. So it will have to see where these negotiations go. Well, thank you very much, Zach, for that update from the Northern border. We're going to discuss this more in studio though. We are joined now by Colonel Jack Neria, former deputy head of assessment with Israeli military intelligence, as well as Caleb Ben-David, host of I-24 News is at the rundown. Thank you both for being in the studio with me. I'm going to open with you, Jack, because we are hearing about these international efforts. Do we suspect any of these are going to bear fruit when it comes to pushing Hezbollah back, or will this have to come down to the military? Well, there are two parties in this equation. The negotiators, the initiators, and the other side is the Lebanese. On the one hand, we have the negotiators, the US and the France and others. On the Lebanese side, there's no party to discuss with, because there's no government, there's no president. And according to the Lebanese constitution, only a president can agree to any agreement. Now, add to this the fact that Hezbollah has declared very openly, the only yesterday, that it has no intention to obey any of those, of those advices to withdraw, because as long as the war in Gaza keeps on going on, they will not budge. And certainly from areas, they believe that they are deeply Lebanese. So, I mean, as a Lebanese force defending Lebanese interests, they have no interest at all to withdraw from the area to the six miles that you are evoking here earlier. So, the only way to convince Hezbollah is just by Manu military, by the means of arms. And this could happen any day, because we've seen escalation going on day after day. And now Israel is just targeting from its data bank, which was not the case a few days ago. It was only answering to the provocation of Hezbollah. Now Israel is initiating targeting definitely positions and warehouses and depots and command centers. And the flare up is not limited only to Lebanon. It engulfs also Syria. And certainly Jordan is something that we have to look at because there's definitely an effort from the Hezbollah coalition together with Iran to infiltrate Jordan in order to use the Jordanian territory as a way to introduce weapons into the West Bank. And only yesterday and the day before yesterday, there was really battles that raged on the border between Syria and Jordan. And the Jordanians just caught the quantities of equipment, including heavy missiles that were supposed to go into the West Bank. Do we believe that the Jordanian side is capable of maintaining that level of interception? Well, you know, we trust the Jordanian army. They are very good soldiers. They are well trained and well equipped and they are very motivated. They are Bedouins, most of them Bedouins that are loyal to the king. I think that we have here a partner, I mean a potential ally, because the interests of Jordan and Israel just coincide here. And definitely I believe that behind the corridors there's a talk going on between us and the Jordanians about the threat coming from the North. I want both of you to stay with me for a minute, because first we are going to go to our correspondent in the South, Pierre Kloschen. There is standing by just near the Gaza border. Pierre, walk us through the latest developments we've seen on the Southern Front in this war. Right. We've seen earlier around an orange miser will show you the area which is facing the south of the Gaza Strip. We've seen a hair strikes on the refugee camp of Jebalia on the northern outskirts of the city. And you've seen maybe Sejaia, which is also the site of artillery pounding we've seen earlier on the southeastern outskirts of Gaza City. And what orange miser our cameraman is showing you right now is the area of south of Gaza City, the little town of Almugraca, where there's fist fighting, as well as the Salahadin access, which leads to Hanunez, which is 20 kilometers further down south. Now, there's also heavy fighting on the outskirts of the central refugee camps of El Borej, Nusserat and Direl Balach. And also fist fighting in Hanunez itself in the heart of Hanunez, where the 98 Brigade of commando units are fighting, as well as on the eastern and northern sector of outskirts of Hanunez. Further down south, in Rafah, Palestinian media affiliated to Hamas are talking about an air raid on three houses, possibly against presumed Hamas targets on this town, which is sitting on the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, in which 25 people were killed according to Palestinian media in Gaza affiliated to Hamas. But we have obviously no confirmation from the IDF about that. Ariel? Well, thank you very much, Pierre, for that update from the south. We're going to come back to the studio to discuss what the day after might look like in Gaza as the IDF continues to campaign against Hamas. Well, the Israeli people are divided, though not that divided, who should be in control after the war? A new poll done by Channel 12 showing that the overwhelming majority, about 57 percent, says it cannot be the Palestinian Authority. About 19 percent say it can be, and the rest just don't know. To discuss this further, we are joined here in studio. Caleb Bendevet, host of The Rundown, to break down some of the numbers and some of the other polling that we've seen. Right. First of all, the issue of the Palestinian Authority. Of course, we've heard the government, the current government say they don't want to see the Palestinian Authority there, bring its policies, pay-to-slay policy of compensating families of people who commit terror attacks there, and the same kind of incitement that is taught in schools. But there is a problem. Who is going to take care of the civil side of life in the Gaza Strip if not the Palestinian Authority? There have been ideas floated, maybe some of the so-called moderate Arab states like the Abraham Accords or Qudsai, such as Bahrain UAE and Saudi Arabia can be involved, but they've made it clear they won't take part unless the Palestinian Authority is involved. There are reports coming of a plan of Washington now for some of the money from the Palestinian Authority being diverted to officials in the Gaza Strip who at one point were working for the Palestinian Authority prior to the Hamas takeover. Betsalos Motribs, the finance minister has already said he'll resign, he's threatening to resign and bring down the government if that plan goes ahead. So I think it's going to be a very tricky, I wouldn't be surprised if somehow it's going to be officials or people connected with the Palestinian Authority but they'll come up with a new name for them in Gaza. It may be some kind of as you do in diplomacy, you kind of avoid the obvious by just giving it a new name. And they keep on throwing around the word, a revitalized Palestinian Authority. This might just go back to what you said, a new name, same people, but who is even available right now that the United States, Israel, can say okay we don't really like them but they're at least acceptable. There's nobody in the current leadership, Mahmoud Abbas. Of course, the ailing for years Mahmoud Abbas is not going to change. Mohammad Stuy, the prime minister, is even more militant than Mahmoud Abbas. He'll come up as Mahmoud Dachlan, who is a former Fatah member with a following in Gaza and the West Bank who was basically forced into exile into the UAE by Mahmoud Abbas. But he's getting no indication. It's not clear he has any kind of following. So there is a problem. Again there, I suspect there's going to be some kind of effort maybe spearheaded by the Americans to find some individuals less known to the public that are less identified by the CIA as who will be responsible for this civil-sorting Gaza. While we're on the subject of polling I want to address some of the other ones in the aftermath of the October 7th attack. Israel's political landscape has also been shattered. New polling also by Channel 12 showing the dominant Likud party would drop from its current 32 seats to just 18. Opposition leader Yair Lapid would be at just 15 himself but Benny Gantz's National Unity Party would be the general becoming the main political powerhouse in Israel. And this is at a time when the majority of the country wants to see new elections brought forward though not right now per se. I'm going to turn back to you Caleb to break down some of the polling we just discussed. Public clearly would like to see new elections. Would like to see Benny Gantz probably replace Prime Minister Netanyahu but looking at that you have to say there's no motivation for those parties in government to go to elections and only the ultra-orthodox party stay the same and they have no reason to go to a possible more liberal left government that will be less sympathetic. Looking at those polls you understand why the ultra-orthodox parties got their money in the most recent funding in the most recent budget to keep them in the government. Remember it's very difficult to bring down a government now in Israel. You need no confidence vote of 61 voting against the government you need five defectors from the current government to bring down a government go to elections. Where would you even get them? There's only one even semi feasible scenario that's been floated about is that at least five members of Likud that want to depose Benjamin Netanyahu and reform the party do what they call a soft no confidence motion they do a behind the scenes deal maybe with Benny Gantz's party to bring down Benjamin Netanyahu but put an interim Likud Prime Minister in place but that would take a lot of political coverage from some of those figures that like Uli Edelstein and Danny Denone etc. who that really haven't seen yet to challenge Benjamin Netanyahu for leadership of the Likud. And in theory if we do see a new government along the lines that we're seeing here what would change policy wise for Israel? Well first of all the most parties Benny Gantz would be from the center he would have to bring in a coalition more from the center maybe some dissent from Yashiti they may try to revive a peace process and so forth not likely that it would go anywhere but at least maybe certainly they would try to do that there's a possibility of a government without the ultra-orthodox because there are enough seats now we see Yisrael Baitaino we saw that at Victor Lieberman's party now going up to I think eight nine seats maybe another possible some legislation like enlistment or national service ultra-orthodox something that people are talking about now so there definitely could be changes but again I repeat even though the public mood is there it's very difficult to bring down a government now in Israel and there's almost no motivation for the members of the current government to go to elections in which they are going to lose their seats. So I want to return back to the security discussion with you Jack because as we're discussing changes in Israel change in the Palestinian Authority there's still the fact that you need to change Hamas on the ground and while the IDF is certainly demolishing a lot of their command and control structure in Gaza the simple fact is they're not just in Gaza we have discussed the possibility of the West Bank becoming Hamas territory as we just discussed the weakness of the current PA we've seen a new report in Israel's con news this morning of Hamas building and activating brigades in Syria even if you remove them from Gaza what's stopping them from simply rebuilding and being the exact same position in 10 years and somewhere else? Well you're right we might we might meet again Hamas in Lebanon or from the Lebanese border from the Syrian border inside the West Bank I mean they are still there and they are very active Hamas as a movement religious social movement and political movement is still quite vivid and the fact that you remove it from Gaza doesn't mean that you kill it this is definitely something that we have to live with and the more we realize that in the West Bank we have to constantly put pressure on Hamas from the beginning of the war to now more than 2,400 terrorists have been arrested more than 300 Palestinian terrorists have been killed by Israel so the pressure keeps on going by Israel and this is essential otherwise I mean if we leave the terrain without doing anything the Hamas will take over in a moment and if elections are being conducted today in the West Bank be sure that Hamas will be the winner so the Americans are well aware of it and when they speak about the new personalized Palestinian Authority this Palestinian Authority is not what they mean they mean something else to be discussed to be negotiated and I believe that as far as I know the American Administration they would not come and impose a solution on Israel but they would come to Israel and say okay you don't want us you don't want our proposal what do you propose and I remember Clinton saying to Rabin after the Hebron massacre what do you propose this is what we are asking we are not forcing you to accept we are not imposing this is the way the Americans pressurize say what is your option give us some options give us something that we can work on and while they are doing that we know that they are discussing with the PA the training of new police in order to prepare them to go into Gaza after Israel we draw from the Gaza according to the administration this is what's going on right now so on the one hand we have to understand that we might meet Hamas as a political faction inside the new Palestinian Authority all we will have a Palestinian Authority a technocrat Palestinian Authority very different from what we know today I just want to add to keep in mind that Hamas rose to power in Gaza while Israel was still in full military control of the Gaza Strip at an extent that nobody is even talking about now it was the creation of Israel right Hamas kidnapped Israeli soldiers while Israel was in full occupation it started firing rockets while Israel was still full occupation it started building tunnels while Israel was still there Israeli officials should tamp in expectations it is one thing to say we are not going to allow Hamas to get to the level where it will be able to carry out an attack on the scale of October 7th an achievable military goal but to call about eradicating Hamas is not a realistic goal it wasn't when Israel was in full control of the Gaza Strip it may want to be a terror group than a full out kind of militia that it is now but expectations should be dampened expectations might be dampened but of course the stakes are still as high as anyone can imagine mentioning October 7th we are going to bring some more testimony from that day what happened in the Nova Music Festival in the Reim Desert where around 400 people were slaughtered this is the story of Alina Tovberg who was a makeup artist a body painter there who found herself on the front line she survived only through a series of miracles our Auri Shapira brings us her story Alina Tovberg didn't believe in divine intervention until October 7th for years she's worked as a makeup artist and body painter working at the Nova Festival was only natural for her we came to the field on Thursday and stayed for the entire weekend we decided to stay at Nova I was attracted to the wonderful people who came there the perfect place and the unique atmosphere in the air so I decided to stay at 6.20 am we saw this amazing sunrise I was just finishing painting Eleanor, my last painting I gave her a hug and a kiss and went on dancing on the floor everybody was waiting for the sunrise 15 minutes earlier my partner Tomer gave me a glass of tea and told me that he wanted to go to the car because he was tired it seemed very strange to me because he never acts like that in retrospect this is what for me resembled the first miracle that happened to me I looked to the horizon and I saw heavy smoke very dark to see the smoke inside this beautiful place felt very strange to me and I immediately closed my makeup kit suddenly we started to hear booms the music was still on we could hear the bits but we heard the shooting mixed with the trance music after 3 to 4 minutes they shut down the music and the chaos began it was a sharp transition people were at their peak and suddenly everything was shut down and you find yourself in a war at a certain point Tomer's partner could not start his car the group found itself in a survivor scenario we split into two areas in one place I took care of girls who were in panic in the other spot Tomer tried to fix the car he asked his brother to bring people to help and he got a call from his brother and heard that he'd been shot Tomer understood that there were terrorists in the area we found someone who helped him fix the car this angel is not with us today we drove like crazy to Kibbutz Reyim a black truck tried to crash into us but Tomer managed to escape it was another miracle it was a matter of seconds then we managed to get to Reyim God opened the gate for us Alina says that everyone she's painted survived one of the people Alina remembers the most is a young woman named Elinor who Elina painted when the Hamas attack began Elinor hid inside a fridge and survived this short soundtrack we hear the moments of horror when Elinor saying goodbye to her eight year old son I painted on Elinor the image of a woman full of light and hope more than two months after October 7 Elinor took part in an exhibition in Tel Aviv dedicated to the Nova Rave she rebuilt the boot where she walked at that night I remember every painting I made that night each painting I made that night became a part of me it became a part of my family a part of my story there is Alina and there is my art and there is this night and this night laid down roots October 7th was the deadliest attack on Israel in its history and we've just been discussing before that report how Hamas will very likely endure in some form after the war is there a solution? again solutions I would say as I said and I'm going to repeat there is a way to prevent that from happening again from October 7th from happening again but there is no easy answer to say that we're just going to be this is a war where Hamas is going to surrender or we announce the mission accomplished we've defeated Hamas no this is a going to be an ongoing battle for the years and generations not at the current pace but certainly at a reduced pace Hamas is not the red brigades or there are some anarchists in the place a closed circle that you can fight and eliminate it is a popular movement it's a social movement it's a religious movement these are the Muslim brethren and they are present all over the Arab world most of the moderate Arab regimes are happy with what's happening today they wish Israel finishes with the job eliminate Hamas with an offshot of the Muslim brethren in Egypt they try to topple the regime in Egypt in 2011 I mean this is what we're talking about let's hope there is something that resembles an answer at some point in the future that said we are out of time we will see you in a half hour for our next broadcast 10 o'clock local time Israel is in a state of war families completely gun down in their beds we have no idea where is she as our soldiers are fighting on the front line but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well … Welcome to I 24 News' ongoing coverage of Israel at war I'm Aureol Levin Waldmann Today the UN Security Council will vote on a Gaza ceasefire resolution the Arab sponsored resolution calls for halt hostilities in Gaza, but was delayed Because the U.S. said it would not pass with its earlier wording, wording that did not condemn Hamas for their crimes against humanity on October 7th. The U.S. does hold veto power on the Security Council and diplomats say negotiations were taking place to get the United States, Israel's closest ally, to abstain or vote yes on the resolution. The indications that the wording could shift to a temporary pause rather than a permanent ceasefire, such a pause, would be in accordance with stated U.S. policy. That also calls for a destruction of Hamas. The IDF announced that two more soldiers were killed in combat in Gaza. That's Master Sergeant Daniel Yaakov Ben-Harosh and Captain Rotem Yosef, raising the number of slain troops since the ground operation in Gaza began to 131. Hamas released a new propaganda video in which elderly hostages are forced to read a script demanding Israel give in to any Hamas demands for their freedom. We're not going to show this clip for its clear psychological warfare, but we will show the Israeli response to it. The video that Hamas released is a criminal terror video. It testifies to Hamas' cruelty towards innocent, elderly civilians who are in need of medical care. The world must act in order to deliver medical aid and check on the state of the hostages. We are morally obliged to do every and all efforts in order to bring the hostages back home. Our heart is with all the hostages and their families all the time, Chaim, Yoram and Amiram. I hope you hear me tonight. Know that we are doing everything, everything in order to bring you back safely. Some of your family members are already home. We will not rest until you too are returned. And we are going to turn our eye live to the southern border where our correspondent Pierre Kloschenler is standing by at the Israel Gaza border. Walk us through the latest developments we're seeing on that front. I'm going to show you the lay of the destroyed land of Sejaia, which is just behind me. Orange miser is zooming at the black smoke elevating from Sejaia. And then further south as the camera is panning, you can see the little town of Almugraca, which is south of Gaza City. There is fierce fighting there because the main access to Hanyunas is still not under control of the Israeli forces and they're trying to get control. There are airstrikes in the central refugee camps further south, but you can't see it from here in the Elborej, Direl Balach and Nusserat refugee camps and further south some 15 miles away from where we are in Hanyunas, fierce fighting on the eastern outskirts and in the heart of Hanyunas, where the 98 Brigade of commando unit is operating there since the 2nd of December. So a lot of activity here. We hear the wearing of the roller blade of the gunships. We hear the roar of the air force. We hear from time to time the loud outgoing pounding of the Israeli artillery and even sometimes you can hear from here and we're four kilometers away from the Gaza Strip. You can hear the ratata of the heavy machine guns that are mounted on armored vehicles. This is more or less what we can see from here, but earlier on there was a strike in the refugee camp of Jebaliah which is further north and also in Rafah on the Egyptian Gaza border where three homes were destroyed and the Palestinian media affiliated to Hamas is talking about a death toll of 29 people. But you know, the Israeli army who operates in the southern sector of the Gaza Strip knowing that there's over 80% of the 2.2 million population of the whole Gaza Strip ground into half of the Strip makes the operation more careful, especially regarding the non-involved population. Well, thank you very much Pierre for that report from the front. We'll be back with you over the course of the day for more. We are going to turn to our studio discussion panel and we've got a very full panel today. We have Yaakov Lepin, military and strategic affairs analyst at the Jewish News Syndicate. We also have Caleb Bendivid, our I-24 News host of the rundown and Ariel Oceran, our Middle East correspondent. Ariel, I am going to open with you with a breaking report that has appeared in the Al-Aqbar news media saying that we are hearing from French negotiators that Hezbollah might be in a position to negotiate to move their forces north of the Latani River in accordance with UN Resolution 1701. Ariel, walk us through what the report actually says and how credible this sounds. Right, Ariel. So this report in Lebanese media, Pro-Hizballah, Lebanese media comes as French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna. She visited Lebanon yesterday meeting with high-ranking Lebanese officials with Prime Minister Mikati, with Pro-Hizballah's parliament spokesperson, Nabih Berri, and also the leaders of the military and international peacekeeping force. Now, according to this report, which is basically trying to give the behind the scenes of these meetings, they're showing some willingness of Hezbollah to some sort of deal that would also see its forces being pushed back to the Latani River in accordance to UN Resolution 1701 that is not being implemented since it was agreed upon in 2006 by the UN. But also that there would be some sort of French, Lebanese, American peacekeeping force in addition to UN peacekeeping force. Now, what this report is trying to do is to show that there is willingness on the part of Hezbollah to the diplomatic avenue. However, I think we do need to take this with a grain of salt, because at the end of the day, Hezbollah is not going to willingly just uproot its military infrastructure that it worked for years to establish south of the Latani River and also on the border with Israel and just adhere to this to avoid military option. I will note what did catch my eye perhaps more in this report is the fact that the French mediators are saying that Israel is interested in war, they are keen on war, and while Hezbollah can cause damage to Israel, what Israel will do will be horrific for Lebanon. And this is coming from a pro-Hezbollah newspaper, and so I think this is something that we need to take both at the same time, but at the end of the day, whether we should trust or count on Hezbollah to willingly accept a diplomatic solution that basically calls on it to reduce its military forces and presence along the border with Israel, I don't think we should hold our breath for that kind of outcome. I'm going to move to you, Yaakov, for more on this, because Hezbollah, in this negotiation, the French say that Israel is ready for war and that maybe Hezbollah doesn't want, but if Hezbollah doesn't want war, they wouldn't have started shooting on October 7th. They've clearly shown that they are ready to make war. So this entire report seems to be based on a foundation or an idea that at face value is incorrect. Right. I mean, 200 Shiite villages in southern Lebanon, that is the core of Hezbollah's operational base, so to speak. The lion's share of their terrorist soldiers, a lot of their rocket stockpiles. Where is that all going to go? Are they going to suddenly uproot that and move it north of the Lytani? I think we have a lot of reasons to be skeptical about that. They may be trying to play games with the international community. What would be the threshold? How would we define a retreat to the Lytani River? Will it be uniformed Hezbollah terrorists while they keep a lot of their terrorists and civilian clothing in the villages with the weapons under the bed and in the bunkers? It's very difficult to enforce. I agree with your assumption, Hezbollah over the past two years has demonstrated that it is not deterred by the prospect of war. And we should also keep in mind that southern Lebanon is actually a shadow Hezbollah state. It's not just the military presence of Hezbollah. There's a whole social program for the Shiite Lebanese population. They provide them with food vouchers and energy. It's independent of the Lebanese state. So I think that Hezbollah is feeling actually very confident. It feels like it's a kind of win-win situation. It's either going to claim that it deterred Israel, or it will eventually drag a larger escalation, which it could support its long-term goal. And we should keep this in mind, Hezbollah's long-term goal is to take over Lebanon and spread the Islamic Iranian revolution. That's why it was founded. That's why it received $800 million a year from Iran. That's its primary goal. And that's the fuel that keeps it going. I'm going to turn back to you, Ariel, because if, as we say, we take this report with a grain of salt or, more accurately, an entire minesworth of salt, who does the release of this report actually serve? What is gained by making these claims? Oh, this shows that Lebanon or that Hezbollah is ready to play balls open to diplomacy. This is very important for Hezbollah to show. This is also what Israel is showing, that it is open to the diplomatic avenue, trying to see if there is a way to avoid a military solution. The situation on the ground, I totally agree with everything that Yaakov said, doesn't indicate that that's going to happen. Without Southern Lebanon, there isn't Hezbollah. And so you can't ask them to leave Southern Lebanon, because that's basically like asking Hamas just to leave Gaza. And they did not do that without a military option, so far with nearly 60 days inside Gaza that is not happening. So to expect Hezbollah, with the help of Iran, spent millions of dollars of building military infrastructure, underground infrastructure, infrastructure that is meant to lure Israeli forces operating on the ground into kill zones in valleys and in forests. I see no viable way for this to end in a diplomatic solution, one that Hezbollah would agree to. This report is also trying to include in. And this is something that my understanding has been talked about in the negotiations, that it's not just where Hezbollah will be, North of the Lutani, South of the Lutani, but also trying to solve the issue of the land border demarcation. They're trying to group this all together. That is a positive development. But as we've seen in the year, year and a half leading up to this, this is also something that Hezbollah is not keen on solving in the diplomatic avenue. Kolev, I want to turn to you. What is the point at all to signaling on either side that they're willing to engage in diplomacy if the preconditions for diplomacy are so many worlds apart that there's no agreement possible? Well, there's a few things. First of all, let's keep in mind the US Sixth Fleet is sitting off the coast of Lebanon kind of acting as, I would say, an intimidator to both for Hezbollah, which is one of the reasons why Hezbollah is limited as attacks within that border area, but also for Israel. Basically saying, we don't want to see this blow up into a regional war that could involve other countries. Remember, US has the interest. They have their forces in Syria and in Iraq that have been come under attack of Iran-backed militias just like Hezbollah itself. So I think certainly the US want to hear from Israel that Israel is interested in diplomacy rather than going into a shooting war that could envelope the entire region and involve the US. And Hezbollah, too, was giving some breathing room for the Lebanese government. There is also the French. By the way, it's also in the interest of France for this report to get out, to show that the French government, to give the impression she's not wasting her time there holding these talks in Lebanon. So I think there are sort of bigger parties on both sides to give that impression. The diplomatic option remains open, but as our other guests have said, there's the basic addition for reaching any kind of agreement don't seem to be there. And on the topic of a regional war, there is another party in play here, that being the Houthis who seem to have declared war on global shipping. Now the nations of the world are banding together to stop Iran's backed Houthis from ending international shipping through the Babel-Mandeb Strait entirely. The US has announced it will lead a 10 nation task force to end Houthi missile and drone attacks. At risk here is a full 12% of global sea trade as a threat to cripple the entire global economy. This announcement comes after Oil Titan BP, which is responsible for 20% of global oil trade, announced that they would suspend all oil trade through the Red Sea alongside multiple shipping giants that includes Maresk, which is about 30% of Israel's imports passing through the Red Sea and five out of seven major carriers around the world are no longer making that journey. So in the Red Sea, we're leading a multinational maritime task force to uphold the bedrock principle of freedom of navigation. Iran's support for Houthi attacks on commercial vessels must stop. These attacks are reckless, dangerous, and they violate international law. And so we're taking action to build an international coalition to address this threat. And I would remind you that this is not just a US issue. This is an international problem and it deserves an international response. And we're gonna return to our discussion panel. I'm gonna start with you, Oriel Saran, because there's been just another incident involving the Houthis only about 30 minutes ago. Right, so usually we get our first indications of incidents in the Red Sea from the UK's Maritime Trade Operations Organization, and they just reported an incident not too long ago regarding a report of an incident. Still not clear what the nature of this incident is off the coast of Djibouti, that is just across the Babanmandab Strait from Yemen. Authorities are investigating, vessels are advised to transit with caution and report any suspicious activity to the UK's Trade Monitoring Organization. Now, the way these events play out, first there's this initial report, and then US sent com and then the Houthis themselves admit to carrying out an attack while we still don't have details of what this incident is. It would indicate that even after this announcement by the US of forming this coalition, the Houthis potentially are not too concerned about that. And I just wanna touch on the reason why the Secretary Austin said that this is not only a Israel or a regional problem is because not only does 11% of the world's trade pass through the Red Sea and then the Suez Canal and the Babanmandab Strait, but basically, if you're talking about its effect on global trade, just imagine if ships, instead of being able to go through the Red Sea, Suez Canal, the Mediterranean, for ships going from Asia to Europe, if they can't go through the Red Sea, they would have to go all around Africa and that would mean price spike in prices all across the board on many kinds of goods, whether it's food or consumer goods. And so this is indeed something that has many countries in the world concerned, also in the region. And while we don't know the identity of all the countries who are participating, we do know that at least one Arab country is there. Bahrain, I wouldn't be surprised if at the end of the day we learned that there are additional Arab countries part in this coalition. Right, I just said that. I mean, the three obvious names that are missing from this coalition are the three countries besides Israel most directly affected by this situation. You have Egypt, which is losing revenue from the Suez Canal. We have Jordan, who's port at Aqaba is also being choked off, just like Israel's port in a lot. And of course, Saudi Arabia. Most of these, a lot of these attacks are happening in the economic waters, economic waters of Saudi Arabia. So clearly they're not joining this coalition in part because they don't wanna get involved in this conflict with the Houthis, which is by extension a conflict with Iran. I think Bahrain is interesting because Saudi Arabia will often, of course, it's hard to imagine Bahrain would join the coalition openly without approval of Saudi Arabia. They're also home to the U.S. 5th. Right. So I mean, they kind of have to. But the Saudis like to use Bahrain as kind of a bellwether to, as they did in the Abraham Accords to say, we're there, but we're not there. We're not publicly there, but this is a signal that we're supporting. Right, and just by the way, the three countries that Kalev just mentioned, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, all three countries have been actively part in thwarting attacks against Israel. Saudi Arabia and Egypt downed drones and cruise missiles that flew over its territory aimed at Israel. Jordan did the same from a missile launched from Iraq. I think this is another indication as to where the real interests in the region lie, whether they can openly admit to it that still remains to be seen. I'm gonna pass to you, Yaakov, because we have seen the formation of this international task force take a lot longer than anybody expected. In fact, if you think about it, there's already supposed to be an international task force that deals with exactly this. This is the international task force 151, which operates in these waters supposed to shut down piracy and similar incidents. Where have they been so far? Why have they done nothing and why did it take a separate U.S.-led task force? Well, that's a great question. And we can add to that another question, which is why did it take so long for the United States and the international community to understand that what began as a blockade on Israel's Red Sea trade would quickly develop into a blockade on international shipping and an act of terrorism that targets the flow, the free flow of goods in international waters. Clearly, Iranian orchestrated using their Yemenite Hezbollah, we can call the Houthis their Yemenite Hezbollah, set up using very similar systems and models and thinking in doctrine, flooding them with weapons. And we had the Biden administration trying to take the Houthis off the terrorists a couple of years ago that blew up in everybody's face. The idea of trivializing Iran's proxies and thinking that they can be managed and believing that this is only an Israeli problem, all of these assumptions are now crumbling. So it is good that this task force is being formed and it's moving, it's too late, but it's better late than never. And I think the big question going forward is whether this task force is going to take on offensive strike missions on Houthi positions in Yemen, their firing positions, or is it going to sort of fall back to a defensive interception kind of posture where it intercepts drones, missiles, and tries to defend the shipping. If it's only defensive, I think that will send the wrong message to Iran and the entire Iranian axis. If it's offensive, that would be the right message to send and the test is on them. The test is, you know, we will, time will tell where that will lead. I also imagine, Caleb, that if they're only taking a defensive posture, intercepting strikes, it's going to send the same message of weakness to the shipping companies themselves. They're not going to feel the confidence to start moving their assets to the region again if they don't believe the problem is actually dealt with. Right, though the problem or the dilemma facing the U.S., I mean, there was an incredible irony here because the U.S., remember, Saudi Arabia was engaged in a war with the Houthis backing the former government in Yemen. The Biden administration pressured the Saudis to basically step down from that war and reach some kind of negotiated deal that left the Houthis in control of large part of Yemen. Now, reportedly, one of the reasons it may have been delayed is that the Saudis were pressuring the U.S. not to take offensive action, direct offensive action against the Houthis, because they didn't want to see that civil war that embroiled them blow up again. So, again, the Biden administration, which many argued about the Biden administration policy when it was pressuring Saudi Arabia not to deal with the Houthis, and that's kind of come back to bite them in this regard. So, really, I think it should not be, just to echo what Yaakov said. This is not a problem that should be seen in isolation. It's a problem with the Houthis. This is a regional problem and the proper address for this is Iran. And that brings us back to what you were saying before, Yaakov, about bad assumptions made on the part of the United States who has been very insistent this entire war. They do not want to see it break out into a regional war. It seems to me this is already a regional war. It is already a regional conflict. We have kinetic firepower being used in the Red Sea. We have exchanges of fire on the Lebanese-Israeli border. And the primary arena remains the Gaza Strip. It may not remain the primary arena in the coming weeks or months. Lebanon might replace it as being the primary arena. But certainly, we're seeing a regional conflict take shape. The Americans are certainly interested in trying to contain it and to not let it turn into a full-scale regional conflict. They have their superpower global considerations and priority list. They're still interested in not being sucked into a Middle Eastern war after Iraq, after Afghanistan, and the desire to prioritize the Chinese challenge in the Pacific arena. But there are wish lists, and then there are challenges that reality throws in your face as a superpower. And I may not be able to hold on to that desire. Certainly, the Iranian access seems to not be playing ball with that American agenda. I'll just add the uptick. Also, the uptick in attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria by Iran linked militias since October 7. And there was one report out of the US media saying there were people, officials in the Pentagon, that were a little frustrated that the Biden administration, for the very reasons Yaakov just laid out, were not responding more strongly against those attacks. I mean, we're talking about over 100 attacks in that time period. This is a very significant escalation, and that also affects the criticism coming out of Washington. And Yaakov, I'll pass the last question to you. If this is the case, which we're seeing now, can the Iranian access truly be contained, or does it have to simply be dealt with? I think the whole notion of containment after October 7 needs to be treated with extreme skepticism. The idea of letting Iran and its proxies build up force indefinitely based on the idea of deterrence and carrots and sticks. In the Gaza Strip, that has failed miserably catastrophe. It was a tragedy for the Israeli people in the way that that concept failed. And as a result, I think one of the main lessons learned, at least from Israel's perspective, is monsters cannot be allowed to grow, certainly not on the border, but also further away. The Iranian nuclear program is inching forward. All of these threats are inching forward, and they require action. How that action is to be taken? Can it be done in conjunction with allies, which would be the optimal way to do this? I think there's a lot to discuss. But the idea of containing Iran, I think, is really should be disregarded at this stage. And given that sort of backdrop, if Iran can't be contained, what will bring the United States on board for more direct action against Iran? Well, I think there's going to be, first of all, one of these incidents could get out of hand, and you could see significant American casualties. For example, if there were a attack, for example, on a US naval ship in this new force, or among those forces in the Middle East. And remember, I'm going to say, we have a US election coming up, a presidential election. Any of these incidents could become fodder in a US presidential election be held up against President Biden on the charges showing weakness. This is a sore point after the withdrawal from Afghanistan, for example. But again, that's counterbalanced by this sub-motive isolationism in the United States. But the problem is, if you put off making painful decisions today or taking painful steps today, you could be feeling a lot more pain in the future. Well, thank you all for this discussion, for everything that we've just broken down for everyone. But we are out of time, at least for now. But join us again on our next broadcast. That's 11 o'clock local time, just a half hour from now. Until then, thank you all for watching. We'll see you again very soon. Is in a state of war. Families completely done down in their beds. We have no idea where is she. As our soldiers are fighting on the front lines, but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well. And welcome to I-24 News' ongoing coverage of Israel at war. I'm Ariel Levin-Waldman. Today, the UN Security Council will vote on a Gaza ceasefire resolution. The Arab-sponsored resolution calls for a halt to hostilities in Gaza, but was delayed because the US said it would not pass with its earlier wording, wording that did not condemn Hamas for their crimes against humanity on October 7th. The US does hold veto power on the Security Council, and diplomats say negotiations were taking place to get the United States, Israel's closest ally, to abstain or vote yes on the resolution. The indications that the wording could shift to a temporary pause rather than a permanent ceasefire, such a pause, would be in accordance with stated US policy, policy that also calls for a destruction of Hamas. The IDF announced that two more soldiers were killed in combat in Gaza. That's Master Sergeant Daniel Yaakov Ben-Harosh and Captain Rotem Yosef, raising the number of slain troops since the ground operation in Gaza began to 131. Hamas released a new propaganda video in which elderly hostages are forced to read a script, demanding Israel give in to any Hamas demands for their freedom. We're not going to show this clip for its clear psychological warfare, but we will show the Israeli response to it. The video that Hamas released is a criminal terror video. It testifies to Hamas' cruelty towards innocent, elderly civilians who are in need of medical care. The world must act in order to deliver medical aid and check on the state of the hostages. We are morally obliged to do every and all efforts in order to bring the hostages back home. Our heart is with all the hostages and their families all the time, Haim, Yoram and Amiram. I hope you hear me tonight. Know that we are doing everything, everything in order to bring you back safely. Some of your family members are already home. We will not rest until you too are returned. And we are going to turn our eye live to the southern border where our correspondent Pierre Kloschenler is standing by at the Israel Gaza border. Pierre, walk us through the latest developments we're seeing on that front. I'm going to show you the lay of the destroyed land of Sejaia, which is just behind me. Orange Mizer is zooming at the black smoke elevating from Sejaia. And then further south as the camera is spanning, you can see the little town of Almugraka, which is south of Gaza City. This fear is fighting there because the main access to Hanyunas is still not under control of the Israeli forces. And they're trying to get control. There are airstrikes in the central refugee camps further south, but you can't see it from here in the El Burej, Direl Balach and Nusserat refugee camps. And further south, some 15 miles away from where we are in Hanyunas, fierce fighting on the eastern outskirts and in the heart of Hanyunas, where the 98 Brigade of commando unit is operating there since the 2nd of December. So a lot of activity here. We hear the wearing of the rotor blade of the gunships. We hear the roar of the air force. We hear from time to time the loud, outgoing pounding of the Israeli artillery. And even sometimes you can hear from here and we're four kilometers away from the Gaza Strip. You can hear the ratata of the heavy machine guns that are mounted on armored vehicles. This is more or less what we can see from here. But earlier on there was a strike in the refugee camp of Jebaliah, which is further north. And also in Rafah on the Egyptian Gaza border, where three homes were destroyed and the Palestinian media affiliated to Hamas is talking about a death toll of 29 people. But, you know, the Israeli army who operates in the southern sector of the Gaza Strip knowing that there's over 80% of the 2.2 million population of the whole Gaza Strip crammed into half of the Strip makes the operation more careful, especially regarding the non-involved population. Well, thank you very much Pierre for that report from the front. We'll be back with you over the course of the day for more. We are going to turn to our studio discussion panel and we've got a very full panel today. We have Yaakov Le Pen, military and strategic affairs analyst at the Jewish News Syndicate. We also have Caleb Bendivid, our I-24 News host of the rundown and Ariel O'Sarran, our Middle East correspondent. Ariel, I am going to open with you with a breaking report that has appeared in the Al-Aqbar news media saying that we are hearing from French negotiators that Hezbollah might be in a position to negotiate to move their forces north of the Latani River in accordance with UN Resolution 1701. Ariel, walk us through what the report actually says and how credible this sounds. Right, Ariel. So this report in Lebanese media, Pro-Hizballah, Lebanese media comes as French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna. She visited Lebanon yesterday meeting with high-ranking Lebanese officials with Prime Minister Mikati, with Pro-Hizballah's parliament spokesperson, Nabih Berri, and also the leaders of the military and international peacekeeping force. Now, according to this report, which is basically trying to give the behind-the-scenes of these meetings, they're showing some willingness of Hezbollah to some sort of deal that would also see its forces being pushed back to the Latani River in accordance to UN Resolution 1701 that is not being implemented since it was agreed upon in 2006 by the UN, but also that there would be some sort of French, Lebanese, American peacekeeping force in addition to UN peacekeeping force. Now, what this report is trying to do is to show that there is willingness on the part of Hezbollah to the Diplomatic Avenue. However, I think we do need to take this with a grain of salt because at the end of the day, Hezbollah is not going to willingly just uproot its military infrastructure that it worked for years to establish south of the Latani River and also on the border with Israel and just adhere to this to avoid military option. I will note what did catch my eye, perhaps more in this report, is the fact that the French mediators are saying that Israel is interested in war, they are keen on war, and while Hezbollah can cause damage to Israel, what Israel will do will be horrific for Lebanon. And this is coming from a pro-Hezbollah newspaper and so I think this is something that we need to take both at the same time, but at the end of the day, whether we should trust or count on Hezbollah to willingly accept a diplomatic solution that basically calls on it to reduce its military forces and presence along the border with Israel. I don't think we should hold our breath for that kind of outcome. I'm going to move to you, Yaakov, for more on this because Hezbollah, in this negotiation, the French say that Israel is ready for war and that maybe Hezbollah doesn't want, but if Hezbollah doesn't want war, they wouldn't have started shooting on October 7th. They've clearly shown that they are ready to make war. So this entire report seems to be based on a foundation or an idea that face value is incorrect. Right. I mean, 200 Chiite villages in southern Lebanon, that is the core of Hezbollah's operational base, so to speak. The lion's share of their terrorist soldiers, a lot of their rocket stockpiles, where is that all going to go? Are they going to suddenly uproot that and move it north of the Litani? I think we have a lot of reasons to be skeptical about that. They may be trying to play games with the international community. What would be the threshold? How would we define a retreat to the Litani River? Will it be uniformed Hezbollah terrorists while they keep a lot of their terrorists in civilian clothing in the villages with the weapons under the bed and in the bunkers? It's very difficult to enforce. I agree with your assumption, Hezbollah over the past two years has demonstrated that it is not deterred by the prospect of war, and we should also keep in mind that southern Lebanon is actually a kind of shadow Hezbollah state. It's not just the military presence of Hezbollah. There's a whole social program for the Chiite Lebanese population. They provide them with food vouchers and energy. It's independent of the Lebanese state. And so I think that Hezbollah is feeling actually very confident. It feels like it's a kind of win-win situation. It's either going to claim that it's deterred Israel or it will eventually, you know, drag a larger escalation, which it could support its long-term goal, and we should keep this in mind, Hezbollah's long-term goal is to take over Lebanon and spread the Islamic Iranian Revolution. That's why it was founded. That's why it received $800 million a year from Iran. That's its primary goal, and that's the fuel that keeps it going. I'm going to turn back to you, Ariel, as we say we take this report with a grain of salt or more accurately an entire mines worth of salt. Who does the release of this report actually serve? What is gained by making these claims? Oh, this shows that Lebanon or that Hezbollah is ready to play ball. It's open to diplomacy. This is very important for Hezbollah to show. This is also what Israel is showing, that it is open to the diplomatic avenue, trying to see if there is a way to avoid a military solution. The situation on the ground, I totally agree with everything that Yaakov said, doesn't indicate that that's going to happen. Without southern Lebanon, there isn't Hezbollah. And so you can't ask them to leave southern Lebanon because that's basically like asking Hamas just to leave Gaza. And they did not do that without a military option. So far with nearly 60 days inside Gaza that is not happening, so to expect Hezbollah with the help of Iran spent millions of dollars of building military infrastructure, underground infrastructure, infrastructure that is meant to lure Israeli forces operating on the ground into kill zones in valleys and in forests. I see no viable way for this to end in a diplomatic solution, one that Hezbollah would agree to. This report is also trying to include in, and this is something that my understanding has been talked about in the negotiations, that it's not just where Hezbollah will be north of the Lutani, south of the Lutani, but also trying to solve the issue of the land border demarcation. They're trying to group this all together. That is a positive development, but as we've seen in the year, year and a half leading up to this, this is also something that Hezbollah is not keen on solving in the diplomatic avenue. Kolev, I want to turn to you. What is the point at all to signaling on either side that they're willing to engage in diplomacy if the preconditions for diplomacy are so many worlds apart that there's no agreement possible? There's a few things. First of all, let's keep in mind the U.S. Sixth Fleet is sitting off the coast of Lebanon, kind of acting as, I would say, an intimidator to both for Hezbollah, which is one of the reasons why Hezbollah is limited its attacks within that border area, but also for Israel. Basically saying, try to keep... We don't want to see this blow up into a regional war that could involve other countries. Remember, the U.S. has the interest. They have their forces in Syria and in Iraq that have been come under attack of Iran-backed militias just like Hezbollah itself. So I think certainly the U.S. want to hear from Israel that Israel is interested in diplomacy rather than going into a shooting war that could envelope the entire region and involve the U.S. And Hezbollah, too, was giving some breathing room for the Lebanese government. There is also the French. By the way, it's also in the interest of France to get out to show that the French... Give the impression she's not wasting her time there holding these talks in Lebanon. So I think there are sort of bigger parties on both sides to give that impression. The diplomatic option remains open, but as our other guests have said, just a basic addition for reaching any kind of agreement don't seem to be there. And on the topic of a regional war, there is another party in play here. Being the Houthis who seem to have declared war on global shipping. Now the nations of the world are banding together to stop Iran's backed Houthis from ending international shipping through the Babel-Mandeb Strait entirely. The U.S. has announced it will lead a 10-nation task force to end Houthi missile and drone attacks. At-risk here is a full 12% of global sea trade. That's a threat to Kripal, the entire global economy. This announcement comes after oil-tightened BP, which is responsible for 20% of global oil trade, announced that they would suspend all oil trade through the Red Sea, alongside multiple shipping giants that includes Maresk, which is about 30% of Israel's imports passing through the Red Sea, and five out of seven major carriers around the world, are no longer making that journey. So in the Red Sea, we're leading a multinational maritime task force to uphold the bedrock principle of freedom of navigation. Iran's support for Houthi attacks on commercial vessels must stop. These attacks are reckless, dangerous, and they violate international law. And so we're taking action to build an international coalition to address this threat. And I would remind you that this is not just a U.S. issue. This is an international problem, and it deserves an international response. And we're going to return to our discussion panel. I'm going to start with you already on Surin, because there's been just another incident involving the Houthis only about 30 minutes ago. Right, so usually we get our first indications of incidents in the Red Sea from the UK's maritime trade operations organization, and they just reported an incident not too long ago regarding a report of an incident. It's still not clear what the nature of this incident is off the coast of Djibouti. That is just across the Babanmandab Strait from Yemen. Authorities are investigating. Vessels are advised to transit with caution and report any suspicious activity to the UK's trade monitoring organization. Now, this is the way these events play out. First, there's this initial report, and then U.S. SENTCOM and then the Houthis themselves admit to carrying out an attack while we still don't have details of what this incident is. It would indicate that even after this announcement by the U.S. of forming this coalition, the Houthis potentially are not too concerned about that. And I just want to touch on the reason why the Secretary Austin said that this is not only an Israel or a regional problem, because not only does 11% of the world's trade pass through the Red Sea and then the Suez Canal and the Babanmandab Strait, but basically, if you're talking about its effect on global trade, just imagine if ships, instead of being able to go through the Red Sea, Suez Canal, the Mediterranean, for ships going from Asia to Europe, if they can't go through the Red Sea, they would have to go all around Africa, and that would mean a high spike in prices all across the board on many kinds of goods, whether it's food or consumer goods. And so this is indeed something that has many countries in the world concerned, also in the region. And while we don't know the identity of all the countries who are participating, we do know that at least one Arab country is there. Bahrain, I wouldn't be surprised if at the end of the day we learned that there are additional Arab countries part in this coalition. Right, I just said that. I mean, the three obvious names that are missing from this coalition are the three countries besides Israel most directly affected by this situation. You have Egypt, which is losing revenue from the Suez Canal. We have Jordan, whose port at Aqaba is also being choked off, just like Israel's port in a lot. And of course, Saudi Arabia, perhaps are happening in the economic waters of Saudi Arabia. So clearly, they're not joining this coalition in part because they don't want to get involved in this conflict with the Houthis, which is by extension a conflict with Iran. I think Bahrain is interesting, because Saudi Arabia will often, of course, it's hard to imagine Bahrain would join the coalition openly without approval of Saudi Arabia. They're also home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet, but the Saudis like to use Bahrain as kind of a bellwether as they did in the Abraham Accords to say we're there, but we're not there. We're not publicly there, but this is a signal that we're supporting. Right, and just by the way, the three countries that Kalev just mentioned, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, all three countries have been actively part in thwarting attacks against Israel. Saudi Arabia and Egypt downed the loans and cruise missiles that flew over its territory aimed at Israel. Jordan did the same from a missile launched from Iraq. I think this is another indication as to where the real interests in the region lie, whether they can openly admit to it that still remains to be seen. I'm going to pass to you, Yaakov, because we have seen the formation of this international task force take, well, a lot longer than anybody expected. In fact, if you think about it, this is an international task force that deals with exactly this. This is the International Task Force 151 which operates in these waters supposed to shut down piracy in similar incidents. Where have they been so far? Why have they done nothing? And why did it take a separate U.S.-led task force? Well, that's a great question and we can add to that another question which is why did it take so long for the United States to see trade would quickly develop into a blockade on international shipping and an act of terrorism that targets the flow, the free flow of goods in international waters. Clearly, Iranian orchestrated using their Yemenite Hezbollah, we can call the Houthis their Yemenite Hezbollah, set up using very similar systems and models and thinking in doctrine, flooding them with weapons, and we had the Biden administration trying to take the Houthis off the terrorists a couple of years ago that blew up in everybody's face. The idea of trivializing Iran's proxies and thinking that they can be managed and believing that this is only an Israeli problem, all of these assumptions are now crumbling. So it is good that this task force is being formed and it's moving, it's too late, but it's better late than never. I think the big question going forward is whether this task force is on offensive strike missions on Houthi positions in Yemen, their firing positions, or is it going to sort of fall back to a defensive interception kind of posture where it intercepts drones, missiles, and tries to defend the shipping. If it's only defensive I think that will send the wrong message to Iran and the entire Iranian axis. If it's offensive, that would be the right message to send and the test is on them, the test is, you know, it's going to tell where that will lead. I also imagine, Caleb, that if they're only taking a defensive posture, intercepting strikes, it's going to send the same message of weakness to the shipping companies themselves. They're not going to feel the confidence to start moving their assets to the region again if they don't believe the problem has actually dealt with. Right. Though the problem or the dilemma facing the U.S., I mean, there is an incredible irony here because the U.S., remember Saudi Arabia was engaging a war with the Houthis backing the former government in Yemen. The Biden administration pressured the Saudis to basically step down from that war and reached some kind of negotiated deal that left the Houthis in large control of large part of Yemen. Now, reportedly one of the reasons it may have been delayed is that the Saudis were pressuring the U.S. not to take offensive action, direct offensive action against the Houthis because they didn't want to see that civil war that embroiled them blow up again. So, again, the Biden administration which, and many argue about the Biden administration policy when it was pressuring Saudi Arabia not to deal with the Houthis and that's kind of come back to bite them in this regard. So really, I think it should not be just to echo what Yaako said. This is not a problem that should be seen in isolation. It's a problem with the Houthis. This is a regional problem and my address for this is Iran. And that brings us back to what you were saying before, Yaako about bad assumptions made on the part of the United States who has been very insistent this entire war. They do not want to see it break out into a regional war. It seems to me this is already a regional war. It is already a regional conflict. We have kinetic firepower being used in the Red Sea. We have exchanges of fire on the Lebanese-Israeli border and the primary arena remains the Gaza Strip. It may not remain the primary arena in the coming weeks or months. Lebanon might replace it as being the primary arena but certainly we're seeing a regional conflict take shape. The Americans are certainly interested in trying to contain it and to not let it turn into a full-scale regional conflict. They have their superpower global considerations and priority list. They're still interested in not being sucked into a Middle Eastern war after Iraq, after Afghanistan, and the desire to prioritize the Chinese challenge in the Pacific arena. But, you know, there are wish lists and then there are challenges that reality throws in your face as a superpower and I may not be able to hold on to that desire. Certainly the Iranian axis seems to not be playing ball with that American agenda. I just had the uptick, also the uptick in attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria by Iran-linked militias on October 7th and there was one report out of the U.S. media saying there were people, officials in the Pentagon that were a little frustrated that the Biden administration for the very reasons Yaakov just laid out were not responding more strongly against those attacks. We're talking about over a hundred attacks in that time period. This is a very significant escalation and that also affects the criticism coming out of Washington. And Yaakov, I'll pass the last question about the case which we're seeing. Now, can the Iranian axis truly be contained or does it have to simply be dealt with? I think, you know, the whole notion of containment after October 7th needs to be treated with extreme skepticism. The idea of letting Iran and its proxies build up force indefinitely based on the idea of deterrence and carrots and sticks in the Gaza Strip that has failed miserably catastrophe. For these Israeli people in the way that that concept failed. And as a result, I think one of the main lessons learned at least from Israel's perspective is monsters cannot be allowed to grow certainly not on the border, but also further away. The Iranian nuclear program is inching forward. All of these threats are inching forward and they require action. How that action is to be taken. Can it be done in conjunction with allies which would be the optimal way to do this? I think, you know, there's a lot to discuss but the idea of containing Iran I think is really should be disregarded at this stage. And given that sort of backdrop if Iran can't be contained what will bring the United States on board for more direct action against Iran? Well, I think there's going to be first of all, one of these incidents could get out of hand and you could see significant American casualties. For example, if there were not, for example, on a U.S. naval ship in this new force or among those forces in the Middle East. And remember, I'm going to say we have a U.S. election coming up, a presidential election. Any of these incidents could become fodder in a U.S. presidential election be held up against President Biden on the charge of showing weakness. This is a sore point after the withdrawal from Afghanistan, for example. But again, that's counterbalanced by this sub-motive isolationism in the United States. But the problem is, if you put off making painful decisions today, you're taking painful steps today, you could be feeling a lot more pain in the future. Well, thank you all for this discussion for everything that we've just broken down for everyone. But we are out of time at least for now. But join us again on our next broadcast. That's 11 o'clock local time, just a half hour from now. Until then, thank you all for watching. We'll see you again very soon. Stay to all the war families completely done down in their beds. We have no idea where you see us. Our soldiers are fighting on the front line, but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well. Good morning and welcome to I-24 News's ongoing coverage of Israel at war. I'm Ariel Levin Waldman. Today, the United Nations Security Council will vote on a Gaza ceasefire resolution. The resolution has been sponsored by the Arab World and the United Nations Security Council. This vote has been delayed, though, because the United States said it would not pass with its earlier wording. That wording did not condemn Hamas for the group's crimes against humanity. The United States holds veto power on the Security Council and diplomats say negotiations were taking place to get the United States, Israel's closest ally, to either abstain or to vote yes on the resolution. The resolution would be changed to reflect a demand for a temporary pause rather than a permanent ceasefire. That is in accordance with stated U.S. policy that has called for temporary humanitarian pauses in the past, but also still calling, at least for the United States, for the total destruction of Hamas. The IDF announced two more soldiers were killed in combat in Gaza. Master Sergeant Daniel Iakov Ben Harosh and Captain Rotem Yosef were killed since the ground operation in Gaza began to 131. Hamas has released a new propaganda video in which elderly hostages are forced to read a script demanding that Israel give in to any of Hamas's demands for their freedom. We will not show this obvious psychological warfare video on our channel, but we will show Israel's response. The video that Hamas released is a criminal terror video. It testifies to Hamas's cruelty towards innocent elderly civilians who are in need of medical care. The world must act in order to deliver medical aid and check on the state of the hostages. We are morally obliged to do every and all efforts in order to bring the hostages back home. Our heart is with all the hostages and their families all the time. I hope you hear me tonight. Know that we are doing everything, everything in order to bring you back safely. Some of your family members are already home. We will not rest until you too are returned. And we are going to open with our eye on the northern border where our correspondent Zach Anders is standing by just on the border with Lebanon. Zach walk us through the latest developments we've seen in the fight with Hezbollah. It appears Hezbollah striking again here targets in the north with several throughout the day and we have not seen any this morning. It's been quiet relatively quiet. The strikes yesterday hit a kindergarten and another building in Kiret Shermona. Of course it was late at night. No one was injured but there was some damaged questions still about whether or not the projectiles were intercepted and what exactly it was because we've been seeing drone infiltrations of late quite frequently also heavy rockets these. They were intercepted there were more than one projectiles launched here so still working to put together some of the confirmation the IDF has not confirmed what exactly was launched yesterday but they have again reiterated that they're striking in southern Lebanon. We're seeing in Lebanese media reports quite heavy strikes in southern Lebanon. This has been a consistent scene for them over the past several days the cameras pointing north of Haifa have been showing large plumes of smoke as a result of these continued strikes and it's against a backdrop of attempts by both France the United Nations US the UK to try and make some movement in Beirut to begin to ease tamp down the intensity of this conflict here in the north. It appears that this is getting some traction with a slight buffer not the full buffer to the Latani River but a 6 mile buffer to start is what the US is pushing for it's still not clear what Hezbollah is asking for in return or if they're even receptive even party to these negotiations the US and France apparently have been trying to find the squeaky wheels in Lebanon to see where they can manipulate parts of this deal they're using the carrot and the stick you could see with some of the aid that's provided to the country but then again there's such a massive power vacuum inside the political structure in Lebanon that a lot of this seems to be predicated on different factions and parties that in the end don't have the most power Hezbollah has the most power in the south. That's going to be a challenge for any negotiations moving forward Zach thank you very much for that analysis of the situation we'll be back with you later in the day for more details. Thank you very much for being here first off I want to open what we just heard about the situation in Lebanon we have multiple international powers attempting to do something to deescalate you try to push Hezbollah back behind the Latani river are there any real levers that can be manipulated here to get that result? Yes there are there would be if there was a partner the problem is today in Lebanon you do not have a functioning government you do not have a power that would be called the state of Lebanon a nation it's complete chaos it's an economic chaos first of all I think first of the first duty of the international community would be to help economically Lebanon to get out of this crisis because right now the actual government which is temporary and even the Lebanese army do not have the power to put pressure on the Hezbollah they don't have any leverage they don't have leverage over the Hezbollah if any it's the country the Hezbollah has much more leverage on the Lebanese government it's for instance holding all the energy sources of the Lebanon the electricity the fuel it's all at the hands of the Hezbollah like a state within a state so that all this diplomatic effort is welcome but it is just addressed to nobody there is nobody there is no partner to speak of there is now the end of the tenure of the present chief of the Lebanese army to appoint the new one you need the president to do so and there is not a president to speak of that can do that that's how bad the situation is there to give this a chance because you never know something might happen the Hezbollah contrary to the Hamas the Hamas in Gaza was operating in a total vacuum it could do what he wanted nobody could tell the Hamas anything and it was sole master of the Gaza Strip in the Lebanon the Hezbollah has political interest, economic interest it has a kind of a standing with the Lebanese population exactly free to do what it wants at will it has to take into account what the population would think, what the politicians would think the Hezbollah has members of parliament in the government so all this makes it more logical rational in the thinking of Nassan Hezbollah he had calculations that the Hamas leader didn't have to have he also is more cautious he knows that if he starts a full-fledged conflict with the Israelis it will cost him and it will cost him a lot he has also to answer to his master the Iranians in Tehran and in Tehran they think exactly the same they think that Hezbollah go now into conflict with Israel then you are wasting precious ammo ammunition for a larger conflict that might happen that would involve Israel more directly with Iran if Israel attacks Iran for instance concerning the nuclear capacities there then Tehran needs the Hezbollah as an ammunition as a diversion even an additional front to fight against the Israelis so nobody wants to spend now all their energy power and ammunition against the conflict with the Hamas which is minor in the Joe strategic map of the Middle East it's still as spectacular as this conflict is it's really a minor hub it could stay local Americans would like it anyway but also Tehran so everything seems to indicate that Hamas is not Hezbollah is not interested in escalating but the main question remains what are we interested in what do we want what does Israel want to do or should do to ensure its security and the security on its borders and that is striking Hezbollah we should strike Hezbollah and we should strike Hezbollah now because we never had such a great window of opportunity American presence in the Mediterranean all our reservists being called to arms and they've been trained for such a scenario it's not like in the south where we're called by surprise in the north we've been training for two years taking it out we might have to fight Hezbollah head front and also very importantly the economic aspect we are now in a war mode our economy is a war mode we cannot now stop a war and start another one in six months and then what destroy all our economy we're going to continue this discussion in a brief moment though first though we have to turn our eye live to the Gaza border where our correspondent Pierre Kloschenler is going to talk to us in Gaza Pierre what you see right now what the orange myzer camera man is showing you is the area of the town of Almugraka which is on the southern outskirts of the Gaza Strip very close by to Shejaia and this is a strategic town I believe because this is where the Salahadin access which is the main access road to the south of the Gaza Strip to Kanyunas is located and there's been intense pounding and fighting for that access since the restart of the ground offensive on December 2nd further north to the right of your monitor you can see Shejaia Shejaia where the IDF just published a communique in which it said that they found a weapons depot into a clinic that's not surprising because basically according to testimonies of officers and soldiers on the ground in Shejaia who have been fighting for that little town on the south eastern outskirts of Gaza city since December 2nd there are weapons depots in basically every standing house they say that the population has largely evacuated Shejaia but Hamas operatives are operating as civilians without weapons and they just enter a house they say they take a weapon it can be a rocket propelled grenade RPG or an AK-47 or assault rifle and shoot at the IDF ground forces and then drop the weapon go for a hiding place then move maybe from a tunnel maybe from a tunnel shaft to the next building grab another weapon shoot again and this is the kind of clashes that you have in Shejaia now further east of what you see further south sorry of what you're seeing also heavy clashes in the eastern outskirts of the central refugee camps of Elborej, Nusserat and Direl Balach further south in Hanyunes the 98 division of elite commando units are operating in the heart of the city and also fierce fighting on the eastern and northern outskirts of Hanyunes Ariel Pierre what do we know about the disposition of Hamas's forces how much have they been suffering from attrition how much do they have left we don't have updated figures but we know for instance Hamas is the site of one of the most battle-hardened battalions of Hamas and according to IDF estimates 400 terrorists were killed that would be about the size of a battalion but they're still Hamas people operating against the ground forces so they might have got more support from other neighborhoods in Gaza city that are under control above ground but not underground such as Zeytun Eldaraj to Fah and there the Hamas terrorists can probably go through tunnels and offer their support to the terrorists that are fighting in Shijaya in Jebalia there's also another battle-hardened battalion but this one is on the verge or has collapsed already and the army believes that it's a matter of days before the refugee camp will fall in Hanyunas is a different story there is a whole brigade of Hamas probably the strongest brigade of Hamas in the whole Gaza Strip so it's a make or break for Hamas there well thank you very much for that update on the current situation and the status of the war in the south pier we are going to return to the studio with Rafael Urshalmi we're hearing about Hamas there are now reports in local media that they're attempting to open another front in Syria moving their people moving their weapons systems there once the war in Gaza is over Hamas is not going to be completely defeated absolutely not our objective is to have Hamas not rule or never rule again the Gaza Strip so we want it out of the Gaza Strip but of course it will go somewhere else it is already there it's already in the south of Lebanon there are Hamas troops there and outpost they even have rockets they've shot rockets from the Lebanon into Israel they are now with the Hezbollah deploying their troops along the Syrian border as well to threaten us also from that border not just the Lebanese border they're doing that with the assistance of Shiite militias but also unfortunately with the assistance of the regular Syrian army of the Assad regime so they can really deploy serenely they even get logistical support and of course behind all that the Iranians are supplying with money weapons you name it the Hamas will also stay in the West Bank we still have these attacks terrorist attacks coming from the Hamas from the West Bank every night we have to fight them there as well and you will find them also in other places in the Middle East because they are the last strength force of the Muslim Brotherhood but you will also and let's not forget that find them in London in Paris in New York they will be there as well because as it was properly said the Hamas is not just the terrorist of Gaza it's all these terrorists all over the world and it's an ideology and this ideology you find now in the heart of Harvard in the heart of Columbia University that's where the Hamas will survive that will not be our problem anymore it will be a Columbia University problem it will be a societal problem of the United States of Europe we have only one goal get rid of Hamas in Gaza a problem for the entirety of the Western world it sounds like thank you very much for breaking that all down now we turn to the story of Ophir Engel one of 110 Hamas hostages that were released from captivity last month now he's attempting to return as best he can to his normal life but the events of October 7th and almost two months in captivity in Gaza still haunt him here's his story adapted from local channel 12 in time for Christmas season to see his favorite basketball team Apollo Jerusalem is accompanied with immense distress 18 year old Ophir was released from Gaza two weeks ago but Yuval's father and uncle remain in Hamas captivity how does it feel to fly right now exciting but weird a little Yuval? a little because dad is still there yes we miss them so much they're probably in the tunnel or in a house on that black Saturday Ophir a 12th grade student from Kibbutz Ramat Rachel near Jerusalem was with 17 year old Yuval in Baeri during the sirens the two together with Yuval's parents and two sisters entered the safe room it was 10 in the morning when the terrorists broke in and what do you see? three terrorists enter with guns two with guns one with an RPG first thing they shoot the dog shoot the dog first they're very afraid of dogs and then just take us all downstairs are they speaking with you? in Arabic they say to you mafisi Israel hada Palestine and there they got us all up they took us to the road and a black car was just waiting there there's a black car waiting for us they motioned in opening the door her father Yossi went in first she and I held hands she's already getting in her foot inside already then they take her out and put me in are the women just taken out? no they just leave them with the other two terrorists this is the last image I have in my memory of them are you yelling anything to him? I told him I love you did you hear? yes did you answer? no we were already driving away what I remember is the red eyes don't understand what's going on you see her with two terrorists and in captivity you think she is either dead or kidnapped there is no other option logically nothing two terrorists what are they doing with you? the two terrorists just walked away what's going on in the car? they just take us to Gaza the person sitting in front has a weapon aimed at us like this oh really? Ophir was kidnapped together with Yossi Yuval's father and a neighbour 16 year old Amit Chani 54 days in captivity they saw no other hostages Ophir stayed close to his girlfriend's father and Yuval's father calms you down? yes he reassured us but obviously everyone is scared so it's calming only for a moment what do you do all day? play cards I can't look at another card a game they taught us are the terrorists also playing with you? how did they act towards you? it is relative to a good situation because no they weren't abused yes we were not abused they were simply psychologically abused they keep saying they don't want you who doesn't want you? Israel there is only one demonstration in Israel there is only one demonstration for a week and the families don't want you to come back they don't take action or do anything you're going to stay here for at least a year things like that in your head you say it won't be a year for sure it will be five months I figured I'd be back sometime were you afraid to die there? yes I was less afraid that they would kill me because if they wanted to kill me they probably would have killed me on the first day and they wouldn't care about bringing food what food really? there was no food what did you eat? a pita and a half a day so what scared you? from the booms around that the IDF doesn't know our location suddenly a missile would hit fear of death, a house near us was bombed it sounded like it hit ours one of the guards was informed that a relative of his had been killed you say to yourself just as long as it doesn't come back at us just don't come back at us it feels the most difficult moments and twice through the heart of the city when they walk completely exposed in total darkness when all around non-stop explosions when they transferred you it was always overnight do you see Gazans? obviously yes it was a terrible fear how would you know who's going to turn on you? do you think they care? no they don't care about each other you know some extremist would kill me and the Hamasnik with me and did anyone come see you? they had their boss who would come and bring food once every two days who would bring a packet of pita bread whatever you eat you eat in these three days did he say anything to you? he would come and tell us again that they don't want us and all that he was the main one who was psychologically abusing us did you make a connection with one of them that was more pleasant? the one who guarded us was a bit better didn't he say something like death to the Jews? yes he did say that they know nothing other than that did you try to explain to him say what do you want from me I'm a kid from Israel so he told them a hundred times they said why are you in Israel why did your family come to Israel what did you answer? I told him my grandfather was born here then he tells me you're lying why would I lie? so I just said yes should I argue with him? do you see Sinoir? no where they told me this is Sinoir when they told me you are returning to Israel he pointed at someone but he was so fat and didn't even look like him do you believe them when they tell you you are going back the next day? yes because they look happy and to get rid of you? yes we are quite a heavy burden for them what did you say to Yuval's father before you separated? nothing we were separated in an instant oh just like this? yes just like this I call her and tell her I'm fine I'm alive everything is good what does she say to me? shave your beard and then call me did you see what he looked like? no you were excited no yes yes until I saw him with my own eyes I couldn't believe it is there one moment that you cry or did you suddenly fall apart? I asked the soldier on the minibus what about Yuval, her mother and her sisters and they told me they were fine everything is well with them I was in shock crying falling apart? yes that was the only thing I was worried about I was just shocked that he was there in front of me I collapsed for a second did it surprise you that she suddenly fell to the floor? yes I think she was also a little shocked Ophir who played last year on the Apoel Jerusalem youth basketball team is a die-hard fan the team flew him and his family this week for a match against Pauk des Aloniki in the Champions League so I had this picture for two months on my shirt and he was in every square and to see him come out of all the demonstrations and the pictures and it comes out to something real on the court, how do you say it? it's double happiness for us Ophir was locked trapped in Gaza for almost two months I don't think any of us expected him to be here I don't think his family expected I don't think he expected to see the smile on the face is not only Ophir but his family is here with us as well it moves me a lot Ophir and Yuval's joy at Apoel Jerusalem's victory at the game and the feeling of freedom in Belgrade is momentary the photos of Yuval's father Yossi and his brother Eli in Gaza never leave their mind it's a long road to recover but at least some of Israel's children have returned home we are out of time for this broadcast but we will see you again in only a half hour we will talk local time for our next broadcast so thank you for watching until then you can also catch more on www.i24news.tv and I'll see you again very soon Israel is in a state of war families completely done down in their beds we have no idea where is she as our soldiers are fighting on the front line but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well good morning and welcome to i24news with some coverage of Israel at war I'm Ariel Levin Waldman today the United Nations Security Council will vote on a Gaza ceasefire resolution the resolution has been sponsored by the Arab world and calls for immediate halt to hostilities in Gaza this vote has been delayed though because the United States said it would not pass with its earlier wording that wording did not condemn Hamas for the group's crimes against humanity the United States holds veto power on the Security Council and diplomats say negotiations were taking place to get the United States, Israel's closest ally to either abstain or to vote yes on the resolution there are now indications that the wording could be changed to reflect a demand for a temporary pause rather than a permanent ceasefire that is in accordance with stated US policy that has called for temporary humanitarian pauses in the past but also still calling at least for the United States part of the adoption of Hamas the IDF announced two more soldiers were killed in combat in Gaza Master Sergeant Daniel Yaakov Ben-Harosh and Captain Rotem Yosef raising the number of slain troops since the ground operation in Gaza began to 131 Hamas has released a new propaganda video in which elderly hostages are forced to read a script demanding that Israel give in to any of Hamas's demands for their freedom also this obvious psychological warfare video on our channel but we will show Israel's response the video that Hamas released is a criminal terror video it testifies to Hamas's cruelty towards innocent elderly civilians who are in need of medical care the world must act in order to deliver medical aid and check on the state of the hostages we are morally obliged to do every and all efforts in order to bring the hostages back home our heart is with all the hostages and their families all the time Haim, Yoram and Amiram I hope you hear me tonight know that we are doing everything everything in order to bring you back safely some of your family members are already home we will not rest until you too are returned and we are going to open with our eye on the northern border where our correspondent Zach Anders is standing by just on the border with Lebanon Zach, walk us through the latest developments we've seen in the fight with Hezbollah it appears Hezbollah striking again here targets in the north with several throughout the day yesterday we have not seen any this morning it's been quiet relatively quiet the strikes yesterday hit a kindergarten and another building in Kiret, Shermona of course it was late at night no one was injured but there was some damaged questions still about whether or not the projectiles were intercepted and what exactly it was because we've been seeing drone infiltrations of late quite frequently also heavy rockets whatever it was appears to have been at least partly intercepted there were more than one projectiles launched here so still working to put together some of the confirmation the IDF has not confirmed what exactly was launched yesterday but they have again reiterated that they are striking in southern Lebanon we are seeing Lebanese media reports quite heavy strikes in southern Lebanon this has been a consistent scene for them over the past several days the cameras pointing north from our position from north of Haifa have been showing large plumes of smoke as a result of these continued strikes and it's against a backdrop of attempts by both France the United Nations the US the UK to try and make some movement in Beirut to begin to ease tamp down the intensity of this conflict here in the north it appears that this is getting some traction with a slight buffer not the full buffer to the Latani river but a 6 mile buffer to start is what the US is pushing for it's still not clear what Hezbollah is asking for in return or if they're even receptive even party to these negotiations the US and France apparently have been trying to find the squeaky wheels in Lebanon to see where they can manipulate parts of this deal they're using the carrot in the stick you could say with some of the aid that's provided to the country but then again there's such a massive power vacuum inside the political structure in Lebanon that a lot of this seems to be predicated on different factions and parties that in the end don't have the most power Hezbollah has the most power in the south that's going to be a challenge for any negotiations moving forward Zach thank you very much for that analysis of the situation we'll be back with you later in the day for more that said for more right now we are going to turn to Raphael former senior intelligence officer with the IDF Raphael thank you very much for being here first off I want to open what we just heard about the situation in Lebanon we have multiple international powers attempting to do something to de-escalate you try to push Hezbollah back behind the Latani river are there any real levers that can be manipulated here to get that result yes there are there would be if there was a partner the problem is today in Lebanon you do not have a functioning government you do not have a power that would be called the state of Lebanon a nation it's complete chaos it's an economic chaos first of all I think first of the first duty of the international community would be to help economically Lebanon to get out of this crisis because right now the actual government which is temporary and even the Lebanese army do not have the power to put pressure on the Hezbollah they would have any leverage they don't have leverage over the Hezbollah if any it's the contrary it has much more leverage on the Lebanese government it is for instance holding all the energy sources of the Lebanon the electricity the fuel it's all at the hands of the Hezbollah it's a power it's like a state within a state so that all this diplomatic effort is welcome but it is just addressed to nobody there is nobody there is no partner to speak of there is now the end of the tenure of the present the Lebanese army to appoint the new one you need the president to do so and there is not a president to speak of that can do that that's how bad the situation is there we still have to give this a chance because you never know something might happen contrary to the Hamas the Hamas in Gaza was operating in a total vacuum it could do what he wanted nobody could tell the Hamas anything so master of the Gaza Strip in the Lebanon the Hezbollah has political interest, economic interest it has a kind of a standing with the Lebanese population so it's not exactly free to do what it wants at will it has to take into account what the population would think, what the politicians would think the Hezbollah has members of parliament in the government so all this makes it more logical rational in the thinking of Nassan Khaschala he had calculations that the Hamas leader didn't have to have he also is more cautious he knows that if he starts full fledged conflict with the Israelis it will cost him and it will cost him a lot he has also to answer to his master the Iranians in Tehran and in Tehran they think exactly the same they think that Hezbollah go now into conflict with Israel then you are wasting precious ammo ammunition for a larger conflict that might happen that would involve Israel more directly with Iran if Israel attacks Iran for instance concerning the nuclear capacities there then Tehran needs the Hezbollah as an ammunition as a diversion even an additional front to fight against the Israelis so nobody wants to to spend now all their energy power and ammunition against the conflict with the Hamas which is minor in the Joe strategic map of the Middle East it's still as spectacular as this conflict is it's really a minor hub it could stay local and you could be kept local that's what the Americans would like anyway but also Tehran so everything seems to indicate that the Hamas is not sorry the Hezbollah is not interested in escalating but the main question remains what are we interested in what do we want what does Israel want to do or should do to ensure its security and the security on its borders and that is striking Hezbollah we should strike Hezbollah and we should strike Hezbollah now because we never had such a great window of opportunity American presence in the Mediterranean all our reservists being called to arms and they've been trained for such a scenario it's not like in the south where we're caught by surprise in the north we've been training for two years taking the counter we might have to fight the Hezbollah head front and also very importantly the economic aspect we are now in a war mode our economy is a war mode we cannot now stop a war and start another one in six months and then what destroy all our economy we're going to continue this discussion in a brief moment though first though we have to turn our eye live to the Gaza border where our correspondent Pierre Kloschenler is standing by to give us the latest updates on the war against Hamas in Gaza Pierre what you see right now what orange my camera man is showing you is the area of the town of Almugraka which is on the southern outskirts of the Gaza street and this is a strategic town I believe because this is where the Salahadin axis which is the main access road to the south of the Gaza Strip to Hanyules to Rafah is located and there's been intense pounding and fighting for that axis since the restart of the ground offensive on December 2nd further north to the right of your monitor you can see Shejaya Shejaya where the IDF just published a communique in which it said that they found a weapons depot into a clinic that's not surprising because basically according to testimonies of officers and soldiers on the ground in Shejaya who have been fighting for that little town on the south eastern outskirts of Gaza city since December 2nd there are weapons depots in basically every standing house they say that the population has largely evacuated Shejaya but Hamas operatives are operating as civilians without weapons and they just enter a house they say they take a weapon it can be a rocket propelled grenade RPG or .47 assault rifle and shoot at the IDF ground forces and then drop the weapon go for a hiding place then move maybe through a tunnel maybe from a tunnel shaft to the next building grab another weapon shoot again and this is the kind of clashes that you have in Shejaya now further east further south also heavy clashes in the eastern outskirts of the central refugee camps of El Burej Nusserat and Direl Balach and then further south in Hanyunes the 98 division of elite commando units are operating in the heart of the city and also fierce fighting on the eastern and northern outskirts of Hanyunes Ariel what do we know about the disposition of Hamas' forces how much have they been suffering from attrition how much do they have left we don't have updated figures but we know for instance Shejaya is the site of one of the most battle-hardened battalions of Hamas and according to IDF estimates 400 terrorists were killed that would be about the size of a battalion but there still Hamas people operating against the ground forces so they might have got more support from other neighborhoods in Gaza city that are under control above ground but not underground such as Zeytun Eldaraj to Fah and there the Hamas terrorists can probably go through tunnels and offer their support to the terrorists that are fighting in Shejaya in Jabaliya there's also another battle-hardened battalion but this one is on the verge or has collapsed already and the army believes that it's a matter of days before the refugee camp will fall in Hanyunes is a different story there is a whole brigade of Hamas probably the strongest brigade of Hamas in the whole Gaza Strip so make a break for Hamas there well thank you very much for the update on the current situation and the status of the war in the south pier we are going to return to the studio with Rafael Ushalmi we're hearing about Hamas not just in Gaza though there are now reports in local media that they're attempting to open another front in Syria moving their people moving their weapons systems there once the war in Gaza is over Hamas is not going to be completely defeated absolutely not our objective is to have Hamas not rule or never rule again the Gaza Strip so we want it out of the Gaza Strip but of course it will go somewhere else it is already there it's already in the south of Lebanon there are Hamas troops there an outpost they even have rockets they've shot rockets from the Lebanon into Israel they are now with the Hezbollah deploying their troops along the Syrian border as well to threaten us also from that border not just the Lebanese border they are doing that with the assistance of Shiite militias but also unfortunately with the assistance of the regular Syrian army of the Assad regime so they can really deploy serenely they even get logistical support and of course behind all that the Iranians are supplying with money weapons you name it the Hamas will also stay in the West Bank we still have these attacks terrorist attacks coming from the Hamas from the West Bank every night we have to fight them there as well and you will find them also in other places in the Middle East because they are the last strength force of the Muslim Brotherhood but you will also and let's not forget that find them in London, in Paris, in New York they will be there as well because as it was properly said the Hamas is not just the terrorist of Gaza it's all these terrorists all over the world and it's an ideology and this ideology you find now in the heart of Harvard in the heart of Columbia University that's where the Hamas will survive but that will not be our problem anymore the Columbia University problem it will be a socio societal problem of the United States of Europe we have only one goal get rid of Gaza Hamas in Gaza that's it a problem for the entirety of the western world thank you very much for breaking that all down now we turn to the story of Ophir Engel one of 110 Hamas hostages that were released from captivity last month now he's attempting to return as best he can to his normal life but the events of October 7th and almost two months in captivity in Gaza still haunt him here's his story adapted from local channel 12 exciting but weird a little Yuval? a little because dad is still there yes we miss them so much they're probably in the tunnel or in a house on that black Saturday Ophir a 12th grade student from Kibbutz Ramat Rachel near Jerusalem was with 17 year old Yuval in Behri during the sirens the two together with Yuval's parents and two sisters entered the safe room it was 10 in the morning when the terrorists broke in and what do you see? three terrorists enter with guns two with guns, one with an RPG first thing they shoot the dog shoot the dog first they're very afraid of dogs and then just take us all downstairs are they speaking with you? in Arabic they say to you in Arabic in Arabic and there they got us all up they took us to the road and a black car was just waiting there there was a black car waiting for us they motioned in opening the door her father Yossi went in first and then she and I held hands she's already getting in her foot inside already then they take her out and put me in are the women just taken out? no they just leave them with the other two terrorists the first image I have in my memory of them are you yelling anything to them? I told him I love you did you hear? yes did you answer? no we were already driving away what I remember is the red eyes fear, shock because you don't understand what's going on you see her with two terrorists and in captivity you think she is either dead or kidnapped there is no other option logically nothing two terrorists what are they doing with you? the two terrorists just walked away what's going on in the car? they just take us to Gaza the person sitting in front has a weapon aimed at us like this oh really? yes Ophir was kidnapped together with Yossi Yuval's father and a neighbor 16 year old Amit Chani 54 days in captivity he stayed close to his girlfriend's father and Yuval's father calms you down? yes he reassured us but obviously everyone is scared so it's calming only for a moment what do you do all day? play cards I can't look at another card what did you play? a game they taught us are the terrorists also playing with you? yes how did they act towards you? it is relative to a good situation we were not abused they were simply psychologically abused they keep saying they don't want you who doesn't want you? Israel there's only one demonstration in Israel there's only one demonstration for a week and the families don't want you to come back they don't take action or do anything you're going to stay here for at least a year things like that in your head you say it won't be a year for sure it'll be five months I figured I'd be back sometime were you afraid to die there? yes I was less afraid that they would kill me because if they wanted to kill me they probably would have killed me on the first day and they wouldn't care about bringing food what food really? there was no food a pita and a half in the morning yes with labneh so what scared you? from the booms around that the IDF doesn't know our location suddenly a missile would hit when it was near us was bombed it sounded like it hit ours one of the guards was informed that a relative of his had been killed you say to yourself just as long as it doesn't come back at us just don't come back at us it feels most difficult moments where terrorists move them twice through the heart of the city when they walk completely exposed in total darkness when all around non-stop explosions when they transferred you overnight? do you see Gazans? obviously yes it was a terrible fear how would you know who's going to turn on you? do you think they care? no they don't care about each other you know some extremist would kill me and the Hamasnik with me and did anyone come see you? they had their boss who would come and bring food once every two days who would bring a packet of pita bread whatever you eat you eat in these three days did he say anything to you? he would come and tell us again that they don't want us and all that he was the main one who was psychologically abusing us did you make a connection with one of them that was more pleasant? the one who guarded us was a bit better didn't he say something like death to the Jews? yes he did say that they know nothing other than that you try to explain to him say what do you want from me? I'm a kid from Israel so he told them a hundred times they said why are you in Israel? why did your family come to Israel? what did you answer? I told him my grandfather was born here then he tells me you're lying why would I lie? so I just said yes should I argue with him? do you see Sinoir? no, where? they told me this is Sinoir when they told me you are returning to Israel he pointed at someone he said this is Sinoir but he was so fat and didn't even look like him do you believe them when they tell you you are going back the next day? yes because they look happy and to get rid of you? yes we are quite a heavy burden for them what did you say to your father before you separated? nothing, we were separated in an instant oh just like this? yes, just like this I call her and tell her I'm fine, I'm alive everything is good what did she say to me? shave your beard and then call me did you see what he looked like? no, you were excited yes, yes until I saw him with my own eyes I couldn't believe it is there one moment that you cry or did you suddenly fall apart? I asked the soldier on the minibus to call her mother and her sisters and they told me they were fine everything is well with them I was in shock crying, falling apart? yes, that was the only thing I was worried about I was just shocked that he was there in front of me I collapsed for a second did it surprise you that she suddenly fell to the floor? yes, I think she was also a little shocked Ophir who played last year on the Apoel Jerusalem Youth Basketball team is a die-hard fan the team flew him and his family this week for a match against Pauk de Saloniki in the Champions League so I had this picture for two months on my shirt and he was in every square and to see him come out of all the demonstrations and the pictures and it comes out to something real on the court how do you say it? it's double happiness for us Ophir was locked trapped in Gaza for almost two months I don't think any of us expected him to be here I don't think his family expected I don't think he expected to see the smile on the face is not only Ophir but his family and to the other families that are here with us as well it moves me a lot Ophir and Yuval's joy at Apoel Jerusalem's victory at the game and the feeling of freedom in Belgrade is momentary the photos of Yuval's father Yossi and his brother Eli in Gaza never leave their mind it's a long road to recover but at least some of Israel's children have returned home we are out of time for this broadcast but we will see you again in only a half hour that's 12 o'clock local time for our next broadcast thanks for watching until then you can also catch more on www.i24news.tv and I'll see you again very soon Israel is in a state of war families completely gunned down in their beds we have no idea where she is our soldiers are fighting on the front line but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well good afternoon and welcome to i24news' ongoing coverage of Israel at war the IDF has announced they have taken out Hamas's top money man in an air strike Sufiha Farwana and his brother used their currency exchange to store as a front to transfer tens of millions of dollars directly to Hamas's military wing over the last few years the money changers took funds from Iran and laundered them through their business allowing Hamas to fund their war machine the announcement came today though Palestinian sources say the strike was on Thursday we're also still expecting a UN Security Council vote on a Gaza ceasefire resolution today the Arab sponsored resolution calls for a halt hostilities in Gaza but was delayed because the US said it would not pass with its earlier wording which did not condemn Hamas for its crimes against humanity the US holds veto power on the Security Council and now indications are that the wording could be changed to reflect a temporary pause rather than a permanent ceasefire the IDF also announced that two more soldiers were killed in combat in Gaza Master Sergeant Daniel Yakov Ben-Harosh and Captain Rotem Yosef raising the number of slain troops since the ground operation began to 131 Hamas also released a new propaganda video in which elderly hostages were forced to read a script demanding Israel give in to all Hamas's demands for their freedom we will not show this clear the video that Hamas released is a criminal terror video it testifies to Hamas's cruelty towards innocent, elderly civilians who are in need of medical care the world must act in order to deliver medical aid and check on the state of the hostages we are morally obliged to do every and all efforts in order to bring the hostages back home our heart is with all the hostages and their families all the hostages all the hostages and their families all the time Chaim, Yoram and Amiram I hope you hear me tonight know that we are doing everything everything in order to bring you back safely some of your family members are already home we will not rest until you too are returned and we're going to turn our eye to the southern border where our correspondent Pierre Kloschen there is standing by just on the border with the Gaza Strip and quite fiercely behind you right now, walk us through the latest developments we've seen there we've moved now to the northern sector of the Gaza Strip which was invaded by the Israeli ground forces starting from October 27 and yesterday the regiment of reserve soldiers 592 said that Bet Hanun which is just behind me is under full operational control of the IDF and that most tunnel and weapons infrastructures of Hamas have been annihilated but that doesn't seem to be the case as you're seeing right now there has been a airstrike on a presumed terror target quite close to the border actually in Bet Hanun which is about I would say three kilometers by bird eye view from where we are standing and that's been burning for quite a while it could be a weapons depot but we haven't seen secondary explosions but it could also be a workshop for manufacturing weapons for instance maybe it's some rubber that is burning we don't exactly know and that's the southern part of Bet Hanun closer to the Jabalia refugee camp where there are still fierce fighting and also air force strikes on the refugee camp further south in Jabalia fighting is also going on the army published a communique saying that they found in a clinic some weapons depot and that's not surprising because according to officers on the ground they're saying that Hamas operative are acting as civilians and just picking weapons in every building standing buildings there is a weapon depot and further south of course the fighting goes on fiercely in Hanunes which is according to the IDF estimates the place where the military and political leadership of Hamas is lying underground thank you very much Pierre for that report from the south of Gaza we are going to be coming back to you over the course of the day as the situation develops we now turn to Brigadier General Hanan Geffen former commander of the 8200 intelligence unit joining us now and also with us in studio is Kalef Ben-Davir, I-24 news host of the rundown we're going to open with you Brigadier General because I want to discuss one of the latest developments in Gaza itself that being the airstrike that was just announced that killed Hamas's top money man how significant is this over the past few years this is part of an ongoing effort to dismantle the Hamas capabilities and this gulfed a lot of targets starting from the tunnels commander to hospitals which hosted much of their activities now they are interrogating a few hospital managers 34 general managers of various hospitals and this go on and on going to the money of course finance is very important now it's targeting this funneling money to Gaza and this is an effort that try to dismantle to bring Hamas to a kind of separate groups in each town in each city in each facility and not a central commander and control system this is the aim and this is where it fits in this getting rid of this guy I want to continue on this a little bit because this was one small time money changing shop from the looks of things that was able to launder tens of millions of dollars so hitting this one guy certainly takes out a key piece but it seems very easy to set up other fronts yeah but that's why when we're speaking about the war the war will rage on for months not the intensity that we see right now in the southern part it will much less but it will be a war that will carry on for a long time I want to mention one thing because the coverage of the events in Gaza is very much restricted and it's controlled by the IDF trying to keep the Hamas in the black as possible we have from time to time the summary each the other day we have the summary of the work of this unit that unit and then we see a lot of activity in the meanwhile we see only the is clear to the eyes is this bombing or that bombing but this would be I say the coverage the constant coverage is only I would say try to make a risk 5% of what's really going on ground and this is it is done deliberately by the IDF to make sure that the Hamas does not Hamas leader do not know what is going on and how to prepare for it keeping them in the dark is one of the achievement that so far I would say it's not not typical to the Israeli the way Israel is behaved in the past it's a very Kalev would probably had much more experience in this but this is a very seldom situation which we have never I have never I just want to point out something I don't know if it's a coincidence but this strike this target of killing apparently he wasn't a car of this Hamas financier comes just days after this major New York time story claiming that the United States had given Israel information about a Hamas money international financial network and U.S. officials were quoted in that story surprised that Israel had not acted against this financial network I guess it does raise some hackles in Israel because the Prime Minister's office just the other day responded to that saying that it was incorrect the Mossad is constantly action against Hamas financial terror financing networks and then just a day after we suddenly get this news released about this target killing of Hamas financier so interesting coincidence I don't know what necessary to make about it about the media strategy it really is fascinating the IDF and there's been a lot of complaints from international media about the access that they've been trying to get from Hamas and how it's controlled how information comes out days later and there really does seem an effort and one reason is apparently just to keep real time information from the Hamas leadership you know we underestimate how much governments armies get information really just from the general media what everybody the public sees and this is one case where the IDF is trying to get the Hamas money back from the war very low to the ground in one Denai Hamas and also has to do with some of the diplomatic pressures being put on Israel given the circumstances in the Gaza theater both of you stay with me we're going to discuss just just let me brief the incident of the getting rid of this Hamas finance guy I believe it happens three or four days ago when a car was hit the Israeli one that car was hit with two people in Gaza now this is this is a result of a very long intelligence work and it cannot be an occasional offhand because targeted therefore probably took days to finalize it well we will discuss this a little bit more it's a lot of interesting questions raised right there but first we are going to take a look at the case where the Israeli correspondent Zach Anders is standing by on the border with Lebanon understand there's been some rocket fire very recently over that border and Israel responding with some shelling in Lebanon so walk us through what just happened and what the latest developments against Lebanon are last hour and a half it appears that one of the settlements here in the north of Matula was hit the IDF saying it's striking back in southern Lebanon at these positions and it again is just this daily dance that we see here in the north as Hezbollah gets closer as close as they can to this blue line the border between northern Israel and southern Lebanon fires with whatever weapons they can try and use to escape the intelligence gathering here the drones and the observation we see them use civilian vehicles to travel get out fire and then try and retreat and avoid these IDF retaliatory strikes well thank you very much for that update from the northern border Zach and I'm sure will be back with you over the course of the day as that situation develops further we're going to return to our discussion with Caleb as well as with Hanan Geffen I want to look at another issue what we're hearing now is that Hamas is making the demand that they will only negotiate for hostages as long as there is a ceasefire in place obviously a non-starter for Israel Israel saying they're demanding back the woman that were not released in the original exchange Hamas not wanting to release them due to the reputational damage the international terrorist group is going to sustain from their stories going public what do we make of this breakdown negotiations Hanan yeah first of all the negotiation in this round of talks and the other one is managed by the CIA and the Mossad which is a new entries in the past experience they were not involved the CIA and the Mossad are much stronger players in this game now I would say that Israel believe that Hamas is grasping for air Hamas is grasping for air they need ceasefire for as long as possible and they urge for this ceasefire while on the other in Israel will grant a very limited ceasefire you know measured by hours I would say days and not to let them off the hook and this is the game the Hamas believe that in the long run the public opinion you know the hostages case families and the toll of death in Israel will make it will take it for all as they have experienced in the past unfortunately and they believe it will happen this time they not expect they believe they are in a kind of they are in a concept now that Israel believe behave the same as it did in the last 15 years now Israel behave differently and I believe the counter-demand will be no way this is not not a no go with this kind of flame please present your list of prisoners because they are also suspect that Hamas is not controlling all the hostages does not know the world about all the hostages so Hamas please write the list of you are going to you can release and then we will discuss and see what period of time ceasefire we let you we let you have the follow up question is is that a realistic expectation do they really think is there that much pressure in Israeli society politically to demand the ceasefire in the face of allowing Hamas to survive well there is because there are the hostage families and we've heard it and there was a reason that we saw that video released of three elderly those three elderly gentlemen is because one of them the daughter of Chaim Perry just today has been quoted in Israeli media saying she is doubtful of her father and the other men surviving much longer in captivity they need treatment special medication they're older there are other hostages it's going to keep the pressure up it's going to leak information out like this video perhaps we'll hear reports of more hostages dying a lot of suspected that Hamas is concealing the deaths of some of the hostages so there is that time element that Hamas is going to play on but I agree with Hanan that right now the idea feels that a ceasefire would be very counterproductive as it's really closing in it would appear on the Hamas leadership that Hamas is taking by the way there is another player but he mentioned the Mossad and the CIA the heads of the Mossad and the CIA David Barnay and Bill Burns meeting and so there's a third player which is Qatar and the prime minister of Qatar was supposedly the third party in those discussions that they had just in Warsaw keep in mind the government was criticized there were reports of Benjamin Netanyahu perhaps vetoing a visit by the Mossad head to Doha to Qatar to hold talks there Israel has many issues with Qatar and support for Hamas so I think at least allowing the Mossad head to meet with the Qatari representative here in this case was one way of trying to alleviate that pressure so I expect we're going to see more meetings but I agree with Hanan I'm not confident anything's going to come out of them at this stage as long as we're talking about this pressure for a ceasefire there is another player in this that of course is the United Nations Security Council resolution that we are expecting to be voted on today this is based on Arab resolution that was demanding an immediate and lasting ceasefire between Israel and Hamas did not criticize Hamas by name for the October 7th massacre and of course the United States indicating they would veto any such resolution that didn't have massive changes to its wording well right now the discussion is what those wording changes might be whether or not ceasefire might be turned into a humanitarian pause which the United States could actually support I'm going to turn back to you Kalef to understand well what would the United States actually accept to not exercise its veto power well as you said maybe the phrasing humanitarian pause and by the way Israel already says it does do humanitarian pauses lasting for several hours during the course of the day and of course a strong condemnation specifically the actions of October 7th let's keep in mind that the non-binding resolution that was passed in the UN General Assembly last week that didn't even mention Hamas at all so of course the US passed that it's possible there will be something done but we have to see countries like Russia will allow that language about Hamas to be put in a resolution we'll have to have to look because of course Israel would prefer that the US veto any security council resolution relevant to this conflict if the US would veto even something a little more sort of vanilla let's say that could be sending a signal to the government of Benjamin Netanyahu sign if perhaps displeasure maybe about the discussion lack what the US sees as the lack of discussions about the so-called day after in Gaza and I'm going to turn back to Hanan on that because the big question is if there is another temporary pause like we saw last month how much pressure does that end up creating for a temporary pause to turn into a permanent pause given you've already seen one of these done Israel has moved on considerably in the fighting is there a real risk that any temporary pause at this point becomes a permanent one I don't see it I don't see it right now I cannot see it because what we see in Gaza yesterday was a very interesting event mentioned by Yoko's opponent in Gaza is that one of the reserve division 2-5-2 has finished the work in Bet-Khalun and handed over the responsibility to the Gaza territorial division now this is a very interesting military base that means that we are going to see how we are going to do it so what we are going to see in the future not in the future but weeks to come more and more territories are areas being given responsibility to territorial units that will be established or are already existing along the Gaza now this is an ongoing operation you cannot stop this operation because then what the Israeli public is so we have never been in such a situation and what so the option that the Israeli leadership is having and presenting to the Americans to the public of course to the Arab this will be going on in a small scale for months and years this is the preparation for the two or four day ceasefire that will not change anything it will not be a permanent that's for sure Israel cannot afford that's an existential problem it's nothing of luxury or other options this is the only option I believe the Americans understand it the French, the Germans, the Brits and even the Arab countries even the Arab countries Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates so on understanding and I believe even the the Palestinian Authority believes this is what is going to happen so let's see how it's going to develop in the few weeks I believe that there will not be any major decision to stop Israel altogether absolutely and we're going to continue that discussion when that becomes relevant as you said over the coming weeks but before that we have to cast our eyes to another arena also that's encircling Israel would be the Houthis the nations of the world finally banding together to stop the Iran-backed Houthi pirates from ending international shipping through the Bob Amendab Strait the United States announced that it would lead a 10 nation task force to end Houthi missile and drone attacks on international shipping at risk right now is a full 12% of global sea trade that is a threat to cripple the entire global economy that comes after oil titan BP which is responsible by the way for 20% of global oil trade announced a suspension of all of that oil trade through the Red Sea alongside multiple shipping giants including the global titan MERSC and it's notable because about 30% of Israel's imports pass through the Red Sea well here's from Lloyd Austin of the United States with the light blood of the rules base international order who's actually seawater countries have the right to move freely and lawfully in international order but that foundational global right is under new threat today from the totally unacceptable attacks on merchant vessels by the Houthis and Yemen so this morning we've launched Operation Prosperity Guardian under the umbrella of Combined Maritime Forces and under the leadership of Task Force 153 that operation is bringing together more than a dozen countries from around the world to conduct joint patrols in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden and we're going to open the discussion and back up with Kalev Kalev is it even possible to take on the Houthis without this escalating into a regional conflict that America does not want to say it depends on how far this coalition of well you heard the secretary say more than a dozen nations the only ten nations were actually named some important names missing there countries like Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia most directly affected by this to answer your question is how far they're willing to go are they going to simply just be a kind of maritime police force just acting in a defensive posture when a ship is being attacked by the ship or to shoot down missiles being launched from Yemen are they going to take offensive actions are they going to strike strikes in Yemen itself at missile sites maybe at some of their naval facilities that they may have on the shore or even go far as launching special forces operations in Yemen that kind of action could generate an escalation Iran could use its other proxies to attack for example escalate attacks on US forces Syria and Iraq and I'm going to toss the last question to you we have about a minute and a half left we're talking about all these Iranian proxies that Israel is going to have to confront but is there any real end to this without confronting Iran itself Iran is taking a very make of position they are inciting but then disappearing at the moment of decision there's something to the front the foreign minister the major speaker for Iran the foreign minister is is not a major figure in decision making in Iran now they let Hezbollah of the hook with this equation which they are losing daily where you have discussed it the hooties will stand up from the view of the of the spokesman which is resembling a Burak movie of Sasha Cohen and then in behind just declaration that they will enter any major war they have exhausted all the capabilities in this area in Syria and Lebanon hooties I believe that once they will target an American respond will be very offensive against their targets and it will be over I believe it will be over sooner than we believe well let's hope we finally see some end to this conflict hopefully sooner than any of us can expect that said thank you very much Hanan for your breakdown of the entire situation as we say it and to you as well Collab for understanding the various situations we're seeing internationally and for our audience though we are just about out of time but you can catch us online for so much more www.i24news.tv slash en for so much more and of course we have another broadcast coming up in just about a half hour that's one o'clock local time you're going to catch so much more on that so definitely stay tuned until then thank you so much for watching Israel is in a state of war families completely gun down in their beds we have no idea where is she as our soldiers are fighting on the front line but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well in Spanish the information of the war are exclusive interviews reports from the war zone the reaction of the Spanish-speaking countries the only media in Spanish that keeps you informed and connected with the Latin community in Israel only on www.i24news.tv www.i24news.tv www.i24news.tv the world brings the truth from Israel to hundreds of millions of people in scores of countries. Bringing Israel's story to the world, I-24 News Channels now on Hot. Good afternoon and welcome to I-24 News's ongoing coverage of Israel at war. I'm Ariel Levin Waldman. The IDF has announced they have taken out Hamas's top money man in an airstrike. Sufiih Farwana and his brother used their currency exchange to store their currency exchange store as a front to transfer tens of millions of dollars directly to Hamas's military wing over the last few years. The money changers took funds from Iran and laundered them through their business, allowing Hamas to fund their war machine. The announcement came today, though Palestinian sources say the strike happened on Thursday. We're also still expecting a UN security council vote on a Gaza ceasefire resolution today. The Arab-sponsored resolution calls for a halt to hostilities in Gaza, but was delayed because the U.S. said it would not pass with its earlier wording, which did not condemn Hamas for its crimes against humanity. The U.S. holds veto power on the security council and now indications are that the wording could be changed to reflect a temporary pause rather than a permanent ceasefire. The IDF also announced that two more soldiers were killed in combat in Gaza. Master Sergeant Daniel Yakov Ben-Harosh and Captain Rotem Yosef raising the number of slain troops since the ground operation began to 131. Hamas also released a new propaganda video in which elderly hostages were forced to read a script demanding Israel given to all Hamas's demands for their freedom. We will not show this clear psychological warfare video on our channel, but we will show Israel's response to it. The video that Hamas released is a criminal terror video. It testifies to Hamas's cruelty towards innocent elderly civilians who are in need of medical care. The world must act in order to deliver medical aid and check on the state of the hostages. We are morally obliged to do every and all efforts in order to bring the hostages back home. Our heart is with all the hostages and their families all the time. I hope you hear me tonight. Know that we are doing everything, everything in order to bring you back safely. Some of your family members are already home. We will not rest until you two are returned. And we're going to turn our eye to the southern border where our correspondent Pierre Kloschenler is standing by just on the border with the Gaza Strip. Pierre, there is something burning quite fiercely behind you right now. Walk us through the latest developments we've seen there. Okay, we've moved now to the northern sector of the Gaza Strip, which was invaded by the Israeli ground forces starting from October 27. And yesterday, the regiment of reserve soldiers 592 said that Beth Hanun, which is just behind me, is under full operational control of the IDF and that most tunnel and weapons infrastructures of Hamas have been annihilated. But that doesn't seem to be the case as you're seeing right now. There has been a a strike on a presumed target quite close to the border actually in Beth Hanun, which is about, I would say, three kilometers by bird eye view from where we are standing. And that's been burning for quite a while. It could be a weapons depot, but we haven't seen secondary explosions. But it could also be a workshop for manufacturing weapons, for instance. Maybe it's some rubber that is burning. We don't exactly know. And that's the southern part of Beth Hanun, closer to the Jebalia refugee camp where where there are still fierce fighting and also air force strikes on the refugee camp. Further south in Jebalia, fighting is also going on. The army published a communique saying that they found in a clinic some weapons depot. And that's not surprising because according to officers on the ground, they're saying that Hamas's operative are acting as civilians and just picking weapons in every building, standing buildings. There is a weapon depot. And further south, of course, the fighting goes on fiercely in Hanunez, which is according to the IDF estimates the place where the military and political leadership of Hamas is lying underground. Thank you very much, Pierre, for that report from the south of Gaza. We are going to be coming back to you over the course of the day as that situation develops. We now turn to Brigadier General Hanan Geffen, former commander of the 8200 Intelligence Unit joining us now and also with us in studio is Kalef Ben-Davir, I-24 News host of the rundown. We're going to open with you, Brigadier General, because I want to discuss one of the latest developments in Gaza itself, that being the airstrike that was just announced that killed Hamas's top money man. How significant is this? How have they moved funding over the past few years? Yeah, this is part of an ongoing effort to dismantle the Hamas capabilities. And this gulfed a lot of targets, you know, starting from the tunnels to commander, to hospitals which hosted most of the much of their activities. Now, they are interrogating a few hospital managers. I counted already four general managers of various hospitals. And this go on and on. Going to the money, of course, finance is very important. Now, it's targeting this, funneling money to Gaza. And this is an effort that tried to dismantle, to bring Hamas to a kind of separate groups in each town, in each city, in each facility and not a central command and control system. This is the aim and this is where it fits in, this getting rid of this guy. I want to continue on this a little bit, because this was one small time money changing shop from the looks of things that was able to launder tens of millions of dollars. So hitting this one guy certainly takes out a key piece, but it seems very easy to set up other fronts. Yeah, but that's why when we're speaking about the war, the war will wage on for months, not the intensity that we see right now in the southern part. It will much less, but it will carry on for a long time. I want to mention one thing, because the coverage of the events in Gaza is very much restricted and in control by the IDF, trying to keep the Hamas in the black as possible. We have from time to time, the summary, each the other day, we have a summary of the work of this unit, that unit, and then we see a lot of activity. In the meanwhile, we see only that is clear to the eye, is this bombing or that bombing. But this would be, I say, the coverage, the constant coverage is only, I would say, try to make a list, five percent of what's really going on ground. And this is done deliberately by the IDF to make sure that the Hamas does not, Hamas leader, do not know what is going on and how to prepare for it. Keeping them in the dark is one of the achievements that so far, I would say, it's not typical to the Israeli, the way Israelis behaved in the past. It's a very, I would say, Kalev would probably have had much more experience in this. But this is a very seldom situation, which I have never witnessed before. Right. I'll just add a minute. I just want to point out something. I don't know if it's a coincidence, but this strike, this target of killing, apparently he wasn't a car of this Hamas financier, comes just days after this major New York Times story claiming that the United States had given Israel information about a Hamas money international financial network. And U.S. officials were quoted in that story, surprised that Israel had not acted against this financial network. I guess it does raise some hackles in Israel because the prime minister's office just the other day responded to that, saying that it was incorrect. The Mossad is constantly taking action against Hamas financial tariff financing networks. And then just a day after we suddenly get this news released about this target killing of a Hamas financier. So interesting coincidence. I don't know what necessary to make about it. About Hanan's point, the media strategy, it really is fascinating. The IDF, and there's been a lot of complaints from international media about the access that they've been given in Gaza, how controlled it is, how information comes out days later. And there really does seem an effort. And one reason is apparently just to keep real time information from the Hamas leadership. We underestimate how much governments, armies, get information really just from the general media, what everybody in the public sees. And this is one case where the IDF is trying to sort of just keep the fog of war very low to the ground in what denies Hamas and also has to do with some of the diplomatic pressures being put on Israel, given the circumstances in the Gaza theater. Both of you stay with me. We're going to discuss. Just let me brief. The incident of the getting rid of this Hamas finance guy, I believe it happened three or four days ago when a car was hitting Rafa. There was a report on the Arab media. I didn't see the Israeli one that car was hit with two people in Gaza. Now, this is a result of a very long intelligence work and it cannot be occasional offhand because the target, therefore, probably took days to finalize it. Well, we will discuss this a little bit more. It's a lot of interesting questions raised right there. But first, we are going to take a look at the northern border. Our correspondent, Zach Anders, is standing by on the border with Lebanon. I want to understand there's been some rocket fire very recently over that border and Israel responding with some shelling in Lebanon. So walk us through what just happened and what the latest developments against Lebanon are. Last hour and a half, it appears that one of the settlements here in the north, Matula, was hit by rocket fire. Potential interceptions still working out some of those details. The projectile was launched at Matula. The IDF saying it's striking back in southern Lebanon at these positions. And it, again, is just this daily dance that we see here in the north as Hezbollah gets closer or as close as they can to this blue line, the border between northern Israel and southern Lebanon fires with whatever weapons they can try and use to escape the intelligence gathering here, the drones and the observation balloons. Most often, we see them use civilian vehicles to travel, get out, fire, and then try and retreat and avoid these IDF retaliatory strikes. Well, thank you very much for that update from the northern border. Zach, I'm sure, will be back with you over the course of the day as that situation develops further. We're going to return to our discussion with Caleb as well as with Hanan Geffen. I want to look at another issue. What we're hearing now is that talks between Israel and Qatar, this hostage negotiation, have reached an impasse and are starting to break down over some intractable issues. Hamas is making the demand that they will only negotiate for hostages as long as there is a ceasefire in place. Obviously, a non-starter for Israel. Israel is saying they're demanding back the woman that were not released in the original exchange. Hamas not wanting to release them due to the reputational damage the international terrorist group is going to sustain from their stories going public. What do we make of this breakdown in negotiations, Hanan? First of all, the negotiation in this one of talks and the other one is managed by the CIA and the Mossad, which is a new entry in the past experience. They were not involved. The CIA and the Mossad are much stronger players in this game. Now, I would say that Israel believed that Hamas is grasping for air. Hamas is grasping for air. They need ceasefire for as long as possible and they urge for this ceasefire while on the other in Israel will grant a very limited ceasefire, measured by hours, I would say, days, hardy days, not to let them off the hook. This is the game. Hamas believed that in the long run, the public opinion, the hostages case families and the toll of death in Israel will take it all. As they have experienced in the past, unfortunately, and they believe it will happen this time, they believe they are in a concept now that Israel behaved the same as it did in the last 15 years. Now Israel behaved differently. I believe the counter-demand will be no way. This is not a no-go with this kind of flame. Please present your list of prisoners because they are also suspected that Hamas is not controlling all the hostages, does not know the world about all the hostages. Hamas, please write the list of you are going to, you can release and then we will discuss and see what period of time ceasefire will let you have. I'm going to turn to you, Caleb, because the follow-up question is, is that a realistic expectation? Do they really think, is there that much pressure in Israeli society, politically, to demand a ceasefire in the face of allowing Hamas to survive? Well, there is, because there are the hostage families and we've heard it and there was a reason that we saw that video released of three elderly, those three elderly gentlemen, is because one of them, the daughter of Cheyenne Perry just today has been quoted in Israeli media saying she's doubtful of her father and the other men surviving much longer in captivity. They need treatment, special medication, they're older, there are other hostages. I suspect Hamas is going to keep the pressure up, it's going to leak information out. Like this video, perhaps we'll hear reports of more hostages dying, a lot of suspected that Hamas is concealing the deaths of some of the hostages. So there is that time element that Hamas is going to play on. But I agree with Hanan that right now the idea feels that a ceasefire would be very counterproductive as it's really closing in, it would appear on the Hamas leadership in Hanayunas. By the way, there is another player, but he mentioned the Mossad and the CIA, the heads of the Mossad and the CIA, David Barnay and Bill Burns meeting in Warsaw. There's a third player, which is Qatar, and the prime minister of Qatar was supposedly the third party in those discussions that they had just in Warsaw. Keep in mind the government was criticized. There were reports of Benjamin Netanyahu perhaps vetoing a visit by the Mossad head to Doha, to Qatar to hold talks there. Israel has many issues with Qatar and support for Hamas. So I think at least allowing the Mossad head to meet with the Qatari representative here in this case was one way of trying to alleviate that pressure. So I expect we're going to see more meetings, but I agree with Hanan. I'm not confident anything's going to come out of them at this stage. As long as we're talking about this pressure for a ceasefire, there is another player in this. That, of course, is the United Nations Security Council resolution that we are expecting to be voted on today. This is based on an Arab resolution that was demanding an immediate and lasting ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Did not criticize Hamas by name for the October 7th massacre. And, of course, the United States indicating they would veto any such resolution that didn't have massive changes to its wording. Well, right now the discussion is what those wording changes might be, whether or not ceasefire might be turned into a humanitarian pause, which the United States could actually support. I'm going to turn back to you, Kalef, to understand, well, what would the United States actually accept to not exercise its veto power? Well, as you said, maybe the phrasing humanitarian pause, and by the way, Israel already says it does do humanitarian pauses, lasting for several hours during the course of the day. And, of course, a strong condemnation of Hamas, specifically the actions of October 7th. Let's keep in mind that the non-binding resolution that was passed in the UN General Assembly last week, that didn't even mention Hamas at all. So, of course, the U.S. passed that. It's possible there will be something done, but we have to see if countries like Russia will allow that language about Hamas to be put in a resolution. We'll have to look because, of course, Israel would prefer that the U.S. veto any Security Council resolution relevant to this conflict. If the U.S. would veto even something a little more sort of vanilla, let's say, that could be sending a signal to the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, sign of perhaps displeasure, maybe about the discussion, what the U.S. sees as the lack of discussions about the so-called day after in Gaza. And I am going to turn back to Hanan on that, because the big question is, if there is another temporary pause, like we saw last month, how much pressure does that end up creating for a temporary pause to turn into a permanent pause, given you've already seen one of these done? Israel has moved on considerably in the fighting. Is there a real risk that any temporary pause at this point becomes a permanent one? Don't see it. I don't see it right now. I cannot see it, because what we see in Gaza, yesterday was a very interesting event mentioned by Yoko Spondak in Gaza, is that one of the reserve division, 2-5-2, has finished the work at Bet-Khalun and handed over the responsibility to the Gaza territorial division. Now, this is a very interesting military phase that means that we are going, this is how we are going to do it. So what we are going to see in the future, and not in the future, but weeks to come, more and more territories are areas being given responsibility to territorial units that will be established or are already existing along the Gaza Strait. Now, this is an ongoing operation. You cannot stop this operation, because then what? You're finished and sacrificed that much. The Israeli public is so, you know, we have never been in such a situation, and what? So the option that the Israeli leadership is having and presenting to the Americans, to the public, of course to the Arab, that this will be a war going on in a small scare for months and years. Years. This is the preparation. So if there will be a two or four day ceasefire, that will not change anything. It will not be a permanent, that's for sure. Israel cannot afford. That's an existential problem. It's nothing of no luxury, no other options. This is the only option. I believe the Americans understand it, the French, the German, the Brits, and even, you know, even the Arab countries, so on, you guys understand it. Egypt, Saudi Arabia's Emirates, so on, understand it. And I believe even the Palestinian authority believes that this is what is going to happen. So let's see how it's going to develop in the few weeks. I believe that there will not be any major decision to stop Israel altogether. Absolutely. And we're going to continue that discussion when that becomes relevant, as you said, over the coming weeks. But before that, we have to cast our eyes to another arena. Also, that's encircling Israel would be the Houthis. The nations of the world finally banding together to stop the Iran-backed Houthi pirates from ending international shipping through the Bob Amandab Strait. The United States announced that it would lead a 10 nation task force to end Houthi missile and drone attacks on international shipping. At risk right now is a full 12% of global sea trade. That is a threat to cripple the entire global economy. The announcement comes after oil tight and BP, which is responsible, by the way, for 20% of global oil trade announced a suspension of all of that oil trade through the Red Sea, alongside multiple shipping giants, including the global Titan mask. And it's notable because about 30% of Israel's imports passed through the Red Sea. Well, here's from Lloyd Austin of the United States. With the light blood of the rules-based international order, who's actually seawater? All the countries have the right to move freely and lawfully in international orders. But that foundational global right is under new threat today from the totally unacceptable attacks on merchant vessels by the Houthis in Yemen. So this morning, we've launched Operation Prosperity Guardian under the umbrella of Combined Maritime Forces and under the leadership of Task Force 153. That operation is bringing together more than a dozen countries from around the world to conduct joint patrols in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. And we're going to open the discussion and back up with Calaf. Calaf is it even possible to take on the Houthis without this escalating into a regional conflict that America does not want to say? It depends on how far this coalition of, well, you heard the Secretary say more than a dozen nations, though only 10 nations were actually named, some important names missing there, countries like Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, most directly affected by this. To answer your question, it's how far they're willing to go? Are they going to simply just be a kind of maritime police force just acting in a defensive posture when a ship is being attacked to come to the rescue of the ship or to shoot down missiles being launched from Yemen? Or are they going to take offensive actions? Are they going to strike, strike in Yemen itself at missile sites, maybe at some of their naval facilities that they may have on the shore, or even go far as launching special forces operations in Yemen? That kind of action could generate an escalation Iran could use its other proxies to attack, for example, escalate attacks on U.S. forces in places like Syria and Iraq. And I'm going to toss the last question to you, Hanan. We have about a minute and a half left. We're talking about all these Iranian proxies that Israel is going to have to confront, but is there any real end to this without confronting Iran itself? Well, Iran is taking a very, say, back off position. They are inciting, but then disappearing at the moment of decision. You know, they're sending to the front the foreign minister as a major speaker for Iran. The foreign minister is not a major figure in decision making in Iran. Now, they let Hezbollah of the hook with this equation, which they are losing daily, where you have discussed it. The Houthis will stand up from a deal of the Spokesman, which is a resembling a Burak movie of Sasha Cohen. And then in behind just declaration, I don't believe that they will enter any major war. They've exhausted all the capabilities in this area, in Syria, in Lebanon, in Houthis. I believe, as Khalif said, that once they will target an American ship, their response will be very offensive against their targets. And it will be over, I believe it will be over sooner than we believe. Well, let's hope we finally see some end to this conflict, hopefully sooner than any of us can expect. That said, thank you very much, Hanan, for your breakdown of the entire situation, as we say it. And to you as well, Khalif, for understanding the various situations we're seeing internationally. And for our audience, though, we are just about out of time. But you can catch us online for so much more, www.i24news.tv slash en for so much more. And of course, we have another broadcast coming up in just about a half hour. That's one o'clock local time. You're going to catch so much more on that. So definitely stay tuned. Until then,