 Israel's story must reach the whole world. The I-24 News Channel, broadcasting from Israel, with dozens of correspondents throughout the world brings the truth from Israel to hundreds of millions of people in scores of countries bringing Israel's story to the world. Good afternoon and welcome to I-24 News' coverage of Israel at War. I'm Arielle Levin Waldman. Heavy fighting continues across Gaza with 200 airstrikes reported over the last day, with the concentration of that on Khan Yunus Hamas' key stronghold in the south of Gaza. On the ground, raids in North Gaza, the Jabalia fortified sector uncover yet another militarized hospital used as a terror base by Hamas, the Kamal Adwan Hospital, revealed an array of weapons used by the elite Nukba commandos, the same death squads that commit the October 7th massacre and crimes against humanity. Kalashnikov assault rifles, RPGs, IEDs and far more, alongside key intelligence documents, more Hamas tunnels found under UNRF facilities. Let's take a closer look at what IDF soldiers found in that hospital. And we turn now to our senior defense correspondent Jonathan Regev, who is standing by just on the southern border between Israel and Gaza. Jonathan, walk us through the latest developments we're hearing in the fighting there. Constant fighting right where we are, we've been hearing the artillery, the bombardment all morning. We are adjacent to the Palestinian towns of Bet-Khanon and also the neighborhoods of Jabalia and a bit further to the southeast of Jaya, which has been in the headlines unfortunately for the past week, constant, constant artillery. The same is true also for areas further south in the area of Hanyones. At least here in the northern Gaza Strip, what is above the ground is practically taken over by the IDF, but the danger lies under the ground in every possible alleyway, home, street, a shaft, a terror shaft could appear and the terrorists come up just for a few seconds, shoot with the rifle, with an anti-tank missile, with anything they have and disappear back down. The challenge is to find these shafts, the challenge is to stay safe while looking for these shafts and it's a very complicated issue. And what is the military doing to actually neutralize the underground threat and break Hamas's fortifications? We hear that the military just approved using flood water to do so, but are there any other plans in the works? The plans are basically trying to locate these tunnels as much as possible. We've seen how the IDF was able actually to target people that are inside tunnels. A lot depends on intelligence. It's the intelligence that has to lead the IDF to these tunnels and then once they're found, yes, flood them, yes, explode them, many, many issues, but before you actually deal with them, you have to find them. And what does military intelligence currently believe regarding the hostages? Are they being held in those tunnels? Still, are they being held above ground? I've seen some conflicting reports over the last few days. I think the answer is both, sometimes above the ground, sometimes under the ground. What we do know for sure is that the hostages are constantly being moved from one place to another. We've heard from the hostages that came back from Gaza some two weeks ago. Hamas understands very well that if the hostages are held by the terrorists in one place, then there's a good chance they might be found. That is why they're constantly, constantly being moved from one place to another. Sometimes over the ground, sometimes below it. Thank you very much, Jonathan, from that report from the front. We'll be back with you as events unfold over the course of the day. We're going to the north now, where Hezbollah, the terror organization in Lebanon, is again firing anti-tank missiles at Kibbutzim along the northern border. There are no reports of injuries in the last round, though significant property damage has been done. For more on this, we are joined by our correspondent Zach Anders, who is standing by on the northern border. What can you tell us about the latest developments there? Yeah, we're still waiting on that full assessment from earlier strikes throughout the morning and afternoon here. One of them taking place without a red alert, that's something we've seen occasionally happen here. The ability to provide that warning is not always there, especially for these communities that are just on the blue line, that border between Lebanon and Israel here. So this is coming after yesterday's very active day with a handful of strikes. Many of them Hezbollah claimed responsibility for as well as the death of a 50-year-old male soldier, a reservist, and the injury of two others in a drone infiltration that two drones penetrated Israeli airspace. The IDF says they were able to intercept one, the other, apparently a direct hit, this doing quite a bit of damage to the structures around, of course, injury and killing that one soldier. Zach, given that you're on the northern border and that is one of the major escalation points that military intelligence, as well as the entire international community fears, could explode into a full war, what have we heard from inside Lebanon? What have we heard from the United States on the idea of this escalating into a regional war in recent days? It does seem, by accounts coming out of Beirut, that there is some frenzied effort to reach a diplomatic solution and that the pressure is being applied heavily by the U.K., the U.S. and France. They're attempting to instill within the central, the political factions in Lebanon the impetus for making sure the UN 1701 agreement somehow becomes the reality here. They want to work within that existing framework. This is something that the United Nations would then have the capacity somewhat to enforce because they have, by many accounts, thousands of peacekeepers in the south of Lebanon. It's unclear the exact numbers of peacekeepers since October 7th. We've noted some movement from the unifil, this interim forces in Lebanon that's hardly been interim. They've been there since the late 70s, but the United Nations will play a key role it seems in whatever is happening here. They have in the past been responsible for monitoring the shipment of arms in southern Lebanon and have done that job to some success in the past, especially directly after the 2006 Lebanon war when their role became elevated. So it does appear that the stakeholders involved, these other nations are pushing for the UN forces on the ground and the LAF, the Lebanese armed forces, to be the main role, the main security provider in the south of Lebanon. Problem there, how do you get Hezbollah to agree and to move themselves willingly out of the area? That's going to be the major challenge for everybody. Zach, thank you very much for that update from the north. The Israeli Defense Force is conducting a formal investigation after three hostages were gunned down by two combat soldiers in Shezaiyah. Initial investigations found the hostages had managed to escape their captors and were approaching an IDF position unarmed, shirtless and waving a white flag. One soldier shouted that they were terrorist and open fire, killing two of the hostages instantly. While a second soldier shot the third hostage as he fled. The IDF said the soldier's use of force was in clear violation of IDF rules of engagement and soldiers have testified that Hamas has staged ambushes using false surrenders in the past. The forces on the ground are battling terrorists and right after that incident they were encounters with terrorists in the same area. Terrorists wearing civilian clothing, terrorists preparing explosives, terrorists attempting attacks to draw the soldiers in to kill them. That's the fighting situation under great pressure therein. What led to the possibility for these hostages to escape their captors or be abandoned by them is the ground operation and nothing else. That is why we must understand that we could have many more opportunities like this one and we must be careful in order to reach a different result. Joining us now to help explain further is Major Elliot Chodoff, political and military analyst. Major, it's good to have you with us. This incident is one of the darkest marks in the IDF's operational history, at least so it feels from inside Israel. If we look at this, how exactly did this happen? Well, I think that there are a number of factors involved and let me start by saying none of them excused, but perhaps explain what happened. The first is, let's say the most obvious, the pressure of being in a combat zone surrounded by enemies, in constant combat, seeing friends getting killed and wounded. The adrenaline level is extremely high and that in and of itself creates the background, let's say, for this kind of a situation. But I want to take it a step further and something that I haven't seen discussed in any of the reports that I've seen. We're talking about soldiers who have been in more or less constant combat for some 70 days now. And I think that the combination of fatigue as well as sleep deprivation and something we also don't talk about very much, but these soldiers are not getting enough sleep and over time that becomes cumulative. One of the direct effects of that is poor decision-making. And that's known from tests. I was actually involved many, many years ago in a study in the US military. One of the early conclusions was that individual and command decision-making becomes quicker and poorer as you go deeper and deeper into issues with loss of sleep. So I think that that's an additional explanation to a soldier who certainly did not mean to shoot hostages or soldiers, apparently there were two different ones. And even, I think we can say with certainty, even if they hadn't been hostages under the circumstances, they shouldn't have been fired upon. The problem is it feels more and more that this is not exactly an isolated incident. We saw in Jerusalem the armed civilian that neutralized a terrorist shot dead by an IDF reservist. In fact, something like 11% of battlefield losses from the IDF in this war have been friendly fire incidents. Okay, so here we should make a distinction. Friendly fire, I hate that term. In Hebrew we say fire one upon the other or two different sides. But friendly fire incidents in urban combat are part of the reality of a very difficult situation of knowing who's where at any given moment. Let me give you an example of what I mean by that. In open ground warfare, when units are moving independently, you know that your right flank is adjacent to his left flank. And everybody, let's say to the right of me is friendly and continuing. In urban warfare, if units are moving in parallel along parallel streets, the space in between them is a dead zone. And crossing over the line between them because it's blocked by an urban area by buildings is much more complicated, much more difficult, and confrontations are also at much closer range. So somebody pops out of a doorway, the error of fire under those circumstances, or seeing somebody move in an area, let's say using a drone or observation, an area that is very, very hard to determine exactly where it is. Streets are filled with rubble, buildings are knocked down. So old maps may or may not be or even aerial photographs may or may not be particularly accurate. They're all tragic, but I would say that the numbers here are within what would be expected in this kind of urban combat, though I believe they could be reduced. Now, one of the things we saw is the military saying that some new terms, new rules of engagement were issued after this incident that are supposed to prevent that. What exactly does that mean? What do we know about these new rules? Look, the new rules basically are adding something that the army didn't take into account, and that is that people walking around may actually be hostages. Now, again, this has to be kept in the context of Hamas using all sorts of means to draw out Israeli soldiers, but certainly, and that includes sending people out and making them look like hostages, they had dolls and loudspeakers the other day with children speaking Hebrew. It's a very dirty business, but additional rules would mean pause, take into account these people actually might be hostages before you automatically engage them as enemy. It's another factor. It's an additional step, and I think a very important one. Major, we're talking about this because hindsight is always 20-20, but there's the flip side of this very argument, which is we put all of this onus on the soldiers in the field to make the correct decision. What happens if they're double thinking that they're thinking about what their actions might do and they're second guessing themselves when somebody pops out of that building in that dead zone and it's not a friendly? Is it going to cost us? It might. I would hope not. And here again, I think that if the situation, the tragic situation that just happened had been that they simply popped up and as a reflex reaction they were shot, I'd say, you know what, that would really be one of those unfortunate, there's nothing you can do about it, battlefield realities. So I would hope that the instruction, the rule, and what's followed is that a soldier who's surprised will respond automatically to that surprise as if it's hostile, but in any chance to make a decision, any chance to analyze the situation, certainly undercover and protecting themselves to give that additional one step in between and say, okay, perhaps these are hostages, perhaps these are innocents, let's see if we can freeze the situation. And of course, reversing that instantaneously, pretending not to be the case, but let's freeze the situation as best we can and try to determine who these people really are. Thank you very much, Elliot, for helping us understand a very complicated and very, very upsetting to many situation. Absolutely. We're going to continue another question on this topic with Neri Zilber, a journalist and adjunct fellow in the Washington Institute for a Near East Policy. One of the things that we've seen come from this very regrettable and unfortunate incident is a rethinking among Israel's public, at least some of this public, about the war itself. The Families Forum, for instance, spearheading the idea that no, the military cannot save the hostages, demanding ceasefire now. This could spread. Could this potentially undermine the entire war? So you make a bullet point in the sense that the one incident by that one or two or three Israeli soldiers on Friday, tragically killing those three hostages that broke free, could escalate into a strategic event in terms of the conduct of the war. Now, we did see the families over the weekend demand not a ceasefire now, but a deal now. In other words, don't tell us, the families say, that further ground offensive, further military pressure will be conducive and lead to another hostage release deal, as we saw last month. They don't want to hear about that anymore due to the events of Friday and also previous events where hostages were actually killed while in captivity by Hamas. They want a deal now. And so you have that versus the government's position, which is still very much continue the war, continue the military pressure on Hamas, and that will lead to a hostage release deal. A very difficult situation, very much on the part of the hostage families who want their relatives obviously released. But the question remains, is there an actual deal to be had? It takes two to actually strike that deal. The Israeli government, for its own purposes, may be willing to strike a deal, but also it's a question of on what terms. Hamas has been very consistent from the beginning. It's willing to release all the hostages in theory held in Gaza in return for the release of all the Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. That's over six or seven thousand people. That's going to be very difficult to deal with. Now, you stay with us. We're going to shift arenas for a moment. This is as Israel is intensifying its outreach to allies to help with handling the growing regional threats. Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthi, rebel strikes, or commercial ships. Well, a key foreign dignitary is in Israel to meet with local officials and our senior correspondent. Owen Alterman was at Ben-Gurion Airport to report. Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen met with his French counterpart Catherine Colonna here at Ben-Gurion Airport earlier on in the day. They spoke at the podiums you see behind me and had this to say, Eli Cohen, about the issue of calls for a ceasefire in Gaza. The Hamas organization celebrate last week's UN General Assembly resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire. No wonder they celebrate it. It's exactly what they wish for. Let me send a clear message to the international community, to the UN member states. If a teleorganization celebrates your decision, it means you have made a wrong decision. That's a charged message with the French Foreign Minister standing next to Eli Cohen. Of course, the French government at a relatively early stage through President Emmanuel Macron himself, having come out and called for that ceasefire that the Israeli government sees at this stage as so unwanted. On another issue, the two sides may well see eye-to-eye the issue of Israel's northern border and finding a diplomatic arrangement to move Hisbola's military presence away from the border north of the Letani River. Here's what Foreign Minister Colonna had to say to a question from I-24 News. I'll be in Beirut tomorrow and France, just like its partners, is calling on its Lebanese counterparts to do everything they can to avoid a flare-up in Lebanon. That would make it the first victim. And I'll be bringing that message to Beirut. Our partners there, I believe, feel similarly. I would like to add that very clear messages have been sent to Hezbollah as well, so that the security of Israel, end of Lebanon, I must add, should not be threatened even more. For the Israeli government, this is a tricky visit. On one hand, the deep disagreements about the war in Gaza, even with the full-throated expressions of support for the Israeli public from Foreign Minister Colonna, the fact that the French government has come out as such an important European power calling for a ceasefire, obviously brings in tension with the Israeli government. On the other hand, I think the understanding in Israel that the French government is certainly not a hostile actor, and also has an important role to play in the diplomacy with Lebanon, given France's ties with Lebanon and its special relationship with Lebanon, and the expressed desire of the Israeli government through the statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday night, and the statements here at these podiums from Foreign Minister Eli Cohen earlier on today that the Israeli government wants a diplomatic solution in Lebanon as a plan A and a military operation only as a plan B. Owen Alterman, I-24 News, at Ben-Gurion International Airport. And we're going to return to Neri Zilber in the studio with us. France definitely has some pull with Lebanon, but the Lebanese government isn't calling the shots here. Hezbollah is. So what can France really do in this situation? So France, alongside the Biden administration, I've been trying now for several weeks to put together at least the initial framework of a deal that would de-escalate tensions between Israel and not even Lebanon. It's Israel and Hezbollah on the Israel-Lebanon frontier. The broad contours of it may look like something like pulling Hezbollah forces back, not to the Litany River, which is several dozen kilometers north from the Israel border, but perhaps five kilometers from the Israel border. And in return, there may be a demarcation officially of the Israel-Lebanon border, maybe a few corrections here and there, something that Hezbollah could use domestically and also regionally to say, okay, we got something for this quote-unquote concession, moving back off the Israel-Lebanon border. We have to remember, as was mentioned earlier, there is, in theory, a UN Security Council resolution passed in 2006, 1701, that calls on Hezbollah to move back beyond the Litany River. No forces in southern Lebanon other than the Lebanese armed forces, the Lebanese army, and UN peacekeepers. That's been violated completely by Hezbollah over the past decade. And so in and of itself, that resolution isn't quite not worth the paper it's written on. So they're trying the French and the Americans are to find something else that made de-escalate tensions. The problem is that feels so much like delaying the inevitable rather than a real solution. It's delaying what could be a very severe, bloody, and deadly fight between Israel and Hezbollah. Israel has been at war with Gaza for 70-plus days, skirmishes on the northern border every day of that with Hezbollah. But a full escalation, a full war with Hezbollah would look very different than what Israel experienced now. And nobody in Israel quite wants to see that come to fruition. So if there is a diplomatic channel, then that has to be pursued. And as a fallback, the military option. Let's hope the last resort doesn't become inevitable. We're going to change arenas yet again, two of the world's largest shipping firms, the Mediterranean Shipping Company and CMA, CGM have announced on Saturday. They're suspending the passage to the Red Sea after attacks by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen on the area. The announcement follows similar decisions by other major shipping companies, which threatens freedom of navigation in one of the world's most vital trade arteries. Middle East correspondent Aria Al-Saran has more. The world's biggest shipping companies are diverting their ships away from the Red Sea amid increased attacks by the Houthis in Yemen. The tidal wave of announcements comes as the U.S. and British navies shot down 15 suspected attack drones over the Red Sea on Saturday. The Iranian-backed Houthis said they launched a large batch of drones at Israel's southern city of Elat and will continue their attacks as long as the war in Gaza carries on. The Yemeni armed forces shoe all ships heading to all ports around the world, except for the Israeli ports, that they won't be harmed but must keep their identifying devices open. The Mediterranean shipping carrier MSC, along with French CMA-CGM, said on Saturday that they were suspending passage to the Red Sea. This followed similar steps by Danish shipping giant Maersk, German-based chipper Hapa-Gloyd, Taiwanese Yang Ming and Israeli shipping line Tsim, raising concern over the impact of the flow of goods through the major global trade corridor connecting Asia and Europe. The Houthis represent a material threat to freedom of navigation, to commercial shipping, to lawful commerce, and they're doing so in a vital artery there at the Babo Mandib and into the Red Sea. And the United States is working with the international community, with partners from the region and from all over the world to deal with this threat. Despite the expected blow to its economy, Israeli leaders say they will respond to the Houthis' attacks in due course. We are ready to act. We know what to do, and we will find the right timing to act. We are giving a chance in the maritime issue to the international system. If we reach a situation where we are the last option, we will know what to do. And so, as the scale and frequency of Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping reach unprecedented levels, the Pentagon is reportedly weighing its striking options. But after years of reluctance to act against Iran's proxies, these steps might turn out to be too little and too late. And before we go on a short three-minute break, we're going to bring you some visuals of the Rafah crossing where international aid has been delivered into Gaza. Now, you can see those trucks being more or less mobbed by the massive amounts of Palestinians struggling to get their bare necessities over the course of the past few weeks of war. We have heard stories of Hamas stealing all humanitarian aid that was meant for the civilian populations of Gaza and turning that aid towards the war effort. While people in the streets say they have been left to starve. Well, here you can see them attempting to remedy that by grabbing it directly, rather than waiting for it to go through any sort of distribution channel. Now, we are going on a break. Now, we will see you in just three minutes, so stay with us. Israel is in a state of war. Families completely done down in their beds. We have no idea where is she. As our soldiers are fighting on the front lines, but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well. And thank you all for staying with us. We're going to open once again with Neri Zilber, journalist and adjunct fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy to talk about the threat posed by the Houthis. We've been warning now for a while of what they might do to international shipping, and we're seeing it come to fruition with almost every single shipping company you can think of pulling out of the area. At what point is an international response necessary? Well, now, because we have to remember these aren't Israeli ships, by any stretch of the imagination, and all these ships have no relation to Israel. We're not heading to Israel. They're heading to other places either in the Middle East or in Europe or back to Asia. So this behooves the United States, along with all the international actors that have a naval presence in the Red Sea and in the Middle East, to bind together and to stop the Houthis from doing this, whether through dialogue or likely military force. And so what we see now from Yemen via the Houthis, since really the beginning of the war, they fired ballistic missiles and drones at Israel, despite the fact that Israel is not at war with Yemen. And now they're targeting shipping, heading into and out of the Red Sea to harm Israel and to harm the port of Elat in southern Israel. That is a declaration of war against Israel. We have to remember back before the 1967 Six-Day War, the attempt to stop that very straight, the Babel Mandem at the southern end of the Red Sea was a declaration of war by Egypt against Israel, which prompted Israel to attack Egypt. I mean, I guess the follow-up question is that why we have not seen them act yet, but with the United States finally saying that they're thinking about strike missions that could be changing the near future. There's a clear answer to that because the Houthis were likely retaliated against Saudi Arabia and the UAE and other actors close to Yemen. That's the likely answer and the honest answer. At which point we are in the situation of regional war the United States wanted to prevent. We're going to change topics now as well, though. Heartbreak in Israel after three hostages were killed in a case of mistaken identity. Now families demand an immediate deal for the release of those still held by the Hamas terror group. These families marched in Tel Aviv demanding an end to the fighting so that negotiations can begin. They rejected the idea that military force will bring Hamas to the negotiating table. Hamas has vowed that there will be no negotiations until a permanent ceasefire has been reached. The position of the Israeli state is that Hamas cannot be allowed to endure as the group has vowed to commit more raids, kidnappings, and massacres modeled on October 7th that killed 1,200 Israelis, the overwhelming majority of which were civilians and in the cruelest and most sadistic ways possible. It is believed the terrorists still hold 128 hostages spread across Gaza, not all of whom are still alive. Prime Minister Netanyahu reiterated he will not succumb to Hamas's demands. Without the military pressure, we would not have succeeded in creating an outline that led to the release of 110 hostages, and only continued military pressure will lead to the release of all of our hostages. My directive to the negotiating team is based on this pressure. Cease fire, remove our troops, they have all kinds of demands, so what do we understand? As soon as we give in, Hamas has won. We are obligated to eliminate it and return our hostages, but will not give up either this goal or that goal. And of course, this is very concerning to the friends and the families of so many hostages still held by the terrorists, one such being Amit Parpara, the friend of Noah Argamani, who is still being held by those terrorists. Amit, I'm glad you could be with us. There are no words to console you for what you are going through with your friends still in captivity. What is your reaction when you hear the Prime Minister say this is not going to force a negotiation? Thank you for having us here to talk about it. I'd say no, there's a lot of feelings come up to your head when you think about all this stuff that are coming up in the news, but I certainly believe that Israel is trying its best to get out the hostages in the way that they know. And I really hope that what I know is going to bring them home safely. You have to believe in what you see and you have to believe in the government that we'll do everything in its power, as he said. Amit, there were so many of us that were hoping and praying that the military action would succeed in freeing hostages on the ground. Do you still believe that's a realistic opportunity? I think it's always the realistic opportunity. I think that coming from both ways, not just a deal is a deal, but on the other side, you can never know what is going on on the other side. We're dealing with terrorists. It's not dealing with a country that you know they'll keep the hostages safe. They can just run out and bring the hostages back and let them be free. And you can never know what is really happening. I think that what happened is something that should concern the government and should concern us as civilians and should bring us our attention to bringing back the hostages as quick as possible. But I believe that the government doesn't want its best to get them there. So we've seen a lot of the families that were marching in Tel Aviv demanding an immediate ceasefire to start negotiating right now. Where do you fall on this discussion? What should be done? I think I personally believe that the military may be able to free some hostages, but it's there and some. I think that we should take out the hostages in the deal. I don't know if it's ceasefire, if it's releasing other hostages. I don't know what that really means, but I think that taking them out as a whole, as a group, should be the top priority right now and to release those who are not in any way connected to this war. It should be the top priority because there's no winning picture without them at home. And I think that bringing them whatever ceasefire or whatever it may have been, I think that bringing them home should be doing whatever we need to do. I know this is going to be a cruel question in light of everything we've seen in the last few days. But when you see these news reports, when we hear the fate of these hostages that were so close to freedom, what goes through your mind about the military operation and the people that are still trapped there? You need to understand that there's a lot of complex complexion when talking about these kind of military events and the mission that they do. I can't blame anyone for what they've done. I think that being there and fighting is hard enough and deciding on the ground is hard. I personally know Aris Haim, which is the mother of Yatam Haim. I was with her on a delegation to Australia a couple of days ago. And it seems like when they're there, everything is fine and they can be released. And if they're alive, they will come out alive. This is the hope, at least because you know that they want them alive. You know that they will come back to you. But as we just saw, again, I can't blame anyone of these missions. But as we just saw, no one is safe when they are in Hamasans. No one is safe. And bringing them back should be now and not. And some other forms or ways in a couple of days, and it should be now because in each second that you think that they might be alive, they can get killed. And we're talking about people. That's the hardest thing that everyone needs to remember. I mean, thank you very much for being with us on this show. And we're all praying for exactly what you're praying for, that people do come home, those still alive will make it back to their families at the end of this ordeal. And over two months after the October 7th massacre, 800 of steroids children are still staying in hotels and a lot. Most of them growing up under constant rocket fire in a difficult reality that one morning became a cruel battlefield. They're homesick and they have no idea when they're going to be able to return. Israel's Channel 12, Gidon Ukoa in Jerusalem, and I24 News's Jonathan Shahar report on the following. We did not want to disrupt the class, but the rumor about the camera in the school's halls spread quickly. Only Nicole kept to herself. She had something more important to do. For the last 67 days, the children of Sderot are scattered in different hotels in Eilat. Even though they were born to a reality of sirens and rockets, they still can't comprehend the events of that morning when they woke up to terrorists walking around their city. Since then, they have been here between the hotel, the temporary school, the promenade, and other attractions. We came here to hear from them a little bit of what they are going through. The educational staff here at Amichai School is composed of Sderot's teachers who know every child personally, along with IDF teachers and many volunteers that do everything they can to embrace the children. It's not always easy. Some of the kids lost the people they love more than anything, like Halel, whose uncle went on a morning jog on October 7th and never came back. So it looks like I'm here. There's something with us in the room now. How are you feeling? He's coming to me everywhere. And he's trying to make me feel like I'm the other one. I'm sure. Do you feel he's bringing you a lot? Yes, but I don't feel like he's trying to make me feel like I'm the other one. It's impossible to feel. What do you remember from the two weeks? We were all in school, and we saw in the classroom, and in the social media, all the photos and the pictures, all those things. At first we thought there were no volunteers, and that it was something, and then we brought this white jeep with the volunteers in the room, and we got together in the room. Are they close to you? Yes. We didn't go to school, because I really don't know about it, but again, it didn't happen, and it didn't affect the world, and I had to go to their house to try to understand them. We didn't understand what it was, because... It's impossible to understand. Children in this school don't have to know what it's like to die. It's something that's impossible to understand. And today, do you see them more than the children? Or not at all? Not at all. It's impossible to understand. It's not something that's possible. We hear that everywhere people talk about it, and it's still... They don't talk about it. It's clear that people who are affected by you, the people of... People, even if we don't know of families that are affected by the TV, and hear how hard it is for them, and the problems there are, it's... It's terrible. It's terrible, and it's a completely different story. It's not possible to eat more. It's impossible to eat more and more, and more, and more, and more, and more, and more, and more. It's impossible. I just don't want to talk about what's happening, let's say, the new ones now that they're in Gaza, and what's happening to the families that have also been affected by it, that have been affected by it. You think that's a lot? Do you want to go back to your home, for example? I really want to, but it's really hard to go back to the neighborhood. It's really hard to get into the neighborhood, and there's no one to talk about what's going on, or that all of a sudden there's a man, or that all of a sudden he starts to look at you. You don't know what it is, because we really don't know. I want to, but I'm also afraid to go back, and before the war, I would have been friends to say and do things, but now I'm not going to do it, because they'll say there's only six of us in the neighborhood. Today, over two months after October 7th, Sderot is still deserted and empty. The residents who are perceived as tough and immune will take a long time to recover from the images of the pickup trucks roaming the streets. I believe that this day will be a better place for us to get out of the pickup truck. I already believe that it will. Why? Because we won't lose anything. It won't, either Hamas won't be, and it won't go away, and then the rest of us won't lose anything. I believe that Hamas won't be, and so will we. They have their rights, and we will do it. What does it mean? I will lose them. Do you think we will succeed? Obviously. Because it takes a lot of time. They will lose, and it will take a long time. They will lose them. How? They will go away, and they will lose their place. I believe that they will lose them. They will always lose their place. Even the locals, sometimes, they will get a lot of money, and they will lose their place. Why do you say they will lose them? Because they won't lose anything more. They will lose them. They won't lose their place. Okay. We will lose Hamas. He will lose his place. He won't lose. He will lose his place. Hamas won't be able to go away. Hamas will lose his place. Okay. We will lose them. Yes, we will lose our place. Okay. I will go to the toilet. If there is anything that crushes the heart, it is listening to children that lost their innocence, and furthermore, their optimism. Children that in one moment became adults that, like all of us, are still living through that morning. To this day, no one can tell them when the hands of the clock that stopped on October 7th will move again. And for so many Israelis, the pain of October 7th was only compounded when confronted by a world that either didn't care or, in some cases, actively endorsed it. The United States shows a younger generation that is perfectly fine with genocide, provided, of course, that the victims are Jewish. The monthly Harvard Harris poll of Americans found that 67% of people under the age of 25 thought the October 7th attacks constituted an act of genocide against Israelis. And that 60% of the same age group said it was justified anyway. 51% of Americans in that age range said that Israel should be destroyed, liquidated, and given over to the genocidal Hamas terror group. And 60% said that Israel is guilty of genocide itself for defending itself against Hamas. While we are joined in studio by Neri Zilber still, adjunct fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Neri, we look at this data collected on the opinions of young Americans. What happened? Well, without getting into the details of the poll and the methodology and whatnot, polls, as the pollsters will even tell you, it's a snapshot of a current moment in time. And as we all know, the current moment in time is highly polarized, highly emotional, here and across the world about a war happening thousands of miles away from where these people live. And it's also a war that many people experience and understand through social media, almost 24-7, again, as we all know. And so we have to just take a look at the conversation going on right now on social media, whether Twitter or Facebook, especially TikTok, highly polarized, a lot of fake news, especially vis-a-vis what's happening in Gaza and also the context for what's happening in Gaza. And so to tell you that I'm surprised by the results of that poll, I am, but not that surprised. And they are unfortunate, and my only hope is that with better education and hopefully a lowering of tensions all over the world with regard to what's happening here an hour down the road from where we're sitting right now and very far away from where those people are sitting right now, that a more balanced understanding and hopefully more balanced views went out and that it's not just the elimination of Israel that garners majority support amongst a young cohort, a young demographic. I think one of the chilling questions to ask yourself, is this simply a snapshot of a moment of time, an ideologically driven trend of people wanting to signal their opinions to their fellows? Or is there a shift in the paradigm, in the belief structure, in the ideology of a young generation that's not going to be changed so easily? So even before this war we knew that especially amongst young Americans and really amongst young liberal Americans, support for Israel was not as strong as say their parents' generation or even their grandparents' generation. It's a generation that does not remember the founding of the state of Israel and the reasons why it had to be founded after the Second World War, the Holocaust, it's not a generation that remembers the existential threat and existential fears of the Six-Day War. It's a generation now not even that got brought up in the First Lebanon War, the First Intifada, the Second Intifada and the like, that are say more shades of gray in terms of the conflict and the context for those conflicts. And so this is the reality they've grown up in, less hope these days even before the war for a negotiated settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a two-state solution and the like. And so all that combined bring them to a point where their support for Israel and for the need for Israel was in decline anyway and brittle. And then now you add this, the gasoline of a very, very difficult war. What Israelis and supporters of Israel all around the world, which are many we have to remember, deem a just war after the atrocities and the savagery of October 7th, but a younger cohort, especially a liberal cohort, whether in America or Europe and other places, view it in very, very different terms, as we know. What strikes me the most about this is it's not a question amongst this generation of simply pro or anti-Israel. It's the same generation that has crusaded against racism, against hate speech, against microaggressions, flipping around and saying that genocide is justifiable, though. Well, that's the hypocrisy and the paradox, whatever term you want to use, that certain even microaggressions are grounds for a world war, so to speak, on social media and even on these college campuses, that people lose their jobs and oftentimes lose their lives. And on the flip side, a very complicated geopolitical conflict, halfway around the world, is viewed in very black and white terms. And that they have a very clear position on what's happening here vis-à-vis Israel and Hamas, whereas their opinions and beliefs, much closer to home and much, I would argue, for pettier reasons, are viewed with shades of gray, shall we say. You mentioned before the role that social media has in driving this conflict, particularly TikTok. We're starting to see American lawmakers wake up to the fact that enemy power, such as China, are educating the younger generations of their nations. Is there any hope that regulation can solve this? I hope so. I hope so. I mean, you know as well as I do what's happening right now on social media. It's a mess. It's disgraceful. There are no consequences for publishing and disseminating blatantly fake news. I woke up this morning and there was a clip purportedly of Israeli bulldozers running into people in a hospital courtyard in Gaza. And very clearly, even this morning, it was from, you know, the responders on social media said this was a clip from 2013. The Egyptian military is cracked down on Islamists in Cairo. And that person who had this clip up, and it wasn't just her, still had it up. You know, I think hundreds of thousands of views. So there are no repercussions. There are no consequences. And that's just, you know, individual postings and not the influence operations by hostile powers like China and Russia that we know also exist. It's a cesspool, but unfortunately it's a cesspool that we all have to swim in. And it's unfortunately a cesspool that a lot of people get their information from. Again, a geopolitical conflict halfway around the world that many people are not privy to directly being seen in very, very simple lights. It's a disturbing trend, you see, these influence operations and these algorithms boosting it that make what would be a simple dumb take on social media into an entire social movement with all the ramifications that entails. Nari, thank you so much for breaking all of this down for us, even though there doesn't seem to be any good solutions or light at the end of that particular tunnel. That said, we are just about out of time for now. On a short break, just three minutes, though, when we get back at 2 o'clock local time, all of the latest news updates at the top of the hour, so stay with us. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. What are the phrases you know from where you come from? Look here, and the package for when. And charges that you already know where you're going. On international charges, send your people to RT. Access our website. Recargas.altis.com.b Select charges and type the number you want to place the charge on. In addition, they get double the balance in charges of $8 or more. Altis, the global network of the Dominicans. 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 lines, but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well. Good afternoon, and welcome to I-24 News' ongoing coverage of Israel at war. I'm Ariel Levin Waldman. We are going to open with some live visuals from the Karama Shalom crossing. For the very first time, humanitarian trucks are entering Gaza through that crossing until this point everything has gone through Rafa on the other side of the Gaza Strip. This was, of course, part of a push by the Americans to increase the amount of humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip. As this is happening, heavy fighting is continuing across Gaza with 200 airstrikes reported over the course of the last day. The concentration of that is on Han Yunus, Hamas' key stronghold in the south of Gaza. On the ground we're seeing raids in North Gaza, the Jabalia fortified sector, uncovering yet another militarized hospital used as a terror base by Hamas. The Kamal Adwan Hospital revealed an entire array of weapons used by the elite Nukba commandos. Those are the very same death squads that commit the October 7th massacre and crimes against humanity on October 7th. Kalashnikov's sight rifles, RPGs, IEDs, and far more alongside key intelligence documents. More Hamas tunnels were found under UNRWA facilities as well. And beyond Israel's borders, Iran-bocked Houthi rebels are now in the crosshairs of the United States, which is now weighing strike missions against the Houthis. The Yemen-based Islamic militia has fired missiles at international ships and caused shipping giants to suspend all voyages through the Red Sea. And moving to the north, Hezbollah again firing anti-tank missiles at Kibbutzim along the border. No reports of injuries in the latest round, but very significant property damage. For more on that though, we are turning now to our correspondent in the north, Zak Anders, standing by on the border with Lebanon. Zak, walk us through what's going on in the north. Well, we've seen several attacks today apparently from Hezbollah with them claiming responsibility for some but not all of some of the activity that we've seen this morning and throughout the afternoon. Interestingly though, no red alerts have been registered. This is not entirely uncommon because the areas where some of this is taking place, the reaction time is seconds from an alert if an alert can even be issued in time. Some of the people that live in the area complain and are frustrated sometimes that they'll hear the explosions and then the red alert will begin. So it's not a perfect system here. The drone infiltrations that took place yesterday, again raising questions about the security of some of the air defenses with one of those drones encountering a direct hit, the other was intercepted, but that direct hit did lead to the death of one IDF reservist and injured two other soldiers. A very serious incident here as it continues to escalate. Thank you very much, Zak, for that report from the northern border. We are going to move down to the south where operations are continuing. And during some activity in Hezbollah, the IDF located a tunnel shaft inside a children's room inside one of the buildings. Here's more from the IDF. And we don't have that so we are going to move on directly to the south. We have our senior defense correspondent, Jonathan Regev standing by live. Jonathan, you are on the border right now. Walk us through the latest developments in the fighting in Gaza. So you mentioned the Jabalia, one Gaza neighborhood, which is just about a mile to the west of the place that I'm located in. In the northern Gaza Strip, constant fighting all the time there. We're hearing the artillery pounding Jabalia, as well as the Sajai, the neighborhood which has been in the headlines, unfortunately, for the past week. Constant artillery in those areas. And further south, the area of Hanyunas. The assumption is that Iqya Sinwar and the senior Hamas leadership is hiding somewhere in the tunnels in the area of Hanyunas. There is constant pressure on Iqya Sinwar. Private assets his home, his vacation home, for example, all of those places have been raided. No one was living under the illusion that he's at home waiting for the IDF. But possibly there could be some intelligence maybe in those places that could provide some information regarding Hamas' strategy, locations, tunnels. So on fighting going on all over the Gaza Strip. Jonathan, just a moment before we came to you live, we were showing some images from the Karam Shalom crossing where humanitarian aid is now crossing through for the first time in that particular passage. Walk us through exactly what the process is here and how they're making sure this stays in the hands of civilians rather than going to Hamas. You asked a very good question. And the unfortunate answer is that once these goods cross into Gaza, no one really knows where it's going. And we've seen so many videos of assistance coming in, the Rafa crossing from Egypt. And just a few meters after this assistance crosses into Gaza, it is Hamas militants, Hamas terrorists, which take over the assistance, whether it's water, fuel, cement, whatever. And it falls to the wrong hands. I don't think there's much of a difference if it crosses from Rafa or from Karam Shalom. Eventually once it crosses into Gaza, it's in the hands of the Gazans and we know what happens to assistance when it goes into Gaza. If you count on anyone from the United Nations to make sure that it goes to citizens and not to the terrorists, I think it's better to think of another option. Absolutely, Jonathan. Stay with us. We want to show people what the fighting in Gaza is really looking like. And before we tried to show you, but our system was down, we've got that up and running, we now can show you the IDF locating a tunnel shaft, a terror tunnel inside a children's nursery underneath one of the beds itself. Here's more from the IDF. We're in a house that seems like what might be an innocent home. But if you follow me here into the children's room, it looks like an innocent children's room under this child's cot, not a baby's cot, using a tunnel that was used for terror by Hamas ISIS. Hamas ISIS uses children's rooms, uses baby's cot to hide what is used for terror, for murder, and for slaughter. And Jonathan, that's the sort of backdrop against this entire discussion we're having of the IDF's strategy, the IDF's accomplishments on the ground. Walk us through just the realities that we're seeing of the urban warfare against Hamas and Gaza. You mentioned Jibali as a Jaya, for example. These are very densely populated areas, and even if the army takes control of the entire area, can you go into every house and make sure that there's no tunnel in every single house, in every single street, in every single narrow alleyway? The answer, of course, is no. These things can pop up anywhere. Every little inch in those neighborhoods, a terror shaft can come up, a terrorist can pop up for a few seconds, fire an anti-tank missile, or even with a rifle, add to the soldiers in the area and disappear in the ground. Gaza, unfortunately, has two levels. There's the ground level, and there's the underground level. As far as the ground, the army has quite a good control. Under the ground, it's a different story. That's definitely going to be the major challenge going forward. Jonathan, thank you very much for that report from the South. We're going to turn now to Rafael Urushami, former senior intelligence officer in the IDF. Rafael, good to have you with us as always. We just saw a report showing just how deep Hamas has built their infrastructure into every single facet of civilian life in Gaza. Is there a way to crack this without destroying the entirety of the Gaza Strip and away the United States will simply not permit? I'm afraid that it will require a lot of destruction, because unfortunately, and that is also the fault of some Israeli governments, the Hamas had time to build the whole world under Gaza. We must remember that apart from destroying those tunnels and these infrastructure, the military infrastructure, once we deal with the military branch, we also have to deal with the political branch of the Hamas. You are speaking of another maybe 25, 30,000 armed terrorists to neutralize, but you're also speaking about around 200,000 Hamas supporters, civil servants occupying such positions in the administration of the Gaza Strip that they have also a hold on everything that's going on there, mostly hijacking humanitarian aid, all the monies that are sent to the Palestinians are being hijacked by the Hamas. You're talking here of dismantling a terrorist organization, but really also a mafia organization. You have to go through all the branches and tentacles of this huge mafia. It's a mafia operation. It's a money laundering. It's controlling all kinds of sources of income in the Gaza Strip. So that's something that's going to take months, maybe more. We have to be ready for that. The United States, I think what they're telling us is, when are we going to stop this massive, intense offensive that we're having now, the ground operation, when is that going to become something of a less intensity conflict? We are answering that it will take another month or two. We are aiming at ending this at the end of January. At the end of January, we will have a kind of control of the Gaza Strip, strategic control. After that, the whole year of 2024 will be still a war, but a low-incense intensity war, trying to clean up as much as we can the Gaza Strip of the last remnants of its military strength. Unfortunately, you see tunnels, hiding places, but on the other hand, you have to remember that many armed terrorists are surrendering to the idea of troops. Some are escaping with the civilian population towards the south. I mean, the Hamas army is very, very, very much weakened. The problem is it's not defeated until it's defeated. Until there is a guy shooting from somewhere, the danger will remain, including for our people living on the border. On the other hand, on a more optimistic note, let's say, the Hamas has already lost the war. The Hamas is finished. The Hamas has lost Gaza. It has lost even any support from the Palestinian population, from the Gaza people themselves. So the Hamas has lost. The problem is the Hamas doesn't seem to know or understand it has lost. And there is not enough pressure, and that's not only the military pressure here. You need international pressure, Arabic countries pressure, Qatari pressure to lay down their weapons. This war could end up this morning. Today, the Hamas has to lay down their weapons. They are just fighting for the sake of fighting, for martyrdom, for killing another few Israeli soldiers, because that's their obsession. There is no victory possible anymore for them. They just want to go in this bang, in the fireworks. We have to find a way, the Americans administration, for instance, they should find a creative way and put all their pressure and all the local regional pressure on forcing Hamas to lay down their weapons and not asking us to lower down our guns. They have to drop their weapons. That's the solution. If they can outlast international pressure on Israel, they can theoretically survive, and that would be a victory in their books and a strategic loss for Israel. We're going to continue this discussion in a brief moment, Raphael. First, though, we do have to look at the hostage situation. Heartbreak in Israel after three hostages were killed in a case of mistaken identity. Now, families are demanding an immediate deal for the release of those still held by the Hamas terror group. The families marched in Tel Aviv demanding an end to the fighting so that negotiations can begin, and the families rejected the idea that military force will bring Hamas to the negotiating table. Hamas has vowed that there will be no negotiations until a permanent ceasefire has been reached. The position of Israel is that Hamas cannot be allowed to endure. The group has vowed to commit more raids, kidnappings, and massacres modeled after October 7th as that killed 1,200 Israelis, the vast majority of which were civilians who were murdered in the cruelest and most sadistic ways possible. It's believed that the terrorists still hold 128 hostages spread out across Gaza, and not all of them are still alive. Prime Minister Netanyahu reiterated he will not succumb to Hamas' demands. Without the military pressure, we would not have succeeded in creating an outline that led to the release of 110 hostages. And only continued military pressure will lead to the release of all of our hostages. My directive to the negotiating team is based on this pressure. Cease fire, remove our troops, they have all kinds of demands. So what do we understand? As soon as we give in, Hamas has won. We are obligated to eliminate it and return our hostages, who will not give up either this goal or that goal. And we are now joined by Udi Gher and his cousin, Tal Haimi, who was kidnapped on October 7th by Hamas and murdered in captivity. Udi, I have no words of consolation to help after hearing that. I want to know what your reaction was to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's statements last night when he said that there would be no giving into pressure to negotiate with Hamas until this is over. First of all, thank you for having me. And just like to correct, we've just found out that my cousin Tal was actually murdered on October 7th and kidnapped Tugasa as a body. So he's still a hostage only that now we know that he was taken dead. And as far as Prime Minister Netanyahu's words is that I would like to ask him or ask you to ask anyone that is representing the government if they have finally decided they're going to sacrifice the remaining living hostages. If they are finally there and they're willing to completely give up their lives and they do not care about the hostages and the people that they themselves have neglected to defend on October 7th, because this is what he's saying. Because if he's playing chicken with Sinwar and what's on the line is the lives of the hostages, right? If Sinwar says without stopping the fighting there will be no deal and Netanyahu says there will be no deal without the hostages, then they're playing chicken and the stakes are the lives of the hostages. Now we know for a fact in the past week of proven it, or absolutely certain that every day that passes more hostages died. We know this. A military operation does not bring the hostages back alive. It doesn't. Just look at the past week. We have realized that at least, at least 10 people that went into Gaza alive, we know it's documented, they have gone into Gaza alive, they are now dead. So we're bringing back coffins instead of living hostages. So with all the, what Raphael had to say prior to myself, with all the big plans that the government has, he didn't mention one word about the hostages. And everything that his plan is reiterating is that the government is clearly saying we do not care about Israeli civilians taken hostage. This is the meaning, because if the military pressure is there to bring Hamas back to the table, it has done so. It has done so once. And now, right now, as you and I are talking, there is a deal on the table, only dependent on the Israeli government. It's only awaiting Netanyahu's yes. And as long as there is no yes on the deal and the ground invasion continues, this means that the Israeli government keeps choosing to kill our enemies over saving our own civilians. You touched on a point that I wanted to address, because so many of us here in Israel had been hoping, praying, had been really believing that the military operation could rescue, could free people that were held by Hamas this past weekend, just the reaction seeing those three people who had managed to escape on their own, only to get gunned down in this mistake. What goes through your mind when you see that? It's ridiculous. I'm sorry, but it's just ridiculous. We're not in a video game. This is not Rambo. This is real life. And in real life, if you just go through the statistics, just the statistics of trying to rescue hostages, you would see that the odds are awful. Because whenever you try to go into a room, when someone is pointing a gun to someone else's head, they have far longer than the people who are going in to just shoot the hostage. And the odds are, the statistics are, that to start with, 20% of hostages are executed in those attempts. So to start with, if we're even considering bringing out the hostages in a military operation, we know that four out of five is the most we can get instead of going for a deal. Because when we went for a deal, 81 out of 81 hostages were taken out alive and well. So it's even ridiculous to consider it. And from that, we know that they're being injured by the bombings. We know that when Hamas has no food in Gaza, the hostages have no food. The sanitation is awful. They're being taken from place to place under bombing. While Israel is bombing, they're being chased, I'm sorry, they're being taken through Gaza. And now this horrific, horrific horror of people that, who knows how they were able to escape, we will never know because they were shot dead by mistake. And I want to make sure that people understand, the families have absolutely nothing to say to the soldiers in terms that there's no blame, we're not upset. We know this is an impossible situation. It's just absolutely impossible to manage in these kind of circumstances. But of course, when there's such fighting, then this is bound to happen. I mean, Israeli soldiers are getting hurt by our own people as well because this is such a dense and awful place to fight in. So the only way, the one and only way to bring the hostages back, and there is no other option, is by going for a deal. If the military pressure is meant to bring Hamas back to the negotiation table, it has happened. It's happening right now. It is possible to get to another deal. I think everyone is hoping and praying, Udi, that there may be something that's possible to bring Israel's children back home. Thank you very much for being on our show and walking us through this painful ordeal. We're going to return to Rafael in the studio because we have to address the issue of that friendly fire incident. One of the blackest marks, I think in the IDF's entire war, in living memory, really. And we really have to wonder how it happened. Okay, so first of all, there is the military aspect of it. The military aspect of it is there was a huge mistake. In so far as the soldiers who shot at these hostages didn't respect the rules of engagement. They clearly did something forbidden by military law in Israel. The proof being that we have arrested, in a similar way, hundreds of Hamas terrorists. They had their shirts off and they put their hands up or they wave the white flag. But we have apprehended hundreds of Hamas terrorists without killing them, without shooting at them. So why should we shoot at these three people who are not presenting any threat to the troops? So that's something that went wrong with the orders that are given, especially with the third hostage, the one who managed to run away and then was caught in a building and then shot. The commander of the force that went into the building gave a clear order to stop shooting. The soldier didn't hear or didn't obey that order and shot, which leads me from the military aspect of the rules of engagement to the psychological aspect. The soldiers in Seja Jaya have been for days on end, hour by hour, minute by minute, under fire, under pressure. All they've been doing is fighting terrorists. By now there are almost no civilians left in Seja Jaya and there was an estimate that the hostages have been moved down south. So all they saw for days on end were terrorists and they were shooting at terrorists. There was a kind of move forward of fighting of intensity that didn't give them the time to put the brakes when they should have. They should have put the brakes, but there was so much into the fighting, the intensity of this situation that they just didn't have the psychological switch fast enough to stop shooting when they should have. So that's a psychological thing, of course I'm not a psychologist so I don't want to go in the head of those soldiers who shot at these innocent hostages, but something that was wrong and one of the things I'm sure, because if you have been into a war situation, your brain switches into a mode that is a mode of violence and it's very difficult to switch back to a more peaceful mode. So that's what I think that they were in this kind of mode, in this kind of attitude. The last thing I have to say and you have to say it and it relates even to what was said before about the hostages. A war is a war is a war. It is a series of horrible things happening every single minute, surreal, out of the normal. The war is not normal, nothing is normal. Children are being killed, people are being horribly injured with wounds that pursued them all their lives. That's it, that's a war. It's just atrocity after atrocity after atrocity. This is only one example, one case, something else might happen just as crazy, just as abnormal and in just tomorrow morning. This is a war. So we cannot of course just stop at that and say, okay, it's a war and that's it, of course not, but we have to understand this is the situation. The same with the hostages. These hostages of course that are left now, we should bring them home, it's our priority. You really think that we can trust the Hamas to liberate the hostages? We don't even know how many are still alive. We don't even know how many the Hamas actually holds and some others where are they? We have no guarantee, maybe we are guaranteed to get 60 hostages, meaning not dead or not at the hands of other factions. And you really think that the Hamas is going to give them up? These are the life insurance of Mr. Sinoir. These are the human shield that they need when the IDF comes too close to them. You cannot trust these guys. What does it mean striking a deal and negotiate? Rafael, I actually want to focus on it in the last minute that we have. Is there a price the Israeli government, the Israeli people, the Israeli nation considers too high to negotiate? I think with the experience that we had with Gilad Shalit where we exchanged one soldier for a thousand and more terrorists, this exchange saved the life of Gilad Shalit. The terrorists that were freed, 30% of them went back into business, into terror. At least, this is a very conservative estimate, at least 20 Israelis were killed by these liberated terrorists. And Yachasin war himself. If we're going to liberate 10,000 terrorists now, what do you think is going to happen? We're going to save 100 hostages and then we'll have another 1,000 people killed in a massacre. So you have to make sure that you save the hostages but you have to make sure that it will not cost the lives of other Israeli civilians or even Israeli soldiers. It's a very, very intricate dilemma. I wouldn't like to be in the shoes. Those are going to make the decision. But of course it does remain our absolute priority to save the hostages. No good answers all around. Thank you very much Rafael for breaking everything else down. We're out of time though but join our next broadcast at 3 o'clock local time. Israel is in a state of war. Families completely gunned down in their beds. We have no idea where is she as our soldiers are fighting on the front lines but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well. There have been countless memorable moments broadcasting with I-24 News in the past six years but for me the one that stands out the most was the first time that I had ever personally heard a rocket siren sounding in Tel Aviv and at that moment we were live on air in studio. I will never forget the moment our senior producer said to me in my ear the sirens are sounding in Tel Aviv. The control room is going to the shelter. With me in studio at the time were Michael Herzog a former Brigadier General. Today the Israeli ambassador to the United States and Arsene Ostrovsky an international human rights lawyer and their responses were completely different. Michael Herzog was calm and composed and on the other hand Arsene Ostrovsky was trying to phone his family and check in to make sure that his loved ones were okay. The camera that normally faces us was hoisted from above there was an overhead shot of the three of us in studio. You could see colleagues going to the shelter if you looked at the glass behind the studio and obviously we lost contact with our team on the ground our reporters in Ashkelon and all the witnesses that we were speaking to during that time. When rockets are coming towards a residential area they don't distinguish between race, religion, political views, cultural views they just intend to harm civilians and that moment being in studio hearing those interceptions overhead was the most real coverage I have ever been involved in. Good afternoon and welcome to I-24 News' ongoing coverage of Israel at war. I'm Ariel Levin Waldman. We are going to open with some live visuals from the Karama Shalom crossing. The very first time humanitarian trucks are entering Gaza through that crossing until this point everything has gone through Rafa on the other side of the Gaza Strip. This was of course part of a push by the Americans to increase the amount of humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip. As this is happening heavy fighting is continuing across Gaza with 200 airstrikes reported over the course of the last day. The concentration of that is on Khan Yunus, Hamas' key stronghold in the south of Gaza. On the ground we're seeing raids in North Gaza, the Jabalia fortified sector uncovering yet another militarized hospital used as a terror base by Hamas. The Kamal Adwan Hospital revealed an entire array of weapons used by the elite Nukba commandos. Those are the very same death squads that commit the October 7th massacre and crimes against humanity on October 7th. Kalashnikov's sight rifles, RPGs, IEDs and far more alongside key intelligence documents. More Hamas' tunnels were found under UNRWA facilities as well. And beyond Israel's borders Iran-bocked Houthi rebels are now in the crosshairs of the United States which is now weighing strike missions against the Houthis. The Yemen-based Islamic militia has fired missiles at international ships and caused shipping giants to suspend all voyages through the Red Sea. And moving to the north, Hezbollah again firing anti-tank missiles at Kibbutzim along the border. No reports of injuries in the latest round but very significant property damage. For more on that though we are turning now to our correspondent in the north Zach Anders standing by on the border with Lebanon. Zach walk us through what's going on in the north. Well we've seen several attacks today apparently from Hezbollah with them claiming responsibility for some but not all of some of the activity that we've seen this morning and throughout the afternoon. Interestingly though no red alerts have been registered. This is not entirely uncommon because the areas where some of this is taking place the reaction time is seconds from an alert if an alert can even be issued in time. Some of the people that live in the area complain and are frustrated sometimes that they'll hear the explosions and then the red alert will begin. So it's not a perfect system here. The drone infiltrations that took place yesterday again raising questions about the security of some of the air defenses with one of those drones encountering a direct hit the other was intercepted but that direct hit did lead to the death of one IDF reservist and injured two other soldiers. A very serious incident here as it continues to escalate. Thank you very much Zach for that report from the northern border. We are going to move down to the south where operations are continuing and during some activity in Jabalaya the IDF located a tunnel shaft inside a children's room inside one of the buildings. Here's more from the IDF and we don't have that. So we are going to move on directly to the south. We have our senior defense correspondent Jonathan Regev standing by live. Jonathan you are on the border right now. Walk us through the latest developments in the fighting in Gaza. So you mentioned the Jabalaya one Gaza neighborhood which is just about a mile from to the west of the place that I'm located in the northern Gaza Strip constant fighting all the time there. We're hearing the artillery pounding Jabalaya as well as the Sajaya the neighborhood which has been in the headlines unfortunately for the past week constant artillery in those areas and further south the area of Hanyunas the assumption is that Ichiya Sinwar and the senior Hamas leadership is hiding somewhere in the tunnels in the area of Hanyunas there is constant pressure on Ichiya Sinwar's private assets his home his vacation home for example all of those places have been raided no one was living under the illusion that he's at home waiting for the IDF but possibly there could be some intelligence maybe in those places that could provide some information regarding Hamas' strategy locations tunnels so on fighting going on all over the Gaza Strip. Jonathan just a moment before we came to you live we were showing some images from the Karam Shalom crossing where humanitarian aid is now crossing through for the first time in that particular passage. Walk us through exactly what the process is here and how they're making sure this stays in the hands of civilians rather than going to Hamas. You asked a very good question and the unfortunate answer is that once these goods are crossing together no one really knows where it's going and we've seen so many videos of assistance coming in the Rafa crossing from Egypt and just a few meters after this assistance crosses into Gaza it is Hamas militants Hamas terrorists which take over the assistance whether it's water, fuel, cement whatever and it falls to the wrong hands I don't think there's much of a difference if it crosses from Rafa or from Karam Shalom eventually once it crosses into Gaza it's in the hands of the Gazans and we know what happens to assistance when it goes into Gaza if you count on anyone from the United Nations to make sure that it goes to citizens and not to the terrorists I think it's better to think of another option. Absolutely Jonathan stay with us we want to show people what the fighting in Gaza is really looking like before we tried to show you but our system was down we've got the up and running we now can show you the IDF locating a tunnel shaft a terror tunnel inside a children's nursery underneath one of the beds itself here's more from the IDF we're in a house that seems like what might be an innocent home but if you follow me here until the children's room looks like an innocent children's room under this child's cot not the baby's cot using a tunnel that was used for terror by Hamas ISIS Hamas ISIS uses children's rooms uses baby's cot to hide what is used for terror, for murder and for slaughter and Jonathan that's the sort of backdrop against this entire discussion we're having of the IDF's strategy the IDF's accomplishments on the ground walk us through just the realities that we're seeing of the urban warfare against Hamas in Gaza you mentioned Jibalia, Sajaya for example these are very densely populated areas and even if the army takes control of the entire area can you go into every house and make sure that there's no tunnel in every single house in every single street, in every single narrow alleyway the answer of course is no these things can pop up anywhere every little inch in those neighborhoods a terror shaft can come up a terrorist can pop up for a few seconds fire an anti-tank missile or even with a rifle at the soldiers in the area and disappear in the ground Gaza unfortunately has two levels there's the ground level and there's the underground level as far as the ground the army has quite a good control under the ground it's a different story that's definitely going to be the major challenge going forward Jonathan thank you very much for that report from the south we're going to turn now to Rafael your Xiaomi former senior intelligence officer in the IDF Rafael good to have you with us as always we just saw a report showing just how deep Hamas has built their infrastructure into every single facet of civilian life in Gaza is there a way to crack this without destroying the entirety of the Gaza Strip and away the United States will simply not permit I'm afraid that it will require a lot of destruction because unfortunately and that is also the fault of some Israeli governments the Hamas had time to build the whole world under Gaza we must remember that apart from destroying those tunnels and these infrastructure, the military infrastructure once we deal with the military branch we also have to deal with the political branch of the Hamas you are speaking of another maybe 25-30,000 armed terrorists to neutralize but you're also speaking about around 200,000 Hamas supporters civil servants occupying such positions in the administration of the Gaza Strip that they have also a hold on everything that's going on there mostly hijacking humanitarian aid all the monies that are sent to the Palestinians are being hijacked by the Hamas you're talking here of dismantling a terrorist organization but really also a mafia organization you have to go through all the branches the tentacles of this huge mafia it's a mafia operation, it's a money laundering it's controlling all kinds of sources of income in the Gaza Strip that's something that's going to take months maybe more we have to be ready for that the United States I think what they're telling us is when are we going to stop this massive, intense offensive that we're having now, the ground operation when is that going to become something of a less intensity conflict we are answering that it will take another month or two we are aiming at ending this at the end of January at the end of January we will have a kind of control of the Gaza Strip, strategic control after that the whole year of 2024 will be still a war but a low incentesity war trying to clean up as much as we can the Gaza Strip of the last remnants of its military strength unfortunately you see tunnels hiding places but on the other hand you have to remember that many armed terrorists are surrendering to the idea of troops some are escaping with the civilian population towards the south I mean the Hamas army is very, very, very much weakened the problem is it's not defeated until it's defeated until there is a guy shooting from somewhere the danger will remain including for our people living on the border on the other hand on a more optimistic note let's say the Hamas has already lost the war the Hamas is finished the Hamas has lost Gaza it has lost even any support from the Palestinian population from the Gaza people themselves so the Hamas has lost the problem is the Hamas doesn't seem to know or understand it has lost and there is not enough pressure and that's not only the military pressure here you need international pressure Arabic countries pressure, Qatari pressure to lay down their weapons this war could end up this morning today the Hamas has to lay down their weapons they are just fighting for the sake of fighting for martyrdom, for killing another few Israeli soldiers because that's their obsession there's no victory possible anymore for them they just want to go in a spang you know in fireworks we have to find a way the Americans administration for instance they should find a creative way and put all their pressure and all the local regional pressure on forcing Hamas to lay down their weapons and not asking us to lower down our guns they have to drop their weapons that's the solution if they can outlast international pressure on Israel they can theoretically survive and that would be a victory in their books and a strategic loss for Israel we're going to continue this discussion in a brief moment Rafael first though we do have to look at the hostage situation heartbreak in Israel after three hostages were killed in a case of mistaken identity now families are demanding an immediate deal for the release of those still held by the Hamas terror group the families marched in Tel Aviv demanding an end to the fighting so that negotiations can begin and the families rejected the idea that the force will bring Hamas to the negotiating table Hamas has vowed that there will be no negotiations until a permanent ceasefire has been reached the position of Israel is that Hamas cannot be allowed to endure the group has vowed to commit more raids, kidnappings and massacres modeled after October 7th that killed 1,200 Israelis the vast majority of which were civilians who were murdered in the cruelest and most sadistic ways possible it's believed that the terrorists still hold 128 hostages spread out across Gaza and not all of them are still alive Prime Minister Netanyahu reiterated he will not succumb to Hamas's demands without the military pressure we would not have succeeded in creating an outline that led to the release of 110 hostages and only continued military pressure will lead to the release of all of our hostages my directive to the negotiating team is based on this pressure ceasefire, remove our troops they have all kinds of demands so what do we understand? as soon as we give in, Hamas has won we are obligated to eliminate it and return our hostages but will not give up either this goal or that goal and we are now joined by Uri Gaurin his cousin, Tal Haimi was kidnapped on October 7th by Hamas and murdered in captivity Uri, I have no words of consolation to help after hearing that I want to know what your reaction was to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's statements last night when he said that there would be no giving into pressure when negotiating with Hamas until this is over first of all, thank you for having me and just like to correct, we just found out that my cousin Tal was actually murdered on October 7th and kidnapped Tugasa as a body so he's still a hostage only that now we know that he was taken dead and as far as Prime Minister Netanyahu's words is that I would like to ask him or ask you to ask anyone that is representing the government if they have finally decided they're going to sacrifice the remaining living hostages if they are finally there and they're willing to completely give up their lives and they do not care about the hostages and the people that they themselves have neglected to defend on October 7th because this is what he's saying because if he's playing chicken with Sinwar and what's on the line is the lives of the hostages if Sinwar says without stopping the fighting there will be no deal and Netanyahu says there will be no deal without the hostages then they're playing chicken and what the stakes are the lives of the hostages now we know for a fact in the past week have proven it or absolutely certain that every day that passes more hostages died we know this a military operation does not bring the hostages back alive it doesn't just look at the past week we have realized that at least at least 10 people that went into Gaza alive we know it's documented they have gone into Gaza alive they are now dead so we're bringing back coffins instead of living hostages so with all the what Raphael had to say prior to myself with all the big plans that the government has he didn't mention one word about the hostages and everything that his plan is reiterating is that the government is clearly saying we do not care about Israeli civilians taken hostage this is the meaning because if the military pressure is there to bring Hamas back to the table it has done so it has done so once and now, right now, as you and I are talking there is a deal on the table only dependent on the Israeli government it's only awaiting Netanyahu's yes and as long as there is no yes on the deal and the ground invasion continues this means that the Israeli government keeps choosing to kill our enemies over saving our own civilians You touched on a point that I wanted to address because so many of us here in Israel had been hoping, praying had been really believing that the military operation could rescue could free people that were held by Hamas this past weekend just the reaction seeing those three people who had managed to escape on their own only to get gunned down in this mistake what goes through your mind when you see that? It's ridiculous I'm sorry but it's just ridiculous we're not in a video game this is not Rambo this is real life and in real life if you just go through the statistics just the statistics of trying to rescue hostages you would see that the odds are awful because whenever you try to go into a room when someone is pointing a gun to someone else's head they have far longer than the people who are going in to just shoot the hostage and the odds are, the statistics are that to start with 20% of hostages are executed in those attempts so to start with if we're even considering bringing out the hostages in a military operation we know that 4 out of 5 is the most we can get instead of going for a deal because when we went for a deal 81 out of 81 hostages were taken out alive and well so it's even ridiculous to consider it aside from that we know that they're being injured by the bombings we know that when Hamas has no food in Gaza the hostages have no food the sanitation is awful they're being taken from place to place under bombing while Israel is bombing they're being chased I'm sorry they're being taken through Gaza and now this horrific, horrific horror of people that who knows how they were able to escape we will never know because they were shot dead by mistake and I want to make sure that people understand that these families have absolutely nothing to say to the soldiers in terms that there's no blame we're not upset we know this is an impossible situation it's just absolutely impossible to manage in these kind of circumstances but of course when there's such fighting then this is bound to happen I mean Israeli soldiers are getting hurt by our own people as well because this is such a dense awful place to fight in so the only way, the one and only way to bring the hostages back and there is no other option is by going for a deal if the military pressure is meant to bring Hamas back to the negotiation table it has happened it's happening right now right now it is possible to get to another deal I think everyone is hoping and praying Udi that there may be something that's possible to bring Israel's children back home thank you very much for being on our show and walking us through this painful ordeal we're going to return to Rafael in the studio because we have to address the issue of that friendly fire incident one of the blackest marks I think in the IDF's entire war in living memory really and we really have to wonder how it happened okay so first of all there is the military aspect of it the military aspect of it is there was a huge mistake in so far as the soldiers who shot at these hostages didn't respect the rules of engagement they clearly did something forbidden by military law in Israel the proof being that we have arrested in a similar way hundreds of Hamas terrorists they had their shirts off and they put their hands up or they wave the white flag but we have apprehended hundreds of Hamas terrorists without killing them without shooting at them so why should we shoot at these three people who are not presenting any threat to the troops so that's something that went wrong with the orders that are given especially with the third hostage the one who managed to run away and then was caught in a building and then shot the commander of the force that went into the building gave a clear order to stop shooting one soldier didn't hear or didn't obey that order and shot which leads me from the military aspect of the rules of engagement to the psychological aspect the soldiers in Seja Jaya have been for days on end hour by hour, minute by minute under fire, under pressure all they've been doing is fighting terrorists by now there are almost no civilians left in Seja Jaya and there was an estimate that the hostages have been moved down south so all they saw for days on end were terrorists and they were shooting at terrorists there was a kind of move forward of fighting of intensity that didn't give them the time to put the brakes but they were so much into the fighting the shooting the intensity of this situation that they just didn't have the psychological switch fast enough to stop shooting when they should have so that's a psychological thing of course I'm not a psychologist so I don't want to go in the head of those soldiers who shot at these innocent hostages but something there was wrong and one of the things I'm sure because if you have been into a war situation your brain switches into a mode that is a mode of violence and it's very difficult to switch back to a more peaceful mode so that's what I think that they were in this kind of mode in this kind of attitude the last thing you have to say and you have to say it it relates even to what was said before about the hostages a war is a war is a war it is a series of horrible things happening every single minute surreal out of the normal the war is not normal nothing is normal children are being killed people are being horribly injured with wounds that pursued them all their lives that's it, that's a war it's just atrocity after atrocity after atrocity this is only one example one case, something else might happen just as crazy, just as abnormal in just tomorrow morning this is a war so we cannot of course just stop at that and say okay it's a war and that's it of course not but we have to understand this is the situation the same with the hostages these hostages of course that are left now we should bring them home it's our priority you really think that we can trust the Hamas to liberate the hostages we don't even know how many are still alive we don't even know how many the Hamas actually holds and some others where are they we have no guarantee maybe we are guaranteed to get 60 hostages meaning not dead or not at the hands of other factions and you really think that the Hamas is going to give them up these are the life insurance of Mr. Sinoir these are the human shield that they need would the IDF come too close to them you cannot trust these guys what does it mean striking a deal and negotiate Rafael I actually want to focus on it in the last minute that we have is there a price the Israeli government the Israeli people the Israeli nation considers too high to negotiate I think with the experience that we had with Gilat Shalit where we exchanged one soldier for a thousand and more tourists this exchange saved the life of Gilat Shalit the tourists that were freed 30% of them went back into business into terror at least this is a very conservative estimate at least 20 Israelis were killed by these liberated tourists and Yachasin War himself if we're going to liberate 10,000 tourists now what do you think is going to happen we're going to save 100 hostages and then we'll have another 1,000 people killed in a massacre so you have to make sure that you save the hostages but you have to make sure that it will not cost the lives of other Israeli civilians or even Israeli soldiers it's a very