 Welcome to I-24 News, MC Banerjeev and these are the latest developments coming to you live from Tel Aviv. Today is day 66 of Israel's war with Hamas. The idea of continues its battle on the ground in southern Gaza, striking the city of Han Yunus in the early morning hours as sirens went off in southern communities in Israel. In the north, crossfire continues between Hezbollah and Lebanon and Israel. According to Syrian state media, Israeli airstrikes were reported in the area around the Syrian capital of Damascus overnight, resulting in some damage. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly set up a small secret team of top allies and representatives from the defense establishment to discuss post-war plans for Gaza. The team is led by National Security Adviser Tsachya Negbi and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, and supposedly includes representatives from the IDF, the Mossad and the Shin Bet. Additionally, the Israeli security cabinet is discussing a controversial proposal to allow Palestinian laborers to enter Israel from the West Bank, which would potentially allow thousands of workers to return to work for the first time since October 7th. The IDF announced the names of three more soldiers killed in combat in Gaza, with 101 soldiers who have died since the ground operation against Hamas began in the Gaza Strip. Major General and Reserves Ghidoni Lani, Major General and Reserves Itai Peli, and Major and Reserves Evia Tal Cohen. Additionally, Major Gal Baha was killed in a military car accident in southern Israel. And as the fighting intensifies, Netanyahu calls on Hamas terrorists to surrender and not to die for the sake of Yehissinwar. Take a listen. In recent days, dozens of Hamas terrorists have surrendered to our forces. They lay down their weapons. They surrender themselves to our heroic soldiers. It will take more time. The war is ongoing, but this is the beginning of the end for Hamas. And I say to the Hamas terrorists, it's over. Let's die for Sinoir. Surrender now. And joining us from Israel's northern border is our I-24 news correspondent, Zach Anders. Zach, we're hearing sirens and went off in the north moments ago. What can you tell us about this? We're seeing that as well. And videos on social media are showing what appears to be a large heavy rocket launch from southern Lebanon intercepted over northern Israel airspace. This is, these red alerts have been coming in more towards the western half of northern Israel. In the last 24 hours, we've seen several red alerts by the coast. And now this red alert in the area of Qafar Vardim in the western half of the country here. This is what appears to be a considerable, a large launch that we have not heard from the IDF yet regarding impacts or damage and have yet to hear any results of injuries as well. Now we're hearing Syrian media report about a strike overnight near Damascus. What do we know about that? And we're seeing that the IDF has not confirmed its involvement yet in yesterday's loud, large explosions heard over the Syrian city. It does, though, appear to follow in succession with several Israeli strikes that have happened in the last week targeting both Hezbollah operatives in southern Syria. We saw a large and calculated strike in the last three days targeting a Hezbollah leader responsible for a variety of, with a long history, you could say, and several others were killed in that strike in southern Syria in the Golan area. This has also been a war of precise targeting from the Israelis since October 7th inside Syria attempting to take out these different faction leaders who are there to pur their intelligence attempting to stir up, create more problems here in the north. We are still waiting on confirmation as to which exactly, where exactly these explosions are attributed to that were taking place in Damascus. Zach Anders on Israel's northern border, thank you very much. Joining us now is retired colonel and reserves Dr. Mousheilad, former coordinator to Palestinian Authority on Security Issues at the IDF and lecturer at the Western Galilee Academic College. And also here in studio with me is own Alterman, our senior news correspondent. Thank you both for joining. Mousheilad, the fighting intensifies deep into the southern Gaza and Hanyunas, Jabalia and Sojaia. The Palestine Square was reportedly taken over by the IDF. How advanced is the IDF in their military goals over in the south? Good morning, Sivan. Look, Hamas, from the pictures I see and what I hear and what I can anticipate is that Hamas is close to be broken. Hamas and the other factions, and don't forget we are dealing about 11 other factions there seem to be close to being broken because the pictures coming from Gaza speak for themselves, hundreds of terrorists surrounding the IDF, throwing their rifles. This is an important moral picture for in combat conditions and it's not just symbolic because in the entire area what we hear is that the Israeli plan is proceeding step by step exactly as prepared and exactly as it was planned. Now as you mentioned, the commanders and Israeli work cabinet ministers are saying that Hamas resistance is beginning to break, Netanyahu said. This is the beginning of the end and all of this as ongoing intense fighting is happening with progress being made in the north and in the south of Gaza. But how likely is it that Hamas will actually break? And is there a timeline to this? Okay, two things. First of all, I guess that we still have about three weeks maybe in order to complete the whole issue now about the shooting of the raqis because this is always, you know, how can they still shoot? I'll tell you what, to find the last rocket launcher in Gaza is like finding a needle in an ice stick. As you know, the occupation of the street will be completed in a short time. I guess about a month, let's say a month. And then we'll have another week or two to see if we can find the main launching areas. But in order to clean the entire street, it will take us at least one year to go to every single part of the street and clean it. So don't be surprised. They Hamas is calculating his shooting just in order to show and say, well, I'm still here, I'm still standing on my feet. So take it exactly as it is. I mean, trying to make it more symbolic than we're listening and you know, inspiring. Dr. Moshe, please stay with us. We'll be back to you shortly. Joining us down south is our I-24 news correspondent, Pierre Kloschendler. Pierre, can you give us the latest update on the ground? Well, fighting is continuing and deepening in three arenas in the northern refugee camp of Jibalia on the northern outskirts of Gaza City, then on the southeast outskirts of Shizhaiya of Gaza City and in the central sector of the Gaza Strip, Hanyunas and the central area refugee camps. With Rotem Ben-Hemo, I'm going to show you the arena right now. We're about four kilometers away from the border, but you can clearly see the smoke billowing out of the southeastern outskirts of Gaza City, where fist-fighting is still going on. The Army has authorized the publication of three Israeli soldiers who died in the arena of Hanyunas. It seems that they were caught into an ambush of an arena of explosive charges, which shows you how difficult it is to demilitarize all these places and to eliminate the Gaza, the Hamas terrorists. At this point, we know that the replacement of the battalion chief of the Shizhaiya outskirts of Gaza has been eliminated. His predecessor was eliminated a week ago. And this is one of the goals of the Army to break the chain of command of Hamas in such a way that it will allow the surrender of Hamas foot soldiers because they don't get any instruction. And this is what we've been witnessing in the past few days when Hamas terrorists are just simply surrendering to the IDF because they don't know what to do because they lost contact with their superiors and the chain of command starts to be broken at this point. Sivan. Thank you very much, Pierre, who is right by Kibbutz Bayre down south. Now joining us again is Dr. Moshe El-Ad. Thank you for staying with us. Now we spoke about a timeline just before the IDF projects. About another month will be required for this stage and the fighting in this area in the south. Is this feasible and does Israel have this time? Well, I believe that any timetable will be feasible and will do all efforts. The IDF will do every effort to finalize the work, but it depends how fast and how productive will be the process in Tanyunis. Tanyunis is going to be a very tough stronghold of Hamas. So let's see what will be in the next couple of days. It will give us a good picture regarding the future. But again, you have to consider that the situation that the IDF is now in is a very tough one. Why? Because the U.S. has asked Israel to make sure that we are doing that at the same time, you know, providing food and medication to the Palestinians in Gaza and make sure that we are not hitting any uninvolved, you know, people. And innocent people are out of this area and you are working like in a surgery very carefully and this takes time, definitely. So we'll need more, I guess, it's hard to predict, but I would say a month will be fine. To be able to say, well, we have gone through all strongholds and centers. Now, as to the cleaning or the demilitarization of the area, this will take years. I mean, to get to every single rocket and every single launcher, this is about, I would say, at least a year, you know, and I don't know, let us do it. Maybe the Arab, the Arab country, the Arab countries will ask to start running the script like Qatar and the Emirate, Egypt. So a lot of many, many question marks we have here that are really not known at this point. Moshe, please stay with us. Joining us in studio is our senior correspondent, Owen Alterman. Thank you for joining, Owen. And now we spoke just now, Dr. Moshe Elad mentioned the U.S. We see that there's a lot of pressure for Israel to finish up with the war in the next few weeks and some say by the end of the year. But on the other hand, we're also hearing Blinken saying that the operation will end when Israel says that it's over. So which one is it? Well, probably somewhere in between, right, in a technical matter. That's what the administration wants to be on the record saying that it's up to Israel. Behind the scenes, Sivana, I suspect that they are sending strong suggestions of what they'd like to see. So obviously it has to be negotiated. And I think in large part, going back to your conversation a moment ago with Moshe Elad, a lot will depend on what's happening on the ground. Exactly what the state of play is in the humanitarian situation, what the level of civilian casualties are. And there's an irony here because it seems to me at least, again, I defer to Moshe Elad and others on this, but the more you compress the timetable for the war, it seems to be the higher the risk of civilian casualties, just as a matter of logic. Because if you're signaling to Israel that it needs to speed up the process of reaching its military objectives because the clock is ticking, it would seem to me that means the military, by definition, needs to take more risks in terms of civilian casualties in order to hit the targets it needs. So I wonder if that's even the best strategy for the United States and or whether the two goals that the United States is setting, limiting civilian casualties and limiting the time frame of the war, in some ways, it odds with each other and contradict each other. Right, so now we have the US pressuring Israel to finish up the operation. But meanwhile, it also renewed. We see a renewal of the sale of weapons to Israel. So what exactly is there stance here? It's a bit confusing. It's confusing, I think intentionally confusing, because obviously there are multiple audiences here. But I do think signalling it signals that the United States does want Israel to win the war, but again, maybe not at all costs, right? Again, not at all costs. The United States would like to see Hamas defeated, like to see that military objective met, like to see the end of Hamas control over the territory of the Gaza Strip, as you were just talking about. But again, maybe not at all costs, maybe there is a level of civilian casualties and a level beneath which the humanitarian situation would go, in which the United States, where the costs might outweigh the benefits. Obviously, nobody wants to get there, and that's why the United States is intervening. And trying to enable Israel to get to both objectives, right? Both meeting the military objectives and defeating Hamas. And also meeting the objectives in terms of the civilian arena in Gaza. Again, I just wonder whether limiting the time frame actually makes it harder to achieve both goals rather than easier. So speaking of this, let's take a look at the following story. The United States is doubling down on its support for Israel. Following the use of its veto in the UN Security Council, it is sending an ammunition resupply to bolster Israeli tanks. By passing Congress, the Biden administration is using emergency powers to send $106 million worth of shells, as concerns over the cost of U.S. armed supplies to allies, and pressure over civilian casualties in Gaza rise. Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, determined that it was in the U.S.'s interests to send the 14,000 rounds of ammunition to Israel. The IDF has in the past and continues today to place a high importance on the deployment of tanks, even in urban combat. And the U.S. State Department hopes the weapons shipment will boost Israeli deterrence. But Washington is also signaling to Jerusalem its concerns over the number of noncombatants being killed in ongoing fighting. It remains imperative that Israel put a premium on civilian protection. And there does remain a gap between the intent to protect civilians and the actual results that we're seeing on the ground. In the coming weeks, we'll see if this additional fire power gets Israel the victory it's searching for. That story by our correspondent, Robert Swift, and still with us is Dr. Moshe Elad. So, Moshe, we're hearing here about the U.S. pressure and giving the timeline to Israel. It's important also for the Biden administration that there is a plan for the day after. So what is this plan for the day after? What are the options? First of all, let me tell you something about the pressure. Israel has emphasized to the U.S. several times that every time that we were pressured and we took, we withdrew before time, ahead of time, we lost our deterrence. And again, Sivan, here is, our deterrence is here at stake. Everybody's looking around, from Syria to Lebanon and to Yemen. And they want to see how this is going to end. If this is not going to end with a clear victory of Israel over Hamas, we are in trouble. Now, regarding what you just mentioned about the day after, look, one thing I believe, I believe personally, is someone who worked with the Palestinian Authority for so many years that the Palestinian Authority won't be able, won't be able to hold it. I mean, if they think about some kind of authority that will run and control Gaza, this is not Abu Mazen and his people, they have a hard time doing it in the West Bank when they have to control and they can. So what can be replaced by? First of all, I believe it should be a coalition of Arab countries like the Emirates, like Jordan, Egypt, Qatar, they will have to form some kind of force, run it for, let's say, three years and during this time, I believe they would have to have elections there and find some local leadership that will take over. But to stay and say, well, let's see what is going to be, this is going to be a disaster. If the day that we are announcing that you'd like to go out, they won't have the people to stay there and keep control or we are going to be in trouble. And I know that Israel is not going to stay there except of what? Two weeks just for the temporary stay. So by and large, I anticipate a big, big problem. Nobody, neither Egypt nor the Emirates are so enthusiastic to take over. That's right. And we know that Israel is indeed against having the Palestinian Authority take over Gaza in the day to come. Let's talk about the North. We are seeing constant crossfire in the North with daily strikes by Hezbollah and Lebanon. How is Israel to be dealing with this? That's also what we have to remember before everything, that 60,000 people left their settlements and they are not going to return unless Hezbollah will stop its activities, means there's no danger at all. So what they are saying is that Hezbollah, has to obey the 1701, which means to withdraw after the Litany River. And Israel has to say that loud and clear, folks, if you're not going, I mean to the UN, to the United States, to Europe, if you guys are not going to do that, we'll do that by force. This is the way to do this procedure. First, give them a chance to do them by himself. They won't do that, I'm sure. They won't do that, we'll have to use force in order to let them understand that our settlements won't be under real danger exactly as in the South. So what's the strategy then? You say this can't go on. People can't come home in this situation, so what is the strategy? Again, first of all, the UN, the United States and Europe, the Europe countries will have to take a decision if they are getting involved or not. Just to put pressure on Lebanon, the Tkisbala will grow after the Litany River. It's about 40 kilometers, which won't have, won't make a problem and won't create a danger to Israel. Now, I believe that they won't accept it and then we'll have to use force. Use force after we finish in the South. After coming back from the South, we'll revitalize our forces, we'll refresh them and we'll be able to run again and tell Tkisbala what they have to do. This is the strategy. Dr. Mosheila, thank you for joining us and for your input. Thank you too. And still with us in studio is Owen Alterman. Owen, we are hearing that there are a lot of discussions in the government about Palestinian workers from the West Bank who have not been able to come into Israel since October 7th and some are in favor of letting them back in, some are not. What's the situation? The situation is the cabinet shot it down, Sivan. It's seen as a remarkable event in Israel. On one hand, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu supported allowing these workers back into Israel and we'll explain in a second what exactly the issue is. And also the security establishment supported it and they just didn't have the votes in either of the cabinets, right? The economic cabinet voted in the afternoon unanimously against allowing these workers back in and then in the security cabinet, a vote wasn't even held because Netanyahu understood that he didn't have a majority. Just to take a step back and explain to viewers that for decades, tens of thousands and sometimes some points, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who live in the West Bank cross into Israel day in, day out, especially as you know, Sivan, to work in construction and also to some degree in agriculture. Since October 7th, the vast majority of those workers have been at home, have not been allowed to come into Israel for reasons that I think are obvious to everyone, right? Again, prior to October 7th, we had workers coming in from Gaza into those border communities on the Israel-Gaza border and in many cases provided intelligence to Hamas about where to go and where to slaughter people and some reportedly even seen on the morning of October 7th itself leading the murderers and terrorists and maybe participating themselves, killing the people that they had worked with and worked for just days before. So in light of that and given the wider security situation, decision made not to have those Palestinians from the West Bank in the main coming into Israel day in, day out. Obviously, Sivan, that's potentially a problem for two reasons. One is economic, right? The economy is without those tens of thousands of workers very much hurts the construction sector, could potentially be replaced over time by foreign workers brought from countries around the world as we see in other sectors in the Israeli economy, but that takes time. And also for security reasons, when you have tens of thousands of workers sitting at home, that means they're not earning money, they're not helping to feed their families. And obviously that could create discontent in the West Bank that it is thought could then come back and be used and be translated into hostility towards Israel and hurting the security situation. So it was up to the Israeli government yesterday in these meetings to weigh the pros and cons. And you had on one side, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the security establishment saying, we can let in these workers. We can be able to vet who is a terrorist and who is not. It will help the Israeli economy and it will help Israeli security by making sure that people have money to feed their families and don't then incentivize to be hostile to Israel. On the other hand, Sivan, two arguments made one, that this was the concept that was used before October 7th in Gaza, right? That simply allowing people to work, giving them money, that this is what would buy Israel quiet. It is said by some in the government. And that concept fell apart given what happened on October 7th and shouldn't be used in the West Bank. And also there are other economic remedies to bring in foreign workers. To make a long story short, again voted down in the cabinet, the views of the security establishment rejected. Again, partly for strategic reasons, but I think Sivan for a more basic reason that people in Israel are scared. People understand that the vast majority of these workers are simply wanting to work to earn money for their families, but don't have confidence in security establishment to be able to vet those who are potentially terrorists. They're scared for their sons and their children and that translated to the votes that we saw yesterday. Our senior correspondent, Owen Alterman, thank you very much. That's all for this edition of I-24 News. We have rolling coverage providing you with the latest from Israel. I'm Sivan Rafiq. Thank you very much for watching. Israel is in a state of war. Families completely done down in their beds. We have no idea where is she as our soldiers are fighting on the front line, but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well. News 24, Israel Bajo Ataque. News 24 en Español trae el análisis y la información de los acontecimientos de la guerra, espadas de hierro. Entrevistas exclusivas reportes desde la zona de guerra. La reacción de los países hispanoparlantes. News 24, el único medio en Español que te mantiene informado y conectado con la comunidad latina en Israel. Unicamente en I-24 News. Welcome to I-24 News. I'm Sivan Rafiq. And these are the latest developments coming to you live from Tel Aviv. Today is Day 66 of Israel's war with Hamas. The idea of continues its battle on the ground in southern Gaza, striking the city of Han Yunus in the early morning hours as sirens went off in southern communities in Israel. In the north, crossfire continues between Hezbollah and Lebanon and Israel. According to Syrian state media, Israeli airstrikes were reported in the area around the Syrian capital of Damascus overnight, resulting in some damage. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly set up a small secret team of top allies and representatives from the Defense establishment to discuss post-war plans for Gaza. The team is led by National Security Advisor Tsachyan Egbi and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dürmer and supposedly includes representatives from the IDF, the Mossad and the Shin Bet. Additionally, the Israeli Security Cabinet is discussing a controversial proposal to allow Palestinian laborers to enter Israel from the West Bank, which would potentially allow thousands of workers to return to work for the first time since October 7th. The IDF announced the names of three more soldiers killed in combat in Gaza with 101 soldiers who have died since the ground operation against Hamas began in the Gaza Strip. Major General and Reserves Ghidoni Lani, Major General and Reserves Itai Peri, and Major and Reserves Evyatel Cohen. Additionally, Major Gal Baha was killed in a military car accident in southern Israel. And as the fighting intensifies, Netanyahu calls on Hamas terrorists to surrender and not to die for the sake of Yixin War. Take a listen. In recent days, dozens of Hamas terrorists have surrendered to our forces. They lay down their weapons. They surrender themselves to our heroic soldiers. It will take more time. The war is ongoing, but this is the beginning of the end for Hamas. And I say to the Hamas terrorists, it's over. Don't die for Sinoir. Surrender now. And joining us from Israel's northern border is our I-24 news correspondent, Zach Anders. Zach, we're hearing sirens went off in the North moments ago. What can you tell us about this? We're seeing that as well. And videos on social media are showing what appears to be a large heavy rocket launch from southern Lebanon intercepted over northern Israel airspace. And this is, these red alerts have been coming in more towards the western half of northern Israel in the last 24 hours. We've seen several red alerts by the coast. And now this red alert in the area of Kfar Vardim in the western half of the country here. This is what appears to be a considerable, a large launch that we have not heard from the IDF yet regarding impacts or damage and have yet to hear any results of injuries as well. Now we're hearing Syrian media report about a strike overnight near Damascus. What do we know about that? And we're seeing that the IDF has not confirmed its involvement yet in yesterday's loud, large explosions heard over the Syrian city. It does though appear to follow in succession with several Israeli strikes that have happened in the last week targeting both Hezbollah operatives in southern Syria. We saw a large and calculated strike in the last three days targeting a Hezbollah leader responsible for a variety of, with a long history you could say. And several others were killed in that strike in southern Syria in the Golan area. This has also been a war of precise targeting from the Israelis since October 7th inside Syria attempting to take out these different faction leaders who are, to per their intelligence, attempting to stir up, create more problems here in the north. But we are still waiting on confirmation as to which exactly, where exactly these explosions are attributed to that were taking place in Damascus. Zach Anders on Israel's Northern border, thank you very much. Joining us now is retired colonel and reserves Dr. Mousselad, former coordinator to Palestinian Authority on security issues at the IDF and lecturer at the Western Galilee Academic College. And also here in studio with me is his own alterman, our senior news correspondent. Thank you both for joining. Mousselad, the fighting intensifies deep into the southern Gaza and Hanyunas, Jabalia and Sojaia, the Palestine Square was reportedly taken over by the IDF. How advanced is the IDF in their military goals over in the south? Good morning, Sivan. Look, Hamas, from the pictures I see and what I hear and what I can anticipate is that Hamas is close to be broken. Hamas and the other factions, and don't forget we are dealing about 11 other factions there, seem to be close to being broken because the pictures coming from Gaza speak for themselves, getting hundreds of terrorists surrounding to the IDF, throwing their rifles. This is an important moral picture for in combat conditions, and it's not just symbolic because in the entire area, what we hear is that the Israeli plan is proceeding step by step, exactly as prepared and exactly as it was planned. Now, as you mentioned, the commanders and Israeli work cabinet ministers are saying that Hamas' resistance is beginning to break, Netanyahu said. This is the beginning of the end, and all of this as ongoing intense fighting is happening with progress being made in the north and in the south of Gaza. But how likely is it that Hamas will actually break and is there a timeline to this? Okay, two things. First of all, I guess that we still have about three weeks maybe in order to complete the whole issue now about the shooting of the rockets because this is always, you know, how can they still shoot? I'll tell you what, to find the last rocket launcher in Gaza is like finding a needle in an ice stick, as you know. The occupation of the street will be completed in a short time. I guess about a month, let's say a month. And then we'll have another week or two to see if we can find the main launching areas. But in order to clean the entire street, it will take us at least one year to go to every single part of the street and clean it. So don't be surprised. They, Hamas, is calculating his shooting just in order to show and say, well, I'm still here. I'm still standing on my feet. So take it exactly as it is. I mean, try to make it more symbolic than we're listening and you're now inspiring. Dr. Moshella, please stay with us. We'll be back to you shortly. Joining us down south is our I-24 news correspondent, Pierre Kloschendler. Pierre, can you give us the latest update on the ground? Well, fighting is continuing and deepening in three arenas in the northern refugee camp of Jibalia on the northern outskirts of Gaza City, then on the southeast outskirts of Shijaiya of Gaza City and in the central sector of the Gaza Strip, Hanyunas and the central area refugee camps. With Rotem Ben Hemo, I'm going to show you the arena right now. We're about four kilometers away from the border, but you can clearly see the smoke billowing out of the southeastern outskirts of Gaza City where fist-fighting is still going on. The Army has authorized the publication of three Israeli soldiers who died in the arena of Hanyunas. It seems that they were caught into an ambush of an arena of explosive charges which shows you how difficult it is to demilitarize all these places and to eliminate the Gaza terror, the Hamas terrorists. At this point, we know that the replacement of the battalion chief of the Shijaiya outskirts of Gaza has been eliminated. His predecessor was eliminated a week ago and this is one of the goals of the Army to break the chain of command of Hamas in such a way that it will allow the surrender of Hamas foot soldiers because they don't get any instruction and this is what we've been witnessing in the past few days when Hamas terrorists are just simply surrendering to the IDF because they don't know what to do because they lost contact with their superiors and the chain of command starts to be broken at this point, Sivan. Thank you very much, Pierre, who is right by Kibbutz Bayre down south. Now joining us again is Dr. Moshe El-Ad. Thank you for staying with us. Now we spoke about a timeline just before the IDF projects. About another month will be required for this stage and the fighting in this area in the south. Is this feasible and does Israel have this time? Well, I believe that any timetable will be feasible and we'll do all efforts. The IDF will do every effort to finalize the work, but it depends how fast and how productive will be the process in time units. Time units is going to be a very tough stronghold of Hamas. So let's see what will be in the next couple of days. It will give us a good picture regarding the future. But again, you have to consider that the situation that the IDF is now in is a very tough one. Why? Because the US has asked Israel to make sure that we are doing that at the same time, you know, providing food and medication to the Palestinians in Gaza and make sure that we are not hitting any uninvolved people. And innocent people are out of this area and you are working like in a surgery very carefully and this takes time, definitely. So we'll need more, I guess it's hard to predict but I would say a month will be fine. To be able to say, well, we have gone through all strongholds and centers. Now, as to the cleaning or the demilitarization of the area, this will take years. I mean, to get to every single rocket and every single launcher, this is about, I would say at least a year, you know. And I don't know, let us do it. Maybe the Arab country, the Arab countries will ask to start running the street like Qatar and the Emirate, Egypt. So a lot of many, many question marks we have here that are really not known at this point. Moshe, please stay with us. Joining us in studio is our senior correspondent, Owen Alterman. Thank you for joining, Owen. Now, we spoke just now, Dr. Moshe Elad mentioned the US. We see that there's a lot of pressure for Israel to finish up with the war in the next few weeks and some say by the end of the year. But on the other hand, we're also hearing Lincoln saying that the operation will end when Israel says that it's over. So which one is it? Well, probably somewhere in between, right? In a technical matter, that's what the administration wants to be on the record saying that it's up to Israel. But behind the scenes, Sivana, I suspect that they are sending strong suggestions of what they'd like to see. So obviously, it has to be negotiated. And I think in large part, going back to your conversation a moment ago with Moshe Elad, a lot will depend on what's happening on the ground, exactly what the state of play is in the humanitarian situation, what the level of civilian casualties are. And there's an irony here, because it seems to me at least, again, I defer to Moshe Elad and others on this. But the more you compress the timetable for the war, it seems to be the higher the risk of civilian casualties, just as a matter of logic. Because if you're signaling to Israel that it needs to speed up the process of reaching its military objectives, because the clock is ticking, it would seem to me that means the military, by definition, needs to take more risks in terms of civilian casualties in order to hit the targets it needs. So I wonder if that's even the best strategy for the United States, or whether the two goals that the United States is setting, limiting civilian casualties, and limiting the timeframe of the war in some ways just at odds with each other and contradict each other. Right, so now we have the US pressuring Israel to finish up the operation. But meanwhile, it also renewed. We see a renewal of the sale of weapons to Israel. So what exactly is their stance here? It's a bit confusing. It's confusing, I think intentionally confusing, because obviously there are multiple audiences here. But I do think it signals that the United States does want Israel to win the war. But again, maybe not at all costs, right? Again, not at all costs. The United States would like to see Hamas defeated, like to see that military objective met, like to see the end of Hamas control over the territory of the Gaza Strip, as you were just talking about. But again, maybe not at all costs, maybe there is a level of civilian casualties and a level beneath which the humanitarian situation would go, in which the United States, where the costs might outweigh the benefits. Obviously, nobody wants to get there. And that's why the United States is intervening and trying to enable Israel to get to both objectives. Both meeting the military objectives and defeating Hamas, and also meeting the objectives in terms of the civilian arena in Gaza. Again, I just wonder whether limiting the timeframe actually makes it harder to achieve both goals rather than easier. So speaking of this, let's take a look at the following story. The United States is doubling down on its support for Israel. Following the use of its veto in the UN Security Council, it is sending an ammunition resupply to bolster Israeli tanks. By passing Congress, the Biden administration is using emergency powers to send $106 million worth of shells as concerns over the cost of U.S. armed supplies to allies and pressure over civilian casualties in Gaza rise. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken determined that it was in the U.S.'s interests to send the 14,000 rounds of ammunition to Israel. The IDF has in the past and continues today to place a high importance on the deployment of tanks, even in urban combat. And the U.S. State Department hopes the weapons shipment will boost Israeli deterrence. But Washington is also signaling to Jerusalem its concerns over the number of non-combatants being killed in ongoing fighting. It remains imperative that Israel put a premium on civilian protection. And there does remain a gap between the intent to protect civilians and the actual results that we're seeing on the ground. In the coming weeks, we'll see if this additional fire power gets Israel the victory it's searching for. That story by our correspondent, Robert Swift, and still with us is Dr. Moshe Elad. So Moshe, we're hearing here about the U.S. pressure and giving the timeline to Israel. It's important also for the Biden administration that there is a plan for the day after. So what is this plan for the day after? What are the options? First of all, let me tell you something about the pressure. Israel has emphasized to the U.S. several times that every time that we were pressured and we took, we withdrew before time, ahead of time, we lost our deterrence. And again, Sivan, here is, our deterrence is here at stake. Everybody's looking around, from Syria to Lebanon and to Yemen, and they wanna see how this is going to end. If this is not going to end with a clear victory of Israel over Hamas, we are in trouble. Now, regarding what you just mentioned about the day after, look, one thing I believe, I believe personally, as someone who worked with the Palestinian Authority for so many years, that the Palestinian Authority won't be able, won't be able to hold it. I mean, if they think about some kind of authority that will run and control, Gaza, this is not Abu Mazen and his people, they have hard time doing it in the West Bank when they have to control and they can. So what can be replaced by? First of all, I believe it should be a coalition of Arab countries, like the Emirate, like Jordan, Egypt, Qatar, they will have to form some kind of force, run it for, let's say, three years and during this time, I believe they will have to have elections there and find some local leadership that will take over. But to stay and say, well, let's see what is gonna be, this is going to be a disaster. If the day that we are announcing that you'd like to go out, they won't have the people to stay there and keep control, oh, we are going to be in trouble. And I know that Israel is not gonna stay there except of what? Two weeks just for the temporary stay. So by and large, I anticipate a big, big problem. Nobody, neither Egypt nor the Emirate are so enthusiastic to take over. That's right, and we know that Israel is indeed against having the Palestinian Authority take over Gaza in the day to come. Let's talk about the North. We are seeing constant crossfire in the North with daily strikes by Hezbollah and Lebanon. How is Israel to be dealing with this? That's also what we have to remember before everything. That 60,000 people left their settlements and they are not going to return unless Hezbollah will stop its activities, means there's no danger at all. So what they are saying is that Hezbollah has to obey the 1701, which means to withdraw after the Littani River. And Israel has to say that loud and clear. Folks, if you're not going, I mean to the UN, to the United States, to Europe, if you guys are not going to do that, we'll do that by force. This is the way to do this procedure. First, give them a chance to do them by himself. They won't do that, I'm sure. They won't do that, we'll have to use force in order to let them understand that our settlements won't be under real danger, exactly as in the South. So what's the strategy then? You say this can't go on, people can't come home in this situation, so what is the strategy? Again, first of all, the UN, the United States and Europe, the Europe countries will have to take a decision if they are getting involved or not, just to put pressure on Lebanon, the Chisbalah will grow after the Littani River. It's about 40 kilometers, which won't have, won't make a problem and won't create a danger to Israel. Now, I believe that they won't accept it and then we'll have to use force. Use force after we finish in the South. After coming back from the South, we'll revitalize our forces, we'll refresh them and we'll be able to run again and tell Chisbalah what they have to do. This is the strategy. Dr. Mosheila, thank you for joining us and for your input. Thank you too. And still with us in studio is Owen Alterman. Owen, we're hearing that there are a lot of discussions in the government about Palestinian workers from the West Bank who have not been able to come into Israel since October 7th. And some are in favor of letting them back in, some are not. What's the situation there? The situation is the cabinet shot it down, Sivan. It's seen as a remarkable event in Israel. On one hand, Prime Minister Benjamin, it's now supported allowing these workers back into Israel and we'll explain in a second what exactly the issue is. And also the security establishment supported it and they just didn't have the votes in either of the cabinets, right? The economic cabinet voted in the afternoon unanimously against allowing these workers back in. And then in the security cabinet, a vote wasn't even held because Netanyahu understood that he didn't have a majority. Just to take a step back and explain to viewers that for decades, tens of thousands and sometimes some points, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who live in the West Bank cross into Israel day in, day out, especially as you know, Sivan, to work in construction and also to some degree in agriculture. Since October 7th, the vast majority of those workers have been at home, have not been allowed to come into Israel for reasons that I think are obvious to everyone, right? Again, prior to October 7th, we had workers coming in from Gaza into those border communities on the Israel-Gaza border. And in many cases, provided intelligence to Hamas about where to go and where to slaughter people. And some reportedly even seen on the morning of October 7th itself, leading the murderers and terrorists and maybe participating themselves, killing the people that they had worked with and worked for just days before. So in light of that, and given the wider security situation, decision made not to have those Palestinians from the West Bank in the main, coming into Israel day in, day out. Obviously, Sivan, that's potentially a problem for two reasons. One is economic, right? The economy is without those tens of thousands of workers very much hurts the construction sector, could potentially be replaced over time by foreign workers brought from countries around the world as we see in other sectors in the Israeli economy. But that takes time. And also for security reasons, when you have tens of thousands of workers sitting at home, that means they're not earning money. They're not helping to feed their families. And obviously that could create discontent in the West Bank that it is thought could then come back and be used and be translated into hostility towards Israel and hurting the security situation. So it was up to the Israeli government yesterday in these meetings to weigh the pros and cons. And you had on one side, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the security establishment saying, we can let in these workers. We can be able to vet who is a terrorist and who is not. It will help the Israeli economy and it will help Israeli security by making sure that people have money to feed their families and don't then incentivize to be hostile to Israel. On the other hand, Sivan, two arguments made one, that this was the concept that was used before October 7th in Gaza, right? That simply allowing people to work, giving them money, that this is what would buy Israel quiet. It is said by some in the government. And that concept fell apart, given what happened on October 7th and shouldn't be used in the West Bank. And also there are other economic remedies to bring in foreign workers. To make a long story short, again, voted down in the cabinet. The views of the security establishment rejected. Again, partly for strategic reasons, but I think Sivan for a more basic reason, that people in Israel are scared. People understand that the vast majority of these workers are simply wanting to work to earn money for their families, but don't have confidence in security establishment to be able to vet those who are potentially terrorists. They're scared for their sons and their children and that's translated to the votes that we saw yesterday. Our senior correspondent Owen Alterman, thank you very much. That's all for this edition of I-24 News. We have rolling coverage providing you with the latest from Israel. I'm Sivan Reviv. Thank you very much for watching. There are phrases that you know from where they come from. Look here. And the package for when. And loads that you already know where they're going. In my international loads, Altis, your people at NRW, access our website, loads.altis.com.co, select loads and type the number that you want to place the load. Also, they receive the double balance in loads of $8 or more. Altis, the global network of the Dominicans. In a state of war, families completely done down in their beds. We have no idea where we see as our soldiers are fighting on the front line, but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well. For news, I'm Sivan Reviv and these are the latest developments coming to you live from Tel Aviv. Today is day 66 of Israel's war with Hamas. The IDF continues its battle on the ground in southern Gaza, striking the city of Hanyunas in the early morning hours as sirens went off in southern communities in Israel. In the north, crossfire continues between Hezbollah and Lebanon and Israel. According to Syrian state media, Israeli airstrikes were reported in the area around the Syrian capital of Damascus overnight, resulting in some damage. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly set up a small secret team of top allies and representatives from the defense establishment to discuss post-war plans for Gaza. The team is led by National Security Advisor Tsachya Negvi and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and supposedly includes representatives from the IDF, the Mossad and the Shin Bet. Additionally, the Israeli security cabinet is discussing a controversial proposal to allow Palestinian laborers to enter Israel from the West Bank, which would potentially allow thousands of workers to return to work for the first time since October 7th. The IDF announced the names of three more soldiers killed in combat in Gaza, with 101 soldiers who have died since the ground operation began against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Sergeant Major in Reserves Ghiddon Ilani, Sergeant Major in Reserves Itai Peri, and Major in Reserves Evytal Cohen. Additionally, Major Gal Bacha was killed in a military car accident in southern Israel. And as the fighting intensifies, Netanyahu calls on Hamas terrorists to surrender and not to die for the sake of Yehiss Noir. Take a listen. In recent days, dozens of Hamas terrorists have surrendered to our forces. They lay down their weapons. They surrender themselves to our heroic soldiers. It will take more time. The war is ongoing, but this is the beginning of the end for Hamas. And I say to the Hamas terrorists, it's over. Don't die for Sinoir. Surrender. Now. And joining us down south is our I-24 news correspondent, Pierre Klushendler. Pierre, we're hearing sirens down in the south. Can you give us the latest update on the ground? Right. There was a flurry of about six rockets that targeted the city of Sderot and the vicinity of the city of Sderot a little bit up north. And we saw six interceptions. The municipality of Sderot says that there is no damage, no casualties amongst the few thousands of residents who've remained in the city of 30,000 inhabitants. Now we're hearing Netanyahu warn Hamas officials to surrender and we saw many men indeed surrender over the weekend. What do we know about this? Well, you know, it's part of the psychological warfare that Israel is trying to launch on Hamas as well. The chain of command of Hamas is being broken. According to the IDF, 50% of the battalion of the companies and of the regiment commanders of the northern Gaza Strip has been already eliminated. Just yesterday, the successor of the chief of the battalion of the Shejai affront in the southeast of the outskirts of Gaza City was eliminated. His predecessor was eliminated about a week ago. So there's a broken chain of command and as a result, tens of terrorists are surrendering to the IDF. And after field questioning, it appears that most of them surrender because they don't receive any orders and they feel that they've been left on their own, that the military leadership is not taking care of them. Now amongst the scores of people who've surrendered, not all of them are terrorists. Maybe 40% according to the IDF estimations are terrorists. So part of the psychological warfare against Hamas is to try to discourage the Hamas terrorists that are still fighting fiercely in the northern outskirts of Gaza City, in the Jebalia refugee camp, in the southeastern outskirts, as I mentioned, Shejaiya, and in Hanyunes. I just want to give you a look of the front from where we are, four kilometers away from the border with the Gaza Strip. And you can see the southeastern outskirts of Gaza City where major fighting is occurring. You can see maybe not that clearly some black smoke bellowing over residential areas. We don't exactly know what was the presumed terror target over there. But what appears clear is that there's been fierce fighting in the northern outskirts and southeastern outskirts of Gaza City, which is still part of the northern front, which is under Israeli operational command for about eight days already. And the army estimates that the fighting in and around Gaza City will probably go on for the next few days, as the offensive is deepening south of Gaza City in Hanyunes, where the city has been totally encircled and they are also fighting within the heart of Hanyunes by a division which gathers all the commando units of the IDF and the three reservists that were killed and whose names were authorized for publication appear to have fallen into a trap of explosive charges which shows you how difficult it is to fight in that sector because it's very dense with a lot of booby trapped arenas and a lot of terrorist squads that are just popping out of tunnel shafts and launching, for instance, a rocket propelled grenade of the RPG type and surveillance drones and combat drones are working in support of the ground forces and many times these terrorist squads are being neutralized as they launch their RPG on Israeli tanks or soldiers with patrol. Pia Klushen, lured down on Israel's southern border. Thank you very much. Joining us now is Brigadier General and Reserves, Yosef Kupa-Vassil, former Director General at the Israel Ministry of Strategic Affairs and former Head of Research Division at the IDF Military Intelligence and also here in studio with us is our I-24 News host and analyst, Kalev Ben-David. Thank you both for being with us. Yosef, we're hearing Netanyahu establish a new special secret team which is set to examine the next day process. Is this an expected move and what's the projection for the next day? Well, I'm not sure it's such a secretive group. It's been expected from the government to deal with the day after. We entered the war without a plan for the day after. We entered the war because we were forced to start this war, but as the war develops we have to think about the day after. There are groups like that on the level of the Minister of Defense he has established a group of his own. The military has a group of his own. So the Prime Minister, this is a matter for the Prime Minister to deal with, had to deal with that himself. And the two persons that he charged with this mission are the people who are actually should be dealing with this. Both the Minister of Strategic Affairs, Ron Dermer and the head of the national security staff, Tsachiyanegbi, these are tasks for strategic planning and they have to do that. They do that also because I think that there is a feeling that the Americans are putting pressure on Israel to start dealing with this matter because they have a plan of their own. Their plan is to bring the Palestinian Authority to Gaza so that Abu Mazen would rule Gaza in the day after. This for Netanyahu and I think for Israel it's not only Netanyahu, for Israel this is an unacceptable solution for what's going to happen in Gaza because the PA is part of the problem. Maybe it's one of the major parts of the problem. And to allow it to govern Gaza in the future it sounds to me totally detached from the reality and from the understanding that something happened on the 7th of October. Kalev? Yeah, I do think it's interesting because he's right if you look at the titles of the two people reportedly appointed to this team, Ron Durmer, strategic affairs, Tsachiyanegbi, the head of the National Security Council it makes sense, but there's something beyond that. Those are two of the members of the political sphere considered personally closest to Benjamin Netanyahu. So it's telling that he picked two of his closest confidence to start planning the day after. It's interesting who is not reportedly on that team of the day after. Nobody from the party of Benny Gantz. No, Benny Gantz or anybody involved with Benny Gantz, which of course is still a key part of the government, a key part of the war cabinet. That's because that team has gonna have to start essentially making political decisions. The decisions that are going to be difficult for much of Benjamin Netanyahu's government to accept such as Yosef says, letting the decision about how much authority the Palestinian authority is going to have. So this is going to be quite moving and that's one of the reasons for example, and perhaps we'll discuss this decision about letting Palestinian work is in, it's been put off because we are now at the stage where some political decisions are gonna have to be made along with security decisions. And one other thing, it's not as if the day after is gonna come, Yixi Sinwar is, we could ignore those questions and Yixi Sinwar and Muhammad Def were killed and suddenly all of a sudden you have to decide. Relating to the earlier reporting, parts of the Gaza Strip already under Israeli control. Hamas has lost control. What's gonna happen to those people there, those civilians there? These are decisions that are gonna have to start being made. And again, these are politically difficult decisions for Prime Minister Netanyahu, which is why, maybe not secret, but why this team is being kept a little undercover as opposed to some of those other bodies that Yosef talked about. That's right. So please stay with us. Both of you will be back to you in a moment. Joining us from Israel's Northern border is our I-24 news correspondent, Zach Anders. Zach, we heard sirens went off in the North earlier. What can you tell us about the situation? Hi, good morning. We're tracking seven different launches, heavy rocket launches that appear to come from Southern Lebanon, targeting Northern Israeli airspace. They were intercepted by the Iron Dome per independent media reports. This coming in a very large barrage that we have seen happen in the last few weeks since October 7th, but this one in particular does show a fair number of heavy rockets that do reach altitude of several thousand feet and then appear to be intercepted over airspace in Northern Israel. There is no reports yet of damage or injuries on the ground. A red alert warning came out in the eight o'clock hour for Kefar Verdeem, rather, this in the western half of Northern Lebanon where we've seen several red alerts in the last 24 hours, especially for coastal communities north of Haifa. This another considerable morning here in the North as we have been seeing Hezbollah continue to target and encroach on the Israeli spaces here, defensive spaces in the North. And it's happening against a backdrop today in Lebanon and in Syria of what appears to be a general strike for Palestine, for Gaza, as many banks and places of work are apparently closed as people are striking in the streets, attempting to cause social disruption for what is happening here. So we're tracking both these organized protests in both countries and the military movement that is happening both in Southern Lebanon and as we see in the last 72 hours, considerable movement in Southern Syria as well. So about Syria, Syrian media report about this strike overnight near Damascus, what do we know about this? Has the IDF approved this information? We're still waiting on official IDF confirmation of what exactly took place in Damascus last night. It does appear that these strikes were, it's difficult to say exactly who could be the target or the point of which faction is attempted to be eliminated here, the threat that's being attempted to be eliminated. We have seen in the last several days that a considerable amount of Hezbollah fighters appear to have surfaced in Southern Syria with a strike targeting a senior official, Hezbollah official that's operating one of the Golan brigades in Southern Syria with a lengthy history and background. He was arrested by US forces several years ago and turned over to Iraq, then released after a trial that he was on trial for the kidnapping and targeting of US soldiers in the region was released and then made his way into Lebanon and appeared to begin a leadership role with Hezbollah. So a significant member of Hezbollah's operatives was eliminated in that strike. It is considerable to notice the leadership that is moving itself into other spaces, spears of influence, especially considering Syria and it's already a destabilized political situation. Zach Anders on Israel's Northern border, thank you very much. And back with us is Brigadier General and reserves Yosef Kupil Vassil. Yosef, we're hearing Zach report from the North and we're hearing this reported Israeli strike near Damascus. What are we to make of this? Is Israel stepping it up? No, I think those who are stepping it up are Hezbollah and Iran. You see that the Iranians keep pushing more and more weapons in and keep promoting all kinds of terror activities against Israel from Lebanon, from Syria and from Yemen. And we have to respond and we have to take care and throw those attempts to carry out attacks against us before they are carried out. And that's what we are watching now. It's an ongoing escalation, but not rapid escalation. It's step by step. Yesterday, the Hezbollah member of the parliament on behalf of Hezbollah spoke about the need to or the intention to escalate further and that's what we are seeing this morning. And that's the situation. And it's really challenging to understand the scope of the Iranian effort here. You will see that the Iranian weapons are being launched against us from all over the place. Gaza is one place, but it's much more than just that. It's the Yemen, it's Syria and Lebanon. And of course, at the same time, these weapons are being used against the Americans in Iraq and in Syria. So this is a war that is being conducted by the Iranians by proxy. And that's a big challenge for Israel and for the United States as well. And as far as I understand, the Americans are now planning, I saw some reports in the Washington Post, the Americans are planning to form an international force that will deal with the Yemenite or Houthis threat to international maritime activity in the Babylon-Mandab area states. So it's really something that's just beyond just what your reporter described as part of it that's happening in Syria and Lebanon. Right. Kaleb, we know it's known. It's a known fact that Iran is in fact pulling the strings to all of this. Right. I'll add it to Yossi's thing, this conversation that Prime Minister Netanyahu had with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. We don't know the exact contents of it, this conversation they just had. But apparently what we know is that the Prime Minister spoke quite frankly and according to reports, even sounds quite sharply to Vladimir Putin, warning him that Russia's support of Iran is potentially leading to a regional crisis and disaster. And of course, Prime Minister Netanyahu had been very careful up to this point. Certainly before October 7th, the try to balance Israel's activities and all including its support or whatever, or its arguable support for Ukraine against the need to take into account Russian sensitivities involving, for example, Syria. But we're in a whole new picture now. And perhaps also in Bolden, as Yossi said, by American increased American involvement in here, dealing with Iran has given some backing for Prime Minister Netanyahu to say to the Russians, listen, you have to temper your support for Iran at this point because this is becoming, in danger of becoming a wider regional conflict, not just Israel against, of course, Hamas. So this is the first conversation with Putin and we know they discussed the Security Council votes and Putin expresses dismay in the amount of people in Gaza who are hurt and died. This is Putin who is engaged in a war in Ukraine but is expressing dismay of what's happening. And not just Ukraine, Chechnya, for example, we can give many other examples. But again, Vladimir Putin himself, since October 7th, we've seen him play a extremely negative role, hosting leaders of Hamas, making these kind of ridiculous comments, reflecting, unfortunately, the balance, the shift in the balance of power between Moscow and Tehran with Russia becoming dependent on Iran because of its need for Iranian weapons to use in the Ukraine theater. Yosef, what do you think about Russia's part in all of this? Well, first of all, I think Russia played a very negative role by hosting the Hamas delegation right after the 7th of October massacre that Hamas perpetrated. This is something that's totally unacceptable and to tie this to what we started with, what we began with, the report about Netanyahu calling on the Hamas terrorists to give up and surrender, that is what should have been expected from Russia, the message from Russia to Sinwar and to Abu Marazuk and the rest of the leadership of Hamas should have been, if you want to spare the damage done to the Palestinians in Gaza and to the Gaza infrastructure, what you need to do is to surrender, that's what you need to do and if they have any leverage on them, that we saw them translating into leasing some of the hostages that had the Russian citizenship, that's what they should do now. They should help the Palestinians by convincing Hamas to give up because the war is lost. It's going to take some more time or some less time, we don't know. The war is lost for Hamas. So the only thing that is different between the situation now and the situation is going to be when the war is going to come to an end is the amount of damage done to Gaza and to the Palestinian people. And that's where, if Putin is so careful about the fate of the Palestinian population in Gaza, that's the message you should deliver to the leadership of Hamas and I hope this is what Netanyahu told him. Now there seems to be a certain gap between the US expectations of how this will unfold and in how much time and Israel's projections. Yeah, I think that the Americans have to understand that the best way to minimize the damage done to the Palestinians is by not putting any deadlines. Because as long as you put deadlines you actually encourage the Palestinians and you say to them that their strategy of inflating the numbers of casualties and so on and pretending that there is a humanitarian disaster in Gaza is working. The American message should be we believe in Israel that Israel does everything in its capacity to minimize the numbers of casualties and within the civilians and to take care of humanitarian situation of the Palestinians in Gaza which we do anyhow. And we have no deadline for Israel because we believe that the interest of the United States and the interest of Israel are going to go together in making sure that this war ends with the total defeat of Hamas and this is going to have a positive impact on the situation in the Middle East and the situation in the world and the global relations between China and Russia and Iran and the United States on the other hand. And for the security of the world the security of the people living in the free world that we see that Iran is trying to sabotage. And that's the message that should be coming from the Americans and this is going to help much more in saving the lives and the infrastructure of Gaza because again the message as Prime Minister said is for the Hamas to surrender. This is the best thing they can do for themselves. Well, I mean, Yosef is right on that point but you have to also take into account just as Prime Minister Netanyahu is starting now to have to deal with domestic political considerations in some of the decisions he's making. So does US President Joe Biden. He's facing some opposition in his own party, his Democratic party over his support for Israel and the way Israel is conducting the war. Let's keep in mind the US presidential campaign begins in earnest next month, the first primaries and although President Biden is running basically unopposed for the Democratic nomination he's gonna need the full support of his party. And he's facing opposition from the so-called liberal progressive wing over this war. He doesn't want that issue to start bleeding into his presidential campaign. And I think that is a factor and it's only going to increase as we move into the next year. So that is something that has to be taken into account that Prime Minister Netanyahu is gonna have to take into account that window, that diplomatic window that we talk about that came into impact previous Gaza operations hasn't been in effect now but it's going to start coming into effect certainly in the coming weeks I think. Well, speaking of US election we see even Bernie Sanders is showing some expressing in favor of Israel. Well, what he is doing is actually he's joining the call in that not to support these calls for an immediate ceasefire. And he's taking heat from it. A lot of his old allies, supporters are turning on him for that. And this is starting to really now play into domestic US political considerations. And we'll only more so once of course the presidential campaign gets into the primary campaign gets into really going on the way. So we see actually that the US veto the UN security council resolution to force a ceasefire in Gaza and they vetoed in favor of Israel, Britain abstained. Right, which shows you some of the weakening of support that we already see happening in some of these European countries and Prime Minister that's now called out by name, for example, Olaf Scholz, the cancer of Germany and President Macron yesterday, saying we need the time because he is starting to feel definitely the pressure from those countries that have also been supportive of Israel and its offensive in Gaza more or less until this point. Yes, what do you think? I think that the leaders of the West should understand that by adopting this policy they actually strengthened the far left that is opposing them inside the countries and the Islamists that are joining hands with this far left by making them understand that this pressure over the leaders is working. And this is going to further destabilize France and Germany and so on and so forth because what you need to show in a situation like that is leadership and believing what you are saying. And definitely for the sake of the West, of course for the sake of Israel, but also for the sake of the West, Israel must win, must have the time, must have the Western support in order to finish the job of defeating Hamas. It's exactly what Macron and Olaf Scholz need at this point decisive Israeli victory over Hamas that will send a clear message that the West believes in fighting this radicalism, this fanaticism, this barbarism that Hamas represents. This is the policy they should adopt and we have to deliver this message by ongoing negotiations and deliberations with these leaders. This is what Danielle is doing. Yosef Kruper-Varser and Kalev Bendeved, thank you very much both for your input. That's all for this edition of I-24 News. We have rolling coverage providing you with the latest from Israel. I'm Sivan Raveev. Thank you for watching. Pelle is in a state of war, families completely done down in their beds. We have no idea where she is. Our soldiers are fighting on the front line, but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well. For news, I'm Sivan Raveev and these are the latest developments coming to you live from Pellevive. Today is day 66 of Israel's war with Hamas. The IDF continues its battle on the ground in southern Gaza, striking the city of Hanyunas in the early morning hours as sirens went off in southern communities in Israel. In the north, crossfire continues between Hezbollah and Lebanon and Israel, according to Syrian state media, Israeli airstrikes were reported in the area around the Syrian capital of Damascus overnight, resulting in some damage. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly set up a small secret team of top allies and representatives from the defense establishment to discuss post-war plans for Gaza. The team is led by national security adviser Sakhiya Negvi and strategic affairs minister, Ron Dermer, and supposedly includes representatives from the IDF, the Mossad and the Shin Bet. Additionally, the Israeli security cabinet is discussing a controversial proposal to allow Palestinian laborers to enter Israel from the West Bank, which would potentially allow thousands of workers to return to work for the first time since October 7th. The IDF announced the names of three more soldiers killed in combat in Gaza, with 101 soldiers who have died since the ground operation began against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Sergeant Major in Reserves Gidon Ilani, Sergeant Major in Reserves Itai Peri, and Major in Reserves Evietar Cohen. Additionally, Major Gal Bacha was killed in a military car accident in southern Israel. And as the fighting intensifies, Netanyahu calls on Hamas terrorists to surrender and not to die for the sake of Yehi Sinwar. Take a listen. In recent days, dozens of Hamas terrorists have surrendered to our forces. They lay down their weapons. They surrender themselves to our heroic soldiers. It will take more time. The war is ongoing, but this is the beginning of the end for Hamas. And I say to the Hamas terrorists, it's over. Don't die for Sinwar. Surrender. Now. And joining us down south is our I-24 news correspondent, Pierre Klushendler. Pierre, we're hearing sirens down in the south. Can you give us the latest update on the ground? Right, there was a flurry of about six rockets that targeted the city of Zderot and the vicinity of the city of Zderot a little bit up north. And we saw six interceptions. The municipality of Zderot says that there is no damage, no casualties amongst the few thousands of residents who've remained in the city of 30,000 inhabitants. Now we're hearing Netanyahu warn Hamas officials to surrender, and we saw many men indeed surrender over the weekend. What do we know about this? Well, you know, it's part of the psychological warfare that Israel is trying to launch on Hamas as well. The chain of command of Hamas is being broken according to the IDF. 50% of the battalion, of the companies and of the regiment commanders of the northern Gaza Strip had been already eliminated. Just yesterday, the successor of the chief of the battalion of the Shejai affront in the southeast outskirts of Gaza city was eliminated. His predecessor was eliminated about a week ago. So there's a broken chain of command and as a result, tens of terrorists are surrendering to the IDF and after field questioning, it appears that most of them surrender because they don't receive any orders and they feel that they've been left on their own that the military leadership is not taking care of them. Now amongst the scores of people who've surrendered, not all of them are terrorists. Maybe 40% according to the IDF estimations are terrorists. So part of the psychological warfare against Hamas is to try to discourage the Hamas terrorists that are still fighting fiercely in the northern outskirts of Gaza city in the Jabalia refugee camp, in the southeastern outskirts, as I mentioned, Shejaiya and in Hanyunas. I just wanna give you a look of the front from where we are four kilometers away from the border with the Gaza Strip and you can see the southeastern outskirts of Gaza city where major fighting is occurring. You can see maybe not that clearly some black smoke bellowing over residential areas. We don't exactly know what was the presumed terror targets over there, but what appears clear is that there's been fierce fighting in the northern outskirts and southeastern outskirts of Gaza city which is still part of the northern front which is under Israeli operational command for about eight days already. And the army estimates that the fighting in and around Gaza city will probably go on for the next few days as the offensive is deepening south of Gaza city in Hanyunas where the city has been totally encircled and there are also fighting within the heart of Hanyunas by a division which gathers all the commando units of the IDF and the three reservists that were killed and whose names were authorized for publication appear to have fallen into a trap of explosive charges which shows you how difficult it is to fight in that sector because it's very dense with a lot of booby-trapped arenas and a lot of terrorist squads that are just popping out of tunnel shafts and launching, for instance, a rocket-propelled grenade of the RPG type and surveillance drones and combat drones are working in support of the ground forces and many times these terrorist squads are being neutralized as they launch their RPG on Israeli tanks or soldiers with patrol. Pierre Klushen lured down on Israel's southern border. Thank you very much. Joining us now is Brigadier General and Reserves, Josef Kupovasil, former Director General at the Israel Ministry of Strategic Affairs and former Head of Research Division at the IDF Military Intelligence and also here in studio with us is our I-24 News host and analyst, Kalev Bindavid. Thank you both for being with us. Josef, we're hearing Netanyahu establish a new special secret team which is set to examine the next day process. Is this an expected move and what's the projection for the next day? Well, I'm not sure it's such a secretive group. It's been expected from the government to deal with the day after. We entered the war without a plan for the day after. We entered the war because we were forced to start this war. But as the war develops, we have to think about the day after. There are groups like that on the level of the Minister of Defense. He has established a group of his own. The military has a group of his own. So the Prime Minister, this is a matter for the Prime Minister to deal with, had to deal with that himself. And the two persons that he charged with this mission are the people who are actually should be dealing with this, both the Minister of Strategic Affairs on derma and the Head of the National Security Staff, Tsachiya Negvi. These are tasks for strategic planning, and they have to do that. They do that also because I think that there is a feeling that the Americans are putting pressure on Israel to start dealing with this matter because they have a plan of their own. Their plan is to bring the Palestinian Authority to Gaza so that Abu Mazen would rule Gaza in the day after. This for Netanyahu, and I think for Israel, it's not only Netanyahu. For Israel, this is an unacceptable solution for what's going to happen in Gaza because the PA is part of the problem. Maybe it's one of the major parts of the problem. And to allow it to govern Gaza in the future it sounds to me totally detached from the reality and from the understanding that something happened on the 7th of October. Kalev? Yeah, I do think it's interesting. Yes, he's right. If you look at the titles of the two people appointed, reportedly appointed to this team, Ron Dürmer, Strategic Affairs, Zahir Neg, being the head of the National Security Council, it makes sense. But there's something beyond that. Those are two of the members of the political sphere considered personally closest to Benjamin Netanyahu. So it's telling that he picked two of his closest confidence to start planning the day after. It's interesting who is not reportedly on that team of the day after. Nobody from the party of Benny Gantz. No, Benny Gantz or anybody involved with Benny Gantz, which of course is still a key part of the government, a key part of the war cabinet. That's because that team has gonna have to start essentially making political decisions. The decisions that are going to be difficult for much of Benjamin Netanyahu's government to accept, such as Yossif says, letting the decision about how much authority, the Palestinian authority is going to have. So this is going to be quite moving. And that's one of the reasons, for example, and I'm perhaps will discuss this decision about letting Palestinian work is in, has been put off. Of course, we are now at the stage where some political decisions are gonna have to be made along with security decisions. And one other thing, it's not as if the day after is gonna come, Yixi Sinwar is, we could ignore those questions and Yixi Sinwar and Mohamed Def were killed and suddenly you all of a sudden you have to decide. Relating to the earlier reporting, parts of the Gaza Strip are already under Israeli control. Hamas has lost control. What's gonna happen to those people there, those civilians there? These are decisions that are gonna have to start being made. And again, these are politically difficult decisions for Prime Minister Netanyahu, which is why, maybe not secret, but why this team is being kept a little undercover as opposed to some of those other bodies that Yossif talked about. That's right, so please stay with us. Both of you will be back to you in a moment. Joining us from Israel's Northern border is our I-24 news correspondent, Zach Anders. Zach, we heard Sirens went off in the North earlier. What can you tell us about the situation? Hi, good morning. We're tracking seven different launches, heavy rocket launches that appear to come from Southern Lebanon, targeting Northern Israeli airspace. They were intercepted by the Iron Dome per Independent Media Reports. This coming in a very large barrage that we have seen happen in the last few weeks, since October 7th, but this one in particular does show a fair number of heavy rockets that do reach an altitude of several thousand feet and then appear to be intercepted over airspace in Northern Israel. There is no reports yet of damage or injuries on the ground. A Red Alert warning came out in the eight o'clock hour for Kafar Vardim, rather, this in the western half of Northern Lebanon, where we've seen several Red Alerts in the last 24 hours, especially for coastal communities north of Haifa. This another considerable morning here in the north, as we have been seeing Hezbollah continue to target and encroach on the Israeli spaces here, defensive spaces in the north. And it's happening against the backdrop today in Lebanon and in Syria of what appears to be a general strike for Palestine, for Gaza as many banks and places of work are apparently closed as people are striking in the streets, attempting to cause social disruption for what is happening here. So we're tracking both these, this organized protest in both countries and the military movement that is happening both in Southern Lebanon and as we see in the last 72 hours, considerable movement in southern Syria as well. So about Syria, Syrian media report about this strike overnight near Damascus, what do we know about this? Has the IDF approved this information? We're still waiting on official IDF confirmation of what exactly took place in Damascus last night. It does appear that these strikes were, it's difficult to say exactly who could be the target or the point of which faction is attempted to be eliminated here, the threat that's being attempted to be eliminated. We have seen in the last several days that a considerable amount of Hezbollah fighters appear to have surfaced in southern Syria with a strike targeting a senior official, Hezbollah official that's operating one of the Golan brigades in southern Syria with a lengthy history and background. He was arrested by US forces several years ago and turned over to Iraq, then released after a trial that he was on trial for the kidnapping and targeting of US soldiers in the region was released and then made his way into Lebanon and appeared to begin a leadership role with Hezbollah. So a significant member of Hezbollah's operatives was eliminated in that strike. It is considerable to notice the leadership that is moving itself into other spaces, spears of influence, especially considering Syria and it's already a destabilized political situation. Zach Anders on Israel's northern border, thank you very much. And back with us is Brigadier General and reserves Yosef Kupil Vassil. Yosef, we're hearing Zach report from the north and we're hearing this reported Israeli strike near Damascus. What are we to make of this? Is Israel stepping it up? No, no, I think those who are stepping it up are Hezbollah and Iran. You see that the Iranians keep pushing more and more weapons in and keep promoting all kinds of terror activities against Israel, from Lebanon, from Syria and from Yemen. And we have to respond and we have to take care and thwart those attempts to carry out attacks against us before they are carried out. And that's what we are watching now. It's an ongoing escalation, but not rapid escalation. It's a step by step. Yesterday, the Hezbollah member of the parliament, the Lebanese parliament on behalf of Hezbollah, spoke about the intention to escalate further. And that's what we are seeing this morning. And that's the situation. And it's really challenging to understand the scope of the Iranian effort here. We see that the Iranian weapons are being launched against us from all over the place. Gaza is one place, but it's much more than just that. It's the Yemen, it's Syria and Lebanon. And of course, at the same time, these weapons are being used against the Americans in Iraq and in Syria. So this is a war that is being conducted by the Iranians, by proxy. That's a big challenge for Israel and for the United States as well. And as far as I understand, the Americans are now planning, I saw some reports in the Washington Post, the Americans are planning to form an international force that will deal with the Yemenite or Houthi's threat to international maritime activity in the Babylon-Mandab area states. So it's really something that's beyond just what your reporter described as part of it. That's happening in Syria and Lebanon. Right. Kaleb, we know it's known. It's a known fact that Iran is in fact pulling the strings to all of this. Right. I'll add to Yossi's thing this conversation that Prime Minister Netanyahu had with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. We don't know the exact contents of it, this conversation they just had. But apparently, what we know is that the Prime Minister spoke quite frankly. And according to reports, even sounds quite sharply to Vladimir Putin, warning him that Russia's support of Iran is potentially leading to a regional crisis and disaster. And of course, Prime Minister Netanyahu had been very careful up to this point, certainly before October 7 to try to balance Israel's activities and all, including its support or whatever, or its arguable support for Ukraine against the need to take into account Russian sensitivities involving, for example, Syria. But we're in a whole new picture now. And perhaps we're also emboldened, as Yossi said, by American increased American involvement in here, dealing with Iran, has given some backing for Prime Minister Netanyahu to say to the Russians, listen, you have to temper your support for Iran at this point, because this is becoming, in danger of becoming a wider regional conflict, not just Israel against, of course, Hamas. So this is a first conversation with Putin. And we know they discussed the Security Council votes. And Putin expresses dismay in the amount of people in Gaza who are hurt and died. This is Putin, who is engaged in a war in Ukraine, but is expressing dismay of what's happening. And not just Ukraine, Chechnya, for example, we can give many other examples. But again, Vladimir Putin himself, since October 7, we've seen him play a extremely negative role, hosting leaders of Hamas, making these kind of ridiculous comments, reflecting, unfortunately, the shift in the balance of power between Moscow and Tehran with Russia becoming dependent on Iran, because of its need for Iranian weapons to use in the Ukraine theater. Yosef, what do you think about Russia's part in all of this? Well, first of all, I think Russia played a very negative role by hosting the Hamas delegation right after the 7th of October massacre that Hamas perpetrated. This is something that's totally unacceptable. And to tie this to what we started with, what we began with, the report about Netanyahu calling on the Hamas terrorists to give up and surrender, that is what should have been expected from Russia, the message from Russia to Sino-Ara and to Abu Marazuk and the rest of the leadership of Hamas should have been, if you want to spare the damage done to the Palestinians in Gaza and to the Gaza infrastructure, what you need to do is to surrender, that's what you need to do. And if they have any leverage on them, that we saw them translating into leasing some of the hostages that had the Russian citizenship, that's what they should do now. They should help the Palestinians by convincing Hamas to give up, because the war is lost. It's going to take some more time or some less time, we don't know. The war is lost for Hamas. So the only thing that is different between the situation now and the situation is going to be when the war is going to come to an end is the amount of damage done to Gaza and to the Palestinian people. And that's where, if Putin is so careful about the fate of the Palestinian population in Gaza, that's the message you should deliver to the leadership of Hamas and I hope this is what Netanyahu told him. Now, there seems to be a certain gap between the US expectations of how this will unfold and in how much time and Israel's projections. Yeah, I think that the Americans have to understand that the best way to minimize the damage done to the Palestinians is by not putting any deadlines. Because as long as you put deadlines you actually encourage the Palestinians and you say to them that their strategy of inflating the numbers of casualties and so on and pretending that there is a humanitarian disaster in Gaza is working. The American message should be, we believe in Israel that Israel does everything in its capacity to minimize the numbers of casualties and within the civilians and to take care of humanitarian situation of the Palestinians in Gaza, which we do anyhow. And we have no deadline for Israel because we believe that the interest of the United States and the interest of Israel are going to go together in making sure that this war ends with the total defeat of Hamas and this is going to have a positive impact on the situation in the Middle East and the situation in the world and the global relations between China and Russia and Iran and the United States on the other hand. And for the security of the world, the security of the people living in the free world that we see that Iran is trying to sabotage. And that's the message that should be coming from the Americans and this is going to help much more in saving the lives and the infrastructure of Gaza because again, the message, as Prime Minister said is for the Hamas to surrender. This is the best thing they can do for themselves. Hello. Well, I mean, Yosef is right on that point but you have to also take into account just as Prime Minister Netanyahu is starting now to have to deal with domestic political considerations in some of the decisions he's making. So does US President Joe Biden. He's facing some opposition in his own party, his Democratic party over his support for Israel and the way Israel is conducting the war. Let's keep in mind the US presidential campaign begins in earnest next month, the first primaries and although President Biden is running basically unopposed for the Democratic nomination, he's gonna need the full support of his party and he's facing opposition from the so-called liberal progressive wing over this war. He doesn't want that issue to start bleeding into his presidential campaign and I think that is a factor and it's only going to increase as we move into the next year. So that is something that has to be taken into account that Prime Minister Netanyahu is gonna have to take into account that window, that diplomatic window that we talk about that came into impact previous Gaza operations hasn't been in effect now but it's going to start coming into effect certainly in the coming weeks I think. Well, speaking of US election, we see even Bernie Sanders is showing some expressing in favor of Israel. Well, what he is doing is actually, he's joining the call in that not to support these calls from the media, it's these fire and he's taking heat from it. A lot of his old allies are supporters are turning on him for that and this is starting to really now play into domestic US political considerations and we'll only more so once of course the presidential campaign gets into the primary campaign gets into really going on the way. So we see actually that the US vetoed the UN Security Council resolution to force a ceasefire in Gaza and they vetoed in favor of Israel, Britain abstained. Right, which shows you some of the weakening of support that we already see happening in some of these European countries and Prime Minister that's now called out by name, for example, Olaf Scholz, the cancer of Germany and President Macron yesterday, saying we need the time because he is starting to feel definitely the pressure from those countries that have also been supportive of Israel and its offensive in Gaza more or less until this point. Yes, what do you think? I think that the leaders of the West should understand that by adopting this policy they actually strengthen the far left that is opposing them inside the countries and the Islamists that are joining hands with this far left by making them understand that this pressure over the leaders is working and this is going to further destabilize France and Germany and so on and so forth because what you need to show in situations like that is leadership and believing what you are saying and definitely for the sake of the West of course for the sake of Israel but also for the sake of the West Israel must win, must have the time and must have the Western support in order to finish the job of defeating Hamas. It's exactly what Macron and Olaf Scholz need at this point decisive Israeli victory over Hamas that will send a clear message that the West believes in fighting this radicalism this fanaticism, this barbarism that Hamas represents. This is the policy they should adopt and we have to deliver this message by ongoing negotiations and deliberations with these leaders. This is what Danielle is doing. Yossef Kruper-Varser and Kalev Bendeved thank you very much both for your input. That's all for this edition of I-24 News we have rolling coverage providing you with the latest from Israel. I'm Siobhan Raviv, thank you for watching. Israel is in a state of war. Families completely gunned down in their beds. We have no idea where she is. Our soldiers are fighting on the front lines but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well. This week on I-24 Israel under attack. I-24 in Spanish brings the analysis and the information of the events of the war and iron swords. The exclusive interviews and reports from the war zone. The reaction of the Spanish-speaking countries. In I-24, the only medium in Spanish that keeps you informed and connected with the Latin community in Israel. In I-24, only in I-24 News. I-24 News, I'm Siobhan Raviv and these are the latest developments coming to you live from Tel Aviv. Today is day 66 of Israel's war with Hamas. The IDF continues its battle on the ground in southern Gaza, striking the city of Hanunas in the early morning hours as sirens went off in southern communities in Israel. In the north, crossfire continues between Hezbollah and Lebanon and Israel. According to Syrian state media, Israeli airstrikes were reported in the area around the Syrian capital of Damascus overnight resulting in some damage. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly set up a small secret team of top allies and representatives from the defense establishment to discuss post-war plans for Gaza. The team is led by national security advisor Tsachyan Egbian, strategic affairs minister Ron Dermel and supposedly includes representatives from the IDF, the Mossad and the Shin Bet. Additionally, the Israeli security cabinet is discussing a controversial proposal to allow Palestinian laborers to enter Israel from the West Bank, which would potentially allow thousands of workers to return to work for the first time since October 7th. The IDF announced the names of three more soldiers killed in combat in Gaza, with 101 soldiers who have died since the ground operation against Hamas began in the Gaza Strip. Sergeant Major in Reserves Guido Nilani, Sergeant Major in Reserves Itai Peri, and Major in Reserves Evietar Cohen. Additionally, Major Gal Bukhal was killed in a military car accident in southern Israel. And as the fighting intensifies, Netanyahu calls on Hamas terrorists to surrender and not to die for the sake of Yehi Sinwar. Take a listen. In recent days, dozens of Hamas terrorists have surrendered to our forces. They lay down their weapons. They surrender themselves to our heroic soldiers. It will take more time. The war is ongoing, but this is the beginning of the end for Hamas. And I say to the Hamas terrorists, it's over. Don't die for Sinwar. Surrender now. And joining us from Israel's northern border is our I-24 news correspondent, Zach Anders. Zach, we heard sirens went off in the north earlier. What can you tell us about the situation now? Well, those residents that have not evacuated from the north here woke up to a jolt this morning with as many as seven appearing to be heavy rockets fired from southern Lebanon intercepted over the airspace of northern Israel and communities in the western half of this northern border near the coast north of Haifa. This is a considerable launch considering how many were in this specific barrage, given in comparison to the last several days and the last few weeks these rockets are often launched from batteries two, three at a time. This appears in independent social media reports that there was as many as seven, potentially more launched from one location. The IDF has told us this morning that they're responding to the source of fire and retaliating, and this still has yet to be claimed, responsibility claimed by Hezbollah, which is something we'll look out for. There are of course several other factions operating in southern Lebanon and could take credit for such a rocket launch. Now Syrian media reported about a strike overnight near Damascus. What do we know about this? And the Syrian authorities are claiming that they successfully intercepted, shot down attempted missile strike over Damascus. That has yet to be confirmed and the IDF has yet to confirm any involvement with Israeli jets potentially involved in this strike. We've seen the IAF, the Israeli Air Force claim responsibility for rocket strikes, air strikes rather, in the last several days, but in southern Syria over Damascus is a bit of a different story and definitely flies in the face of the Syrian authorities and Syrian leadership. Of course the political situation inside Syria has been destabilized for some time and these factions, such as Hezbollah, Hamas even, have operational capabilities in the more rural areas in the south. That's where we've seen these strikes before but the Syrian army and Syrian leadership does have a stronghold, a center of power inside Damascus, one of the largest cities in Syria. So we'll look out for this confirmation later but so far the IDF has not confirmed that they were involved in these explosions seen yesterday. Zach Anders, thank you very much. Joining us now in studio is Rafael Hirushalmi, former senior intelligence officer at the IDF. NRI24 News host and analyst, Kaleb Bindavid. Thank you both for joining. Rafael, the question of Palestinian workers from the West Bank is on the table, whether to provide permits for them to enter into Israel for work purposes. Now, Israel has an issue that it doesn't have enough workers. These people were coming into Israel daily and providing certain services. On the other hand, there's the question of security. Yes, this question of security was always there in the past. We had some terrorist attacks perpetrated by people who had work permits from the territories to work inside Israel. It has happened. It's the risk we are willing to take because on the other hand, there is much more risk if not doing what we used to do, meaning not to allow 150,000 people to work inside Israel. That means if you calculate, I mean, our families are much larger than our families, that's at least half a million people that are left in dire economic conditions. These dire economic conditions are always a very good fertile ground for recruiting by the terrorist organizations because people get desperate, people are much easier to manipulate or to fanaticize in a religious way. And all this is counterproductive, is perceived also as a security danger, perhaps even more than the odd terrorist that might be infiltrating inside these 150,000 workers. On the other side of the border, if you will, the Israeli economy absolutely needs, I mean, you have Israelis who also will go bankrupt on that side of the border because they need these workers in the agriculture, I mean, mainly in the building trade. It's very important for us. So on both sides, it's really a win-win even though there is a risk involved. We just have to make sure the screening process might be a little tighter, tougher than it used to be because we saw also in the South when we gave permits to the Ghazan people to come and work in Israel, they were infiltrated by spies for the Hamas unless some pressure, I'm not sure they were really spying for the Hamas. The Hamas put pressure on their families, of these workers and told them bring us information. If not, we will take care of you or your families. They were forced into it, I suppose, but we will have to have a better screening process. I want to hear what Kalev thinks about this in a moment, but first joining us down south is our I-24 news correspondent, Pierre Kloeschendler. Pierre, we heard Sirens go off in Israel's southern communities earlier. Can you give us the latest update on the ground? Well, an hour ago, there was a salvo of about six or seven rockets that were all intercepted over the city of Zderot on the Israeli Gaza border. No casualties, no damage on the city of Zderot according to the municipality. The city of Zderot has been largely abandoned by its 33,000 residents. Just a few couple of thousands are still in the city, so no damage and no casualties at this point. And we're hearing Netanyahu warn Hamas officials to surrender saying that this is the beginning of the end. What can you tell us about that? Well, I think it's part of the psychological war that Israel, sorry, is waging on Hamas because we know from the northern Gaza Strip about 50% of the battalion or the regiments or the company commanders have already been eliminated. For instance, the chief of the battalion of the Shejaya battalion, which is in the southeast outskirts of Gaza City, has been eliminated yesterday and he was succeeding another chief of battalion that was himself eliminated. And as a result, we know that in the Jebaliah refugee camp, which is another focal point of the fighting, and in Shejaya, tens of terrorists are surrendering and after a brief field interrogation, they tell that they don't receive any orders because the chain of command has been broken and so they feel that they've been left on their own and as a result they surrender. But among the scores of people that surrender only 40% according to the IDF estimates are Palestinian terrorists, not all of them. So those who have no link with the Hamas terror organization are released. I'm gonna show you just in the background what's going on with Rotem Ben Chemo, our cameraman. This is the southeast sector of Gaza City. This is one of the focal point of the fighting in Shejaya. From time to time you see an explosion, an airstrike. There's been 22,000 airstrikes according to the IDF since the start of the ground offensive in October 27. So there's three focal points of fighting, the Jebaliah refugee camp on the northern outskirts of Gaza City. This region that we're showing you, Shejaya, and then Hanyun as further south where the city is totally encircled and the 98 division of commando units is fighting in the heart of the city. Now at the same time the IDF has just announced to the opening of two humanitarian corridors. One for the northern sector of the Gaza Strip, the population that had still remained there and we're talking about maybe a few tens of thousand that are still trapped in the fighting of the northern sector, they can reach the Salahadin axis that cuts across the Gaza Strip from north to south on the eastern outskirts of Gaza City. The northern section of that axis is under full control of the Israeli army and they can reach the central refugee camp of Direl Balach north of Hanyunness and then move to the safe humanitarian zone between Rafa in the extreme south of the Gaza Strip and Hanyunness. And at the same time another axis has been opened for six hours west of Hanyunness to reach Direl Balach and then the coastal axis of Aruna Rashid to the Al-Muassi safe zone. In addition, there is a humanitarian truce in Rafa on the Egyptian border in the refugee camp of Rafa. So all these allow the population to leave the battleground on one hand and also to supply themselves with food and water because there is a dear problem of supply of food and water, for instance, because many of the terrorists are stopping the humanitarian tracts looting the food, beating the non-involved civilian population that tries to get close to these tracts in order for the Hamas terrorists to supply themselves at the expense of the non-involved Palestinian population. Pyrracle Chandler, down on Israel's southern border, thank you very much. And we're back in studio with Rafa Ali Roshalmi and Kalev Ben-David. Kalev, we were discussing 150,000 unemployed Palestinians from the West Bank who wish to enter Israel and continue work most used to work inside Israel before October 7th. Right, and I want to relate that to both of your earlier items about this team that Benjamin Netanyahu has established to start discussing the day after. And we just heard from Pyrracle, because this decision of how to handle the Palestinian workers from the West Bank coming to Israel, as you said, it was October 7th that that policy was frozen. So the decision about what to do next with them is part of that overall picture of what we call the day after. What is going to happen the day after Israel defeats Hamas militarily. But the day after is already coming on us. As we heard from Pyrracle, Hamas losing control over parts of, apparently parts of the Gaza Strip. That raises the question, what Israel is going to start doing with the civilians there. And we have to talk about the future of the West Bank. How is Israel going to relate to the Palestinian authority and the Palestinian population there in the wake of what happened on October 7th and the Hamas-Gaza war? And these are questions that are going to have to be decided by the government. They are security questions. As Raphael said, they're economic questions. Because this is a key to both the economy of the West Bank and also of Israel itself. They're also political questions. Because we saw that the what's called the socio-economic cabinet yesterday recommending saying, no, don't let those workers back in. That's a political body made up of ministers, especially the right wing or far right and some far right ministers of Benjamin Netanyahu's government. And the security cabinet, which is supposed to really deal with this on a security issue, Benjamin Netanyahu suspended that discussion yesterday and said, we're not going to come to a decision now. That was a political decision that Prime Minister Netanyahu had to make because he knows this decision politically. Let those workers back in would be politically unpopular with his base and other members of his government. The day after is not going to come suddenly the day that Yixinro and Muhammad Def for Surrender are killed. The day after is going to come on us slowly. And I think this is the beginning, not just the beginning, the Yad Fahmas. It's the end of the beginning for Israel and it's starting to deal with those difficult questions. What comes next? Not only in Gaza, but in the Palestinian issue with the West Bank as well. Difficult questions indeed, Rafael. We are hearing Netanyahu establish a small, some say secret team, which is set to examine the next day process. Is this an expected move? Is this the time to be discussing it? And what are the projections for the set for the next day? Even a little late because the international community and the Biden administration have been waiting for some kind of a hint at what Israel intends to do the day after is very important to be tackled with right now because that will legitimate the continuation of what we are doing on the military plan. All our action has an objective. OK, so dismantle the Hamas to liberate the hostages. But then what? And I think that if we want to continue and have some support from the international community, we have to show not only that we have this objective in mind, but the real objective. And the real objective is once the Hamas is dismantled, we want to make sure we are creating an environment that will enable a serene rebuilding of the Gaza Strip and the coming back of the population, a better life for them, a regime that will be more liberal and a regime that might be apt to discuss with the Israelis and live side by side with Israel. So all this is extremely important to justify all we are doing now. It's a bit late, but never too late. So let's hope this brainstorming will come up with some solutions. It's very complicated because we know that the Palestinian autonomy ruling Gaza again would be a good thing, but not if it's ruled by its present leaders. It is for sure that the old PLO school, the old Arafat school, are white-collar terrorists. These people are no better than the Hamas. It would be nice to have the Palestinian autonomy ruled by an elite of the upper class of the Palestinian liberal professions, scientists, businessmen, people who are not from the old terrorist school. So it's not really realistic yet. We could also temporarily, because the day after, there are two days after. It's the day after security-wise. How do we keep the Strip quiet? How will there be law and order, not looting and chaos? And that mostly will be the responsibility still of Israel, because the Palestinians do not have the means and the personnel or the budget to do that job. You need a huge police force. So the IDF will have to do the job. And the second day after is what we were speaking about, the rebuilding and the political aspect of it all. We could have, in the interim, we could use, which has not been sufficiently used until we nurture a new leadership of the Palestinians there, we could use the traditional power that the chief of tribes, the clans of Gaza, have. We always forget that below all this political mosaic that we see in the Middle East, the real power lies with the chief of the big families, the clans, the tribes. And we could have, yet again, some kind of a tribal temporary control of Gaza until a new leadership, a new branch of political leaders is created. I just add, for that arrangement to happen, that Rafael says, but for those to have legitimacy, political legitimacy, they're going to need support from also the other Arab states, Egypt in particular, but maybe also Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, even the Yadian Arab Emirates, to counterbalance, for example, the support that Qatar has given and continues to give to the leadership of Hamas, which is still going to be there. So any alternative arrangement internally in the Gaza ship is going to need to the support of those Arab countries. We haven't seen any indication willingness publicly. I stress publicly for them to take that role. But that is one of the issues that the Netanyahu government has to start working on now if it has not already started working on it, but really has to start working on it in earnest. Now, I want to speak to you, Kalev, about the rising anti-Semitism on college campuses in the US and Europe amid the controversy about anti-Semitism on college campuses. We saw a hearing this past week in which presidents of Ivy League schools couldn't just say simply, in plain words, that calling for the genocide of Jews goes against the rules of conduct. That it is, in fact, harassment. Now, the latest we see UPenn president Liz McGill resign. She issued a video statement saying that she does, in fact, see it as harassment and basically reiterating that. Should we be expecting the presidents of MIT and Harvard to be doing the same thing? Well, as a matter of fact, The New York Times has a front page story today saying that the president of Harvard Claudine Gay is under intense pressure to resign. We should note this is not to start over that hearing in Washington. It really started well before it. We've seen incidents of anti-Semitism, attacks, verbal, and in some cases, physical on Jewish students in schools like Harvard and MIT, Columbia, others as well. So already there were calls, for example, for Claudine Gay, the Harvard president to resign already last month after she sort of tepidly responded to scenes that we saw in Harvard where Jewish students were even being physically intimidated. There is a report, The New York Times, saying what's called the Harvard Corporation, which is kind of a board of directors of Harvard is going to meet today. One of the issues they're going to raise is whether Claudine Gay should resign. There's a lot of pressure. Some major Jewish donors, American Jewish donors, like Bill Ackman, a major figure on Wall Street, a major donor to Harvard, has been calling for Claudine Gay to resign to step down. So we have to see how that plays out. Faculty, some of it standing behind it. But there are two bigger issues here. One is that really the bigger issue of anti-Semitism on college campuses. How did it reach this point? Is it a result of the issues regarding political correctness or what they call the DEI diversity issues, whether Jews are part of the oppressor class? And beyond that, the bigger issue of anti-Semitism, especially in progressive circles, political circles, leftist political circles in the United States, but certainly elsewhere, especially, for example, in Europe. And there are some colleges who are not even present at this hearing, but certainly do have these kind of issues on their campuses as well. We know Columbia University was invited to the hearing, but couldn't attend. What will happen to them? Well, I could talk about my alma mater in New York University. That's been a city, a school that historically always had a large Jewish representation there. And there have been several incidents involving Jewish students and pro-Palestinian protests. We see Cooper Union, which is a neighbor school there, famous school of art and engineering, where Jewish students were intimidated on campus. I think there's going to be a what we call an Israel or a Hebrew, an account taking of how these issues have been dealt with on American universities. And a lot of the pressure is coming from what we might call the donor class, older graduates, some Jewish, many non, who are just not happy with the way the situation has developed on campus, where there's a double standard. If you speak out against other minority groups, people of color, gays, trans, there are very strict conduct codes on American universities. But if you speak out against Jews, somehow that suddenly the issue of free speech comes into the fore. And that's emphasized rather than the sensitivities and safeties of Jewish students. So this is going to be, I think we're just at the very beginning of this Hezbo-Nefesh, this account taking, soul searching that has to be done in the US, especially in US college campuses. And let's not forget that these are all schools with a large Jewish population of students and also a lot of Jewish donors. Right, and a lot of Jewish faculty. And by the way, it's a misnomer to think suddenly all of those people automatically on one side of the issue. You have many, especially younger American Jews who are on the other side of the issue were taking part in these protests against Israel, which sort of, of course, maybe is the best rejoinder against anti-Semitism. The idea that Jews represent have monolithic beliefs in Israel. You find Jews on every side of this debate going on in the United States. And as I said before, I think this is going to be a very heated issue that may well bleed, for example, to the presidential campaign. I'm sure it will. That's going to get underway in earnest next month at the start of the primaries. Right, and speaking of American politics, we see on both sides, even Bernie Sanders, who's from the liberal left, he too was expressing in favor of Israel. Well, I wouldn't go for expressing in favor of Israel. What he did is he resisted calls for a full-on ceasefire, arguing that it would be better for the Palestinians that Hamas has dealt with. And we should know, Bernie, a lot of us follow, his supporters turned on him for that statement, showing how deeply divided, at least what we call the progressive or leftist swing in the United States that is mainly allied with the Democrats, not totally, but mainly, is divided on this issue. Rafael, what do you think? First of all, let's remind you that in Europe, there is the same problem, and it's not being dealt with. So it's all in the honor of the United States that they're taking care of that problem, tackling it from the top. In Europe, this freedom of speech is like wild, and things are very violent, things are said on campus, and Jewish students are just as afraid as the American Jewish students. I think there's a lot of play on words that's going on here, and that's betraying the cause, freedom of speech, anti-Semitism, not anti-Semitism. It is, it doesn't matter how racist you are, one thing should be forbidden by any university or any institution is the apology of terrorism. That's it, by the time you legitimize terrorism, you're unaccomplished to it, you should be dealt with just as a terrorist, and that's what should be tackled with, I think that there was a petition in one of the universities, let's not speak of Colombia because Colombia, as you know, is paid for by Qatar, it's like a football team owned by Qatar, it's all Qatar money, but on normal, let's say university, there was a petition circulated signed by the many students from the river to the sea, which is an apology of terrorism, I think these students should be sucked from the university there, they should be allowed to learn. And most people who chant this don't even know what it means. Okay, but they shouldn't if they're in the university. Yeah, that's all for this edition of I-24 News, thank you very much, Afaeli Roussalmi and Khaled bin David. We have rolling coverage providing you with the latest from Israel, I'm Sivan Raviv. Thank you for watching. Israel is in a state of war, families completely done down in their beds. We have no idea where is she as our soldiers are fighting on the front line, but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well. 24 News, I'm Sivan Raviv, and these are the latest developments coming to you live from Tel Aviv. Today is day 66 of Israel's war with Hamas. The IDF continues its battle on the ground in southern Gaza, striking the city of Hanyunas in the early morning hours as sirens went off in southern communities in Israel. In the north, crossfire continues between Hezbollah and Lebanon and Israel. According to Syrian state media, Israeli airstrikes were reported in the area around the Syrian capital of Damascus overnight, resulting in some damage. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly set up a small secret team of top allies and representatives from the defense establishment to discuss post-war plans for Gaza. The team is led by National Security Advisor Tsachyan Egbi and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermel, and supposedly includes representatives from the IDF, the Mossad, and the Shin Bet. Additionally, the Israeli security cabinet is discussing a controversial proposal to allow Palestinian laborers to enter Israel from the West Bank, which would potentially allow thousands of workers to return to work for the first time since October 7th. The IDF announced the names of three more soldiers killed in combat in Gaza, with 101 soldiers who have died since the ground operation against Hamas began in the Gaza Strip. Sergeant Major in Reserves Guido Nilani, Sergeant Major in Reserves Itai Peri, and Major in Reserves Evietar Cohen. Additionally, Major Gal Baha was killed in a military car accident in southern Israel. And as the fighting intensifies, Netanyahu calls on Hamas terrorists to surrender and not to die for the sake of Yehi Sinwar. Take a listen. In recent days, dozens of Hamas terrorists have surrendered to our forces. They lay down their weapons, they surrender themselves to our heroic soldiers. It will take more time. The war is ongoing, but this is the beginning of the end for Hamas. And I say to the Hamas terrorists, it's over. Don't die for Sinwar. Surrender, now. And joining us from Israel's northern border is our I-24 news correspondent, Zach Anders. Zach, we heard sirens went off in the north earlier. What can you tell us about the situation now? Well, those residents that have not evacuated from the north here woke up to a jolt this morning with as many as seven appearing to be heavy rockets fired from southern Lebanon intercepted over the airspace of northern Israel and communities in the western half of this northern border near the coast north of Haifa. This is a considerable launch considering how many were in this specific barrage, given in comparison to the last several days and the last few weeks these rockets are often launched from batteries two, three at a time. This appears in independent social media reports that there was as many as seven, potentially more launched from one location. The IDF has told us this morning that they're responding to the source of fire and retaliating. And this still has yet to be claimed, responsibility claimed by Hezbollah, which is something we'll look out for. There are of course several other factions operating in southern Lebanon and could take credit for such a rocket launch. Now Syrian media reported about a strike overnight near Damascus, what do we know about this? And the Syrian authorities are claiming that they successfully intercepted, shot down the attempted missile strike over Damascus. That has yet to be confirmed. And the IDF has yet to confirm any involvement with Israeli jets potentially involved in this strike. We've seen the IAF, the Israeli Air Force, claim responsibility for rocket strikes, air strikes rather in the last several days, but in southern Syria over Damascus is a bit of a different story and definitely flies in the face of the Syrian authorities and Syrian leadership. Of course, the political situation inside Syria has been destabilized for some time and these factions such as Hezbollah, Hamas even, have operational capabilities in the more rural areas in the South. That's where we've seen these strikes before, but the Syrian army and Syrian leadership does have a stronghold, a center of power inside Damascus, one of the largest cities in Syria. So we'll look out for this confirmation later, but so far the IDF has not confirmed that they were involved in these explosions seen yesterday. Zach Anders, thank you very much. Joining us now in studio is Rafael Hirushalmi, former senior intelligence officer at the IDF. NRI24 News host and analyst Kalef Bendavid. Thank you both for joining. Rafael, the question of Palestinian workers from the West Bank is on the table, whether to provide permits for them to enter into Israel for work purposes. Now, Israel has an issue that it doesn't have enough workers. These people were coming into Israel daily and providing certain services. On the other hand, there's the question of security. Yes, this question of security was always there in the past. We had some terrorist attacks perpetrated by people who had work permits from the territories to work inside Israel. It has happened. It's the risk we are willing to take because on the other hand, there is much more risk if not doing what we used to do, meaning not to allow 150,000 people to work inside Israel. That means if you calculate, I mean, you know, our families are much larger than our families. That's at least half a million people that are left in dire economic conditions. These dire economic conditions are always a very good fertile ground for recruiting by the terrorist organizations because people get desperate. People are much easier to manipulate or to fanaticize in a religious way. And all this is counterproductive. It's perceived also as a security danger, perhaps even more than the odd terrorist that might be infiltrating inside these 150,000 workers on the other side of the border, if you will. The Israeli economy absolutely needs, I mean, you have Israelis who also will go bankrupt on that side of the border because they need these workers in the agriculture, and mainly in the building trade. It's very important for us. So on both sides, it's really a win-win, even though there is a risk involved. We just have to make sure the screening process might be a little tighter, tougher than it used to be because we saw also in the South when we gave permits to the Gaza people to come and work in Israel, they were infiltrated by spies for the Hamas, unless some pressure. I'm not sure they were really spying for the Hamas. The Hamas put pressure on their families, of these workers, and told them bring us information. If not, we'll take care of you and your families. They were forced into it, I suppose, but we will have to have a better screening process. I want to hear what Kalef thinks about this in a moment, but first joining us down south is our I-24 news correspondent, Pierre Kloeschendler. Pierre, we heard Sirens go off in Israel's southern communities earlier. Can you give us the latest update on the ground? Well, an hour ago, there was a salvo of about six or seven rockets that were all intercepted over the city of Zderot on the Israeli-Gaza border. No casualties, no damage on the city of Zderot according to the municipality. The city of Zderot has been largely abandoned by its 33,000 residents. Just a few couple of thousands are still in the city, so no damage and no casualties at this point. And we're hearing Netanyahu warn Hamas officials to surrender, saying that this is the beginning of the end. What can you tell us about that? Well, I think it's part of the psychological war that Israel, sorry, is waging on Hamas because we know from the northern Gaza Strip about 50% of the battalion or the regiments or the company commanders have already been eliminated. For instance, the chief of the battalion of the Shejaya battalion, which is in the southeast outskirts of Gaza City, has been eliminated yesterday and he was succeeding another chief of battalion that was himself eliminated. And as a result, we know that in the Jebaliah refugee camp, which is another focal point of the fighting, and in Shejaya, tens of terrorists are surrendering and after a brief field interrogation, they tell that they don't receive any orders because the chain of command has been broken and so they feel that they've been left on their own and as a result they surrender. But among the scores of people that surrender only 40% according to the IDF estimates are Palestinian terrorists, not all of them. So those who have no link with the Hamas terror organization are released. I'm gonna show you just in the background what's going on with Rotem Ben Chemo, our cameraman. This is the southeast sector of Gaza City. This is one of the focal point of the fighting in Shejaya. From time to time you see an explosion, an airstrike. There's been 22,000 airstrikes according to the IDF since the start of the ground offensive in October 27. So there's three focal points of fighting, the Jebaliah refugee camp on the northern outskirts of Gaza City. This region that we're showing you, Shejaya, and then Hanyun as further south where the city is totally encircled and the 98 division of commando units is fighting in the heart of the city. Now at the same time the IDF has just announced to the opening of two humanitarian corridors. One for the northern sector of the Gaza Strip, the population that had still remained there and we're talking about maybe a few tens of thousand that are still trapped in the fighting of the northern sector, they can reach the Salahadin axis that cuts across the Gaza Strip from north to south on the eastern outskirts of Gaza City. The northern section of that axis is under full control of the Israeli army and they can reach the central refugee camp of Direl Balach north of Hanyunness and then move to the safe humanitarian zone between Rafa in the extreme south of the Gaza Strip and Hanyunness and at the same time another axis has been opened for six hours west of Hanyunness to reach Direl Balach and then the coastal axis of Aruna Rashid to the Al-Muassi safe zone. In addition, there is a humanitarian truce in Rafa on the Egyptian border in the refugee camp of Rafa. So all these allow the population to leave the battleground on one hand and also to supply themselves with food and water because there is a dear problem of supply of food and water for instance because many of the terrorists are stopping the humanitarian tracts, looting the food, beating the non-involved civilian population that tries to get close to these tracts in order for the Hamas terrorists to supply themselves at the expense of the non-involved Palestinian population. Pyrracle Chandler, down on Israel's southern border, thank you very much. And we're back in studio with Rafael Hiroshalmi and Kalev Ben David. Kalev, we were discussing 150,000 unemployed Palestinians from the West Bank who wish to enter Israel and continue work most used to work inside Israel before October 7th. Right, and I wanna relate that to both of your earlier items about this team that Benjamin Netanyahu has established to start discussing the day after. And we just heard from Pierre because this decision of how to handle the Palestinian workers from the West Bank coming to Israel, as you said, it was October 7th that that policy was frozen. So the decision about what to do next with them is part of that overall picture of what we call the day after. What is gonna happen the day after Israel defeats Hamas militarily. But the day after is already coming on us. As we heard from Pierre, Hamas losing control over parts of, apparently parts of the Gaza Strip. That raises the question what Israel is gonna start doing with the civilians there. And we have to talk about with the future of the West Bank. How is Israel gonna relate to the Palestinian Authority and the civilian Palestinian population there in the wake of what happened on October 7th and the Hamas-Gaza War? And these are questions that are gonna have to be decided by the government. They are security questions. As Raphael said, they're economic questions because this is a key to both the economy of the West Bank and also of Israel itself. They're also political questions because we saw that the, what's called the socio-economic cabinet yesterday, recommending saying no, don't let those workers back in. That's a political body made up of ministers, especially the right wing or far rights and some far right ministers of Benjamin Netanyahu's government. And the security cabinet, which is supposed to really deal with this on a security issue, Benjamin Netanyahu suspended that discussion yesterday and said, we're not gonna come to a decision now. That was a political decision that Prime Minister Netanyahu had to make because he knows this decision politically. Let those workers back in would be politically unpopular with his base and other members of his government. So we, the day after, is not gonna come suddenly the day that Yixinro and Muhammad Def for surrender are killed. The day after is gonna come on us slowly. And I think this is the beginning, not just the beginning, the yet Fahmas. It's the end of the beginning for Israel and has started to deal with those difficult questions. What comes next, not only in Gaza, but in the Palestinian issue with the West Bank as well. Difficult questions indeed, Rafael. We are hearing Netanyahu establish a small, some say secret team, which is set to examine the next day process. Is this an expected move? Is this the time to be discussing it? And what are the projections for the set for the next day? It's even a little late because the international community and the Biden administration have been waiting for some kind of a hint at what Israel intends to do the day after is very important to be tackled with right now because that will legitimate the continuation of what we are doing on the military plan. All our action has an objective, okay, is to dismantle the Hamas to liberate the hostages, but then what? And I think that if we want to continue and have some support from the international community, we have to show not only that we have this objective in mind, but the real objective and the real objective is once the Hamas is dismantled, we want to make sure we are creating an environment that will enable a serene rebuilding of the Gaza Strip and the coming back of the population, better life for them, a regime that will be more liberal and a regime that might be apt to discuss with the Israelis and live side by side with Israel. So all this is extremely important to justify all we are doing now. It's a bit late, but never too late. So let's hope this brainstorming will come up with some solutions. It's very complicated because we know that the Palestinian autonomy ruling Gaza again would be a good thing, but not if it's ruled by its present leaders. It is for sure that the old PLO school, the old Arafat school, white-collar terrorists, these people are no better than the Hamas. It would be nice to have the Palestinian autonomy ruled by an elite of the upper class of the Palestinian liberal professions, scientists, businessmen, people who are not from the old terrorist school. So it's not really realistic yet. We could also temporarily, because the day after, there are two days after. There's the day after security-wise, how do we keep the Strip quiet? How will there be law and order, not looting and chaos? And that mostly will be the responsibility still of Israel because the Palestinians do not have the means and the personnel or the budget to do that job. You need a huge police force. So the idea will have to do the job. And the second day after is what we were speaking about, the rebuilding and the political aspect of it all. We could have in the interim, we could use, which has not been sufficiently used until we nurture a new leadership of the Palestinians there. We could use the traditional power that the chief of tribes, the clans of Gaza, have. We always forget that below all this political mosaic that we see in the Middle East, the real power lies with the chief of the big families, the clans, the tribes. And we could have yet again some kind of a tribal temporary control of Gaza until a new leadership, a new branch of political leaders is created. Right, I just say, for that arrangement to happen that Raphael says, but for those to have legitimacy, political legitimacy, they're gonna need support from also the other Arab states, Egypt in particular, but maybe also Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. Even the Indian Arab Emirates to counterbalance, for example, the support that Qatar has given and continues to give to the leadership of Hamas, which is still gonna be there. So any alternative arrangement internally in the Gaza Strip is going to need to the support of those Arab countries. We haven't seen any indication willingness publicly. I stress publicly for them to take that role, but that is one of the issues that the Netanyahu government has to start working on now if it has not already started working on it, but really has to start working on it in earnest. Now, I wanna speak to you, Kalev, about the rising anti-Semitism on college campuses in the US and Europe amid the controversy about anti-Semitism on college campuses. We saw a hearing this past week in which presidents of Ivy League schools couldn't just say simply in plain words that calling for the genocide of Jews goes against the rules of conduct. That is, it is in fact harassment. Now, the latest we see UPenn president, Mrs. McGill Resine, she issued a video statement saying that she does in fact see it as harassment and basically reiterating that. Should we be expecting the presidents of MIT and Harvard to be doing the same thing? Well, as a matter of fact, the New York Times has a front page story today saying that the president of Harvard, Claudine Gay, is under intense pressure to resign. We should note, this is not to start over that hearing in Washington. It really started well before it. We've seen incidents of anti-Semitism attacks verbal and in some cases physical on Jewish students in schools like Harvard and MIT, Columbia, others as well. So already there were calls, for example, for Claudine Gay, the Harvard president to resign already last month after she sort of tepidly responded to scenes that we saw in Harvard where Jewish students were even being physically intimidated. There is a report, the New York Times saying what's called the Harvard Corporation, which is kind of a board of directors of Harvard, is going to meet today. One of the issues they're going to raise is whether Claudine Gay should resign. There's a lot of pressure. Some major Jewish donors, American Jewish donors like Bill Ackman, a major figure on Wall Street, a major donor to Harvard, has been calling for Claudine Gay to resign to step down. So we have to see how that plays out. Faculty, some of it standing behind her. But there are two bigger issues here. One is that really the big issue of anti-Semitism on college campuses. How did it reach this point? Is it a result of the issues regarding political correctness or what they call the DEI diversity issues, whether Jews are part of the oppressor class? And beyond that, the bigger issue of you said, of anti-Semitism, especially in progressive circles, political circles, leftist political circles in the United States, but certainly elsewhere, especially, for example, in Europe. And there are some colleges who are not even present at this hearing, but certainly do have these kind of issues on their campuses as well. We know Columbia University was invited to the hearing, but couldn't attend. What will happen to them? Well, I could talk about my alma mater in New York University. That's been a school that historically always had a large Jewish representation there. And there have been several incidents involving Jewish students and pro-Palestinian protests. We see Cooper Union, which is a neighbor school there, a famous school of art and art engineering, where Jewish students were intimidated on campus. I think there's going to be a what we call in Israel or in Hebrew, an account taking of how these issues have been dealt with on American universities. And a lot of the pressure is coming from what we might call the donor class, older graduates, some Jewish, many non, who are just not happy with the way the situation has developed on campus, where there's a double standard. If you speak out against other minority groups, people of color, gays, trans, there are very strict conduct codes on American universities. But if you speak out against Jews, somehow that suddenly the issue of free speech comes into the fore. And that's emphasized rather than the sensitivities and safeties of Jewish students. So this is going to be, I think we're just at the very beginning of this Hezbo Nefesh, this account taking, soul searching that has to be done in the US, especially in US college campuses. And let's not forget that these are all schools with a large Jewish population of students and also a lot of Jewish donors. Right, and a lot of Jewish faculty, and by the way, it's a misnomer to think suddenly all the Jews or all of those people automatically on one side of the issue. You have many, especially younger American Jews who are on the other side of the issue were taking part in these protests against Israel, which sort of, of course, maybe is the best rejoinder against anti-Semitism. The idea that Jews represent have monolithic beliefs in Israel. You find Jews on every side of this debate going on in the United States. And as I said before, I think this is going to be a very heated issue that may well bleed, for example, to the presidential campaign. I'm sure it will. That's going to get underway in earnest next month at the start of the primaries. Right, and speaking of American politics, we see on both sides, even Bernie Sanders was from the liberal left. He, too, was expressing in favor of Israel. Well, I wouldn't go for expressing in favor of Israel. What he did is he resisted calls for a full-on ceasefire, arguing that it would be better for the Palestinians that Hamas is dealt with. And we should know, Bernie, a lot of us follow his supporters turned on him for that statement showing how deeply divided, at least what we call the progressive or leftist wing in the United States that is mainly allied with the Democrats, not totally, but mainly, is divided on this issue. Rafael, what do you think? First of all, let's remind you that in Europe, there is the same problem. And it's not being dealt with. So it's all in the honor of the United States that they're taking care of that problem, tackling it from the top. In Europe, this freedom of speech is like wild. And very violent things are said on campus. And Jewish students are just as afraid as the American Jewish students. I think there's a lot of play on words that's going on here. And that's betraying the cause. Freedom of speech, anti-Semitism, not anti-Semitism. It doesn't matter how racist you are. One thing should be forbidden by any university or any institution is the apology of terrorism. That's it. By the time you legitimize terrorism, you're unaccomplished to it. You should be dealt with just as a terrorist. And that's what should be tackled with. I think that there was a petition in one of the universities. Let's not speak of Colombia, because Colombia, as you know, is paid for by Qatar. It's like a football team owned by Qatar. It's all Qatari money. But on normal, let's say, university, there was a petition circulated signed by many students from the river to the sea, which is an apology of terrorism. I think these students should be sucked from the university there. They shouldn't be allowed to learn. And most people who chant this don't even know what it means. OK. But they should if they're in the university. Yeah. That's all for this edition of I-24 News. Thank you very much. We have rolling coverage, providing you with the latest from Israel. I'm Sivan Raveev. Thank you for watching. Israel is in a state of war. Families completely done down in their beds. We have no idea where she is. Our soldiers are fighting on the front lines. But the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well. I-24 News. I'm Sivan Raveev. And we're going down south where our I-24 News correspondent, Pierre Kloschendler, is currently located. Pierre, we see smoke behind you. Can you tell us what's happening? Right. With Rotem Ben-Chemo, we'll show you what's going on right now. There's been a lot of activity in the past hour, mostly from the artillery, but also from the air force. What you see here is more or less one of the sites of the intense fighting of the ground forces, the Shejaiya neighborhood, which is on the southeast outskirts of Gaza City. We're about four kilometers from what you see. A lot of explosions, a lot of outgoing shells in the past hour in this area, as there was one rocket interception over Kibbutz-Nachal Oz, which is about five or six kilometers from where we are by bird-eye view. And then to the south, where you see the white smoke billowing. This is already in the area of Hanyunas, the central refugee camps of Nusserat, El Borej, El Murazi, or Direl Balach. These are the refugee camps, which are north of Hanyunas. And there are also a lot of strikes, mostly air strikes and artillery on those places, which are not the site of ground offensives. But at the same time, the IDF is urging the population of both the northern sector of the Gaza Strip and the central sector of the Gaza Strip to evacuate the battle zone. In the northern sector of the Gaza Strip, there is a remaining population of a few tens of thousands. They are urged to join the Salahadin axis, which cuts across the Gaza Strip from the east of Gaza City from north to south. And then to move to the safe humanitarian zone, which is located west of Rafah on the extreme south of the Gaza Strip. And at the same time, those who are trapped in the fighting of Hanyunas, the city is being encircled. And there's also fighting in the heart of the city by the 98th Division of Commando Units. They're required to move west of Hanyunas and join the Aruna Rashid axis, which is the coastal road of the Gaza Strip from north to south. And they're also to move to the humanitarian safe zone of the Muassi between Hanyunas and Rafah. This is opened for six hours. And at the same time in Rafah, which is also the site of strikes, Rafah refugee camp will benefit from a humanitarian truce of four hours for the population to supply itself with food and water. Although we know from videos shot by Israeli army drones that Hamas terrorists are looting the humanitarian trucks. They're beating the residents who are not involved in the fighting and who try to supply themself. There is a sense of chaos in the southern tip of the Gaza Strip because most of the humanitarian trucks have difficulty to go and join the places where the food can be distributed. Pyrrhiclosh Endler, thank you very much, down on Israel's southern border. Joining us now in the studio is retired colonel Dr. Jacques Nelia, former deputy head of assessment at the Israeli military intelligence and our I-24 News host and analyst, Kalef Bindavid. Thank you both for coming in. So we're seeing constant crossfire and violence in the north. I'd like to start with the north. With daily air strikes by Hezbollah into Israel, and now Israel retaliates. Hezbollah just updated two more losses on there. And this brings the total number of losses on their end to 100, at least. That's the same number that we're seeing that the IDF is reporting for their losses in Gaza. Well, you know, there's nothing to compare. I mean, after all, I mean, our losses are compared to the quantity of units. I mean, we're talking about 300,000 more soldiers that have been mobilized. So I mean, the 100 are very painful. But still, I mean, in proportion, this is not the same with Hezbollah. 100 and more of Hezbollah members is very, very difficult for Hezbollah to bear. And Riyama, during the whole campaign in Syria, they lost maybe 2,000 fighters. This is what they had at the time. So I mean, what's happening on the ground is that till yesterday, the feeling was that we were on a low intensity conflict with Hezbollah. We were hit, and we were just responding. And both of us were respecting a sort of territorial depths, four to five kilometers each beyond the border inside the Lebanese territory, inside the Israeli territory. And yesterday, for the first time, we see that the targeting of areas that are far beyond, far beyond the initial four to five kilometers. Farham Vadim, for instance, is 14 kilometers from the border. Akko is almost the same. So I mean, it means that Hezbollah has been hit very hard. Why? Because two days ago, three of his leaders and military leaders were hit in Syria, of course, in the attribute to Israel. And this is his response. So Hezbollah is expressing his will to expand the territorial depth with Israel, which means that we won't have the choice if this appears to be the pattern of Hezbollah that we will have to go inside much more and hit inside the Lebanese territory, which is not exactly what the Americans have asked us to do. Right. And I would say that does relate to what's happening, perhaps, in Gaza, too. Because we are starting to move into what may be the next stage of the war in Gaza, which is the targeting, particularly of Hanyounis. Those commando units that we discussed moving into Hanyounis are really two purposes. One, perhaps to do information and rescue of the hostages, but also to specifically target the Hamas leadership. People like Mohammed Deff, Yehissin, or other figures, which is Israel's end game. And there's been a lot of speculation. Is Hezbollah going to extend its operations, its provocations in northern Israel, as Israel closes in on Hezbollah leadership in southern Gaza? So as Israel penetrates deeper into the south of Gaza, you could say, in some ways, it may be that Hezbollah is going to penetrate deeper into northern Israel. The big question we've always been asking is, how far is Hezbollah going to go? Is it just going to make a show of it? Or is it going to, as Jacques said, force Israel to really escalate its response? And that's the sort of unanswered question that we have at this point. Now, what is Israel expected to do about this? Well, if it depended on Israel, it would have struck Lebanon long ago. At the beginning of the war, there wasn't intention to carry a pre-emptive strike on the long-range missiles in Lebanon. So that's exactly what we did in 2006. But the Americans have very clearly opposed this move and asked us to refrain from expanding the war from the confrontation between us and Hamas into a regional confrontation, which they are very much aware because their forces are under attack in Iraq and Syria. We see that the Houthis are just behaving like crazy. I mean, they are just obstructing the Babel Mandib and saying that no ship that is meant to reach Israel will be allowed to go through the straits. So this is really a big problem. And if you have to add right now a new war, a new conflict between us and Hezbollah, which would mean that, automatically, it will spill over to Syria and Iraq, this is not exactly what the Americans want at this point in time. We'll be back to discussing some more of this in a moment. Joining us from Israel's northern border is our I-24 news correspondent, Zach Anders. Zach, what are you seeing right now? Well, I want to walk you through what we see here on the northern border. We are right on the border with Lebanon. And this is not an entirely news site. These are the reinforced thick concrete slabs. The reinforced areas, these protected areas that have been here before the war. But if you walk with me and look across the road, these building-sized barriers are new. These are blocking the roadways. And what otherwise was free access for cars and people to move between Lebanon and Israel, that is no more. The position here is guarded by soldiers as they attempt to keep this buffer zone, the exclusion area that goes several miles where they are trying to keep movement and access restricted. Not just for Israelis here in northern Israel, but for Lebanese in southern Lebanon and especially Hezbollah. Tempting from this location to see several miles inside southern Lebanon detect Hezbollah as they attempt to move closer to this position and try and penetrate the space of control that Israel is attempting to keep here with drones and surveillance balloons. They, soldiers say they've seen Hezbollah descend from these hills and mountains over my shoulder and then attempt to launch these ATGMs, the anti-tank guided missiles that require personnel. Sometimes just as many as one individual, one soldier can use this rocket-propelled anti-tank missile and fire on not just armored personnel, but also vehicles and civilians here. And that's what we've seen in the last several weeks, civilian vehicles on roads like these being targeted by Hezbollah with these armor-piercing missiles and it causes extensive damage and has made the situation very dangerous here. Zach Anders, thank you very much on Israel's northern border and back in the studio. If I can make a remark about those walls. Those walls are meant to protect from direct fire, meaning missiles or, I mean, snipers. They are not meant to protect from mortars and this is what Hezbollah is using all the time. Mortars just go up and beyond the wall just fall on the other side. So the whole area is very dangerous. So I would not advise anybody to go there at this point in time because Hezbollah is firing specifically at civilians and hitting and most of the wounded and killed are civilians right now. We're seeing live images from Gaza as we speak right now. Right, I just want to mention that and we're seeing some pretty heavy fighting there now in North Gaza, which is interesting because as we know, Israel does have more or less control over at least let's say the top part of the upper, the surface area of North Gaza. But of course there's still concern about the tunnel system, the terrorist groups that are still perhaps underground in those underground tunnels in northern or the Gaza area. We've been, we heard reports over the past week about ideas about flooding the tunnels with seawater to flush them out. And this is, I think some of the urgency here may be that Israel is preparing for a major push into Hanyunas. And that means a lot of manpower, bringing a lot of soldiers into sort of the central area of Gaza. And one thing any military operation does not want to be outflanked on its rear by an enemy force. So I think the idea of definitely making a real conservative effort now to really eliminate those last pockets of resistance in North Gaza so they don't face the prospect of being attacked from the rear when they really start the big push into Hanyunas. Gaza Strip was protected by five brigades, five brigades of Hamas. Right now, two brigades have been almost eliminated. Two brigades, but still we have three more. Three more as part of them are not in Hanyunas. They are in El Borage and in Rafah and other places all around. So I mean, it means that for us, we have a lot of work to do because all these brigades are retrenched in 45 positions. I mean, sort of 45 positions that the world has not seen since the Maginot line in France. This is totally different. I mean, the Maginot line, I've been there. You have just one tunnel there. Here you have five stories of tunnel, one up ahead, and it's very difficult to treat them. And most of our casualties are those who are attempting to go into those tunnels and they are surprised by IEDs that are there on their way. Right, and on that point, there was reports just this week, just the last couple of days, that for the first time, Israel is moving artillery brigades inside the Gaza Strip. I served in the artillery. You generally, artillery is about 10 kilometers, even 20 kilometers behind the front lines that would cover all of Gaza. But clearly, because of those fortified positions, they want to be deadly accurate when it comes to using artillery. So we're actually moving these artillery units inside Gaza to get as close as possible to fire at those fortified positions. So now, when we're speaking about advancing well into southern Gaza, and as the fighting continues, taking control, is it not a little bit of an illusion, though, because the fighting is on top of the ground, whereas there's an entire city underground. From the military point of view, you need to enter and to occupy the territory. Once you have occupied the territory, you can concentrate on what's underground. You cannot do that. You cannot operate. So you just push as many units as possible. You flood the area with units so that the opponent cannot meet that the grinding machine, the war machine, the Israeli war machine, and he is compelled to go underground. And then, this is the place where you have to, the real battle will be conducted. The exits and the entrances of the tunnels, and this is where, right now, the commando division is concentrating on. Because there is a whole terrorist network underneath. And you see that so many of the casualties, the fatalities that we've seen, even in just recent days, are not directed to, right, yesterday, there's not direct contact, there's not Hamas fire, it's booby-trapped explosives in the tunnels. How dangerous it is, Hamas has the capability to cause casualties without losing any of their men, because they have these booby-trapped entrances to the tunnels throughout. So that is definitely one of the trickiest things, and that's why we've been seeing, especially in this part, recent round of fighting, so many of the fatalities coming from these explosive devices, IEDs, and booby-traps that Hamas has set at the entrance and in parts of the tunnel system. And then, when you see the flood of units, then you see that grinding machine coming towards you, you don't have the choice either to die or to surrender. And we see in the last few days, hundreds, hundreds, literally hundreds of Hamas members just surrendering. I mean, from the statistics we have, from all the people that were arrested and asked to be in the underwear, 40% of them were members of Hamas, which means that they were hiding behind those people and using them as human shields. And this is very contagious. When you see pictures like this being aired, the other fighters who look at what's happening would prefer definitely to have three meals a day rather than to die. Right, and another factor in terms of the strategy of encircling northern Gaza and then clearing it out from in is to break the lines of communication between northern Gaza and the Hamas leadership in the more southern half in Hanyunas. And some of the people that have been surrendering, according to reports we're seeing, some of the fighters and terrorists in northern Gaza specifically said they had stopped receiving commands and orders and communication from the Hamas leadership. They felt abandoned. They didn't know what to do. And so that confusion leads to their surrender. So very, one of the reasons why the IDF went in, split the Gaza in half. The salami, the salami. Right, right, so taking it piece by piece and then has to basically mop up that sort of dissected half and pieces of Gaza. Now I want to take a look at a story which reminds us of why we're in this situation to begin with the dark Saturday of October 7th caught the extended Belia family off guard when Hamas terrorists invaded the grandmother's house in the city of Ophakeem, 25 kilometers east of the Gaza Strip, 10 family members including a one month old baby escaped through a window and hid for hours on their neighbor's roof. The one who heroically covered for the family and was the last one to make his way out through the window was Ariel Belia. Before he managed to get out, he was surprised by a terrorist and was shot dead. Now his widow, Shoshana Belia tells us the story. And he says, let's go to the second place, more in the middle of there. He opened the window and he tried to see what was going on in the street. There we saw two people, two guys in fact, with vests, with clothes. And from the corner, the other corner of the street, Yareda is more with a sloth. He was so excited to get out of the window and get out of the back of the room, he took the two vests, looked at the window and he had to go to them. He said to them, don't look at me, don't look at me, I'm older than you. Think about it, I look at you. And we see it from above. And he was here. The... the older sister. We got out of the back room, where there were children with a sloth. Ariel took something to protect herself, to protect us, he was right. He found it very small. He took it and he came to the door, he came behind the door and said to the door, and I said to him, Ariel, they will come here. I got out of the back room with the children. And I heard their voices in the house. One came in and he called the other. He called Ahmad. He opened the door. He called Ahmad to come in. And the two of them spoke. And they went to the door and I said to Ariel, they will come here, they will come here. And he said, I will open the door, I will open the door. And I said to him, what are you doing? And he said, don't worry, everything will be fine. I will be fine. I opened the door, I opened the door. And I asked him why I was doing it. And he opened the door. He opened the door. And he opened the door for the first time. He went around, I was sitting with my sister, with my sister, and then I looked at the window of the window. I opened the window. And I looked at the window. I opened it. I opened the window. I looked at the window. I looked at the window, I looked at the little children. I looked at the children. I thought they would come. They were on their way. years after he arrived and I actually called him that he did not arrive and I told them what was going on and they told me everything was fine and then I told him I was going to see what was going on and I was going to see what was going on and they said no, you're not going, you're not going, you're not going anywhere because if you go out and get them, they will come and kill us all. We told the children that he was going to die, we told them that the children were going to save us. Gisii was a little girl whose son was a little boy and Gisii just took off her clothes and tried to put on her clothes and told her that she was going to put on her clothes and save us. And my daughter even told me to fight and said, come on, let's do it ourselves and die. The first thing we saw was that they arrived and we told them, I told them, I told them, tell them that they were coming there and he went to the hospital, so he went to the hospital. It was an interesting story that two years later he came back and said, there is a group on the street. I started to make fun of the street, I started to make fun of it and not much time later they told us that we had to leave the street and I did not want to go back there. They told us that we had to leave the street, because there would be more people there later. At the moment, I am 18 years old and I try to stay strong. It is very annoying for me, I am very tired at home. He was very tired, he would go home and do the housework and the housework and everything. He was very tired at home. He would go home and do the housework and do the housework and everything. I am back in the studio with Kalev Ben-Divine. I was in Al-Fakim, we did a special broadcast for I-24 News two months since the start of war. From Al-Fakim, let's make amazing stories done there, all done by the police. I just want to make one point, Al-Fakim is about 25 kilometers from the Gaza border. I think about 17 miles, if you translate it. That's how far the terrorists got into Israel, 25 kilometers away. And we know they had plans to reach Bersheba, to even go get to the West Bank. Just shocking to think about how deep they were able to penetrate an Israel carry out an attack like that. Well, I mean, listening to those stories, one cannot evade the fact that facing those atrocities we have, Israel will not evade the fact that we have to set a sort of Nuremberg tribunal in order to just try all those responsible of the butchering of Israel, the massacre of the 7th of October, crimes against humanity, and then we have all exception with no exception should be hung. And we're not talking just about a few of them, we're talking about thousands of them. Well, you know, thousands, I mean, the ropes are long enough for all of them. Kaleb, what do you have to say? Well, it's going to be, there is a reckoning that is going to have to be done, obviously. There is one crime, and there's been talk about bringing the death penalty back. There is one crime in Israel that has capital punishment. It's called Crimes Against Humanity. Only one person in the entire history of Israel has been hung under that. And that was, of course, Erach Eichmann, the Nazi architect of the Holocaust. And people have compared this what happened here, of course, to the Holocaust, the immensity of the crimes that were done on October 7th. Especially when you see these terrorizing moments that children, a one-month-old baby, had to go through, families, absolutely shocking and terrible. That's all for this edition of I-24 News. We have rolling coverage providing you with the latest from Israel. We'll be back at the top of the hour for more news and updates. Be sure to follow us on our website, i-24news.tv, and across our social media platforms. I'm Sivan Raviv. Thank you for watching. Is in a state of war, families completely done down in their beds. We have no idea where is she as our soldiers are fighting on the front line, but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well. I'm I-24 News. I'm Sivan Raviv. And we're going down south where our I-24 News correspondent, Pierre Kloschendler, is currently located. Pierre, we see smoke behind you. Can you tell us what's happening? Right. With Rotem Ben-Hemo, we'll show you what's going on right now. There's been a lot of activity in the past hour, mostly from the artillery, but also from the air force. What you see here is more or less one of the sites of the intense fighting of the ground forces, the Shizahia neighborhood, which is on the southeast outskirts of Gaza City. We're about four kilometers from what you see. A lot of explosions, a lot of outgoing shells in the past hour in this area, as there was one rocket interception over Kibbutz-Nachal Oz, which is about five or six kilometers from where we are by bird-eye view. And then to the south, where you see the white smoke billowing. This is already in the area of Hanyunas, the central refugee camps of Nusserat, El Burej, El Murazi, or Direl Balak. These are the refugee camps which are north of Hanyunas, and there are also a lot of strikes, mostly airstrikes and artillery on those places which are not the site of ground offensives. But at the same time, the IDF is urging the population of both the northern sector of the Gaza Strip and the central sector of the Gaza Strip to evacuate the battle zone. In the northern sector of the Gaza Strip, there is a remaining population of a few tens of thousands. They're urged to join the Salahadin axis which cuts across the Gaza Strip from the east of Gaza City, from north to south, and then to move to the safe humanitarian zone, which is located west of Rafah on the extreme south of the Gaza Strip. And at the same time, those who are trapped in the fighting of Hanyunas, the city is being encircled, and there's also fighting in the heart of the city by the 98th Division of Commando Units. They're required to move west of Hanyunas and join the Aruna Rashid axis, which is the coastal road of the Gaza Strip from north to south. And they're also to move to the humanitarian safe zone of the Muassi between Hanyunas and Rafah. This is open for six hours, and at the same time in Rafah, which is also the site of strikes, Rafah refugee camp will benefit from a humanitarian truce of four hours for the population to supply itself with food and water. Although we know from videos shot by Israeli army drones that Hamas terrorists are looting the humanitarian trucks. They're beating the residents who are not involved in the fighting and who try to supply themselves. There is a sense of chaos in the southern tip of the Gaza Strip because most of the humanitarian trucks have difficulty to go and join the places where the food can be distributed. Thank you very much down on the Israel-Southern border. Joining us now in the studio is retired colonel Dr. Jacques Nelia, former deputy head of assessment at the Israeli military intelligence and our I-24 news host and analyst Kalef Bendavid. Thank you both for coming in. So we're seeing constant crossfire and violence in the north. I'd like to start with the north. With daily air strikes by Hezbollah into Israel. And now Israel retaliates. Hezbollah just updated two more losses on their end. This brings the total number of losses on their end to 100. At least. At least. That's the same number that we're seeing that the IDF is reporting for their losses in Gaza. Well, you know, there's nothing to compare. I mean, after all, I mean, our losses are compared to the quantity of units. I mean, we're talking about 300,000 more soldiers that have been mobilized. So, I mean, the 100 are very painful. But still, I mean, in proportion, this is not the same with Hezbollah. 100 and more of Hezbollah members is very, very difficult for Hezbollah to bear. And, Riyama, during the whole campaign in Syria, they lost maybe 2,000 fighters. This is what they had at the time. So, I mean, what's happening on the ground is that, till yesterday, the feeling was that we were on a low intensity conflict with Hezbollah. We were hit and we were just responding. And both of us were respecting a sort of depth, territorial depths, four to five kilometers each beyond the border inside the Lebanese territory, inside the Israeli territory. And yesterday, for the first time, we see that the targeting of areas that are far beyond, far beyond the initial four to five kilometers. Farim Vardim, for instance, is 14 kilometers from the border. Akko is almost the same. So, I mean, it means that Hezbollah has been hit very hard. Why? Because two days ago, three of his leaders and military leaders were hit in Syria, of course, and attributed to Israel. And this is his response. So Hezbollah is expressing his will to expand the territorial depth with Israel, which means that we won't have the choice if this appears to be the pattern of Hezbollah that we will have to go inside much more and hit inside the Lebanese territory, which is not exactly what the Americans have asked us to do. Right. I don't say that does relate to what's happening, perhaps in Gaza, too, because we are starting to move into what may be the next stage of the war in Gaza, which is the targeting, particularly of Khan Yunis. Those commando units that we discussed moving into Khan Yunis are really two purposes. One, perhaps to do information and rescue of the hostages, but also to specifically target the Hamas leadership. People like Mohammed Def, Yehissin, or other figures, which is Israel's endgame. And there's been a lot of speculation. Is Hezbollah going to extend its operations in its provocations in northern Israel as Israel closes in on Hezbollah leadership in southern Gaza? So as Israel penetrates deeper into the south of Gaza, you could say in some ways it may be that Hezbollah is going to penetrate deeper into northern Israel. The big question we've always been asking is, how far is Hezbollah going to go? Is it just going to make a show of it? Or is it going to, as Jacques said, force Israel to really escalate its response? And that's the sort of unanswered question that we have at this point. Now, what is Israel expected to do about this? Well, you know, if it depended on Israel, Israel would have struck Lebanon long ago. At the beginning of the war, there wasn't intention to carry a pre-emptive strike on the long-range missiles in Lebanon, so that's exactly what we did in 2006. But the Americans have very clearly opposed this move and asked us to refrain from expanding the war from the confrontation between us and Hamas into a regional confrontation, which they are very much aware, because their forces are under attack in Iraq and Syria. We see that the Houthis are just, I mean, behaving like crazy. I mean, they are just obstructing the Bible Monday that no ship that is meant to reach Israel will be allowed to go through the straits. So this is really a big problem. And if you have to add right now a new war, a new conflict between us and Hezbollah, which would mean that automatically it will spill over to Syria and Iraq, this is not exactly what the Americans want at this point in time. We'll be back to discussing some more of this in a moment. Joining us from Israel's northern border is our I-24 news correspondent, Zach Anders. Zach, what are you seeing right now? Well, I want to walk you through what we see here on the northern border. We are right on the border with Lebanon, and this is not an entirely new site. These are the reinforced thick concrete slabs. The reinforced areas, these protected areas that have been here before the war. But if you walk with me and look across the road, these building-sized barriers are new. These are blocking the roadways. And what otherwise was free access for cars and people to move between Lebanon and Israel, that is no more. The position here is guarded by soldiers as they attempt to keep this buffer zone, an exclusion area that goes several miles where they are trying to keep movement and access restricted. Not just for Israelis here in northern Israel, but for Lebanese in southern Lebanon and especially Hezbollah. Tempting from this location to see several miles inside southern Lebanon, detect Hezbollah as they attempt to move closer to this position and try and penetrate the space of control that Israel is attempting to keep here with drones and surveillance balloons. Soldiers say they've seen Hezbollah descend from these hills and mountains over my shoulder and then attempt to launch these ATGMs, the anti-tank guided missiles that require personnel. Sometimes just as many as one individual, one soldier can use this rocket-propelled anti-tank missile and fire on not just armored personnel, but also vehicles and civilians here. And that's what we've seen in the last several weeks, civilian vehicles on roads like these being targeted by Hezbollah with these armor-piercing missiles and it causes extensive damage and has made this situation very dangerous here. Zach Anders, thank you very much on Israel's northern border and back in the studio. If I can make a remark about those walls. Those walls are meant to protect from direct fire, meaning missiles or, I mean, snipers. They are not meant to protect from mortars and this is what Hezbollah is using all the time. Mortars just go up and beyond the wall just fall on the other side. So the whole area is very dangerous. So I would not advise anybody to go there at this point in time because Hezbollah is firing specifically at civilians and hitting and most of the wounded and killed are civilians right now. We're seeing live images from Gaza as we speak right now. Right, I just want to mention that we're seeing some pretty heavy fighting there now in North Gaza, which is interesting because as we know Israel does have more or less control over at least the, let's say, the top part of the upper surface area of North Gaza. But of course there's still concern about the tunnel system, the terrorist groups that are still perhaps underground in those underground tunnels in northern or other Gaza area. We heard reports over the past week about ideas about flooding the tunnels with seawater to flush them out. And this is, I think some of the urgency here may be that Israel is preparing for a major push into Hanyunas and that means a lot of manpower, bringing a lot of soldiers into sort of the central area of Gaza. One thing any military operation does not want to be outflanked on its rear by an enemy force. So I think the idea of definitely making a real conservative effort now to really eliminate those last pockets of resistance in North Gaza so they don't face the prospect of being attacked from the rear when they really start the big push into Hanyunas. Gaza Strip was protected by five brigades, five brigades of Hamas. Right now two brigades have been almost eliminated, two brigades, but still we have three more. Three more, and part of them are not in Hanyunas they are in El Borage and in Rafah and other places all around. So I mean it means that for us we have a lot of work to do because all these brigades are retrenched in 45 positions. Sort of 45 positions that the world has not seen since the Maginot Line in France. This is totally different. I mean the Maginot Line up in there, you have just one tunnel there. Here you have five stories of tunnel, one up ahead and it's very difficult to treat them and most of our casualties are those who are attempting to go into those tunnels and they are surprised by IEDs that are there on their way. Right and then on that point there was reports just this week, just the last couple of days, that for the first time Israel is moving artillery brigades inside the Gaza Strip. I served in the artillery. Generally artillery is about 10 kilometers, even 20 kilometers behind the front lines that would cover all of Gaza, clearly because of those fortified positions they want to be deadly accurate when it comes to using artillery. So we are actually moving these artillery units inside Gaza to get as close as possible to fire at those fortified positions. So now when we are speaking about advancing well into southern Gaza and as the fighting continues taking control is it not a little bit of an illusion though because the fighting is on top of the ground whereas there is an entire city underground. From the military point of view you need to enter and to occupy the territory. Once you have occupied the territory you can concentrate on what's underground. Without that you cannot do that. You cannot operate. You just push as many units as possible. You flood the area with units so that the opponent cannot meet the grinding machine, the war machine, the Israeli war machine and he is compelled to go underground. And then this is the place where you have to, the real battle will be conducted. We are at the exits and the entrances of the tunnels and this is where what the, right now the commando division is concentrating on. Because there is a whole terrorist network underneath. And you see that so many of the casualties, the fatalities that we've seen even in just recent days are not directed to, yesterday is not direct contact, it's not Hamas fire, it's booby trapped explosives in the tunnels. How dangerous it is, Hamas has the capability to cause casualties without losing any of their men because they have these booby trapped entrances to the tunnels throughout. So that is definitely one of the trickiest things and that's why we've been seeing, especially in this recent round of fighting, so many of the fatalities coming from these explosive devices, IEDs and booby traps and Hamas has said, at the entrance and in part of the tunnel system. And then when you see the flood of units, then you see that grinding machine coming towards you, you don't have the choice either to die or to surrender. And we see that in the last few days, hundreds, literally hundreds of Hamas members just surrendering. I mean, from the statistics we have, from all the people that were arrested and asked to be in the underwear, 40% of them were members of Hamas, which means that they were hiding behind those people and using them as human shields. And this is very contagious. When you see pictures like this being aired, the other fighters who look at what's happening would prefer definitely to have three meals a day rather than to die. Right, and another factor in terms of the strategy of encircling Northern Gaza and then clearing it out from in is to break the lines of communication between Northern Gaza and the Hamas leadership in the more southern half in Chanyunas. And some of the people that have been surrendering, according to reports we're seeing, some of the fighters and terrorists in Northern Gaza, specifically said they had stopped receiving commands and orders and communication from the Hamas leadership. They felt abandoned, they didn't know what to do, and so that confusion leads to their surrender. So one of the reasons why the idea went in, split the Gaza in half. Right, taking it piece by piece and then has to basically mop up that sort of dissected half and pieces of Gaza. Now I want to take a look at a story which reminds us of why we're in this situation to begin with the dark Saturday of October 7th caught the extended Biliya family off guard when Hamas terrorists invaded the grandmother's house in the city of Ofakim, 25 kilometers east of the Gaza Strip, 10 family members including a one month old baby escaped through a window and hid for hours on their neighbor's roof. The one who heroically covered for the family and was the last one to make his way out through the window was Ariel Biliya. Before he managed to get out, he was surprised by a terrorist and was shot dead. Now his widow, Shoshana Biliya tells us the story. There we saw two guys, actually two terrorists, with vests, with bullets and from the other side of the room he was shot more than with a gun. He was shot in the neck and neck and he was shot in the back and shot the two terrorists. He was shot in the neck and had to shoot them. He said to them, don't look at me, don't look at me, I'll shoot you. I thought it was a question. We saw him from above and he was shot in the neck. We went to the last room, where there were children fighting. Ariel took something, he put something on himself, on us, he was right. He found it very small. He took it, and he stood on the ground, behind the ground and said to the ground, and I told him, Ariel was shot here, she was shot in the neck, the children were fighting. And I told them, I heard their voices in the house, one went in and he called the second, called to Akhmet, opened the ground, called Akhmet to come in and the two of them spoke. And I told him, Ariel was shot here, and he said, I was shot in the neck, I was shot in the neck. And I told him, what was wrong with you, I was shot in the neck, I was shot in the neck, I opened the neck, and I looked at him, I looked at him, opened the neck, and opened the first one, the outside, I looked at him, I took the child of my grandmother, who was at the end of the house, and then I looked, I looked at him, and then I saw the neck of the child, on the right, I opened it there, my father was behind me, and I looked, I saw the child of the child, I looked at him, I looked at him, I looked at him, I thought he was coming, he was a second child after he came, and I, in fact, I told him that he did not come, and I told them, what was wrong, and they told me, everything is fine, and then I told him, I go to see what is happening, I go to see what is happening, and they said, and they take care of him, they come to take care of us all. We said to the children, that there is a child, and they saved our children, Gisi, there was a moment when his son, his little son, Gisi just took the child out, and tried to take her to the hospital, and she really gave me the child, to take her to the hospital, and my mother even told me to fight, and she said, I told her, tell them that I was there, and he went to the hospital, so he went to the hospital, that there was no second child left, and he said, there is a child there, I started to cry there, I started to cry, it was not much time, they told us that we had to go to the hospital, and I did not want to go back there, and they said, I want to go back there, because there will be more children left, there will be more children left, at the moment, from the 1980s, and I tried to stay strong, it was very annoying, I was very tired at home, he was very tired, he went home, he was doing the housework, and everything, he was very alive at home, I told him to take the child home, and he went home, I am back in studio with Kalef, we did a special broadcast for I-24 News, two months from Ofakim, amazing stories done there, all done by the police, I just want to make one point, Ofakim is about 25 km from the Gaza border, I think about 17 miles, that's how far the terrorists got to Israel, 25 kilometers away. And we know they had plans to reach Bersheba, to even go get to the West Bank. Just shocking to think about how deep they were able to penetrate in the Israel carry out an attack like that. Well, I mean, listening to those stories, one cannot evade the fact that facing those atrocities we have, Israel will not evade the fact that we have to set a sort of Nuremberg tribunal in order to just try all those responsible of the butchering of Israel, the massacre of the 7th of October, crimes against humanity. And they have all, with no exception, should be hung. And we're not talking just about a few of them. We're talking about thousands of them. Well, you know, thousands. I mean, the ropes are long enough for all of them. Kaleb, what do you have to say? Well, it's going to be, there is a reckoning that is going to have to be done, obviously. There is one crime, and there's been talk about bringing the death penalty back. There is one crime in Israel that has capital punishment. It's called crimes against humanity. Only one person in the entire history of Israel has been hung under that. And that was, of course, Eid al-Ha'ikmin, the Nazi architect of the Holocaust. And people have compared this what happened here, of course, to the Holocaust, the immensity of the crimes that were done on October 7th. Especially when you see these terrorizing moments that children, a one-month-old baby, had to go through, families. Absolutely shocking and terrible. That's all for this edition of I-24 News. We have a rolling coverage providing you with the latest from Israel. We'll be back at the top of the hour for more news and updates. Be sure to follow us on our website, i-24news.tv, and across our social media platforms. I'm Savannah Arvaive. Thank you for watching. Is in a state of war, families completely done down in their beds. We have no idea where is she. As our soldiers are fighting on the front line, but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well. This is I'm Savannah Arvaive, and these are the latest developments coming to you live from Tel Aviv. Today is day 66 of Israel's war with Hamas. The IDF continues its battle on the ground in southern Gaza, striking the city of Hanyunas in the early morning hours. As sirens went off in southern communities in Israel, in the north, crossfire continues between Hezbollah and Lebanon and Israel. According to Syrian state media, Israeli airstrikes were reported in the area around the Syrian capital of Damascus overnight, resulting in some damage. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly set up a small secret team of top allies and representatives from the defense establishment to discuss post-war plans for Gaza. The team is led by National Security Advisor Tsachya Negbi and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, and supposedly includes representatives from the IDF, the Mossad, and the Shin Bet. US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan will visit Israel at the end of the week as Washington maintains its nearly weekly shuttle diplomacy of top Biden officials in order to coordinate with Israel. During the visit, Sullivan will meet with senior government officials and discuss with them, among other things, an increase in the humanitarian aid that enters the Gaza Strip. Joining us from Israel's northern border is our I-24 news correspondent, Zach Anders. There's... It sounds like a red alert here. Tel Aviv. At the moment, we'll be evacuating the studio and we'll be back shortly. Karen, which was sounded in Tel Aviv and the region, I'm joined in studio now by our I-24 news, Kalev Bendevide and Lieutenant Colonel in Reserves de Rona Vital. Thank you both for joining. Right. We should note, it's unusual that this early in the day that there's a rock of fire in the Tel Aviv area. Usually we've seen that either later in the afternoon or especially in the evenings at eight or nine PM Tel Aviv time. I think it maybe was just a moment of opportunity for them to do it. Also, there may be concern in the areas from which they can fire the rockets have become more and more limited as Israel pushes deeper into Gaza. In fact, the IDF saying that they're now firing, Hamas firing these rockets from southern Gaza in areas that have been designated as safe zone specifically by the IDF, a way of using the Palestinian civilians as human shields. So this could reflect some distress from Hamas being choosing to fire now when they still have the opportunity and those opportunities becoming more limited. Well, over the last week, we did see also some midday sirens and rockets launched into Israel, Deron. Exactly, I think you summed it up. They look for opportunities to fire to show that they still exist. You have Galant was talking about indication of collapse in the Hamas, we hope this is truly so. And if so, they're trying their best to show that they're still there, still firing. Right, Israel's Channel 14 reporting that one rocket did make impact in the town of Kholon, which is just a little south of Tel Aviv, not far. I should say in the studio, we heard explosions from the interceptions maybe landing also from the sea. So we'll have to see if there is, people have to understand. There's a lot of danger still if you don't go into shelters. Even after the interceptions, danger from fragments, we saw dramatic footage. There was an early last week where a piece of rocket fragment fell literally inches, centimeters away from a person walking right in the heart of Tel Aviv. The easy would have killed them had it landed directly on them. So people have to take care, we'll have to see if there's any injuries or anything worse from the Kholon. It isn't just the danger of the rocket itself, which often is intercepted, but it's the remains that fall. The remains of the rocket certainly can be deadly. 10 minutes, the front command says people should stay in a minimum of 10 minutes after the siren alert. And we'll have to see, there was apparently something, according to Channel 14, there was some kind of impact in the town of City of Kholon. We'll probably be getting those images shortly. Doron, so we're seeing that the image, we saw over the weekend an image of Hamas terrorists surrendering. It was all over the media. We saw at least a large chunk of them were terrorists. I think they are being investigated. We don't know right now the percentages. Even if it's only 20% this indication of that the pressure does it impact on the northern Gaza. G.R. Jibalia, all those refugee camps where first fighting is still continuing. I hope we have indication of collapse. Khan Yunus is a key for us in terms of commanders of Hamas and we are doing a good progress there. The question of course would be the dilemma of the hostages. We think they are located in the south. We think they are located in Khan Yunus, whether they would have opportunity to rescue them, whether there would be some deal coming in the horizon. It's not clear. So there was a commando operation, which was reported to attempt to rescue hostages. What can you tell me about that? In the end it didn't succeed. I think we have to understand that IDF prepares for this kind of scenarios because the hostages are being scattered. So maybe some piece of intelligence, some location, some area where troops are there, special forces are with the infantry and the other troops. They can go in, they have negotiation team, they have people that speak Arabic. Who knows negotiation on the field, rescue operation. This is where our hopes are, but still it's, until now we didn't succeed. Hello. Right, and I see they're showing us some photos from this footage coming from the interception that just happened moments ago in the skies above the Tel Aviv area. I believe that's what we're seeing. You see the pulse of cloud where the interceptors hit the rockets several. So it's apparently a pretty, looks like it was a major, pretty major barrage. Just on Daron's point, I think there is following the increasing reports that we have of hostages who have died in captivity and the accounts of some of the abuse that some of them have suffered. Maybe there is a more of an urgency to realize that Israel has to launch these missions to try to save the hostages, even at the risk of failure, because there is a time element now with the survival of the hostages. Exactly, the question is always intelligence. If there's intelligence, the IIDF would work upon this intelligence and will try to rescue the risk that have to be, they are calculated, but they have to be taken. The question is intelligence. If we have intelligence, the area is safely or relatively secured. We can operate. And I think the idea of things in this fashion now. Now there are 137 hostages who still remain in captivity in Gaza by Hamas. And if you ask the hostage forum, advocating for their family members, they are pleading to release the hostages first and then to continue with military fighting. There's no question that if there would be an effective deal offered, okay, or negotiated, then the army or the political leaders would have to reconsider in the price of a ceasefire, not stopping the war. This is a term that we cannot accept, but the ceasefire as was in the previous ceasefire. Of course, this would be taken, this would be, I would think, this would be accepted by, but the question is, right now there's nothing on the table, it seems. I'm sure there are negotiations in the background, nothing in the table. This way we all try also those rescue operations. So we're getting news that nine rockets were intercepted on their way to Tel Aviv and the central areas just now. I'm sure that footage just a minute ago of the trails of those are actually the interceptors doing it, it is a strategy of Hamas to fire multiple barrage of rockets, basically to try to overwhelm the iron dome system. There you can see all of those, those are actually from the interceptors, fire it up. And there was early report that at least one rocket had actually hit the ground. Again, we don't know actually if that was true, if that was a rocket or a fragment of a rocket, as we mentioned earlier that it had exploded, but those could be deadly as well. So we'll have to see if there are any reports of damage. Again, even if all of these rockets were intercepted, as I said before, that does not mean that rocket fragments did not hit and that caused damage or possibly injury in the ground. We'll just have to wait a little further and see if we have any reports on that. Right, now we are speaking about the hostages, the 137 who still remain in captivity. What is the next step in terms of bringing them back, the one you say that it's up to intelligence, but is there a plan, a strategic plan? Are there other deals which might be on the table? That's why we are in the third phase of this war of this campaign, and Khan Yunus really symbolizes this third phase. The senior commanders of Hamas are in Khan Yunus. The hostages might be there. Now, the question is whether there will be a deal. If there's a deal in return for a ceasefire and some release of prisoners, this, I think, Israelis would accept it. This is the common wisdom everywhere. The question whether there is such a possibility, the question also whether the Hamas is in complete control of the scene right now, the landscape of war. And of course, we'll try following up on intelligence to try to rescue more hostages. Afael, the term doesn't, shouldn't discourage us. Hostage-taking scenarios are always complicated. There's always risk involved. We know it in the past. We have to follow every lead, but I have to be a lead for that. You talked about those prisoners or those Hamas or citizens that right now are less fearful of Hamas. They might give us those leads that we need. In the end, the hostages are there. Somebody is taking care of them. If they're in the underground level, this would be, of course, harder, but we have to follow every lead possible. Right, but by the way, I just note that the national, the head of the National Security Council, Sakhi Anegbi, was interviewed on Israeli TV, his first major interview on Saturday night. He specifically asked about one scenario that people have brought up, whether Israel would agree to a deal if it comes to it, of allowing some of the senior figures of Hamas, even people like Iqh-i-Sinwar and Muhammad Deft to basically leave the Gaza Strip, be given safe passage to a third country, could be Qatar or Iran or whatever, in return for the fraying of hostages. Something that has some parallels to what the Israel agreed to with the leadership of Fatah, the PLO, in 1982 in Beirut. He was sort of non-committal about it. Didn't rule it out completely. It's theoretical entirely, because we're nowhere near that stage yet, but that could be one possibility that comes up. This is a scenario possible. I'm myself a veteran of the Lebanon War, and I was actually in the port of Beirut with the intelligence as a commander of paratrooper company, actually counting the PLO terrorists climbing to the boats, living to Tunisia, whether this scenario is in the horizon, perhaps who knows, but it's a different circumstances. I heard Sakhi Anegbi didn't rule it out. Who knows? Now, meanwhile, there are three more soldiers who were pronounced dead this past weekend this morning. We see more soldiers that are dying in combat. That's a heavy price that IDF in Israel is paying. I think in the beginning of the campaign, we had the feeling that it goes easier than expected in terms of the tolls, the toll in terms of our soldiers. But right now, as every day continues, we have those Hamas people sneaking from their peers, ambushing our soldiers. It's part of the price of war, and we had this terrible news on Saturday on the death of the son of Gadi Eisencourt, chief of staff. And nephew. And nephew then, yeah, from Elat. This is terrible price that we have to pay for war, but the soldiers are determined, they are there, and the war will continue as long as they can. We'll get the order to do so and to achieve the objective of this war. Right, and what I mentioned earlier, one riskier aspect now is going into the tunnels themselves. Exactly. They're booby-trapped. Several of the fatalities we've seen have come from booby-trapped explosive devices and booby-trapped tunnels. And so this is a potentially very risky, dangerous stage of the fighting going on now at this point. Exactly. We didn't succeed to dismantle the tunnel infrastructure. We have to admit that there's all this technology involved, from vision technology, dogs, whatever, robotics. But still, this is a big issue. And Khaninos, it would be a big issue. And I think this would be the challenge. The hostage is the first dilemma, but this is the next dilemma. And of course, targeting the center commanders of Hamas. I just want to update about the siren that we heard before in the rocket attack into central Israel. We have one injured in the city of Holon, thus far. Likely injured. Right, we did say that there was some, again, we don't even know if that was from a rocket impact or it could have been a rocket fragment. It's unfortunate to hear. And we, again, just stressing the need for people to follow the home front command regulations. Fine, get into shelter or get flat on the ground if you're nowhere near a shelter. That's right. And back to the fighting in Gaza. The fighting intensifies. The army is deep into southern Gaza, into Hanyunas, into Jabalia, and Sahaja'iyah. We saw images before of fighting and smoke when speaking to our correspondent down south. And we know that the Palestine Square was taken over by the IDF. We've seen a flag of Israel right in the middle of the square. We saw them light a menorah for the holiday of Hanukkah over there. This is surely symbolic. But is it so that the IDF is advancing when there's so much going on underneath the surface? Yeah, as we said, this is the big challenge. The tunnel infrastructure, for many years, 10 and more, they've been really building infrastructure. This is, say, something about this. It would have to be investigated. How can we allow such infrastructure to be built? So this is still a challenge. As I said, the three challenges are, for sure, the tunnel infrastructure, the hostage dilemma, which is our main objective now, and the senior commanders. And those three elements are interconnected, of course. And they would mark the end of the third phase of the war. If the end nears, then this would be the objective that has to be achieved in this phase. And we're looking at this just right now from Cholon of the rockets. What were the remains? This to me looks like then it was a remain of rocket that had been intercepted. Because when the rockets actually make full-on impact, they basically would grow up in their entirety. They make a crater. So it looks like this was one of the cases. You can see it. Look at the chunk of that rocket. It's probably an interceptor. Right, that those are fragments of either a rocket or an interceptor that landed. Those often make impact. We've set up to five to 10 minutes after there is an interception. And people think the siren is over, so they come out. You could even see the flame coming out of the back of them, still coming down, still active there. And that's how dangerous they are in the situation. Absolutely. And people really have to take care. It certainly looks like that could have caused some kind of injury. That chunk of rocket. So the one I want to ask you about Hamas resistance. We're seeing that they're putting up a fight. They have not all surrendered, although we have seen some. How likely is it that Hamas will actually break? No, I think it's very likely. If not for the hostage dilemma that we are facing, then I would be very determined in saying that the conclusion of this phase is the total collapse of military wings of Hamas. The two brigades in Sa'ajie and Jabalia really undermine right now. Of course, here and there, they can sneak, they can shoot, they can ambush us. And Khan Yunus as a target is really we have very good progress there. But the hostage dilemma really constrains us in terms of how aggressive we can go and how effective we can be. So this is the only thing that limits my optimism. But I think they put resistance. But I'm not sure they will surrender, but we'll crash them. Now Israel is calling out for Hamas to surrender. But we also know that for Hamas, it's usually either victory or Shahid death. So what can we expect? Surrendering is not really an option for many of them. It's true, but we saw Hamas soldiers even in the 7th of October surrendering. So it's not, it doesn't, once if you hit the commanders, then they lose some of their spirit. Then you might find them surrendering in real numbers. So I wouldn't undermine this option. Of course, we are fearful of some Shahid suicide operation that would include our hostages. This is a fear, of course. But I just want to, we're seeing now footage apparently of another site in contrast to the other one. This looks like a direct hit from a rocket. You see there's an actual crater. This is a cologne. OK, this is a cologne. You see there was a crater at one point. You see a crater there. You don't see any big rocket fragments because the rocket exploded into pieces of shrapnel. You see the damage is started. It blew apart cars in the area. And you could see in that apartment building, it could be that people were in their apartment. And even look, you could see it blew through the tree seeing that would have been fragments of the rocket. So people could have either been in the cars or in that apartment. So that's pretty serious. That's a direct hit on a populated area of Cologne. It shows you that, unfortunately, the Iron Dome is not 100%. It can be overwhelmed. And possibly that's what happened here. It's just too many rockets in one particular area for the number of interceptors that the Iron Dome could fire off at one time. Cologne is a city right by itself. It shows you that there's no airtight defense. And this also relates to project to the north. When you think of the amount of missile that Hezbollah has, we have to take into account. Much more powerful and much more accurate. And you should, yeah, when you shoot so many missiles, the system as effective as it is can miss such a just missile. And this is the consequences of which. The one of Italian Cleve Vendavid, thank you very much for joining us in the studio. That's all for this edition of I-24 News. We have rolling coverage, providing you with the latest from Israel. We'll be back at the top of the hour for more news and updates. Be sure to follow us on our website, i-24news.tv, and across our social media platforms. I'm Sivana Arvive. Thank you for watching. Is in a state of war, families completely done down in their beds. We have no idea where is she. As our soldiers are fighting on the front lines, but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well. News 24, Israel, bajo ataque. News 24 en español trae el análisis y la información de los acontecimientos de la guerra, espadas de hierro. Entrevistas exclusivas reportes desde la zona de guerra, la reacción de los países hispanoparlantes. News 24, el único medio en español que te mantiene informado y conectado con la comunidad latina en Israel. News 24, únicamente en I-24 News. Story to the world. Looking at some of these soldiers, the policemen, and plain civilians who took up arms to defend their communities on October 7th, knowing that they were simply the last line of defense for their families, their friends, and their communities. This story tells the story of Yossi Tahr, an accomplished fighter in the IDF, as well as Israel's internal security service, who lost his life fighting to defend his community. Here is his story. I miss him so much, my heart is dead. Why couldn't he be more careful? How? How could they not save him? They're strong like you are. You cheer me up all the time. It's true. It's so painful, it's impossible. I can't believe that Yossi was taken from me. In fact, I went there with the feeling that this wouldn't happen to me. For what purpose? Why is he part of it? Yossi, the good Lord protects him. But no one defended him. Until October 7th, Mazal and Elie Tahr knew nothing about them, not what they looked like or what their real names were. These are the friends of her son, Yossi, killed on October 7th, who remained in the shadow. I never knew them. I've never seen them. And I said to myself, what a shame that Yossi never came home with them for dinner. Now when they come here, they give me a little bit of strength. But I miss Yossi a lot. Yossi, how's it going? We spoke on Thursday morning. Maybe now is the time to show what he wrote to me. It was Thursday. You read it. I can't. I read it? Yes. But dad, I want to tell you how much I love you and really appreciate that you're here by my side. You give me strength when I need it. Always thinking, always thoughtful, warm, friendly, with logic, and always sincere. It is important for me that you know how dear you are to me. I love you. Yossi. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. Are three of the most valiant elite fighters in the secret and very special unit of the internal intelligence service, the Shin Bet. They are here to meet Yossi's parents and tell them about the side of Yossi they knew less about. He had a strong personality. Those who knew him got attached to him in seconds, at all levels, from the simple soldier arriving at the unit the day before to the IDF chief of staff. He knew how to connect with people. Just like that, he gave so much of himself. He would meet someone, and two days later, he's invited over for a barbecue dinner. We don't wear our ranks. We don't treat people based on their position. People follow us because of the leadership, because of the personality of whoever leads the unit. And Yossi was all of the above, big time. He knew how to speak to people and touch their hearts. We cannot show Yossi's photo, and his face will probably never be known to the public. Our slogan is, protect and not be seen. In 99% of cases, we were the ones to surprise the enemy. We are the initiators, those who direct the situation. On October 7th, we were surprised by the intensity of the attack, the way it was done, the numbers. And that was what put us in great difficulty in the first hours of the attack. In many ways, Yossi is like Emmanuel Moreno, the heroic fighter of the famous Special Forces Commando, Sayyared Maktal, but in the ranks of Shin Bet, tales of his bravery and everything he did on October 7th will remain secret, except for what the censors allow us to reveal. It was half past six in the morning of the 7th of October. I received the first phone call from Yossi. He told me, you're not going to believe it. There's something weird going on here. He was talking to me from his shelter, and told me that he will call me back when he's on the road to decide what we're going to do. As we drove south, we realized that one of our fighters was hit, and Yossi, with another small team of fighters, responded bribing towards the terrorists under heavy fire. He was in an area he didn't know, and we could not yet understand the scale and complexity of the attack and the number of terrorists. He was able to reach our struggling fighter after a few minutes, and Yossi actually saved his life. Outside, violent fighting was taking place on all sides, and Yossi realized that the evacuation is well managed. It's under control. He analyzed the situation perfectly and said to himself that he is the force closest to the Kibbutz Mefalsim, and decided to support the fighters in the area. Yossi is an experienced fighter with a lot of hours of combat under his belt. He comes from Sheta Shaloshesri, the Marine Commanders. Yossi was in a different level than the rest of us. He often faced terrorists, participated in many operations against them, and had a lot of experience. Pretty early in the fighting, he was able to get hold of one of the terrorist tactical radios. At first, he listened to what they were saying, trying to figure out where the terrorists are. They killed two terrorists in the van. They saw another group of about 10 terrorists up the road. He ran to an open area, and the terrorists were hiding behind a concrete shelter at the entrance of the Kibbutz. At this point, he had been hit, and that's where he died. I heard on the radio that Yossi was wounded, and the next call I got was not from Yossi. It was from our medic. He came by here. He told me, man, I can't keep fighting to save Yossi. It's done. And I know both of them very well. I know about the commitment we have towards each other here. However, when he told me that he did everything he could, but could not save him, and that was the end, I realized that we're dealing with a totally different situation here. Did he suffer? No. He didn't suffer? No, he didn't suffer. First few days after Yossi died, I didn't want to deal with it. I tried to keep busy, don't think about it. I tried to erase it. Sometimes I'd wake up at night saying to myself, it can't be, can't be true. But after about four days, I stopped on the side of the road and said, I can't put it away anymore, just like that. I wanted a moment to process, and I got on WhatsApp and listened to some of the messages he had sent me. And the last one was a song. This song suddenly hit me. It cut off half my heart, and I just stopped. This repression disappeared all of a sudden. Emotions came pouring out. It overwhelmed me because you hear Yossi in his own voice singing a song that is almost like a prophecy. Yossi was the son of every parent here in Israel. He defended them all by himself, all of them. He protected the state of Israel. He even told us once, if not me, then who would do the job? He's not here, it's just the body. Physical matter here, materiality. I respect the cemetery and the burial, which is important in Judaism, in our heritage. But for me, this is just a stone. Like you said, it's not him. It's a stone. I think that if there's, as they say, a world beyond this one, I am sure that he's up there giving it all he's got. I have no doubt. Grief hit Ellie three times during his life. His brother, Lieutenant Colonel Yossi Tahar, a senior officer at the paratroopers brigade, was killed in July of 1981 fighting in Lebanon. It was a huge crisis in my life, a very, very difficult crisis. I've carried it around for a long time. 20 years later, when Roy was killed, then they asked me, they told me, you must be used to it. But I said that that was not the case. Now I understand what my parents felt. Roy, Ellie's son, fighter in the Nahal brigade, was killed in a motorcycle accident on October, 2001. When Roy died, a part of me died. It didn't hurt. It was just that a part of me was dead. Ellie was sure he had already paid the ultimate price, that Yossi, despite serving as a fighter who in the Navy commando, and later in the Shin Bet, would not be harmed. That's what almost everyone thought, those who knew Yossi. At one point I said, that's it. I have the impression that that's it. He's safe there with this protective layer around him. I thought he was safe. Yossi had something immortal about him. In the eulogy, his commander said, that when Yossi would stare death in the eyes, death would back down. Many Israelis owe their life to Yossi and they don't even know it. Beyond the fact that October 7th, his actions stopped terrorists from entering in the kibbutz of Mefal Sin. He is responsible for hundreds of foiled attacks over the years, in service, and only a handful of which we were allowed to mention. Now with the departure of most of Israel's foreign workers in the wake of the October 7th terror attack, Israeli farmers are struggling to harvest their crop due to a severe lack of manpower. Now several private initiatives are bringing in volunteers from across the country to help fill in that gap. Arohi Shapiro went to check out one of those in the coastal community of Rishpawn and he found that they were joined there by a very special volunteer from a country here for you around the world in East Asia that in some ways identifies itself with Israel. More than 8,000 kilometers separates Israel and Taiwan, but today it seems that the two countries are closer than ever. Officials from Taiwan have decided to join the current Israeli war effort and volunteer to work in the fields of the coastal village of Rishpawn. Since the whole world looked at October 7th, Hamas terrorizing harrow, Taiwan was one of the first countries to express our solidarity with Israel and express our condolence to the perished people and the political support is very strong. And over the past 30 years, the social foundation between the two societies and people are also very deep rooted. So we feel it's important to come more support with the civilian sectors including the agricultural sectors. This is a part of a project led by Hashomer Chadash for the New Guard, an Israeli organization which helps farmers across the country. Its co-founder says that walking in the field is a prime goal in Israel today as there is a lack of tens of thousands of workers. The power of this nation, the power of the people, the power of the society inside Israel, this is the strongest power that we have. And to tell you the truth, I spoke with the Minister of Education and I told him, please let the students come to the field for a few months to the field, stop the learning and come to the field and work because people all over Israel need to eat. Among the volunteers we found Yanir and Maayan, two students and a couple who decided to take time off university and contribute to the local industry. It's a tough job, but it is very rewarding. Exactly. It is nice to see the container getting full of fruit. I think that working in the field really binds us as a couple. Yes. The Taiwanese representative in Israel says that despite the different cultures, Israel and Taiwan have a lot in common. Like Israel, Taiwan has been under constant threat from our neighbor, country, China. We understand the commitment to defend the homeland and we understand the commitment to exercise the right of our defense. Despite the hot weather, volunteers are not worried by the hard work and continue their contribution, one of many, since October 7th. Let's go to Kibbutz-Nachalos. This is one of the places which were most severely damaged on October 7th. Our correspondent, Yuri Shapiro, takes us there. October 7th caught the entire country by surprise. In Kibbutz-Nachalos, one of the places closest to the Gaza border, the surprise was even bigger. We woke up around 6 a.m. My partner told me that there is a red alert. I wasn't very excited about it. I said, okay, we've experienced these situations. We'll walk it out. So we entered the safe room. The first message I got was from a friend who texted me that his wife was injured. Eventually, she died from her wounds. The door was closed, but I suppose that it wouldn't matter to them. I guess that they realized that we are old people, there is not much to do with us. So they went to other places. Yachiel Chelnov is one of the founders of Nachalos. He is close to his 90s, but still very active. When we established the Kibbutz, we concentrated on agriculture. And indeed, we had very good agriculture. We have one of the best dairy industries. At least it was until the war, but it is still working. It's the first time I'm living the Kibbutz. We had security issues when you evacuated young families with the kids or whoever wanted to go, but never like this. Kibbutz-Nachalos was the first Nachal settlement, a collective community of veterans of the IDF's Nachal Brigade, who combined military service and building communities across the country. In the early days, the Kibbutz was considered one of the most famous in Israel, as leaders and officials visited it. One of the most famous incidents occurred in 1956 when a member of the Kibbutz, Roy Rothenberg, was brutally killed by Egyptian forces. The eulogy of Moshe Dayan, then chief of staff, became one of the most iconic speeches in the history of Israel. Early yesterday morning, Roy was murdered. The quiet of the spring morning dazzled him, and he did not see those waiting in ambush for him at the edge of the furrow. Let us not cast the blame on the murderers today. Why should we declare their burning hatred for us? For eight years, they have been sitting in the refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes, we have been transforming the land and the villages where they and their fathers dwelt into our state. It is not among the Arabs in Gaza, but in our own midst that we must seek Roy's blood. How did we shut our eyes and refuse to look squarely at our fate and see, in all its brutality, the destiny of our generation? In 2014, another traumatic event happened when four-year-old Daniel Tragman died from a missile sent from Gaza. The Kibbutz was about to celebrate 70 years since its founding with a special ceremony. Ironically, the main show was a play which shows two women's spotters who were cut off from their cameras. We were supposed to have a big celebration marking 70 years of the Kibbutz. On Friday, we had rehearsals for the show, the plot where the spotters are disconnected. It seems like a crazy story for me, but this is what happened eventually. Around 35 people were murdered in Nakhaloz on October 7th. Today, residents of the Kibbutz are staying in another Kibbutz in the north, Mishmar Hayamek, and are waiting to decide on their next step as Nakhaloz remains a closed military zone. Israeli hostages released from captivity in Gaza have been recounting harrowing experiences of abuse and psychological terror. As we've been saying, there are still 138 hostages young and old being held in dire conditions. More in this next report. Is everything okay? My mother was kept in a one-and-a-half room apartment. She was in one small closed room and the couple lived in the other room. There was a small window in the room, which they closed, and she couldn't see if it was day or night. As soon as she realized she was alone, she simply told us, listen, I decided, I read, I studied. All the stories from the Holocaust. I will keep a diary. I read that Gilad Shalit used to do some sports, and that's what kept her going. She realized very quickly that they prayed five times a day, and she would simply count prayers. She would record it in a journal. And the prayers and sound of the muazzin, all these things gave her a complex of understanding what day it was, what night, what hour, and she revolved around that. When I come to them, they see that I'm not alone. They see that I'm not alone. When I come to them, they see the distress. You see the distress. Yola, Yael, all the time by their mother's side, she never leaves Adi. Until two days ago, she was sped. She didn't speak at all, not out loud. Naveh a little more, but you know, he is right away from the moment they were kidnapped. What happened? He saw everything. He doesn't speak at all. Not asking, not about the father, not about the grandfather. As far as we know, all six of them were in one place. Tal was not with them, no. We saw some of the children who came with arthopedic injuries. There was a girl who needed surgery. Injuries to the legs, injuries to the hands, scars that were on children, a burn on a child's leg, which he said was a burn from a motorcycle. We saw very low hygiene conditions. At levels I don't remember encountering on children. Stories you hear from other areas, lice, rashes, skin infections. Some of them lost weight in a very, very significant way. What does that mean? 10 kilos in children, a lot. They arrived, and after the first meeting with the family, what is the first thing they want to give children who meet them? We let them eat, and at some point, we found ourselves taking food from the children's rooms so that they wouldn't eat too much when they arrived. That's why I pulled yogurts and rolls out of the children's hands so that it wouldn't be too much. We will have to continue to support them and give them everything they need, both now and in the future. But they are amazing. We've received an inspiring group of children. We know that she did not know, for example, what happened to her father. She was very pleasantly surprised to see her father in that famous video that she actually ran quickly at the speed of light into her mother's embrace, and suddenly she saw her father, and she was sure that her father had been kidnapped. She did not know that her father was saved and got out of it. The first thing she asked after looking around her and suddenly didn't see Lior, her brother, she asked about her brother, and the parents had to tell her, this is actually the first thing they told her after she returned, about her brother, that her brother was murdered. From what I know, and this is almost the first thing I heard from her when I saw her, this whole time she was without shoes, and she had to tell her about her brother. She was very surprised to see her father the whole time she was without shoes. For almost two months, this girl was without shoes. She says that she was humiliated very much, that she had a very difficult experience, that she was treated badly, and this is now engraved in her heart. Everything she does, she remembers the experience from there. Was she there alone? She's very scared for the abductees who remained behind. They're still in danger. She was literally brainwashed there, really, and she doesn't live in our world right now, she's still there. It's impossible to cope there, it's impossible. We have to get the abductees out of there. If we don't get them out now, they won't get out alive. How did she keep her sanity? What did she do all day? She says that most of the time she just looked at the wall. That's what she had to do, and only occupied herself with thoughts of, my daughters are fine, my daughters are fine, my daughters are fine, my daughters are fine. She kept trying to convince herself. I don't think that we don't see, but you can say that something has changed. Her enthusiasm for every little thing, from the most basic things she had before, I don't know, maybe a towel for the shower, or some chocolate, or something to drink, you suddenly see the light in her eyes that she accepts such things. Or used to, she was always, we'd waste our dinner, throw away food as usual. Today we're forbidden to throw away food. There's no such thing, save everything, put it in the fridge, find a place. We were privileged to take care of 29 returnees, now the 30th returnee, almost all of them without exception. The first thing they wanted to do when they met their families was to talk. We heard a lot from them about the psychological games that were played with them, as part of the psychological abuse they went through. So it's also related to information that they share and don't share. So it's also related to information that they share and don't share. As part of the psychology of the captive, of creating dependence on the captives. But by my feeling, from what I hear from the people, is that it has been refined at very high levels. What do you mean elaborate psychological tear? The feeling is that it was sophisticated, not random or unplanned, orchestrated, not some kind of relationship that develops by chance between a certain captor and a certain abductee. So it's also related to the fact that it's not just a matter of understanding, it's also related to the fact that it's not just between a certain captor and a certain abductee. But to create the psychological infrastructure to play on their minds in a way that would achieve...