 from Israel to hundreds of millions of people in scores of countries, bringing Israel's story to the world. I-24 News channels, now on Hot. Welcome to I-24 News' ongoing coverage of Israel at war. I'm Ariel Levin Waldman. The IDF says Hamas' rule in Gaza is faltering. New videos that show scores of Hamas terrorists surrendering. Step down to their underwear to ensure they aren't hiding bomb vests as they hand over their weapons. Military officials say that Hamas terrorists have been surrendering in greater numbers to the IDF in other areas in Gaza as the military pushes deeper into Hamas' strongholds. Mass surrenders in the Jabalaya and Shecheyeyeh stronghold neighborhoods. Interrogations after these surrenders reveal a growing disconnect between Hamas' soldiers and its leadership, with leadership painting them a rosy picture and urging them to fight to the bitter end, while their trigger-pullers on the ground say leadership does not care about their lives. The IDF says that information gathered from surrendering terror operatives has helped update the military's target bank. Military intel also reports that Hamas' leader Yaqa Sinwar has fled North Gaza using humanitarian corridors in the early stages of the war. He is now believed to be currently hiding in the underground fortress network beneath Khan Yunus. The IDF has been moving deeper and deeper into Khan Yunus every day for the past week now, announced 250 terror targets destroyed to the air force in the past day. IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagarri gave an update on the situation in Gaza. In the last 24 hours, the IDF has deepened the fighting inside Khan Yunus. We've located underground shafts, weapons, and eliminated many terrorists. Many terrorists have surrendered during the battles in Sajaya and Jabalia and handed over weapons and equipment. Interrogations of terrorists have revealed the following intelligence. The condition of Hamas' operatives on the ground is hard, and the Hamas' leadership, headed by Sinwar, is denying reality despite having all the information. The operatives are complaining that the Hamas' leadership is disconnected from the harsh conditions they face on the ground. They also feel that Hamas doesn't care about the Ghazan people. It is of great concern, even to Hamas' military operatives. Well, for a live look at the war in the south, we are joined now by our Middle East correspondent Ariel Osiram, who is standing by just outside the border town of Sarot. Ariel, it's good to have you with us. Walk us through the latest things that we have seen in the war in the south. Ariel, fighting has been ongoing throughout the morning and afternoon here along the border with Gaza. As you mentioned in your lead, significant concentration of fighting in the outskirts of Gaza City, mainly Jabalia to the north and Sajaya to the east. Every few moments we can hear the thunder of Israeli artillery firing shells to the northern parts of the Gaza Strip, like Beit Hanun here that you can see behind me, all the while also ongoing fighting in the south, in the city of Chanyunis. But just a short while ago, less than 20 minutes ago, another rocket barrage siren sounded in Kibbutz and Nakhal Oz surrounding the Gaza Strip. There are no indications of injuries as a result of that barrage, mainly due to the simple fact that the vast majority, if not all, the population in that border community as well as others along the border with Gaza have been evacuated. Now also a short while ago, the IDF revealing that for the first time since the start of the war, its artillery forces have begun operating from within the territory of the Gaza Strip, another indication to the advancement of IDF forces as the war continues. Now in your lead you referred to the images of mass surrender coming out of Jabalia and Sajaya, those two places of key fighting over the past few days. Now in an attempt to save face, Hamas issued a statement a short while ago in Arabic and in English claiming that these are obviously fabricated images by the IDF and that Israel had arrested unarmed civilians and rather its own fighters, it said, Hamas said in a statement, are unwavering heroes persist in the battlefield, resolute and unyielding. I assume you can see those images of the mass surrender running on the screen right now, what you're seeing are indeed wavering and yielding Hamas terrorists. Well definitely they look as you said very wavering and yielding and we're helping to see more images of that Ariel. Thank you very much for that report from the south. We're gonna move to the north now that war is continuing to grind on with the intensity slowly ratcheting up. This footage shows heavy bombing of southern Lebanon. This is as air raid siren sounded across the western Galilee region of Israel. The IDF said a drone infiltration was reported just around 10 a.m. in the morning here. Well we are joined now by our senior defense correspondent Jonathan Regev standing by live from the north border. Jonathan what is the latest there because it's a little confusing from our perspective. Maybe you help us clear up the situation. Yes so as you mentioned that 10 o'clock in the morning just a little over three hours ago siren sounded in some of the communities of the northern border. Those then attempted a UAV infiltration that UAV has been taken down. In response Israel targeted various sites north of the border and I have to say the strike the Israeli strike this morning was quite strong in intensity stronger than if we compare the strike with similar events in previous days the Israeli strike this morning quite strong on various targets in or in south excuse me south Lebanon including anti-tank squads that were aiming to fire and other installations belonging to Hezbollah. About an hour ago just after midday local time Hezbollah claimed it carried out another drone attack there were no sirens at this time. Therefore according to Hezbollah they already acted twice but sirens sounded only once in northern Israel and the Israeli response to that attack in the morning was quite severe. And what have we been seeing because it looks like each day the intensity the amount of fire that we've seen is only increasing and the speculation is with the war in Gaza beginning to grind on and on has both is going to have to make a decision sooner rather than later whether or not they're going to commit their forces to significant operations. Is there any word on how that's developing? No really at least for now it's true that the amount of fire is intensifying but we have to say that it remains almost completely on the border itself including this one or possibly two drone infiltrations by Hezbollah they remain on the border fence itself not further into Israel. Therefore at least on that level things remain on a certain level with certain rules of the game in which both sides are operating just on the border fence and not too much inland. Does this mean this is going to stay for longer? No one really knows the answer is no no one really knows what is going to happen. Hezbollah may have other plans understanding that if Hamas is about to fall to surrender they should increase their attacks it might happen Hezbollah had various chances to do it they never did they never crossed that certain threshold it doesn't mean it is not going to happen but it has not happened now and there were plenty of chances in these two months and Israel on the other hand intensifying also its responses still along this these rules of the game on the border fence itself but at least this morning a very strong Israeli response may be signaling to Hezbollah if you continue to attack our responses are growing are going to grow in their strength. Well thank you very much for that report from the North Jonathan we're going to analyze this in studio more with Yaakov Lepin analyst on military affairs for the Jewish News Syndicate as well the Mariam Institute Yaakov good to have you with us I want to open on the north because that's where we just left our correspondent we have national security adviser Hanek B saying that the war against Hezbollah is likely as soon as Hamas is defeated he talking is he seeing anything true anything we don't know or is this something that we think the government might just be kicking down the road yet again. I think he is connecting the dots of course he has you know access to all of the intelligence that we don't but I think even from the public sphere it's clear that Israel and Hezbollah are in a collision course what remains unclear still is the scope and the timing but the bottom line is that Israel will no longer accept a reality in which Hezbollah it's Radawan death squads which are better trained and more heavily armed than Hamas's Nukhba death squads and the other Hezbollah units that are you know firing anti-tank units and large Borkan rockets and mortars and terrorizing the north of course the civilians have evacuated and they can't come back so long as this is a situation and they're targeting IDF posts that reality even if Hezbollah right now you know holds its fire there's no way that Israel can accept that reality their presence on the border so they're going to have to be pushed back and then you know if we simulate that forward how does Hezbollah respond it's not unlikely to pull its forces back so that requires a military operation that is an escalation how far that will go when that will happen that's all still shrouded in mystery but I think this is what Hanekbi was getting at we are on a collision course with Hezbollah what's the United States position in this they do not want a regional war but they have Israel's back at the same time they have been demanding Israel not preempt anything with Hezbollah but it seems that as you just mentioned everybody here understands and the Hezbollah collision course is now inevitable well does the United States see it the same way I think what the United States is still trying to do is to figure out if there is any way to avoid the Hamas Israel war from becoming a regional war and Israel is giving it the space to do that it's giving it the time to do that this also actually aligns with Israel's own strategic needs which is to prioritize and complete the lion's share of the war in the Gaza Strip against Hamas these three Hamas centers of gravity as they call them the IDF which is Jabalia and Hanyunas in the south and back up north you know other areas that the IDF is still operating and it's operating in dozens of areas but we can focus this into sort of three or four core areas that's going to take several more weeks to complete the dismantling of Hamas's terror army overground underground and Israel has every interest in completing that because once most of that work is done it frees up military resources ground forces intelligence Air Force all of that starts freeing up so it's in Israel's interest to delay the northern escalation as much as possible I think that's an Israeli interest and that coincides with the US attempt to look for some sort of way as unlikely as it may seem to de-escalate using diplomacy will it work we don't know let's keep an open mind I'm skeptical but it's worth trying it's certainly worth trying if we're talking about delaying as much as possible what does as much as possible mean because the statements we're seeing come out of the military establishment about the war in Gaza makes it sound like we're talking about a matter of months maybe two but not much longer not much longer for the high intensity phase of this war I it looks to me like it's approximately two months maybe a little bit less maybe a little bit more but that seems to be the time frame that would be needed with most of that action concentrated in Hanyunas because Hanyunas is the place where Hamas terrorists have not evacuated from not run away from not used human human shields civilians evacuating as human shields so they're there and they are fighting even though we are seeing growing numbers of surrendering Hamas terrorists but the leadership is still there and some of the field commanders and there are still thousands of terrorists that need to either surrender or be taken out and there is of course the hostage situation which remains ongoing so all these things will have to head towards a resolution in the coming two months and certainly I think if Israel has it its way it will complete most of that before it turns its attention to the north if Hezbollah forces Israel to split its resources and go for a two front war then that's what will happen but that would be something that I think that Hezbollah would decide rather than Israel of course not just Hezbollah it's also Iran I'm gonna bring up the fact that there were just some arrests in Cyprus the Iranian Revolutionary Guard members or linked to Iranian Revolutionary Guard members that were planning attacks on Israelis abroad there so that they have their ability to stretch out and strike well beyond their borders and not just on the front Israel's operating on 100% look the Iranians have been trying to conduct these overseas terror attacks against Israeli targets and Jewish targets for years during this war now before this war this is an ongoing Iranian directive it is something that's run out of a combination of the Iranian coups force and also the Iranian Intelligence Ministry and the IRGC they all have these plans to target Israelis overseas we've seen Iranian terror plots taken apart and detected by the Mossad working with local law enforcement intelligence agencies giving them tip-offs all over the world from London to Cyprus to Greece to Asia Thailand India you name it the Iranians have attempted to do this we saw very stringent warnings from the head of Mossad about three months ago saying if this continues the response from Israel will be to target senior IRGC officials in Tehran he said that very very clearly so it's continuing so this is part of a shadow war that's raging between Israel and Iran with Israel playing defense here for its civilians and its assets and the Iranians continuing to promote international terrorism and paying very little costs for it as of now and hopefully that will change going forward yeah I think they really called a shadow war for much longer can we that said we are going to change topics for a little bit so stay with us this is as the war in Gaza is going on there is a growing concern about the health of remaining hostages still being held in Gaza more testimony now from Israeli survivors of captivity under Hamas who were released last month during the ceasefire let's take a listen she'll be okay or he'll tell her mean her I need a little bit of it and I'll cut you to a T can you call you son it's been alive and I'll cut me it's a sheer was a couple of years ago I was there for a while. I was there for 7, 15, and 4 days. The days we spent together are very difficult. But I'm talking about whether it's the love, the family, the mentality, the hard times. Every day that we go to sleep, it's not normal at all. 0 a.m. in the night, the parents are angry, and the mother-in-law is just afraid. When I was there, I went to the hospital. We went to the doctor's office to eat rice and bread. I was very hungry for the first 7 days. I thought I was hungry. Because I was hungry, I was almost out of food. I was almost out of food. My food was very important to me. Whether I have a problem or a problem. I remember the story of the show. I eat new foods, especially food that I have to eat. I didn't eat for 49 days. There were times. There were times when I ate, there were times when I ate. Every day that I go to sleep, it's more and more difficult. The situation of being exposed in buildings, or where they are not there, it's a very difficult situation, very difficult. And if it's difficult, it's not difficult. I ask, I know that a lot of people work for this project, but there are other people who work very hard. I ask that you do a lot, a lot of work in order for everyone to get out of work. Sometimes it's very difficult. One day it's like a peaceful week. In Anna, it's like this, that first of all, we all have to go back to home, and after that, we have to go back to work. Omar is still there, I still go there. I still go there. We have to go back to Omar, and all of you go now. As much as you want. Thank you very much for being with us. We just heard all of this testimony of what people endured, untold abuses and the like. We've thrown the word trauma around a lot when we're talking about the psychological recovery, but it doesn't really cover everything. Are there different kinds of traumas, are there different strategies that are going to be needed? How do you really bring all of these people back to a normal society after literally going through hell itself? Hi there. Yes, it's very difficult to listen, to hear, to see the faces of those who came back from captivity. Your question is understandable that you want some answers, it's not only you, but people want answers. How do we help the people that went through such a horrific experience to them and to their family? There is no one answer, there is no written protocol, there are textbooks and there are professionals that are working very hard to help whoever return and the people that are still waiting for the families that are waiting for the loved one. Of course, when testimonies are arriving, it's getting harder and harder to the families that are still waiting. The anticipation, the worries, the sleepless nights are becoming unbearable, especially hearing what is happening there and the uncertainty of when they will come back. So the immediate support of course is under immediate return, the hospital and the army and all the forces around them giving them the immediate support. But this healing takes time, it will take time and with the help of professionals and help of international professionals, we will learn more and more how can we help. Time is the essence here for healing. You mentioned specifically there's no road map because nothing at this scale has ever happened before, at least not here in Israel. Are there any examples or precedents in history, in recent history that could be drawn off of that we can look on for guidance on what the way forward might be? Well, it's hard to say and I'm not a historical researcher so according to what we looked at when it just happened, there is not such an event in the amount of hostages in the way they were kidnapped, in the cruelty that was part of it. So there is not something like that, but at the same time I can tell you that the other day I was part of a very big webinar with professionals and we all look for some kind of reference to missing people, to treating missing people that came back after a long time or to, you know, wherever we can and they are very good professionals that are doing their work as we speak to build up some kind of a protocol of what to be done, especially in the first stages is to let them gain trust again in themselves, trust again in the goodness, in, you know, to give them back the freedom, you know, we hear about children that are talking very quietly and it will take time until they will come back to talk normally, you know, being so isolated for so long, it takes time to get used to being in society again. So some very basic steps first to come and later on the deeper emotion and psychological treatment will be followed. In this research that you mentioned, did you find anything that you believe would be the most promising strategies in the near term? What are those? Well, again, you're trying to gain some definite answers. I don't think there are definite answers. It's so hard to tell. It's very individual. It also depends in the individual how basically, you know, in his life, he came across this event. I mean, you hear quite a lot of testimonials from the ordinary because they were first to be released. The mothers are very busy with the children. They're not talking yet of what they've been through there. So you hear that they are talking about similarity or the feeling of the Holocaust or of not getting food or not knowing what's happening. There's a lot of psychological cruelty during their captivity. So it's also depending on the individual and that's how they will be treated. Each one with his own unique story. It's not a one group. We cannot talk about it as a one group and how we treat them. And I suspect that's going to be at least part of the answer to my next question, but is there a difference in the resilience and in the recovery for the elderly versus the children? Do you always hear that children are very resilient, but at the same time, this isn't a deal that children are never ever supposed to be subjected to? Of course, no one was supposed to be subjected to. But the difference, first of all, is in the life experience. Okay, children are in a way you think they're resilient, but sometimes you don't know how long it will take them to recover and how long they will they will share what they've been through. There is such a complexity in the shame, in the fear. Some are, you know, we heard something like they've been told they're the youngest that if they will tell what happens, so they will find them and kill them. So you never know what is he doing there. And again, I'm repeating, it will take time to really learn what's happened there and how can we give them the right to try it. Well, hopefully with the time ahead of us, we can find those answers, Nella, for each individual case that they will be. Thank you for the work that you're doing to do exactly that. Thank you. That said, we are just about out of time for this part of the show. So we're going to go on a short break when we get back. We're going to be covering so much more of Israel at war. We're also going to be looking at the arsenals of both the north and the south and how much is left for Israel to do when talking about the various terror threats that we're facing that and so much more in just three minutes. So stay with us and we'll see you again soon. A state of war, families completely done down in their beds. We have no idea where is she as our soldiers are fighting on the front line. But the general perception is something that certainly needs to to be fought as well. Esta semana, 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 hispano parlantes. News 24, el único medio en español que te mantiene informado y conectado con la comunidad latina en Israel. News 24, únicamente en I-24 News. Thanks for staying with us. The French Navy says one of its warships in the Red Sea shot down two drones coming, quote, straight at it from a Yemeni port city held by Houthi rebels. The incident comes as the Houthis vowed to target all Israel bound ships in the Red Sea, marking the latest escalation from the Iranian-backed militia in Yemen, and our Middle East correspondent Ariel Osiron has more. If only Liz McGill had followed Benjamin Franklin's advice, better slip with foot than tongue. And so the University of Pennsylvania president has now resigned. Really not. OK, just a minor technical issue there that will hopefully resolve shortly. Instead, we are going to be with Yoko Vlappan of the Jewish news syndicate to break down the threat posed by a lot of different actually hold on. We do have our technical issues solved. So before we come to Yoko Vlappan, let us roll the correct video of the threat posed by the Houthis to international shipping. A dangerous escalation in the Red Sea, threatening one of the world's most important trade routes. The Yemeni armed forces hereby announce the prohibition of the passage of ships heading to the Zionist entity of any nationality. If the Gaza Strip does not receive the food and medicine it needs. These ships will become legitimate targets for our armed forces. In our effort to ensure the safety of maritime navigation, we warn all ships and companies against dealing with Israeli ports. Within hours, that threat came true. The French Navy said one of its warships in the Red Sea downed two drones launched in its direction from Houthi control territory in Yemen. Meanwhile, Washington has reportedly urged Jerusalem not to respond to recent attacks by the Houthis. But Israeli National Security Council Chairman, Sahih Negbi, said in an interview on Saturday night that if the international community does not deal with a threat posed by the Houthis, Israel will be forced to act. This is essentially a naval blockade. Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke with President Biden, the German Chancellor and other world leaders, and informed them. Israel is giving the world time to prepare to prevent this because this is a global issue. If they don't act, then we will. Up until now, there have been no casualties as a result of multiple Houthi drone and missile attacks on Israeli territory or on international ships operating in the Red Sea. The Houthis' goal is believed to be forcing the international community to pressure Israel in stopping its war against Hamas by jeopardizing trade routes in the region. So far, only more nations have joined in the effort to thwart Houthi attacks as the escalation at sea continues. And we now return to Yaakov Lapin here in studio to help break down the threat posed by many of these groups. You're just seeing the threat of the Houthis. What do we know about their arsenals and their capabilities? So the Houthis have a very wide ranging arsenal, which has been provided to them by Iran, most of it smuggled in by ship. Some of it components that they themselves put together quite skillfully. Unfortunately, it's ballistic missiles, it's cruise missiles, it's suicide drones, long range suicide drones. And they combine these things together in line with the Iranian attack doctrine so they can fire off some suicide drones that are slow moving and then they can time a scud or cruise missile attack so that it all reaches its destination at the same time. And they have become experts at that. They've targeted the Saudis and terrorized them for years. Now they're trying to do the same to us. But that has proven to be fairly ineffective because of Israel's very, very good air defenses. And now they're switching to terrorizing the maritime arena and basically holding the international economy hostage as well as Israeli shipping. And they're using surface to sea guided missiles, long range to do that. Very few military in the world have all these capabilities. The Houthis have these capabilities thanks to Iran. So at what point is the international community itself forced to confront this threat? I mean, just judging by the threat itself, that line should have been crossed a while ago because what the Houthis under Iranian directives are doing here is basically saying, look, so long as this war continues, we are going to be holding a gun to the international economy, the bubble mandib straights where a lot of the world's oil and gas and other kinds of international shipping pass through. These are now all under threat. And Israel's southern shipping lanes from the Red Sea, where a certain minority of Israel's shipping comes from that arena, but it's still significant. That also is under threat. So the time for action has passed long ago. Now we're hearing reports about an American task group that's forming that's welcome, overdue, but welcome. And the tensions are happening as well because the United States is telling Israel, don't retaliate reportedly, but from a strategic perspective, it's not good for deterrents for Israel to absorb attacks and not respond. So if something doesn't happen from the United States, I think Israel will have to respond much more forcefully. And Yakov, I want to go one more question with you because we had an interesting discussion during the break about the arsenals of Israel's other primary Iranian praxis in the region that deal, that's being Hezbollah. Because we've been talking about how massive their arsenal is. I want you to actually break down what we're looking at here. It is a massive arsenal. The biggest part of it is mortars, 145,000 of those. And that can essentially leave the north under very, very heavy sustained fire. And then when you go to the next stage, they have approximately 65,000 short to medium range rockets. This is between 45 to 200 kilometers. And then in terms of where that can reach, that very much depends on where they're fired from. If they're fired from southern Lebanon, they can reach central Israel. If they're fired from Beirut, they reach northern Israel. They have approximately 5,000 long range projectiles. And they have probably a few hundred or so, a little bit less, a little bit more precision guided weapons. And these are actually the most dangerous ones because when you combine the PGMs with the statistical unguided rocket fire, you can basically saturate air defenses. And then they can start to go after very strategic targets. So this is an unprecedented threat. It dwarfs Hamas' rocket arsenal, which was estimated at around 20,000 prior to the start of this war. And that is the threat that we're looking at. And it's going to necessitate, if it comes to that, very intensive and accurate strikes from the Israeli Air Force going forward. Wow, that's a phenomenal amount of firepower. I want to just paint to our audience what that means. We're talking about just in their mortars, about 15 times the amount of artillery that Israel has fired at Gaza this entire war. Now we're going to move now to other issues facing the region and the world. Actually, to turn to America, the Board of Advisors at the prestigious Wharton Business School coming out against the president of Penn University, then donors starting to pull their big ticket donations all becoming too much. And the University of Pennsylvania President, Liz McGill, has resigned from her post as of Saturday. Our senior correspondent Owen Ultriman tells us just what happened and where the fork in the road was. If only Liz McGill had followed Benjamin Franklin's advice, better slip with foot than tongue. And so the University of Pennsylvania President has now resigned after testimony in Congress last week that pitted donors and even the state's governor against her. Specifically calling for the genocide of Jews, does that constitute bullying or harassment? If it is directed and severe or pervasive, it is harassment. So the answer is yes. It is a context dependent decision, Congresswoman. McGill's resignation Saturday followed that testimony on Capitol Hill, which generated an avalanche of criticism that gained speed. McGill tried to backtrack in the aftermath. It's evil, plain and simple. I want to be clear. I want to be clear. A call for genocide of Jewish people is threatening. The walk back was too little, too late. And McGill's wavering before Congress and afterward led many to believe she could not lead through what's seen as a crisis. 36 hours ago, I, along with most of campus, sought refuge in our rooms. As classmates and professors chanted proudly for the genocide of Jews while igniting smoke bombs and defacing school property. And in fact, hence president did choose silence. McGill's resignation will boost scrutiny of anti-Semitism on U.S. college campuses. Jewish students continue to charge that rules on free speech have been applied unevenly, protecting other minority groups, while not protecting Jews. There are two fixes. Universities could clamp down on pro-Palestinian speech seen as anti-Semitic or could relax speech codes across the board, allowing speech targeting a variety of minorities. It's a crossroads and a reckoning. And we are joined now by Blake Flay and journalists and activists. I know a focus of your research and activism has been anti-Semitism on United States universities. So I want to open with the big question. Where do these universities get off? We see them expelling people for singing rap lyrics for being racist, but calling for genocide of Jews is somehow something more open to debate that's not directly racist. That's a step down from singing rap lyrics. Yes, I mentioned I was actually on I-24 yesterday on a different program. And I mentioned that even if you're a free speech absolutist, even if you believe that students should be getting the largest leeway possible because that is the purpose of an academic environment, you still have to be shocked and you still have to take in the hypocrisy and the double standard when it comes to Jewish students and us feeling as though we are not safe on campus and us feeling as though speech is threatening or their specific speech, speech of student groups like Students for Justice in Palestine and even Jewish Voice for Peace. So really, I thought it was described well in that previous video. This is a reckoning. This is a reckoning over what is the role of campus administration. And this is a reckoning over what do we want our universities to be. Are they a place where everyone can feel safe or are we truly honoring dialogue? But again, if you go that second route, you can't pick and choose which groups get to raise a red flag when offensive speech happens. And we keep on talking about the idea of free speech, but you don't even have to be that old to remember that the federal government back in the previous administration, previous to Trump administration or the Obama administration, less than 10 years ago even used federal powers to say that this was an atmosphere of discrimination on campus when it was about gender, but now that it's about race, why can't they invoke the same powers to say there's a chilling atmosphere on these campuses that is violating the discrimination laws in the United States? Why is this a different case? Well, look, it's because the lie that a broad array of anti-Semitic slogans and rhetoric fall under the umbrella of criticism of Israel has actually been very successful. And you are already seeing people on the internet and high level writers and political commentators saying that the president of Penn resigned because people who want to silence of criticism of Israel got to her. And that is just not the case. Liz McGill was not asked if Palestinians deserve human rights and self-determination. She was not asked about the blockade of Gaza or the occupation of the West Bank. She was not asked about particular Israeli policy either outside of this war or inside of this war. She was asked point blank if calling for the genocide of Jewish people violates Penn's code of conduct. And she was not able to offer a significant answer or a definitive answer. And people are defending her and saying that she was lawyered too hard. Where? I mean, this wasn't a political cross examination. This was a very blatant statement that she knew was probably going to be soundbited. So it just reveals this blaring double standard against Jews when it comes to talk of discrimination and what constitutes an offensive speech. Now, Blake, you have done a lot of activism on campuses yourself. And in fact, you graduated not that long. I believe George Washington University. What did you yourself encounter when you were on campus as far as this sort of ideology and this sort of anti-Semitism? Oh, wow. I could go through a long list. And I was only on campus for a short amount of time because of the COVID epidemic. But I could bring up examples. There was a pride parade in DC, not on campus, that banned the Megan David pride flag. If there was a star of David on the pride flag, there was a girl caught on camera coming home from a party on campus saying, we're going to bomb Israel, you Jewish pieces of S-word. There was a rally on my campus quad to give custodial workers a $15 minimum wage on campus. And then Students for Justice in Palestine spoke and tethered the economic issue to the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea. We can go on and on. And then there was, of course, personal remarks made to me by people who I once considered friends. And I wrote about all of these instances in an op-ed for the New York Times in 2019. And just going back to that double standard aspect, this was a major expose. I'd like to think of a culture of anti-Semitism at our elite universities. And only one faculty member reached out to have a discussion about it. And that discussion lasted about 15 minutes. And it just shows because there was a variety of other scandals on campus that year that had to do with other minority groups. And every organization made a statement and there were statements from the administration and there was lectures and coaching and DEI webinars and seminars and outreach to students. And none of that happened when the flag of anti-Semitism was raised. Very, very, very validly, I will say none of it constituted. None of my critiques constituted criticism of Israel, let's just say. You brought something very interesting there about how much we've seen this across administrations and colleges, the DEI Inclusion Diversity Equity Initiatives being used as sort of a hatchet to chop down on speech that doesn't really fit within a certain narrative to make sure that any expressions of racism or even things that are considered microaggressions and there aren't even close enough to racism to count as racism are met with the heaviest handed approach possible. And this isn't just universities that stretch to every corporate hierarchy even levels of government across the United States. Why when it comes into quite overt statements of racism, endorsement of genocide against the Jews, are there no protections suddenly? For two reasons. One, it's because Jews have been constructed as powerful, influential and privileged people, not only in Israel, but in the United States. And I just have to say that for the people who think that they're liberal or progressive in the 21st century, you have to realize that this is how anti-Semitism has animated in society always by portraying Jews as the puppet masters who are plotting a conspiracy and as the oppressors rather than the oppressed, rather than a minority that has only really positioned itself in positions of influence as a strategy in order to survive in different nations. So that's the first reason and it's a terrible toxic trend that we are seeing amongst even forward thinking people which is again a sign that anti-Semitism has become entrenched in the body politic. The second reason is because again, all statements that are considered problematic by a wide variety, by a wide majority of Jewish people have been falsely and libelously characterized as criticism of Israel. None of this is criticism of Israel. Calling for the elimination of Israel or justifying violence against Israeli civilians is not criticism of Israel. Criticism of Israel has to do with policy, specifically what Israel does rather than what Israel is. I would argue that 95% of what we've been seeing on campus from marches across North America and Europe and from online social media, activism is anti-Semitism and is 100% based on what Israel is, not what Israel does. Well, perhaps going forward, we can see a reckoning not just for these universities but for the entire ideology, the progressive movement and the DEI initiatives as a whole. Blake, thank you very much for breaking that all down for us. Thank you for having me. We're going to move now from the United States to London, thousands protesting in the streets. Against Israel, it's become a normal site, a weekly event that drew 15,000 Hamas supporters and activists demanding an immediate and permanent ceasefire to the war in Gaza, a ceasefire to preserve the existence of the Hamas terror organization despite the fact that organization has vowed to repeat their October 7 crimes against humanity until Israel is destroyed. The march comes just a day after the United States vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that demanded a ceasefire while failing to condemn Hamas for burning children alive and not affirming that Israel has a right to self-defense against terrorists that burn children alive. Well, for more on this, we are joined from London by Josh Rahm, journalist and broadcaster over there. Josh, one of the things that you've been on this to show to discuss before are these massive weekly rallies, but we've seen them drop from a high of 300,000 to 15,000 now. Is there finally petering out? Is there a sign of a shift in consciousness in the public over there? I mean, one would hope that there is a shift in the consciousness within the public over here. However, according to social media, I don't we're not seeing that once again, the Metropolitan Police put out a picture identifying a pro-Palestinian protester saying that this protester was carrying allegedly an offensive placard appealing to the public to give more information to identify this person so they can speak to this person. Once again, just this week, the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign testified to the Home Affairs Select Committee saying that these protests are largely peaceful and thousands of Jews apparently are taking to the streets alongside with us. However, the campaign against antisemitism is continuously identifying not just antisemitic placards, not just people holding placards, calling for the genocide of Jews. But we're hearing on the streets, there is only one solution, Intifada Revolution. This is a direct chant calling for genocidal action against Jews within the State of Israel and calling for the elimination of the State of Israel, the organizers of the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign just this week within the Home Affairs Select Committee said, from the river to the sea chants, we don't condemn it, we chant it. This is a chant calling for the extermination of Jews within the area that goes from the Jordanian River to the Mediterranean Sea. And one would hope that the march is decreasing in size, that more people are seeing actually know these marches are calling for the genocidal chance against Jews within the State of Israel. But I think this does show that once again, every single week, at least 15,000 Londoners want to make London a no-go area for Jews. Josh, I wanna break down the demographics that we're seeing at these massive protests because when we saw this 300,000 people, it was some mix of a core of migrants from the Arab world. You had progressive activists, you had a cabal and a cadre of low information voters, just chanting slogans that sound good. Is it still everybody involved or is this now primarily just the initial core of Arab world immigrants that haven't axed to grind at the Jewish State just inherently? I mean, I think it's hard to say because I mean, I saw one colleague of mine within the industry going on one of these marches just this week as well in social media or at least supporting the march on social media. I think as we're going towards the Christmas holidays, the weather's getting cooler, when I say cooler, it's getting very, very cold within the United Kingdom. There were even reports of snow recently of some parts within the United Kingdom. So it might just be that some people just want to stay indoors due to the weather. But I still see on social media, left-wing progressive activists still kind of advocating for a permanent ceasefire. And I think a lot of people see this as a left-wing cause to champion. And it is a progressive that people class it as a progressive cause to champion, not knowing the full details of Hamas and what they're capable of. But I also think this is a good time to also discuss some of the progressive narratives that are being peddled out on social media. I don't think people talk about the Iron Dome enough. People don't realize that the only reason why Israeli cities like Haifa, like Tel Aviv, even Jerusalem, why they're not like Dresden in World War II, like Tokyo, like even the East End of London in World War II is because the Iron Dome is protecting Israeli civilians. People point out, oh, this is an uneven war. Look at the difference in casualties. That's only because Israel has invested billions of dollars into this technology to protect their civilians whilst Hamas wants to use the civilians within the Gaza Strip as martyrs, not humanitarian, as martyrs, as human shields. And people are not discussing that. And I think that's why left-wing activists are continuing on this crusade on social media. Partly it's because they're uninformed about the specifics and the nuances about this war and this conflict as a whole. And I know that we've discussed just the two of us, just how ill-informed or ill-intentioned these activists tend to be. But the better question is, do they have any real effect on the world around them? Are politicians, decision-makers, anybody of importance listening to them? Yeah, well, I think the fact that the government is still pledging to fund the Community Security Trust, they very much recognize the threat that these activists have to the Jewish community in the UK and in London specifically. I think the government has been steadfast in its support for Israel. I think amongst the same kind of trends of world leaders, I think that we've had kind of statements about urging Israel to do more to protect civilian life in Gaza and all of that sort of stuff. But the government is remaining steadfast. I mean, just this week when it came to the UN resolution, the UK government, they said the reason they are abstaining is because we cannot vote for a resolution that does not implicitly condemn the atrocities of Hamas that happened on October the 7th. So I think the government is steadfast in support for the State of Israel for its right to not only exist, but for its right to fundamentally defend itself against the threat of terrorism. And also as well, Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad are still prescribed terrorist organizations within this country. And it's clear from what the Metropolitan Police are saying, the fact that they are still trying to at least go to some lengths to identify pro-Palestinian protesters with what they call offensive placards, that does mean that there's still at least some action being taken to counteract the support for a terrorist, a prescribed terrorist organization in this country. And Josh, we have less than a minute until our break, but I want to ask, can they really maintain this energy forever? I remember when Ukraine was the current thing in the headlines and all the activists were only talking about that. That's vanished completely. When is this going to vanish completely from the activist agenda? But this is the thing. The activists weren't really talking about that, not like how we've seen with this war, which that kind of raises the question once again, do they really care about a two-state solution advocating for peace in the region? Or is this simply a progressive left-wing cause that they're jumping on the bandwagon on because it's something of a cool thing to be out there advocating for freedom for Palestine? That is the main question. I don't think we've seen protests advocating for Ukraine, like what we've seen on the scale of which, what we've seen on this cause. And that is, I think, the main question that we actually have to take away from this. Definitely a good point there. Thank you very much, Josh, for helping us understand or at least attempt to understand what goes through the mind of these activists misguided, though they seem to be. That said, for everyone else, though, we are going on a break. We'll see you again in three minutes. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. 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. Thank you for staying with us. In fact, just in the last couple of seconds during the commercial break, we are hearing air raid sirens going off in Israel's south as more rockets are fired from Gaza into those border communities. Despite that, though, the IDF is saying Hamas's rule in Gaza is faltering. There's these new videos that show scores of Hamas terrorists surrendering their strip down to their underwear to ensure they're not hiding bomb vests as they hand over their weapons. Military officials say that Hamas terrorists have been surrendering in greater numbers to the IDF in other areas in Gaza as the military pushes deeper into Hamas's strongholds. Mass surrenders in the Jabaliah and the Shajai stronghold neighborhoods. Interrogations after surrender reveal a growing disconnect between Hamas's soldiers and their leadership. Leadership is painting them a rosy picture and urging them to fight to the bitter end while their trigger pullers on the ground say that leadership clearly does not care about their lives. The IDF says the information gathered from surrendering terror operatives has helped update the military's target bank. Military intelligence also reporting that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar fled the north of Gaza using humanitarian corridors in the early stages of the war. He is believed to be currently in the underground fortress network beneath Chanyunas. The IDF is moving deeper into Chanyunas every day now for the past week or so and announced 250 terror targets destroyed by the Air Force in the last day. And we are joined now by Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner of the IDF Spokesperson's Unit. I want to start with these pictures we've seen of these mass surrenders of terror operatives. How many people have we seen surrender so far? How common is this? These guys claim they're going to fight to the bitter end. Seems that they won't when push comes to shove. So as we move forward in our operations we are going to see this type of phenomena increasing because obviously when push comes to shove we are engaging the enemy on the ground defeating them day by day and we will see more and more of these images of people preferring not to go into combat and surrendering themselves. So of course the magnitude will be increasing will be widespread and of course we will utilize the intelligence, the information we can get from the different whether they're mass operatives or just civilians that have knowledge and indeed the activities are ongoing and as we rightly said yesterday we've seen more and more information coming out of the field and we are gaining a grasp on what is going on. As you rightly pointed out Sinoir is being pursued and this is the nature of the war ahead. So how's the process work? We just saw these videos handing over the weapons holding up IDs. What do you do with them after you catch them? So there's obviously field questioning, operations that are ongoing, processing and those that are needed for further interrogation go to further interrogation and those that are not released. Now we've seen some calls from activist groups in the west that are criticizing these large scale surrenders and arrests. Can you explain to them the necessity of why they're stripped down and how the frequency of them hiding bomb vests and other weapons has been in the past? So we lived through the second intifada here where Hamas used suicide bombing as a strategy in inflicting huge massive deaths on Israelis in coffee shops in malls and shopping centers and so on. So it is a threat that exists and therefore we need to act with caution when engaging civilians and suspects on the ground. When we are conducting these activities, we're conducting it within the rules and regulations in order to limit civilian casualties, limit casualties expand our force protection, but also in order to make sure that weapons are handed over and seized by the IDF. This is the reality on the ground. Now the surrender that we're seeing, this is unconditional surrender from these operatives or have we seen conditions giving are there negotiations involved? So I mean, when we're surrounding us a location that has a huge amount of operatives we call them to surrender that is basically what is happening. Okay, I want to move on to the discussion we briefly mentioned that being Yahya Sinwar, how we fled to the south during the humanitarian corridors and the opening days of the war. Where is the hunt for the terrorist leader currently standing? So I don't want to relate specifically to Sinwar. Obviously he is the mastermind of the massacre of the 7th of October. He's the person that equipped finance and gave the green light for the brutal attack on Israel on the 7th of October. And therefore he needs to pay a price personal price. Of course, we have and as you have seen over the last few days, increased our activities in Southern Gaza, specifically around Hanyunas at specific locations, but it is all in concert with our war goals of dismantling Hamas as a governing authority and bringing home the hostages. That is our responsibility. That is what we intend on doing. Can you give us a more clear view of the situation on the ground right now? Where does the battle for Hanyunas really stand right now on the ground and also the underground fortresses itself? So the reality is one where Hamas has for the last 16 years built and anticipated a war with Israel and built its capabilities around what he suspects are the things that would challenge us. So we are conducting house to house, alley to alley tunnel to tunnel combat. We are engaging the enemy extensively surrounding specific locations that I would identify and clarify or characterize as centers of gravity of Hamas and their capabilities to operate. So whether it's command control positions, it's staging grounds for their terrorist activities is definitely the tunnel system that they're operating in from and within. All of these are targets from the IDF as you pointed out in the last 24 hours, 250 targets also have been struck and that's just in this day. And we continue to reveal the tunnel system every day that goes by we're revealing more and destroying more. And I want to talk about the hostages now what sort of information is known by the military on that that can be shared. And is there a significant fear amongst the military leadership that the operations in the Khan units might put them at risk? Hostages are a top priority for the IDF and a national top priority, obviously. We are very concerned and rightly we've demanded that the International Committee of the Red Cross have access to the hostages hostages to assess their wellbeing. From our perspective and I want to be very cautious about what I say, we are utilizing our intelligence and operational capabilities in order to create the operational option to act in order to bring hostages home. And that is what we will do that we will stop and there will be no bars regarding to those activities. I want to now address some of the accusations we've seen coming out of the United Nations and other international agencies where we see them criticizing the policy of trying to move civilians to small areas to keep them out of harm's way. And they're talking about the conditions of these civilians in these areas. What is the IDF's response to these accusations? How do you respond to international bodies attempting to pressure the military? So we have to operate and we take pride in how we operate at distinguishing between civilians and terrorists, non-combatants, and Hamas. Our whole effort since day one of this war has been to try and get people, civilians out of arms way. This is a fundamental, I would say, value that we uphold with in combination with the second value of military necessity. So we are calling people to evacuate from a specific location. It's because we intend to operate there. And for their health, for their safety, it is best for them to temporarily move. Our war is against Hamas, not against the people of Gaza. And as such, we are operating in order to alleviate the situation on one hand but achieve our goals on the other. So people need to listen to our instructions when we are telling them to move out of a specific area so that we can conduct our operations. It's important to understand there isn't one building that we haven't found a tunnel access point, a weapons storage capabilities, communications capabilities. This is how Hamas has chosen the battleground. This is precisely where they're operating from. This is where they instruct the rockets that are launched as we were just coming on into the south. So this is basically the reality that we have to operate. Telling us not to operate would be the equivalent of saying to Hamas, come into Israel again and butcher our families and babies. This is unacceptable. We won't accept it. Israel won't accept it. The IDF has been instructed to dismantle and destroy Hamas's operational capabilities, its governing capabilities, its terrorist capabilities. And we will do so. Do you have a way to estimate how long that might take, the high intensity phase of the operations? Do we really know, well, how much longer that's going to go on for? I mean, that's a question that I think everybody's wondering. The reality is Hamas have been preparing for this, as I said, for 16 years now. There's no quick fix. From our perspective, the government has not given us a due date. There is no time we need to be done by. There is only the goal that needs to be achieved and we intend on in achieving it. Well, Lieutenant Colonel, thank you very much for breaking down the situation on the ground and helping our audience as well as the international audience understand. Well, just why there are so many challenges in this operation. Good day. And we have some more evidence of Hamas's theft of international humanitarian aid. It's clearly seen on this video, Hamas terrorists stealing food, stealing supplies, and beating the locals even. It's just one of the latest revelations of what life under Hamas really is like in Gaza. Meanwhile, the sender for peace communications began collecting the testimony from ordinary Gazans living under Hamas and well, this is what they have to endure. Opposition to Hamas within Gaza has been growing for years. And it's taken the form of anti Hamas Street demonstrations in 2019 and 2023. But what we're finding now, contrary to what some have expected, is that even as the the IDF bombs many locations in Gaza and their civilian casualties, it has not caused Gazans to rally around the Hamas flag. To the contrary, they do blame Hamas for this war. They understand that Hamas started it and they see it as part of a long history of Hamas starting wars that can't win and hiding in tunnels while civilians suffer the casualties. There are many surveys that show a disparity between views of Hamas between Gaza and the West Bank. Gazans know what it's like to live under Hamas rule and because of the separation between the two, West Bank Palestinians see only Hamas for its symbolism as a symbol of resistance. I would add, however, that it is possible and common to be anti-Hamas but not to be pro-Israel, to be also have problems with Israel among Gazans. And yet what we find is that between the small number of Gazans who are committed 15 to 20 percent of who really believe in Palestinian-Israeli coexistence and the much larger number who would go along with a post-Hamas administration focused on reconstruction and a better future, you have the basis for a majority. The two and counting incidents on Al-Jazeera reflect the fact that Al-Jazeera is owned by the Qatari government and the Qatari government has been supporting Hamas in many ways, including platforming its leaders and shills while Hamas works to suppress all opposition and so they have created a false picture of ideological uniformity within Gaza, they and hundreds of Iranian satellite channels. But to your point about the dangers facing those who speak up, we have seen in the anti-Hamas demonstrations that these people were fired at, imprisoned and tortured along with their families. So it speaks to the level of courage that it takes these young people to take to the streets. And worth noting this weekend marked 74 years since the United Nations Relief Works Agency was founded, ostensibly to serve the needs of Palestinian refugees. It's the only UN agency to cater in such a way to a specific ethnic group and under their leadership, this refugee population has more than tripled and their budget funds war propaganda in schools across both Gaza and the West Bank. Does the agency actually serve anybody besides eternal war? Well, to join us now is Maurice Hirsch, Lieutenant Colonel Maurice Hirsch, Director of the Initiative for Palestinian Authority Accountability and Reform, joining us from Jerusalem. Maurice, it's good to have you on and it's been a long time since we spoke, but we've previously spoken on this exact topic. What is the current purpose of UNRWA? There is no real purpose to UNRWA. I have to just say, if I may just correct one thing that you said in your introduction, the refugee population of the Palestine refugees hasn't grown up, grown by three times or four times. It's grown by almost nine times since UNRWA was created. In 1949, UNRWA was dealing with 711,000 people. Today, it deals with 6.7 million people. It's the only UN organization that completely fails in its entire goal of resettling any refugees and is still carried on working. So you ask what's the point of UNRWA? Clearly, the point of UNRWA isn't to resettle refugees because not one refugee has been resettled, rather the numbers of refugees have just grown. So UNRWA's only real purpose is to perpetuate this idea that the descendants of the Palestine Arabs who left Israel in 1948 will one day come back to Israel and destroy it demographically and then democratically. Now, Maurice, one of the things that we have seen UNRWA do is fund so-called schools and teaching and education in both the West Bank and in Gaza. Walk us through what that education actually is and what the results of that have been. Well, in a shameful way, the UNRWA schools in the Gaza Strip have merely and simply adopted the curriculum of the Palestinian Authority. Now, UNRWA knows that this curriculum breaches its own duty of neutrality. It breaches every one of the basic principles of the United Nations. It's a curriculum that teaches hatred, that teaches anti-Semitism, that teaches for the destruction of Israel and Jews in general. And this is what the UNRWA curriculum and UNRWA schools have been teaching all the way through the generations. It is claimed by UNRWA that almost three quarters of the people in the Gaza Strip are UNRWA refugees. So that means that statistically three quarters of those who participated in the October 7 massacre were actually those who were educated in these UNRWA schools. That's where they learned this deep hatred of Jews and their ability to simply go into the streets, go into the Israeli towns and villages and kibbutzim and simply store to Jews. That's the product of the UNRWA education. But it's not just education. It's also operationally. We saw stories of UNRWA teachers holding hostages locked in their own attic and starving them. How much crossover do we see between UNRWA's ground personnel and terror organizations themselves? We have to understand that UNRWA works on the ground in Gaza. Gaza is not one of these Western free democracies where everyone is free to be employed by whoever they want and any employer can employ whoever they want. They work in Gaza. Gaza for the last 18 years has been under the tight control of Hamas prior to that of the Palestinian Authority. The people who work in UNRWA, the people who are employed by UNRWA are all those people who those terrorists are interested in being part of that mechanism. Their friends, their relatives, their sons, their daughters, whoever it may be. That's one of the tremendous forms of nepotism that exists within Palestinian society. You want to move up, you get a job with the UN. And then you find or you're not surprised to find that within these mechanisms, within the schools of UNRWA, they hide terrorists and weapons. The UNRWA teachers all complement and really hail the success of the October 7 massacre. UNRWA teachers are then involved in actually holding the hostages. None of this is surprising when you consider where the background of the UNRWA staff comes from. They're mostly people on the ground in Gaza who are part of that mechanism. And we're talking about almost 12,000 people employed by UNRWA in the Gaza Strip. That's what you see this picture of the really intertwined relationship between the organization that really promotes the basic idea of the Hamas ideology to destroy Israel working under the auspices of the United Nations, helping Hamas achieve that very same objective of destroying Israel. So does that mean UNRWA is the problem in and of itself or is it simply a symptom of the terrorist regimes that control Palestinian territories? UNRWA is a problem in and of itself in that it perpetuates this idea that the refugees will one day flood Israel and destroy it without ever having regard for what we can do to resettle these so called refugees, including just as an amazing fact. I don't think many people know that as part of the discussions after Israel's war of independence, Israel actually offered to incorporate Gaza into part of Israel and to give every one of its residents full Israeli citizenship. That was rejected by the Arab countries and then UNRWA stepped in and has forever since objected to any idea of resettling the Gaza refugees. Really UNRWA has been providing this crutch for the anti-Israel movement, this homeland, this idea of we will eventually be able to destroy Israel. That's part of the UNRWA ethos and it's really it's only resaldehita because otherwise it would have worked to settle all of the refugees in all of the different countries. Why are people who have been living in Lebanon for the last 75 years still refugees, UNRWA refugees, Syria, Jordan, the same thing. Only because UNRWA perpetuates this idea that those people will one day destroy Israel. Otherwise, they would have worked to ensure that these people were integrated into these countries as full citizens rather than being used as pawns to vilify Israel. Well, it's a chilling and eye-opening look at the corruption of an international so-called aid organization. Maurice, thank you very much for breaking that down for us. Thank you very much. And we have as this war goes on the concern about the health of the remaining hostages being held in Gaza. Here's some more testimony from Israeli survivors of Hamas captivity that were released last month during the ceasefire. I'm Ophelia Roitman, 77 years old. I grew up in Neroz, from there, I was born in a tractor. I was in the tractor in the tractor's trailer. At home, they made me with a lot of hard work at home. My name is Margalit Moses. I was born in Neroz, Shabbat, on October 7th. I was born in Minhara. I spent the night in the tractor's trailer and I took it with me so that I could sleep. After that, I took the trailer and so... My name is Ayar Egeb. I live in Ketan and I'm one of my best friends. I'm Ayar Egeb. I was 154 days old. The women there work as a worker. The women there work very hard. And I talk to them whether it's the work of the family, whether it's the mentality, the hard work, the hard work. Every day there is a lot of work. Sometimes it's not normal. One day at night, the women are exhausted and that's when we went to the tractor's trailer to eat rice and bread. I was very hungry for the first few weeks. I thought that I was hungry because I was hungry. I was almost hungry. I was almost hungry. It was very important to me that I have a problem or a problem. Remember the work of the woman. I eat healthy foods especially food that I eat. 49 days I didn't eat. It was tough. It was tough for me. It was tough for me. It was more and more difficult. The situation of being exhausted in buildings or where they are not there is a very difficult situation. It's very difficult and if you are not, I ask, I know that many people are working on this project but there are other people who are very tired outside. I ask that you do a lot, a lot of work in order for everyone to work. The days are very difficult. One day it's like a peaceful week. And Anna, just like that I ask everyone to come back home and after that if they are in the office. Omar is still there. I know he is still there. I ask him to come back and all of you will leave now. As you wish. And we are about to go on a short break but we will see you again in three minutes for so much more. Stay with us. Well is in a state of war 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. There have been countless memorable moments broadcasting with I-24 news in the past six years but for me the one that stands out the most was the first time that I had ever personally heard a rocket siren sounding in Tel Aviv and at that moment we were live on air in studio. I will never forget the moment our senior producer said to me in my ear the sirens are sounding in Tel Aviv the control room is going to the shelter. With me in studio at the time were Michael Herzog a former Brigadier General today the Israeli Ambassador to the United States and Arsena Strafsky an international human rights lawyer and their responses were completely different. Michael Herzog was calm and composed and on the other hand Arsena Strafsky was trying to phone his family and check in to make sure that his loved ones were okay. The camera that normally faces us was hoisted from above there was an overhead shot of us in the studio you could see colleagues going to the shelter if you looked at the glass behind the studio and obviously we lost contact with our team on the ground our reporters in Ashkelon and all the witnesses that we were speaking to during that time. When rockets are coming towards a residential area they don't distinguish between race religion, political views cultural views they just intend to harm civilians and that moment being in studio hearing those interceptions overhead was the most real coverage I've ever been involved in. Thank you for staying with us we return our eye to the war in the north it continues to grind on the intensity slowly ratcheting up this footage shows heavy bombing in southern Lebanon and the Israeli military is firing sounded across the western galley region of Israel the IDF says several Israeli soldiers have been wounded in his Bella attacks and the IDF responded with extensive strikes well for more on this we are joined now by our senior defense correspondent Jonathan Regev who is standing on the border with Lebanon Jonathan a lot of confusion a lot of unknowns can you break down exactly what happened today on the northern front siren sounded in some of the communities of northern Israel and those a drone that came by and about 15 or 20 minutes later the IDF saying that the incident is over it took some time but some three hours later we heard that six soldiers were injured and taken to hospitals to a hospital in northern Israel no one is in a life threatening conditions none of the injuries is a severe condition but still soldiers were injured and that is something that always has to be taken into consideration in retaliation to this infiltration of UAV or drone not exactly clear there is an Israeli response in Lebanon which was quite strong it was stronger I think when compared with what we usually see from the IDF when it comes to retaliation to events of this kind a strong retaliation both artillery and airstrikes inside Lebanese territory you just showed the images quite a heavy fire then later on in about midday which is about two and a half hours ago Hezbollah said that another drone was sent into Israel there were no rocket alert sirens for this second attack which may or may not have happened we don't know one siren possibly two attacks and another day of crossfire on the northern border now we're seeing some Israeli figures make a lot of statements National Security Advisor Sachi Hanegbi saying last night that once Hamas is defeated in Gaza the Israeli army might have to go to war with Hezbollah afterwards is this just the latest in a series of similar statements or is there an actual understanding in the defense establishment that this war is inevitable and Hezbollah has to be dealt with now after Hamas is dealt with there's an understanding that Hezbollah has to be dealt with one way or another the reality in which Hezbollah terrorists their elite Radoan forces were on the border fence was unbearable before this war is certainly unbearable after October 7 when we all learned in the very difficult way where this could lead to therefore this is the reality that Israel cannot accept Israel and certainly the United States and France for example they prefer the diplomatic option to that that is why we're seeing especially French delegates but also American ones making their way to Lebanon France of course is specialised with Lebanon and they hope they can use it in order to make sure that Hezbollah goes to the north past the Litany River let's remember there's a UN resolution 1701 which was drafted in 2006 after the Second Lebanon War which caused for all Hezbollah to go beyond the Litany River which is some 15 miles or so from the Lebanon border Israel and the western community the western world prefer to do it the diplomatic way but if the diplomatic way does not work then it has to be done by force Israel, the US, France may have their own interest Hezbollah which is of course backed by Iran may have other interests we're going to see how that one ends up developing thank you very much Jonathan thank you for that view from the north we are going to turn our eye to the south now though we have our correspondent Ariel Osirin, our Middle East correspondent standing by in Sterot that border town just on the side of the Gaza border Ariel walk us through the latest developments we've seen with the fighting in Gaza today right Ariel so the latest in the situation here is at about quarter of an hour ago a barrage of rockets towards the border community of Kisufim no reports of injuries there but this was the third barrage of rockets from Gaza towards southern Israeli border communities, third attack in an hour and that we can see is an acceleration of the pace as opposed to the 20 hour lol that we saw until earlier today now as this is going on reports coming out from Gaza of intense clashes between Hamas terrorists and idea forces also in the Jabalia camp north of Gaza city according to Hamas they've thwarted all attempts by idea forces to penetrate the camp to enter the stronghold of Hamas there in north of Gaza city idea saying that its forces have been operating in the camp since yesterday and so despite this conflicting reports multiple accounts of intense clashes going on there also in Shajaiyah in the eastern part of Gaza city as well as firefights in the heart of Hanyunis right a few blocks away from the municipality in south Gaza's biggest city the second largest city in the entire strip intense clashes taking place there as overhead we can continue to hear the Israeli air force fighter helicopters as well as artillery sounding every few moments and obviously with the smoke billowing from the Gaza strip Ariel I want to talk a little about Hamas leadership we saw reports just over the weekend how Yacha Sinwar fled from the north of Gaza to Hanyunis most likely using the humanitarian corridors that were established for refugees what do we know about the hunt for the terrorist leadership and where it stands that hunt is ongoing from day one of this war and is continuing as the situation on the ground continues to develop obviously more and more parts of northern Gaza as well as central and southern Gaza falling under control of IDF forces and every advancement of that gets Israel closer to reaching the leadership but all of these battles resulting in the death of dozens of Hamas terrorists as well as the destruction of significant infrastructure as well as underground tunnels now these also over the weekend including last night widespread surrendering of Hamas terrorists and the IDF saying that each surrender each captured terrorist helps in intelligence and advancing the two main objectives of this war one toppling the governance of Hamas militarily and also in terms of their civil rule of the Gaza Strip but also to increase attempts to release the hostages they're saying the IDF that these interrogations of Hamas terrorists throughout the war hundreds have been captured whether captured or surrendered following fighting these interrogations have led to significant intelligence that has aided the forces on the ground thank you very much Ariel for that report from the south showing us the latest developments on that front and we're going to move back to Israel proper a big debate raging right now in the halls of politics that's Israel's economy cabinet set to discuss allowing Palestinian workers back into Israel for the first time since the war started now just about all Palestinian workers were banned from entry for security reasons when the war broke out it's a total of about 200,000 workers but also a large number from Gaza as well all at a time when Israel's reservist call-up has taken 350,000 workers out of the economy but with more details coming out every single day how Palestinian workers gathered intelligence and created maps for Hamas's October 7th massacre many in Israel say the risk simply isn't worth it the entry of workers from Judea and Samaria is exactly the continuation of the same concept that we warn against I live in Hebron I hear the incitement in the mosques we know what it is when they come full of hate and motivated I'm not saying that all of them are but it's enough that 10% of them are like that and this is a real danger the position of the police and the position of the Ministry of National Security and my personal position is to prohibit entry even the entry of one worker will enter here there are workers, there are volunteers the world needs to be turned upside down in order to add and add workers but not to bring in the workers from the Palestinian Authority and to break this down further we are joined in studio by our senior correspondent Owen Ultiman Owen, always good to have you in here this is a debate that is very pressing for Israel, on one hand there is a massive loss of workers in the economy and on the other hand 350,000 that were taken out by the war itself but on the other hand we saw these workers in many cases do the intelligence gathering for Hamas's massacre where does Israel's society stand on this debate? there's no consensus Arielle and every element of this is hotly debated I mean just to set the stage for viewers Palestinian workers from the West Bank are an important part of the economy in certain sectors they could reasonably replace those who are taken off of their out of the workforce or reserve duty work in a variety of fields and professions through which the Palestinian workers potentially don't have the skill sets of the training but in those sectors construction and agriculture sectors where many Israelis don't want to work as many developed countries don't want to work the Palestinian workers from the West Bank who have come inside Israel proper day in day out over the course are an important part of the economy then of course comes October 7th as you mentioned Arielle the revelation that workers let in from Gaza under a deal to help ease the humanitarian situation there in some cases of course and not all but in some cases worked with Hamas to get intelligence on the Kibbutzim on the Moshevim on the border and then in some cases were actually there with the perpetrators on that morning showing people where to go and hunt down Israeli civilians men women and children obviously left the lasting impression on the country all elements of the current decision about what to do about West Bank workers who by and large have not been allowed back into Israel since the start of the war all elements are disputed on the security side a debate right the point you laid out and I think the point that many in the Israeli public feel that this is simply too big a security risk right each of our bank very laid it out for us right Arielle and here he is not necessarily outside the mainstream this issue at this moment in time and he put set out that argument and said that the police actually supports him so there are parts of the security establishment who support that view that this is a security risk it can't be adequately managed by the security services and it just presents too much of a risk to the public safety of the public and mayors and municipalities are reportedly very worried about this and coming out against it and we saw some evidence of that even at the end of the war when the first decision was made and how strongly some of the mayors felt so that's one side on the other hand parts of the security establishment say it's actually important for Israel's security to let the workers in so that way they're earning money they're not alienated in the West Bank and they're not hostile on the economic side the housing and agriculture ministries reportedly say Israel really needs these workers it's not going to be possible to bring in workers from other countries which has been proposed as a solution in enough numbers and enough time to fill out the finance ministry right comes out and the professionals not just finance minister Betzel Smotrich the far right but the professionals themselves say that that's not true so at any rate I'll both in the security elements on the economic elements the facts aren't clear and haven't been established the interior minister Moshe Arbel is reportedly not happy that this is even being brought to the economic cabinet now and then later on to the security cabinet for that exact reason there's no consensus in the society it's true that you know reportedly supports allowing some of these Palestinian workers back in but again Ariel with this much opposition with this much lack of consensus and frankly with the amount of resistance that this is likely to generate among the public at this point in time it's hard for me to see how this happens after the war in the medium term in six months time the years time maybe a different result but at this moment in time sitting here in December of 2023 I just don't see this going through it's actually even just noting just related to that previous point about reducing the security threat from the West Bank by creating more economic opportunity this is the very debate that was being had about workers from Gaza in the weeks before October 7th the idea of increase the work permits to Gaza and they'll have something to lose and they won't do terrorism but that exact argument is now being extended to the West Bank right and that's the exact argument that finance minister Betsalos Motrich is making almost exactly using those words Ariel on the other hand is not Gaza the West Bank has not been ruled by Hamas going back for for for 16 years right the West Bank is different the situation is different these are workers who have been used to coming into Israel who have some kind of contact with Israeli society again it's not a clear cut argument and I don't think that's Motrich's argument or the argument you've just presented can be easily dismissed these things have to be looked at and again there's just no consensus in the absence of a consensus and in the face of what I suspect is real public opposition by the way in terms of the mayors they're facing reelection at the end of January right under the newly rescheduled date for local elections so they'll have a lot of incentive to be out there opposing this assuming that's where they feel public opinion is again given all the complexities and given all the pushback and given the lack of consensus I suspect this isn't going to happen in whatever economic hit there actually is for the economy technically Hamas isn't ruling in the West Bank we've seen on the ground a lot more support for Hamas and a lot more their flags and their people on the ground than we have seen the Palestinian Authority which means that it's in many ways ideologically and practically just as big if not a bigger risk than the Gazans well listen obviously first of all just to put to put this to bed as we both know Israel is not about to let workers from Gaza the Gaza strip back into Israel not to let workers from as well look you're absolutely right obviously the war on Gaza's inflamed tensions around the Middle East certainly among Palestinians whether you explain that in terms of increased support for Hamas whether you explain that in terms of just inflamed passions toward Israel and obviously Ariel that adds to the concern of those who are against it again on the other hand again just to remind ourselves parts of the Israeli security establishment again serious people who know the people have a livelihood and so the people are not alienated again a debate where there's no consensus given the lack of consensus given the sensitivity the situation given the timing that we're in the middle of a war it seems to me hard to believe that this is going to be able to get the vote the votes in either of these cabinets in order to be able to move forward and while we're talking about the war and international view and just the things beyond Israel's border I do want to bring in another question. Let's take a listen. A new shipment of important ammunition has arrived today for the continuation of the war I thank President Biden we spoke on Friday about the US being on the right side at the UN Security Council and also for the military aid the US is giving the IDF in the last two days I spoke with both Chancellor Schultz and French President Macron as well as with the US I told them that it is impossible to support the elimination of Hamas on one hand and pressure us to end the war with the other which will prevent the elimination of Hamas and I think that in this struggle justice is with us and unity is with us when we are united as a people and as a country there is no force that can prevent us from doing the right thing. We're going to turn back to Owen on a lot of Israeli's minds for the past week on one hand the United States will say we support you here's the ammunition you need to finish the war make sure Hamas is finished by the end of this and we'll never have to deal with this problem again on the other hand we see statements from the United States such as well you have until the end of January to finish this war so good luck. People blink and saying you have a few weeks it's not months anymore really square that circle. Yeah and to add to the complexity Arielle again I defer to military experts on this but it seems to me that if you try to compress the time scale might that actually increase civilian casualties. You're giving the Israeli military an incentive to move more quickly and just it stands to reason that if you're moving more quickly then that could lead to more loss of life among civilians so it even just makes it more less occurrence obviously there are different things the Biden administration has to consider there's domestic politics there's calculations about geopolitics there's calculations about the United States is regional standing but you're right there are conflicting messages there are conflicting messages in the rhetoric there are conflicting messages in terms of giving the ammunition. If we can find one thread of consistency in the policy it's the continued support for prosecuting and to help and to look out for Gazan civilians right and obviously sometimes these are at cross purposes but in terms of humanitarian aid maybe they're not maybe it's possible to get more humanitarian aid to increase the humanitarian aid coming in for the civilian population of Gaza now even more compressed in parts of the strip with a very very difficult situation understanding that some of that aid is going to get to Hamas but maybe just maybe Hamas will actually be defeated which has meant the crux of the debate over humanitarian aid maybe ultimately Israel's tools and Israel's paths for defeating Hamas don't necessarily lead through depriving it of fuel but the military will be able to use other tools to defeat Hamas even while it's still able to smuggle in fuel and to to divert fuel from the humanitarian needs to itself so that's maybe one way of looking at it but obviously I'm sure there's there's there are conflicting views inside the some degree in public policy but again Joe Biden has been very very clear that looking beyond the politics and I've said that I think the actual political risk for Joe Biden here is actually quite small but looking beyond the politics just at the geopolitical frame the most important one for him at least from his public comments is the international one not even the regional one connecting the struggle Israel struggle with Ukraine's as he did in that Washington post op ed and seeing this as part of a new network right in this new phase of a geopolitical struggle with a rising China and a more active Russia and that having it supporting Israel and demonstrating American support for allies just as the United States is doing and trying to continue to do for Ukraine is the most important objective even while others have to be catered to including public opinion towards the United States within the Middle East and of course in parts the Democratic just Israel that's getting these messages the American people are listening to them China and Russia are getting something so which messages are for which group obviously you're trying to message all groups right but you're most importantly trying to achieve your goals I think we also have to keep in mind Ariel that this is a war that at a very clear beginning as we all know has a clear middle in terms of the ground campaign but might not clear an end right there's talk again about ending the high intensity phase of the war but not necessarily ending the war not necessarily ending the fighting but continuing to prosecute the war if you will or the fight maybe more accurately against other groups and other means again remember the second in defata for example an event that had a very clear beginning right September 30th I believe it was 2000 that had a clear middle if you will in the spring of 2002 with Operation Defensive Shield but never really had a clear end it was just the Israeli military in intelligence services continuing to work day and day out day and day out until violence was reduced beneath the threshold of what we would call an intifada to the point where there's even debate about when that intifada ended maybe this event takes a similar trajectory of course the middle here and let alone the beginning look very very different than those of the second intifada and phase starts to look more similar as long as there is an end phase in sight Owen thank you very much for breaking this down for us as our show winds down we are going to bring you the haunting tales of survival in Hamas captivity stories and details continuing to emerge unveiling the imaginable struggles faced by Chen Goldstein and her three children Agam, Gal and Tal they were freed on November 26 as part of that temporary ceasefire and now their family is sharing a chilling account the intertwines the anguish of captivity with the heartbreaking loss suffered in the attack on October 7th and that's appearing to be frozen so we'll have to continue our discussions in studio as we attempt to get our system back up and running but we'll bring that to you in a moment Owen I want to talk about because one of the topics that we discussed a lot is the resiliency of Israel society supposed to be showing a video report on exactly that subject as the war has progressed as Israelis have seen the military move closer and closer into Hamas strongholds and they've seen Hamas's military forces surrendering in mass has this restored Israel's faith in itself? I think so again I mean Israeli society has held up really well right I mean don't forget on October 6th we were embroiled in some kind of debate about mixed prayer and streets of Tel Aviv yeah we both remember that it seems like such a footnote but again we were coming off of eight nine months of very bitter division right over the judicial overhaul and there is a sense that the greatest threat to the country wasn't from without but was from within well obviously that's been blown out of the water if you will and obviously the greater threat to the country is not from within the greater threat to the country is from without I think that's become clear and the society was able to come together very very quickly remember again in the first week of the war going to the expo to the convention center in Tel Aviv where the brothers and arms organization right that had been out there in force against the judicial overhaul simply on a dime took its whatsapp networks and its social networks and redirected them towards packing and donations collecting and packing and delivering donations to the south and to reserve soldiers so I think the Israeli society is holding up pretty well if we will Ariel I don't know if you've discussed this broadcast yet Benjamin Netanyahu's call with Vladimir Putin but it's also worth describing that the Prime Minister's office coming out over the last few hours and saying that Netanyahu had a 50 5 0 minute conversation with Russian president Vladimir Putin the statement coming out of the PMO Prime Minister's office and this was quite interesting it said that Netanyahu fiercely criticized Russia's positions on the war an international forum and talked about the quote dangerous cooperation between Russia and Iran in the Ukraine war and then pivoted and says that Israel thanks Russia for the efforts to free that hostage with dual Russian Israeli nationality or those hostages with dual Russian Israeli nationality who were freed and asking Vladimir Putin to put pressure on the Red Cross for those visits to the hostages now of course the pressure for the visit to the hostages shouldn't be put on the Red Cross it means it's put on Hamas so it's a little bit misplaced but again we still see Prime Minister Netanyahu trying to navigate the relationship with Russia on one hand not being able at this stage to escape the obvious of the Russian statements and Russian public positions on this war which have been so horrendous and so hostile for Israel really at the same time of this phone call Russian Prime Minister Sergei Lavrov coming out and repeating the Antonin Guterres line right that October 7th did not happen in a vacuum so obviously I'm sure that didn't add to the atmosphere but Netanyahu still feeling it's necessary to have this call to show to the public he had this call and to try to find some way to connect with the Russians and to connect with their foreign policy I wonder whether Israel is going to be able to continue to take that stage or I've said over the past few months whether it's past time or time at least for Israel to be really changing its policy on the war in Ukraine. We have one minute left of our show and you brought up a good point at the end there. Is the relationship between Israel and Russia even navigable at all at this point? I think it's an open question look I asked the national security advisor Tzaki and Negvi about this at a press conference about a month ago I think and his answer is basically nothing has changed under the sun right the same issues we still had the Jewish community in Russia the Russian control over Syrian airspace are still there so there's no reason to change the policy I suspect there actually are quite a few reasons why the policy has to be reexamined. Thank you very much for helping us understand that situation and bringing an angle that we really didn't expect there for everyone else though we are out of time at least for now but there's going to be another broadcast just after this