at is somehow still in control, is still fighting, is still kicking on our part. The IDF has of course scored a lot of good points. Things have been advancing pretty fast, especially in Hanyounis. I think things are going faster than expected, but there's still a lot, a lot of work to do. We are in control more or less of the Gaza Strip, but we still have to fight for many weeks and months before we can actually say that we can secure the southern part of Israel from any threat from the terrorist faction of the Hamas. I think the next big step, which is of utmost importance in my opinion, and that we've been tackling a little too late, is the Philadelphia Road, 14 kilometers stretch along the Israeli-Egyptian border, very, very important strategic place with many underground tunnels. That's where the weapons arrive into Gaza, but that's also from where Mr. Sinoir, accompanied by the Israeli hostages, could escape into Sinai. If there is no progress on that front, on working with Egypt or dealing with Egypt's border with Gaza and the smuggling tunnels and the ongoing ability to smuggle in and smuggle out, doesn't Israel need to address that somehow? This is an ongoing border issue with Gaza and all the civilians near the Rafa crossing there. How does Israel handle that? Well, as of this morning, the Egyptian troops have been warned to evacuate the area and that the Israelis will tackle the problem now. We have to be in full control of that particular spot, to be also in full control of what's under it. I'm saying it's a little late, but maybe we couldn't do it before because we had to secure the north, we had to take care of the civilian population and all that zone in the south that is supposed to be out of the combat zone. So it's very intricate and complicated, but it seems to me this is a very important turning point if we manage to take control of the Philadelphia road, even though we're still far, far, far from having control over Hanyounis. And as was explained, we have all the center to deal with, which center possesses a lot of launching parts. So long as we don't finish our job with the center, there will be missiles shot from the end towards Israel. I want to say something about winning and losing victory. I don't think you can judge victory in a war in the short term. It takes a long time. And I'll give a few examples. Take the Second Lebanon War in 2006. The Israeli public was not feeling victory at the time because there was no decisive victory. It's not like the Six Day War. We conquered the entire Sinai and Jerusalem and we won. It didn't seem like a decisive victory. But for 15 years, 15 years, Hezbollah was absolutely quiet. It's a bit strange to talk about it now when the northern border has ignited again. But for 15 years, that border was quiet and it happened only because of the Second Lebanon War. To me, that's victory. And in Gaza, it was about two and a half years after the Second Lebanon War, there was a first operation, Cast Lead. Israel felt we went into Gaza, we won it. And then there were about four or five operations in the years to come. So that was not victory. I don't think you can judge this war now. We need to judge it in years to come. I think the greatest victory would be to delay the next war as much as possible. If after this one, there's no war in Gaza for 20, 30, 50 years, that would be victory. But of course, it's something that's impossible to judge now. You mentioned Hezbollah. Let's talk a little bit about the threats from the north, the attacks from the north and new reports as well. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is pushing back against the new Wall Street Journal report that Israel was literally minutes away from starting a major attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon in the days following, that October 7th Hamas massacre. Netanyahu says he never wavered on his need to focus first and primarily on Hamas in Gaza while trying to deter Hezbollah aggression in the north. The Journal claims that Israeli warplanes were airborne already and poised to strike Hezbollah before being told by Netanyahu to stand down after Netanyahu was convinced by US President Biden to not open a second front. I want to ask about that report, Jonathan. Two things stick out to me to date, October 11th, which in Israel was a scary day because of a warning that the Home From Command sent to every single Israeli citizen with a phone. But two things that stand out to me about this report, because many of the details, who wanted to attack Hezbollah, who didn't, when they wanted to, that was largely known and reported about. But one thing stands out obviously is that warplanes reportedly already in the air ready to go waiting for that final call, but also that American intelligence said that the Israeli intelligence was bad, that the Israeli intelligence about what Hezbollah was up to was faulted, was not accurate, that they thought they were planning an invasion when they weren't. You can refer also there for that perhaps the opposite might be true, that the American estimates that Israel doesn't know if the Israelis know what Hezbollah is up to at all. You said it was a scary day, and it was. It was Wednesday, four days after the Saturday attack when Israel was still housed in the south that day, and Israel was still battling terror squads on its territory. We were very close to a firefight between Israeli soldiers and terrorists in Israeli territory.  And at the same time, everybody here, all of us, all of every citizen of Israel got two messages to their phones in the space of, I think, 10 minutes. One, everybody in the entire country should go to the protected shelter, and everybody should have flashlights, water. You name it, the following day there was no water in the supermarkets anymore. Now we know, and then minutes later, the home front command saying it was a mistake, it was sent by mistake. But obviously, that message was prepared. It was prepared for a reason. I can only assume. I don't know for sure. I can only assume it was prepared because Israel was planning an attack on Lebanon. And if you attack Hezbollah, then Hezbollah can fire rockets back to the entire state of Israel. That, I think, was the notion. What Israel knew and did know or did not know about Hezbollah, there were many reports that evening, that afternoon, about UAVs falling down as far as Bechayan, which is what, 50, 60 miles south of the border. Many, many reports about infiltrations of Hezbollah terrorists into Israel, reports which eventually were not true. But at the time, we're speaking of that Wednesday afternoon, they seem to be true. There were many reports that afternoon, meaning the Israeli leadership was already under the assumption that the attack from Hezbollah has begun, that it is already taking place. We know now that it is not true. But at the time, on that day, there were many, many different reports saying Hezbollah is attacking here, Hezbollah is attacking there, meaning that the attack has begun and Israel has to strike back. We know now that it is not true. We also know that the Minister of Defense, Yohav Galant, was one of those who was asking for an attack. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu probably did not want an attack. And perhaps the Americans provided him the ladder to get off the tree. Maybe so. The attack did not happen. And many of the intelligence reports that appeared in Israel on that specific afternoon turned out to be not true. We can make a whole salad out of this, but all of this was happening on that Wednesday afternoon. Eventually, the preemptive attack on Lebanon did not happen. And also on that date, that's also the date that the emergency war government was formed, the unity government in the first place. Amid these reports, the phone calls with Biden, the discussion with the Americans to attack, to preemptively deal a decisive blow to not risk that blowing up into a regional or perhaps a world war involving Lebanon if that happened, separate from that, Netanyahu was dealing with Eisenhower and Gantz and trying to get together a unity government at the same time it was a day of fear, a day of chaos, a day of confusion. What do you make, Rafael, of the questions about Israeli intelligence that this report raises? And we did have false messages being sent. We had false red alert sirens going off, incorrect information about... People still today, two months later, have water bottles at home, which they bought on that day. Supermarkets for three or four days were empty. That was the case. How good do you think Israeli intelligence is into Hezbollah, was doubted by this report? And as we talk about the ongoing discussions of a preemptive strike, will Israel strike a decisive preemptive blow? Would Hezbollah also consider the same thing for their own, for exactly the same calculations? So obviously the intelligence wasn't good, and we are making the same mistake in the north that we did with the south. When you do not have good intelligence and when you do not have an effect of deterrence, the only solution is a preemptive strike. You don't know what it's going to be, so you don't take any chances. Every day that passes by, every day that the Americans are stopping us from attacking Hezbollah in the south of Lebanon is getting worse and worse for Israel's security. By now the Iranians are supplying Hezbollah with advanced GPS systems for their missiles, with suicide drones, with more and more ammunition and equipment. They are reinforcing the pro-Iranian Shi'ite militias in Syria with Iraqi ones. The Hezbollah is actually preparing a huge conflict, but it hasn't decided for when. The Tehran doesn't want to spoil this ammunition of the Hezbollah right now. It's keeping it for later apparently. But yet again, if you don't have the intelligence and you don't have the deterrence, then you cannot just wait. If you wait, the Hezbollah today has 150,000 missiles. Many years ago it had less than 80,000. In next year it'll have 200,000. Doesn't Israel need the United States to do this? They need their support. They might need their weaponry. Absolutely. And unfortunately for us, the United States is not reading the map well. Maybe our intelligence is not very good, but there's not good either. They do not read the map well. They do not want an escalation. The escalation is already here. I mean, how come you have such a huge American presence in the Red Sea, an international coalition, and that the Houthis, with all your respect, it's a small mercenary force that, paid by Tehran, are threatening the whole world economy and maritime trade? You have a huge American military presence in the Mediterranean. And the Hezbollah feels that they can do absolutely what they want. They're not afraid, because the American says, please, no, no, no, this is the right signal to set your enemy. Oh, I'm afraid I don't want to tackle the problem because I don't want to escalate. It's already escalated. And the main mistake of the Americans in not reading the map is that what they are fighting in the end and what they are afraid of is the power of the axis from Moscow to Beijing, the Russian, China's axis going through Tehran. And the only way they can avoid this is by, the Middle East is a secret. The Middle East, you have to cut this axis into and to cut it into, it's there in the Middle East, where Iran is, and they're not doing the job. Yeah. You mentioned the attack in the Red Sea. Let's talk about that. The U.S. military says one of its warships, another one of the U.S. Navy warships was targeted this weekend by four attack drones fired out of Yemen in Houthi-controlled areas. The U.S. destroyer shot down those four drones. No American servicemen injuries are reported, no damage to the U.S. Navy ship. But three other tankers also this weekend targeted by explosive drone attacks, both in the Red Sea and in the Indian Ocean. Two tankers suffered direct hits. They had significant structural damage. There have been at least 15 attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea in just the last three weeks attributed to Houthi rebels who are rather indiscriminately firing missiles or suicide drones at these passing tankers. As Raphael mentioned, the U.S. is now part of an international coalition pledged to secure and safe passageway of ships in the Red Sea. But perhaps the bigger story now is this attack in the Indian Ocean far away on the Liberian flagged Israeli-owned ship. The U.S. is squarely blaming Iran and says Iran launched a one-way suicide drone. Iran's foreign minister not denying the Indian Ocean strike but does say Iran not responsible for the Red Sea attacks. Yemen has officially declared its position. Its official spokesman repeats their actions daily. This is really and completely a Yemeni move in support of Gaza. And this American accusation is a baseless accusation against the Islamic Republic. While our side in supporting Palestine is clear, the actions taken by others should not be blamed on Iran's proxy groups. We do not have any proxy group in the area. Back here in Syria, Jonathan, we're talking about the Red Sea attacks here. You're Raphael mentioning the U.S. is here. They have multiple aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines. They have a massive U.S. Navy presence in the Mediterranean and the questions are growing about what good are they doing here? What are they doing when the Houthis are still attacking almost daily tankers or causing damage to tankers? And now perhaps Iran also directly attacking ships Israeli owned even further away. They're sailing, which is nice. They're also taking down drones, which is also something that should be respected. But what else? This straight in the southern part of the Red Sea is a global problem. It's not only an Israeli problem. Not only is Israel affected by it, but other companies as well. BP, British Petroleum, for example, a giant company is not sailing through there anymore. The Suez Canal connecting the Red Sea and the Mediterranean is there's much less cargo going there, meaning much less money coming into Egypt. Any ship sailing from the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea to the Mediterranean is now under threat. I don't know what the American ships are doing, to be honest. They are there to deter. They're not deterring, obviously, because these things continue to happen. So what are they here for? I understand that there are elections in the US in less than a year. I understand we're in election year. I understand that the US wants to focus on internal policies. But this is a problem. And not only for Israel, not only Israel is affected by this, but the entire world. So what are these ships doing here? What is this coalition doing here? I don't know. And the Houthis with all the respect. I don't think that these are mercenaries that can eventually stand if a serious American-led coalition comes in. But at the moment, it is not happening. We have in the last few seconds more Red Alert sirens, warning of incoming rockets. This time in the far north, this continues the near daily attacks from the north of either artillery fire, rockets, or increasingly suicide drones that have led to at least 10 Israeli deaths, including soldiers and civilians in recent weeks. You're off the rocket attack from the north happening even right now again. We talk about this Wall Street Journal report about all the discussions back in October 11th that after the Hamas attack, still unanswered questions today in late December about what to do, about the 80,000 families who cannot go back home. And there's no answer for them about when it will be safe to do so. There's no answer until the situation changes on the Israeli-Lebanese border, which hasn't so far. Even though we do notice some kind of drawing back towards the north of the Hezbollah troops, like almost half of the Red One force has moved back to up north, but there's still another half left on sitting on the border. And they still have all the missiles. There seems to be a beginning of an effect of the Israeli attacks. I mean, we are frustrated that there is not a larger offensive on the Hezbollah. But the Israeli strikes are much more spectacular than what might think. We don't realize that. They're striking quite hard on, you know, in Lebanon, 100,000 Lebanese also have evacuated the area because the fighting is quite tough. So there is a kind of beginning of something happening there. We're giving a chance to the diplomatic channels as well, the French and the Americans trying to put pressure on the Lebanese government, which is inexistent, actually. And in the end, I don't think we will have a choice in the end. We will have to strike militarily much harder on the Hezbollah, unless they comply with what we're asking. We're not asking for much right now. We're only asking for a few kilometers to go back a few kilometers, leave kind of a demilitarized zone between them and us. We're not trying to dismantle them like we do with the Hamas in the south. Not much to ask for. Apparently, they seem unboldened enough to refuse this situation, yet again pointing here, I'm afraid, an accusing finger at the United States that his presence has not deterred the Hezbollah in any way. We're going to keep an eye on the situation in the north again, more rocket attacks this morning from the north, from Lebanon into Israel. Also, the situation continues in Gaza as the IDF campaign expands. We may hear answers in the days ahead on progress in a new hostage negotiation deal that may result in a multi-day ceasefire again for the release of hostages. The progress on these talks reportedly has stalled, but dialogue is still ongoing. More and more hostages who spent time in Hamas captivity are speaking out about their humiliation and degradation there. 29-year-olds appear Cohen was held by Hamas for 55 days, but then was finally freed. Here are some of her story. And back here in the studio with an update already on the violence in the north, Jonathan. Yes, reports unconfirmed at the moment saying that the sirens we mentioned in the northern border in the town of Shlomi were triggered because of Israeli actions, not incoming fire from Lebanon. These are the reports now, again, unconfirmed at this time. But again, the reports indicate, again, that at least Israel is continuing this attacking of Hezbollah positions north of the border. We'll stay on top of it. Jonathan, thanks so much for that update. We're all feel great to have you in studio for your analysis as well. We're going out for a break, but more news ahead. Stay with us right here at 9.24 News. We have more live coverage out in the field as the Israel Hamas war continues today. The other threats in the region that Israel is facing will have more expert reporting and analysis. Stay with us. We'll see you soon. Is in a state of war, families completely done down in their beds. We have no idea where is she. As our soldiers are fighting on the front line, but the general perception is something that certainly needs to to be fought as well. Hi, 24 News. This morning for the latest live updates from Israel on the Israel Hamas war and other threats from across the Middle East will begin in Gaza, where Hamas fired a volley of rockets into southern Israel just a few moments ago. We'll have an update on that shortly. The IDF also says this morning that eight IDF soldiers were killed by Hamas yesterday, five others critically wounded in Hamas attacks. This means 13 soldiers were killed in Gaza over the last 48 hours alone by far the deadliest weekend since the war began 11 weeks ago. The IDF chief of staff visited the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunus yesterday for a battleground assessment. General Herzlai Levy said that Israel still has a lot of work to do to achieve the goal of dismantling Hamas. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke for nearly an hour yesterday with President Biden. Biden says he did not ask Netanyahu to reach a ceasefire at this time, but his readout did specifically mention a discussion on the operational goals of the war. With me in studio is Yaakov Levin, military and strategic affairs analyst with the Jewish News Syndicate. Yaakov, good to see you. I want to ask first about this readout, very terse readout between Biden and Netanyahu after the two world leaders spoke for nearly an hour, 50 minutes or so according to estimates. It's a very long time for two world leaders to be on the phone together. The US making a point of reference, a noted point here saying we spoke about operational goals and the phases of the war. Does this indicate perhaps the US, the United States, a crucial ally of course is dissatisfied with the progress of the war, with the pace of the war, with perhaps the lack of a tangible goal that's been outlined so far? I think the US is consistently trying to apply pressure on Israel to shorten the high-intensity phase of this war, but it has I think realized in recent days that this conversation needs to go back behind closed doors and away from the headlines for various reasons not least because it is causing I think a great deal of frustration in Israel amongst the Israeli public. And for that reason and probably for other political reasons, the conversation has disappeared. These arguments are no longer in the headlines and we're just seeing hints of them. But I think the argument is still very much there. It's on the table. The United States wants a shorter timeline and Israel right now seems to be saying no. But the question then remains, regardless of the timeline, all those reports by the end of the year, by mid-January, for getting a date or even an approximate date. The question remains, what will it take? When does Israel move from a high-intensity phase to a lower-intensity phase? When could that transition happen? So I think Israel wants to base its decision on when it will downshift to that lower-intensity phase based on objectives that are met. It has set itself some very concrete objectives. It wants to kill a minimum number of field Hamas terrorists, field Hamas commanders, and to strike at least part of the leadership, the high leadership, before it feels comfortable doing that. And there's also the question of the underground infrastructure in Hanyunis. We're sitting in northern Gaza City, a lot of progress being made. The elaborate tunnel network in the elite quarter of Gaza City has been destroyed in recent days. That's a really serious achievement for the IDF. Now it wants to do the same in Hanyunis. The difference is Hanyunis is being heavily defended by Hamas terrorists. And that's why we're seeing this uptick in casualties. Israel will want to see Hanyunis fall, properly fall, before it begins thinking about withdrawing some of those divisions from Gaza. Talk to me about some of these losses, these horrific and deadly weekend for the IDF. Is there a sense that the battle itself, the actual conduct on the ground of the war may start to shift, not in Hamas's favor, but give them more opportunity for successfully carrying out ambushes and deadly strikes? I mean, yeah, this is Hamas's modus operandi in this kind of war is to draw the IDF in and then to do hit and run attacks.  It's a challenge for any Western industrial military to deal with. The IDF has a lot of techniques and tactics to respond, detect the threat, quickly return fire. But this is a war and wars have terrible prices that the whole of these Israeli people, and of course, first and foremost, the families of these fallen soldiers, are paying. It's terrible. It's extremely, extremely sad, and it's an inseparable part of this war. And the more the IDF focuses now on Hanyunis, I think the more intense these close-quarter combat scenarios will occur. In those kinds of scenarios, sometimes the soldiers don't always have the full advantage, the envelope, what they call the supporting envelope. The supporting fire is not always there. The air force is not always immediately there. And that's when they're vulnerable. That's when I think we'll see some of these casualties occurring, unfortunately. Let's go now to our correspondent, Ariel Oseron, who is on the Israel Gaza border. Ariel, we saw the incoming rocket siren alerts blaring out. Tell us more about what you're seeing and the activity behind you. Right, Jeff. So for the first time after a nearly 17-hour low, rocket alert sirens were sounded in some of the border communities surrounding the Gaza Strip. Communities like Bairi, Alumim, Na'haloz. Now there are no reports of injuries or wounded, also given the fact that these communities were evacuated. But it shows that the gap between barrages is extending. Now, I wouldn't be quick to judge that this means that Hamas's rocket launch capabilities have been substantially hurt. Well, yes, they are limited given Israel's ground operation. At the end of the day, this is Hamas trying to reorganize its arsenal, trying to create gaps, extend periods between launches because their intent on firing to the end of this war, as long as it may take, as it seems now this is going to prolong and continue. And I will note that also the army, the IDF is preparing itself for the possibility that once the residents of these southern border communities do return, that rocket fire could continue, is expected to continue. And so while the gaps between the barrages is increasing, Hamas showing that it still has capability to fire rockets wherever, whenever it wants, this latest barrage after a 17-hour low on Gaza border communities. The IDF continuing to push deeper into central Gaza, also continuing to escalate the campaign to encircle and destroy Hamas terror compound structures in the city of Khan Yunus. As the IDF continues to press on with the ground offensive, what does this mean for the chance of locating or bringing home hostages? Well, Israel's nearly 60 days, or exactly 60 days since the start of the ground operation. And so far on the ground, this hasn't led to any, to numerous accounts in which the IDF forces have managed to uncover hostages, to find hostages, to release hostages. Obviously, the tragedy of last weekend, or a couple of weekends ago, fresh in mind of many Israelis. But at the end of the day, this appears to be a continued struggle. Now, while the forces continue to deepen their operation inside Gaza Strip, we're seeing reports coming out from Arab media, mainly Saudi-Ishark al-Ausat, outlining an Egyptian plan, a three-phase plan to try and end the war and also bring release hostages. This was reportedly presented to Ismail Aniyah, the leader of Hamas, last week, and Ziyad Nakhal, the leader of Palestinian Islam and Jihad, expected to visit in the next day or two. Broadly, we're talking about the first step, a two to three-week truce in which Hamas would release 40 hostages, the second and perhaps most significant phase, discussions to establish a technocratic ruler or leadership for the Palestinian Authority. This is something that isn't expected to take weeks or months. This is something that Palestinian factions have been working on for years, don't expect it to be resolved in the immediate future. And the third phase, obviously, a complete retraction of Israeli forces from within the Gaza Strip, as well as a complete release of hostages and prisoners. This is one report from the Egyptian mediations, but indeed, an indication that there continue to be attempts by mediators to try and bring hostage release deal as well as a ceasefire. Ariel, thanks so much for that update along the Israel-Gaza border. And back here in Studio Yakov, I want to ask your assessment of one of the stated goals of the war here, given the rocket fire once again today from Gaza, which was to degrade Hamas's military ability. Some have said destroy Hamas military, certainly they were to degrade. If, as Ariel mentioned this in a few weeks, when Israel says that the members of the Gaza envelope can safely return to their homes. If Hamas is still able to daily fire rockets on the Gaza envelope, daily fire rockets on our Stielter Ashkelon, even the Tel Aviv, can we ever say at that point that Hamas is actually degraded? No, as long as there is a projectile firepower from the Gaza Strip, we haven't reached the degradation that we're talking about. I would view these rocket attacks as the final convulsions of a dying beast, frankly, because what Hamas has done is it has spent 16 years planting these rocket launchers all over the Gaza Strip. The IDF does not know where all of them are, but it is systematically getting to the structural command network of Hamas killing the commanders. And what we have is we have operatives that are able to set off rocket launchers using timers and using electrical signals. But as time goes by, that capability is going to be increasingly eroded. We've seen a dramatic drop in rocket fire compared to where we were a month ago, even three weeks ago. As long as that drop continues, and I don't see any reason why it won't, they're not going to be able to rebuild these rockets. You don't think they're still building them underground or not smuggling them in from- There are no positions to build rockets. In order to build rockets, you need to bring in material. You need to act also above ground. You need warehouses to store them. It's a whole operation, this force buildup. They are not building up force. What they're doing is firing the rockets that they've already built over the past 16 years and spread and planted all over the Gaza Strip. Eventually, they're going to run out plus the launchers are being destroyed. Every day we hear reports. It's just very slow and it's frustrating and this is the nature of asymmetric warfare. But as long as the IDF maintains security of freedom, we should look to the West Bank in terms of trying to understand what Gaza will look like. We don't have mass rockets there because the IDF is in there every night, every time it gets intelligence and destroys capabilities before they turn into a monstrous level. That's where the Gaza Strip will probably look like. It's in security aspects. Yes, yes. Let's touch on this new report. This is a Saudi report based on an Egyptian intelligence sources on a very complicated multi-year, a decade even plan. Multi phases involving technocratic administration and bureaucratic control, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But two things that jump out separate from the details, which of course would be in flux over the years. One is that this would involve Saudi Arabia and Egypt and other nations as well. Their involvement seems crucial in a post-war Gaza reconstruction. But also the unanswered question of what happens with the Philadelphia Route or the control of the Gaza border with Egypt. Would Israel in any circumstance allow what happened before with an unsecured border with Egypt that Israel does no access or control over? Would it have to change before any details about Egyptian involvement in the bureaucratic part continues? And there's another thing, just before we touch on the Philadelphia Route, missing from this outline. What happens to the Hamas leadership? That's completely absent from the outline. And there's no way that Israel is going to go for any agreement that leaves the Hamas leadership in place. Just to reemphasize, if the Hamas leadership survives this war, it will declare victory. And rightly so, it cannot be allowed to survive this war as an intact leadership in the Gaza Strip. Otherwise, the Israeli war objective does not succeed. They propose those on an expulsion and an exile to Algiers or elsewhere, get an arrival from Israel's perspective. That I'm not sure about. I don't know if Israel would rule out expelling them and then dealing with them later on, I'm not sure. But they certainly can't remain as an intact leadership. The official position in Israel is either they surrender or they're killed. They haven't ruled out expulsion. They haven't ruled it in. It's a question mark. The Philadelphia Route, there's no question in my mind that the status quo will not be the same. There will be an Israeli security presence of some sort. I don't know if it will be fully on the ground. It will be a combination of aerial monitoring, the ability to reach there and come back out. But the Philadelphia Route will be a very, very important strategic goal for Israel to make sure that there will be no smuggling above or underground. Egypt has destroyed most of the tunnels over the years since President Sisi came to power, linking Gaza and Sinai, but there are probably a few tunnels left. Those have to be destroyed. That's a critical point. I'm sure that Israel will not give up on that. And many things will change in the Gaza Strip. This will not be the same Gaza. Yeah, let's talk a little bit now about the threat from the North. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is today pushing back against that new Wall Street Journal report that Israel was literally minutes away from starting a major attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon in the days after the October 7 Hamas massacre. Netanyahu says he never wavered on the need to focus first and primarily on Hamas and Gaza while trying to deter Hezbollah aggression in the North. The Journal claims Israeli warplanes were already airborne, poised to strike Hezbollah, but then were told by Netanyahu to stand down after Netanyahu was convinced by US President Biden to not open a second front. Yakov, this is, we're talking about the question about October 11th, a lot of questions, more importantly, perhaps is the unanswered, lingering question here in December 24th. But still, if 80,000 people cannot return home, they couldn't go back on October 11th. They can't go back now. Ongoing questions about what the plan is to allow them to safely return home and what the US role may be in securing their safe passageway back home and safe homes in the North. Right, so I don't see any way that these people can come back home without some sort of buffer zone that ensures that Hezbollah's death squads are off the border, pushed back, far back, but not only their death squads. Also, they have a whole infrastructure in the southern Lebanese Shiite villages. There's about 200 of them in southern Lebanon. That's Hezbollah's prime operational base. So the idea that it's only about the border is a little bit misleading. It goes, I think, much further than that. And therefore, it seems to me that we are in a collision course with Hezbollah. From Hezbollah's perspective, I don't see any deterrence. They're not high in the possibility of diplomatic maneuvers working here to push them far enough away to secure a kind of the time. I think the diplomatic efforts right now are basically from Israel's perspective useful as a kind of pause. In other words, they enable Israel to prioritize the completion of the high intensity phase of the Gaza War. Eventually, Israel is going to want to take those military resources and move them north. I mean, it will be able to focus on one front at a time optimally. That's Israel's optimal situation. And then it will have to solve this elephant in the room question that we're dealing with. What happens with Hezbollah? What happens with the security situation in the north? I don't see any alternative to a buffer zone. And I don't see Hezbollah taking that lying down. I don't see diplomatic efforts succeeding in this equation, unless we'll all be amazed and pleasantly surprised. And therefore, I think we are in a collision course with Hezbollah. It's a question of when, not if. So the names then in this Wall Street Journal report, of course, well-known in Israel. And the details also have been confirmed by much of Israeli media, who wanted to attack Hezbollah first and why, who wanted to deal primarily with Hamas first and not do a preemptive strike. We have the names Eisencott and Gantz and Netanyahu and Galant. The question, though, that there was a sort of consensus among everyone, and there still seems to be, that if there is, when there is, perhaps this major confrontation with Hezbollah, that Israel will need US support, perhaps US military direct intervention and firepower to get this job done. There's questions about, can Israel launch a major wall in Hezbollah without knowing that Israel, those Israeli carriers and ships often maturing and would support them? Right, the American carriers. I think on the 7th of October and the sort of days that followed Israel was caught off guard and absolutely needed that American guarantee assurance, the moving of the forces. Now we're in a very different situation. Israel is mobilized. There are still hundreds of thousands of people in the reserves. The entire defense establishment is on its feet. We have divisions in the north. We have divisions in the Gaza Strip. We have active war preparation ongoing. And the situation is completely different. I do not believe that Israel requires American firepower today to deal with Hezbollah. And certainly once military resources free up from the south, it will need even less as a concept. The question of Iran is a separate question. Iran is its own arena, separate to Hezbollah. Iran has thousands of ballistic missiles. And some of them can reach Israel. That's where I think American assistance would be very important if it's on the table. So on the Iran issue then, let's talk about this other angle here, this other threat to Israeli security, which is the attacks on Israeli ships and also just global ships in the Red Sea. But now, not only in the Red Sea, also in the Indian Ocean, multiple attacks this weekend. Suicide, kamikaze, drones being fired out of Yemen. Houthi-controlled territories trying to attack ships. They were targeting a US naval destroyer. The destroyer shot down the drones. But the drones did attack multiple tankers causing damage in the Red Sea. And the US now blaming Iran directly and a rare direct blame laying square on the shoulders of Tehran for launching a drone that attacked an Israeli owned ship in the ocean. Far away from the Middle East, from the battlegrounds here, where does this indicate perhaps about Iran's motive and changing motivations in this ongoing war? I think Iran is really trying to call the American bluff. It's basically through its own direct actions and through the actions of its proctors. It's saying we don't believe that you, the United States, are serious about taking action against them. Your ships are here, but you're not going to do much more than that. You're not going to do much more. You're playing defense. You're not playing offense. And therefore, we, Iran, are not deterred. I think that's what they're saying. And we have to throw into the mix the nuclear program. It's continuing to move forward at very, very alarming rates. It's reaching thresholds. The IAEA released a very disturbing report at the end of November about nuclear progress. We won't get into all the technical details. But the bottom line is that Iran is a nuclear threshold state. It's enriched uranium far beyond what it should have. It's decision time. This is what I believe. I believe that the coming months are decision time on Hezbollah, from Israel's perspective, and on Iran. First, from the American perspective. And if America chooses not to attack, that, unfortunately, will have to become an Israeli decision going forward. Speaking of the Israeli decision, if this keeps happening, if Iran is linked to direct attacks on Israeli ships, Israeli-owned ships, not just in the Red Sea, but in the Indian Ocean and other international waterways, Israel has perhaps, at least according to international law, cost of spelling to respond directly in Iran. Do you believe that phrase, the head of the octopus don't attack the tentacles? Do you think perhaps there is a confrontation brewing directly with Iran? I mean, Israel strategically has every justification to target the IRGC as really the head of the octopus. It's the IRGC that's not only orchestrating all of Hamas' partners and proxies in the region, arming them, and encouraging them to attack. But also, as you've said, directly now attacking Israeli assets or linked assets. But there's also a question of resource management here. Israel needs to prioritize Gaza right now. Then we have the Lebanese Hezbollah elephants in the room. I think a really important question is, can Hezbollah and Iran as two arenas be separated? Or will they have to be taken on together? That's a very important strategic question, I think that we will be facing in the coming months. Certainly no shortage of dangers and risks and assessments here for the Israeli security establishment. Yaakov, thank you so much for your analysis on these threats here in studio. And as the war in Gaza rages on, Israeli innovation and technology advances abroad has not stopped. By 24 News, senior US correspondent Mike Wachenheim has this report. Israeli innovation has served as a way to move the country forward, even in times of strife. With the global high-tech market already facing a downturn, the effects of October 7th on the Israeli sector have the potential to be devastating. But entrepreneur, Errol Marguliet, says his startup city, New York, is thriving. Here in the hub, we have 38 companies, Israeli companies that are operating are trying to conquer the US market, the North American market. So the fact that they can continue, the fact that they have strong goals, that they work on category definitions, makes them stronger and makes the industry in Israel stronger. And you'll see a big rebound when the war is ending. You'll see a diplomatic phase, and you'll see the economy come together, we hope, in a big way forward. That includes ambitious goals for 2024, rather than letting the war take an adverse toll. On the contrary, we're getting together, we're congregating, we're strategizing, we're having the sales and marketing organizations work very closely with the development teams in Israel. We have strong partnerships between Israelis, Americans, Europeans, sometimes people in Asia, in order to build large businesses, to meet the customers, to show them that we're here because the real victory in Israel is not just on the battlefield, it's continuing the high-tech sector to thrive like it has been over the past 20 years. And among the fields thriving right now is cybersecurity. Whether it's large banks, corporations, small businesses or governments, the more bad actors you have on the web, the more you need cyber protection. Take Federe, which is working to undo Hamas' financing infrastructure using artificial intelligence to detect money laundering and fraud. Federe's software scans millions of financial transactions, alerting banks to potential misdeeds. So if you think about the way maybe banks used to work decades ago was to have a rule. So if this transaction comes from here or is of this amount, then it's good, then it's bad. Terrorist organization, financial crime, people know this really well and they can work around the rules. So what you need to do is use very advanced AI to detect the risk of something being bad. Beta models will understand normality very quickly. So you look at data, you understand what's normal. So by doing that, you very quickly understand what's not normal and you weed out those non-normal transactions. And this is where your teams at banks, at FinTechs, at governments, this is where they spend their time looking at those things that don't quite look right. We call it that intuitive AI to really understand, well, that doesn't quite look right. Other pro-Israel financial actors like Brock Pierce say their technologies like the tether cryptocurrency that Pierce co-founded can be used to crack down on Hamas' funding avenues. There are things like know your customer technologies and actually this technology is even more capable, right? Follow the money, right? It's very hard to follow paper bills. It's also very hard to follow money moving through the banking system because the left hand doesn't really talk to the right. With this technology, every transaction is visible on a blockchain. So the minute you identify a suspicious transaction or bad actor, you can see everywhere it's been immediately. So it allows you to act more swiftly. And again, because it involves the internet, IP addresses and otherwise, we're actually in a better position to act than we are with call it traditional finance. From New York City, Mike Wagenheim, I-24 News. Thanks for watching I-24 News at this hour as we continue to monitor the live threats facing Israel right now. These are live images into the Gaza Strip where less than an hour ago a volley of rockets fired from Gaza by Hamas terrorists into Israeli border communities. No injuries or damage reported from those rockets, but we'll stay on top of it with our live reporters on the scene. And more expert analysis and reporting from around the region.  We'll see you soon. In a state of war, families completely gunned down in their beds. We have no idea where we see as our soldiers are fighting on the front line, but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well. Through the traffic faster, we can get across town quicker. Ultimately, it's cheaper for the folks who pay to use our services. It's been a long time since we've been here. I think it's spreading among the people in Japan. For watching I-24 News this morning for the latest live updates from Israel on the Israel-Hamas war and other threats from across the Middle East, we'll begin in Gaza where Hamas fired a volley of rockets into southern Israel just a few moments ago. We'll have an update on that shortly. The IDF also says this morning that eight IDF soldiers were killed by Hamas yesterday, five others, critically wounded in Hamas attacks. This means 13 soldiers were killed in Gaza over the last 48 hours alone, by far the deadliest weekend since the war began 11 weeks ago. The IDF chief of staff visited the southern Gaza city of Conyunus yesterday for a battleground assessment. General Herzli Levy said that Israel still has a lot of work to do. To achieve the goal of dismantling Hamas. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke for nearly an hour yesterday with President Biden. Biden says he did not ask Netanyahu to reach a ceasefire at this time, but his readout did specifically mention a discussion on the operational goals of the war. With me in studio is Yaakov Lapin, military and strategic affairs analyst with the Jewish News Syndicate. Yaakov, good to see you. I want to ask first about this readout, very terse readout between Biden and Netanyahu, after the two world leaders spoke for nearly an hour, 50 minutes or so according to estimates. It's a very long time for two world leaders to be on the phone together. The US making a point of reference, a noted point here saying we spoke about operational goals and the phases of the war. Does this indicate perhaps the US, the United States a crucial ally of course, is dissatisfied with the progress of the war, with the pace of the war, with perhaps the lack of a tangible goal that's been outlined so far? I think the US is consistently trying to apply pressure on Israel to shorten the high intensity phase of this war. But it has I think realized in recent days that this conversation needs to go back behind closed doors and away from the headlines. For various reasons, not least because it is causing, I think, a great deal of frustration. In Israel amongst the Israeli public. And for that reason and probably for other political reasons, the conversation has disappeared. These arguments are no longer in the headlines and we're just seeing hints of them. But I think the argument is still very much there. It's on the table. The United States wants a shorter timeline and Israel right now seems to be saying no. But the question then remains, regardless of the timeline, all those reports by the end of the year, by mid-January, forgetting a date or even an approximate date. The question remains, what will it take? When does Israel move from a high intensity phase to a lower intensity phase? When could that transition happen? So I think Israel wants to base its decision on when it will downshift to that lower intensity phase based on objectives that are met. It has set itself some very concrete objectives. It wants to kill a minimum number of field Hamas terrorists, field Hamas commanders, and to strike at least part of the leadership, the high leadership, before it feels comfortable doing that. And there's also the question of the underground infrastructure in Hanyunis. We're sitting in northern Gaza City, a lot of progress being made. The elaborate tunnel network in the elite quarter of Gaza City has been destroyed in recent days. That's a really serious achievement for the IDF. Now it wants to do the same in Hanyunis. The difference is Hanyunis is being heavily defended by Hamas terrorists. And that's why we're seeing this uptick in casualties. Israel will want to see Hanyunis fall, properly fall before it begins thinking about withdrawing some of those divisions from Gaza. Talk to me about some of these losses, this horrific and deadly weekend for the IDF. Is there a sense that this, the battle itself, the actual conduct on the ground of the war may start to shift, not in Hamas's favor, but give them more opportunity for successfully carrying out ambushes and deadly strikes? I mean, yeah, this is Hamas's modus operandi in this kind of war is to draw the IDF in and then to do hit and run attacks.  It's a challenge for any Western industrial military to deal with. The IDF has a lot of techniques and tactics to respond, detect the threat, quickly return fire. But this is a war and wars have terrible prices that the whole of the Israeli people, and of course, first and foremost, the families of these fallen soldiers are paying. It's terrible, it's extremely, extremely sad and it's an inseparable part of this war. And the more the idea focuses now on Hanyunas, I think the more intense these close-quarter combat scenarios will occur. In those kinds of scenarios, sometimes the soldiers don't always have the full advantage, the envelope, what they call the supporting envelope. The supporting fire is not always there, the air force is not always immediately there, and that's when they're vulnerable. That's when I think we'll see some of these casualties occurring, unfortunately. Let's go now to our correspondent, Ariel Oseron, who is on the Israel Gaza border. Ariel, we saw the incoming rocket siren alerts blaring out. Tell us more about what you're seeing and the activity behind you. Right, Jeff. So for the first time after a nearly 17-hour low, rocket alert sirens were sounded in some of the border communities surrounding the Gaza Strip, communities like Baeri, Alumim, Nahaloz. Now, there are no reports of injuries or wounded, also given the fact that these communities were evacuated, but it shows that the gap between barrages is extending. Now, I wouldn't be quick to judge that this means that Hamas' rocket launch capabilities have been substantially hurt, while, yes, they are limited given Israel's ground operation. At the end of the day, this is Hamas trying to reorganize its arsenal, trying to create gaps, extend periods between launches because their intent on firing to the end of this war, as long as it may take, as it seems now, this is going to prolong and continue. And I will note that also the Army, the IDF is preparing itself for the possibility that once the residents of these southern border communities do return, that rocket fire could continue, is expected to continue. And so, while the gaps between the barrages is increasing, Hamas' showing that it still has capability to fire rockets wherever, whenever it wants, this latest barrage after a 17-hour low on Gaza border communities. Now, the IDF continuing to push deeper into central Gaza, also continuing to escalate the campaign to encircle and destroy Khan Yunus, Hamas' terror compound structures in the city of Khan Yunus. The IDF continues to press on with the ground offensive. What does this mean for the chance of locating or bringing home hostages? Well, Israel's nearly 60 days, or exactly 60 days since the start of the ground operation. And so far, on the ground, this hasn't led to any, to numerous accounts in which the IDF forces have managed to uncover hostages, to find hostages, to release hostages. Obviously, the tragedy of last weekend, or a couple of weekends ago, fresh in mind of many Israelis. But at the end of the day, this appears to be a continued struggle. Now, while the forces continue to deepen their operation inside Gaza Strip, we're seeing reports coming out from Arab media, mainly Saudi-Ishank al-Ausat, outlining an Egyptian plan, three-phase plan to try and end the war and also bring release to hostages. This was reportedly presented to Ismail Aniyah, the leader of Hamas, last week. Ziyad Nachal, the leader of Palestine-Islamic Jihad, expected to visit in the next day or two. Broadly, we're talking about the first step, a two to three-week truce in which Hamas would release 40 hostages, the second and perhaps most significant phase, discussions to establish a technocratic ruler, leadership for the Palestinian Authority. This is something that isn't expected to take weeks or months. This is something that Palestinian factions have been working on for years, don't expect it to be resolved in the immediate future. And the third phase, obviously, a complete retraction of Israeli forces from within the Gaza Strip, as well as a complete release of hostages and prisoners. This is one report from the Egyptian mediations, but indeed an indication that there continue to be attempts by mediators to try and bring hostage release deal as well as a ceasefire. Ariel, thanks so much for that update along with Israel Gaza border. Now, back here in studio, Yakov, I want to ask your assessment on one of the stated goals of the war here, given the rocket fire once again today from Gaza, which was to degrade Hamas's military ability. Some have said destroy Hamas military, certainly they were to degrade. If, and as Ariel mentioned this in a few weeks, when Israel says that the members of the Gaza envelope can safely return to their homes, if Hamas is still able to daily fire rockets on the Gaza envelope, daily fire rockets on our shoulder Ashkelon, even the Tel Aviv, can we ever say at that point that Hamas is actually degraded? No, as long as there is a projectile fire power from the Gaza Strip, we haven't reached the degradation that we're talking about. I would view these rocket attacks as the final convulsions of a dying beast, frankly, because what Hamas has done is it has spent 16 years planting these rocket launchers all over the Gaza Strip. The IDF does not know where all of them are, but it is systematically getting to the structural command network of Hamas killing the commanders. And what we have is we have operatives that are able to set off rocket launchers using timers and using electrical signals. But as time goes by, that capability is going to be increasingly eroded. We've seen a dramatic drop in rocket fire compared to where we were a month ago, even three weeks ago. As long as that drop continues, and I don't see any reason why it won't, they're not going to be able to rebuild these rockets. You don't think they're still building them underground? They're not smuggling them in from... There are no positions to build rockets. In order to build rockets, you need to bring in material. You need to act also above ground. You need warehouses to store them. It's a whole operation that's forced buildup. They are not building up force. What they're doing is firing the rockets that they've already built over the past 16 years and spread and planted all over the Gaza Strip.  We hear reports. It's just very slow and it's frustrating, and this is the nature of asymmetric warfare. But as long as the IDF maintains security of freedom, we should look to the West Bank in terms of trying to understand what Gaza will look like. We don't have mass rockets there because the IDF is in there every night, every time it gets intelligence and destroys capabilities before they turn into a monstrous level. That's where the Gaza Strip will probably look like in the coming years. As soon as security aspects. Yes, yes. Let's touch on this new report. This is a Saudi report based on an Egyptian intelligence sources on a very complicated multi-year, decade even plan. Multi-phases involving technocratic administration and bureaucratic control, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But two things that jump out separate from the details, which of course would be in flux over the years. One is that this wouldn't involve Saudi Arabia and Egypt and other nations as well. Their involvement seems crucial in a post-war Gaza reconstruction. But also, the unanswered question of what happens with the Philadelphia router or the control of the Gaza border with Egypt, would Israel in any circumstance allow what happened before with an unsecured border with Egypt that Israel does no access or control over? Would it have to change before any details about Egyptian involvement in the bureaucratic part continues? And there's another thing just before we touch on the Philadelphia route missing from this outline. What happens to the Hamas leadership? That's completely absent from the outline. And there's no way that Israel is going to go for any agreement that leaves the Hamas leadership in place. Just to reemphasize, if the Hamas leadership survives this war, it will declare victory. And rightly so, it cannot be allowed to survive this war as an intact leadership in the Gaza Strip. Otherwise, the Israeli war objective does not succeed. They propose us on an expulsion and an exile to Algiers or elsewhere, get an arrival from Israel's perspective. That I'm not sure about. I don't know if Israel would rule out expelling them and then dealing with them later on. I'm not sure. But they certainly can't remain as an intact leadership. The official position in Israel is either they surrender or they're killed. They haven't ruled out expulsion. They haven't ruled it in. It's a question mark. The Philadelphia route, there's no question in my mind that the status quo will not be the same. There will be an Israeli security presence of some sort. I don't know if it will be fully on the ground. It will be a combination of aerial monitoring, the ability to reach there and come back out. But the Philadelphia route will be a very, very important strategic goal for Israel to make sure that there will be no smuggling above or underground. Egypt has destroyed most of the tunnels over the years since President Sisi came to power, linking Gaza and Sinai. But there are probably a few tunnels left. Those have to be destroyed. That's a critical point. I'm sure that Israel will not give up on that. And many things will change in the Gaza Strip. This will not be the same Gaza. Yeah, let's talk a little bit now about the threat from the North. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is today pushing back against that new Wall Street Journal report that Israel was literally minutes away from starting a major attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon in the days after the October 7th Hamas massacre. Netanyahu says he never wavered on the need to focus first and primarily on Hamas and Gaza while trying to deter Hezbollah aggression in the North. The Journal claims Israeli warplanes were already airborne, poised to strike Hezbollah, but then were told by Netanyahu to stand down after Netanyahu was convinced by US President Biden to not open a second front. Yaakov, this is, we're talking about the question about October 11th. A lot of questions, the more importantly perhaps the unanswered lingering question here in December 24th, but still if 80,000 people cannot return home, they couldn't go back on October 11th, they can't go back now. Ongoing questions about what the plan is to allow them to safely return home and what the US role may be in securing their safe passageway back home and safe homes in the North. Right, so I don't see any way that these people can come back home without some sort of buffer zone that ensures that Hezbollah's death squads are off the border, pushed back, far back, but not only their death squads. Also, they have a whole infrastructure in the southern Lebanese Shiite villages, there's about 200 of them in southern Lebanon. That's Hezbollah's prime operational base. So the idea that it's only about the border is a little bit misleading. It goes, I think, much further than that. And therefore it seems to me that we are in a collision course with Hezbollah. From Hezbollah's perspective, I don't see any deterrence. We're not high in the possibility of diplomatic maneuvers working here to push them far enough away to secure a kind of the time. I think the diplomatic efforts right now are basically, from Israel's perspective, useful as a kind of pause. In other words, they enable Israel to prioritize the completion of the high intensity phase of the Gaza war. Eventually, Israel is going to want to take those military resources and move them north. I mean, it will be able to focus on one front at a time optimally. That's Israel's optimal situation. And then it will have to solve this elephant in the room question that we're dealing with. What happens with Hezbollah? What happens with the security situation in the north? I don't see any alternative to a buffer zone, and I don't see Hezbollah taking that lying down. I don't see diplomatic efforts succeeding in this equation unless we'll all be amazed and pleasantly surprised. And therefore I think we are in a collision course with Hezbollah. It's a question of when, not if. So the names then in this Wall Street Journal report, of course, well known in Israel. And the details also have been confirmed by much of Israeli media who wanted to attack Hezbollah first and why, who wanted to deal primarily with Hamas first and not do a preemptive strike. We have the names Eisencott and Gantz and Netanyahu and Galant. The question, though, that there was a sort of consensus among everyone. And there still seems to be that if there is, when there is, perhaps, this major confrontation with Hezbollah, that Israel will need US support, perhaps US military direct intervention and power, firepower to get this job done. There's questions about, can Israel launch a major war on Hezbollah without knowing that those Israeli carriers and ships often by training would support that? Right, the American carriers. I think on the 7th of October and these sort of days that followed Israel was caught off guard and absolutely needed that American guarantee assurance, the moving of the forces. Now we're in a very different situation. Israel is mobilized. There are still hundreds of thousands of people in the reserves. The entire defense establishment is on its feet. We have divisions in the north. We have divisions in the Gaza Strip. We have active war preparation ongoing. And the situation is completely different. I do not believe that Israel requires American firepower today to deal with Hezbollah. And certainly, once military resources free up from the south, it will need even less as a concept. The question of Iran is a separate question. Iran is its own arena, separate to Hezbollah. Iran has thousands of ballistic missiles. And some of them can reach Israel. That's where I think American assistance would be very important if it's on the table. So on the Iran issue then, let's talk about this other angle here, this other threat to Israeli security, which is the attacks on Israeli ships and also just global ships in the Red Sea. But now, not only in the Red Sea, also in the Indian Ocean, multiple attacks this weekend. Suicide, kamikaze, drones being fired out of Yemen. Houthi-controlled territories trying to attack ships. They were targeted in a US naval destroyer. The destroyer shot down the drones. But the drones did attack multiple tankers causing damage in the Red Sea. And the US now blaming Iran directly in a rare direct blame, laying square on the shoulders of Tehran for launching a drone that attacked an Israeli own ship in the ocean. Far away from the Middle East, from the battlegrounds here, what does this indicate perhaps about Iran's motive and changing motivations in this ongoing war? I think Iran is really trying to call the American bluff. It's basically through its own direct actions and through the actions of its proxies, it's saying we don't believe that you, the United States, are serious about taking action against them. Your ships are here, but you're not going to do much more than that. We're not going to do much more. You're playing defense. You're not playing offense. And therefore, we, Iran, are not deterred. I think that's what they're saying. And we have to throw into the mix the nuclear program. It's continuing to move forward at very, very alarming rates. It's reaching thresholds. The IAEA released a very disturbing report at the end of November about nuclear progress. We won't get into all the technical details. But the bottom line is that Iran is a nuclear threshold state. It's enriched uranium far beyond what it should have. It's decision time. This is what I believe. I believe that the coming months are decision time on Hezbollah, from Israel's perspective, and on Iran. First, from the American perspective. And if America chooses not to attack, that, unfortunately, will have to become an Israeli decision going forward. Speaking of the Israeli decision, if this keeps happening, if Iran is linked to direct attacks on Israeli ships, Israeli-owned ships, not just in the Red Sea, but in the Indian Ocean and other international waterways, Israel has perhaps, at least according to international law, cost of spelling to respond directly in Iran. Do you believe that phrase, the head of the octopus don't attack the tentacles? Do you think perhaps there is a confrontation brewing directly with Iran? I mean, Israel strategically has every justification to target the IRGC as really the head of the octopus. It's the IRGC that's not only orchestrating all of Hamas' partners and proxies in the region, arming them and encouraging them to attack. But also, as you've said, directly now attacking Israeli assets or linked assets. But there's also a question of resource management here. Israel needs to prioritize Gaza right now. Then we have the Lebanese Hezbollah elephants in the room. I think a really important question is, can Hezbollah and Iran, as two arenas, be separated or will they have to be taken on together? That's a very important strategic question, I think, that we will be facing in the coming months. Certainly no shortage of dangers and risks and assessments here for the Israeli security establishment. Yaakov, thank you so much for your analysis on these threats here in studio. And as the war in Gaza rages on, Israeli innovation and technology advances abroad has not stopped. I, 24 News, senior U.S. correspondent Mike Wackenheim has this report. Israeli innovation has served as a way to move the country forward, even in times of strife. With the global high-tech market already facing a downturn, the effects of October 7th on the Israeli sector have the potential to be devastating. But entrepreneur Errol Marguliet says his startup city, New York, is thriving. Here in the hub, we have 38 companies, Israeli companies that are operating are trying to conquer the U.S. market, the North American market. So the fact that they can continue, the fact that they have strong goals, that they work on category definitions, makes them stronger and makes the industry in Israel stronger. And you'll see a big rebound when the war is ending. You'll see a diplomatic phase and you'll see the economy come together, we hope, in a big way forward. That includes ambitious goals for 2024 rather than letting the war take an adverse toll. On the contrary, we're getting together, we're congregating, we're strategizing, we're having the sales and marketing organizations work very closely with the development teams in Israel. We have strong partnerships between Israelis, Americans, Europeans, sometimes people in Asia in order to build large businesses, to meet the customers, to show them that we're here because the real victory in Israel is not just on a battlefield, it's continuing the high-tech sector to thrive like it has been over the past 20 years. And among the fields thriving right now is cybersecurity. Whether it's large banks, corporations, small businesses or governments, the more bad actors you have on the web, the more you need cyber protection. Take Federe, which is working to undo Hamas' financing infrastructure using artificial intelligence to detect money laundering and fraud. Federe's software scans millions of financial transactions, alerting banks to potential misdeeds. So if you think about the way maybe banks used to work decades ago was to have a rule. So if this transaction comes from here or is of this amount, then it's good, then it's bad. Terrace organization, financial crime, people know this really well and they can work around the rules. So what you need to do is use very advanced AI to detect the risk of something being bad. Beta models will understand normality very quickly. So you look at data, you understand what's normal. So by doing that, you very quickly understand what's not normal and you weed out those non-normal transactions and this is where your teams at banks, at fintechs, at governments, this is where they spend their time looking at those things that don't quite look right. We call that intuitive AI to really understand that doesn't quite look right. Other pro-Israel financial actors like Brock Pierce say their technologies like the tether cryptocurrency that Pierce co-founded can be used to crack down on Hamas' funding avenues. There are things like know-your-customer technologies and actually this technology is even more capable. You follow the money. It's very hard to follow paper bills. It's also very hard to follow money moving through the banking system because the left hand doesn't really talk to the right. With this technology, every transaction is visible on a blockchain. So the minute you identify a suspicious transaction or bad actor, you can see everywhere it's been immediately. So it allows you to act more swiftly and again because it involves the Internet, IP addresses and otherwise. We're actually in a better position to act than we are with call it traditional finance. From New York City, Mike Wagenheim, I-24 News. Thanks for watching I-24 News at this hour as we continue to monitor the live threats facing Israel right now. These are live images into the Gaza Strip where less than an hour ago a volley of rockets fired from Gaza by Hamas terrorists into Israeli border communities. No injuries or damage reported from those rockets but we'll stay on top of it with our live reporters on the scene and more expert analysis and reporting from around the region.  We'll see you soon. I-24 News at this hour for the latest live updates from Israel on the Israel-Hamas war and other threats facing Israel from across the Middle East. Several breaking news items to update you on so far. We begin in Gaza where Hamas fired a volley of rockets into southern Israel about an hour ago. No reports of any injuries. The IDF confirming moments ago another soldier has died fighting in Gaza. Nine soldiers killed by Hamas yesterday. Fourteen soldiers killed in Gaza over just the last 48 hours. That's by far the deadliest weekend since the war began 11 weeks ago. The IDF chief of staff visiting the southern Gaza city of Haninus yesterday for a battleground assessment, General Herzai Halevi said that Israel still has a lot of work to do to achieve the goal of destroying Hamas. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke for nearly an hour yesterday with President Biden. Biden says he did not ask Netanyahu to reach a ceasefire at this time, but the White House read out did specifically mention that the two held a discussion on the operational goals and phases of this ongoing war. Let's start now with I-24 News correspondent Ariel Osiron joining us on the Israel-Gaza border for the latest. Ariel, another death has been announced from the recent attacks this weekend. The battles continue to rage inside of Gaza. Tell us more about the IDF's operations and also how is Hamas able still to fire rockets even today after 11 weeks of war? Indeed, Jeff. So as the operation continues, we're receiving reports from the Palestinian side of clashes across the Gaza Strip, whether it's in areas in the northern Gaza Strip that you can see behind me, such as Betchanun, Betlahia, Jabalia, intensive fighting over there, including reports just moments ago of airstrikes over there. Also, in recent days, the IDF has expanded its operation, entering areas in central Gaza Strip that it hasn't entered until now. And also, obviously, intense fighting in the south, mainly Kanyunis, close quarter-fightings according to the IDF over the past 24 hours. At least 200 targets have been struck by IDF Air Force, artillery and navy. But yes, as you described, these come at a heavy price, a heavy toll, the 14th casualty of the weekend, raising the death toll of Israeli soldiers since the beginning of the ground operation in Gaza to 153. But this will not stop or deter Israeli forces as they continue to deepen their operation above ground as well as below ground targeting Hamas infrastructure. Is there any progress on a deal, a new deal, to release hostages? So, is there anything tangible? The answer, unfortunately, is no at this stage. But there are accumulating reports of different discussions of renewed negotiations to try and break this deadlock between the sides, obviously. The Americans have been saying for a while now that Israel welcomes any deal, but it's Hamas that is posing the problem. And if we're looking at recent reports, so Saudi ashram can always start reporting this morning that the Egyptian mediators have managed to find some sort of deal that they're trying to push to the sides. This was pushed to Hamas. Leader Ismail Aniyah was visiting Cairo last week. Ziyad Nakhala, the head of the PIJ, is expected to arrive in the Egyptian capital either tomorrow or the following day. Basically, this general outline of a deal has three phases. The first phase includes a two to three week ceasefire in exchange for the release of 40 Israeli hostages. The second phase will include discussions internally among the Palestinians to try and form some sort of technocratic government. And the third phase is working to a complete release of Palestinian prisoners of all hostages and creating a buffer zone inside the Gaza Strip. Ariel, thank you so much for that report along the Israel-Gaza border. Stay safe. With me now in studio is Martin Hema, political and international security analyst. Martin, the twin goals that have been stated multiple times from the Prime Minister on down, is that the goal of this war is twofold to destroy Hamas, degrade their military, and also release all of the hostages, bring them all home. At this point, as the operation intensifies and expands now deep into central Gaza as well, are those goals in conflict? I think we're increasingly seeing that they are in conflict. Hamas's goals are to survive. And as long as Israel's threatening its survival, why should they agree to release hostages? They're definitely not going to release them in any substantial way unless they get some sort of hope or indication that they're going to survive this. And Israel is determined to expand its war, to strengthen its warfare, because it's also running out of time, frankly. You can't see it in Israel, but throughout the international arena, you are seeing over and over again hundreds and thousands of Palestinians killed, wounded, etc. And there's not a nation, except for the United States, that's giving such Israel such strong backing to deal with this. And that only has so much time and credit to it. Can you imagine a scenario where Israel could end this offensive after so much on the Israeli side, so many soldiers killed and wounded, so this massive war effort, the mobilization of hundreds of thousands of reservists, they can't end the war before they get to Sinwar, can they, before they tackle the leadership? They can't let Sinwar declare victory from inside Canunis? That might be the case, but if that's the case, then certainly some of the hostages are going to be sacrificed. Let's at least put the reality on the table so that the Israeli public can see the reality. I think that in many ways it's being fudged, and it's not honest, and it's not candid enough. I think that both goals have a price to it. It's up to the Israeli leadership and public to decide which price they're willing to pay. What do you make of this latest phone call between President Biden and Netanyahu? They have spoken many times on the phone, of course, over the last 11 weeks, but this last call, last night, lasted nearly an hour, which is a notably long time between two world leaders and a very terse readout on both sides. But the admission that they were discussing the operational goals of the war, is the U.S. patience running out? I don't think it's so much patience running out. I think in the United States, there's a perception that Israel's goals are not commiserate with reality, that they're not in tandem with the reality of the situation, that you can't expect a situation where they're going to fight to the end and put a technocratic government, a puppet technocratic government that's going to work there, get the help of the Arab world, and then have the right to go in and out of Gaza. It just doesn't sync with the reality of the situation. So I think what the United States is trying to do for Israel is to give it a reality check, an international reality check of what's possible and not possible in Gaza. That's still an ongoing question then. What is the exit plan? What's the tangible sign of victory that would allow Israel to leave and preserve as Biden's campaign heats up next year for reelection? And Israel and the high-intensity things? It's not going to be like the red flag going over Berlin or the U.S. stars and stripes going over Iwo Jima.  At the very best, I think what we can hope for is that Israel will, the use of such a massive campaign of combined air, land, warfare is going to be replaced by something much more targeted in release of reservists. It's not going to be a massive declaration of victory. Hamas is going to revert to low-level guerrilla warfare, sting Israel, and the Israeli public is going to have to face the fact that there'll be casualties every week, and there's going to be a low-level guerrilla warfare going for the foreseeable future if Israel's goal is to try to completely try to wipe out Hamas. It's going to wipe out a lot of its ability, but it's not going to wipe it out completely, and that should also be candidly told. The threats, of course, continue not just on the Gaza front but also in the north and around the region. The U.S. military, which is part of this actually leading the international coalition to protect passageways along the Red Sea of ships. The U.S. military says one of its destroyers was targeted by four attack drones fired out of Yemen in Houthi-controlled areas. The destroyer shot down the drones. No American service injuries are reported. Three other tankers though were targeted also by explosive drone attacks this weekend in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. Two tankers suffered direct hits and had significant structural damage. There have been at least 15 attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea just in the last three weeks attributed to Houthi rebels rather indiscriminately firing missiles or launching suicide drones at passing tankers. But perhaps the bigger story now is this attack in the Indian Ocean far away from the Red Sea on the Liberian flag but Israeli-owned ship. The U.S. is squarely blaming Iran for launching a suicide drone. Iran's foreign minister not denying this Indian Ocean attack but does say Iran not responsible for the strikes in the Red Sea. Yemen has officially declared its position. Its official spokesman repeats their actions daily. This is really and completely a Yemeni move in support of Gaza and this American accusation is a baseless accusation against the Islamic Republic. While our side in supporting Palestine is clear the actions taken by others should not be blamed on Iran's proxy groups. We do not have any proxy group in the area. Martin, your assessment here is real and the U.S. directly blaming Iran for this one-way suicide drone out of Iran attacking an Israeli-owned ship, chemical tanker in the Indian Ocean. This is far away from the Red Sea, from the strait. What does that mean? Why was Iran, do you believe, perhaps emboldened to strike directly perhaps on this ship at this time? I think Iran is playing a very dangerous game of chicken basically. They're trying to show if you push Iran a little bit too hard they're going to widen this into an international conflict that the U.S. doesn't want. And it's a very complex situation on how to relate to that because the U.S. doesn't want the conflict to go international but clearly if Iran is not deterred in some way without some sort of military action then the U.S. and Israel will be put into a very serious corner because Iran will achieve more hegemony, more influence in the region and will be a bigger player to contend with when it comes to any sort of solution in Gaza or Lebanon or anywhere else. The hegemony here perhaps, what's the importance of the Beijing-Russia relationship with Iran here as these attacks continue to escalate. I mean dozens of attacks in the last four or five weeks on ships, many of them causing significant structural damage ships altering routes. This is something eventually Israel, not eventually rather soon Israel may have to deal with more directly. Well Russia needs Iran more than Iran needs Russia in this case, Russia's not going to go to the aid of Iran and defend Iranian territory. China will not do that also, but it will give considerable backing, fuel, financial means, et cetera, you know, political backing. So I don't think there's any threat of that big a warfare but I think certainly the U.S. has got to count on some military confrontation in order to show Iran it's enough is enough is the threat that it could go more regional if that happens. European cities also on high alert today as in case of an Islamist terror attack. According to a report in Build, authorities in Austria, Germany and Spain in particular have received intelligence that terror cells may attempt an attack on Christmas or perhaps next week on New Year's Eve. Of course many churches and Christmas markets are packed all day today and tomorrow for the Christmas holiday. With us now is the editor-in-chief of the battleground joining us in Italy, Joel Shalit. Joel, thank you so much for being with me. Tell me more perhaps about these threats. Is there concrete intelligence that there may be a terror cell planning an attack or is this more of a precaution knowing that Islamist cells are there, are across Europe underground? The terrorists in question who may carry out the attack have been mooted to be the ISPK. They're an ISIS group in Afghanistan and there apparently have been arrests already in Germany and we don't know anything more than that at present but it's a very interesting development particularly because of the history of German involvement in Afghanistan during the occupation of Afghanistan by NATO forces between 2002 and 2021 and the fact that Germany has both tried Afghans for war crimes in recent years in German courts and also had to deal with allegations of war crimes level to German troops in European courts for their conduct during the war. Tell me more perhaps about the number of security personnel, the level of police officers and other security forces at markets, at churches across Europe at this time. Germans always deploy large security forces around markets in the country particularly following the Berlin market attack a few years ago in which a North African jihadist ran through a Christmas market in Charlottenburg and so that is not particularly noteworthy for being any different than it has in recent years but the Germans are very concerned that following Europol and EU warnings of increased ISIS activity in Europe over the last few weeks that something of this nature might happen I think the fact that it turned out to be ISIS from Afghanistan rather than ISIS from Iraq or Syria has caught them off guard. Are people, residents out and about on the streets today on Christmas Eve maybe during the last minute shopping across the continent are they aware of these threats are they aware of the growing perhaps need for the increased security or it's not something on their minds at this time on this Christmas holiday. That's a good question, no it's not because the number of terrorist attacks that have taken place in Europe this year is lower than in prior years there's only been four successfully carried out by jihadists. The actual biggest terrorist threat in Europe in recent years according to Europol data and it's really fascinating period I was reading it before this program mostly comes from alleged left-wing groups particularly in Italy and Spain. Okay thank you so much Joe for being with us here tonight 24 news great to have you on the program. It is Christmas Eve but instead of spending the holiday at home with family members a group of American evangelical Christian leaders is here in Israel to see first hand the atrocities that happened on October 7th by Twitter's correspondent Nicole Zedek tagged along with them as they toured Kibbutz-Kvar-Aza a target of the Hamas Massacre. Probably close to a hundred trips I've made in Israel I've never made one as important as this one. Securing his bulletproof vest former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee geared up for a paramount visit to southern Israel. We're currently at an active war zone in the case of a red alarm you will either hear a siren or the voice of a woman saying Tava Adam. In that case we have approximately 10 seconds to enter a bomb shelter a safe room. Huckabee is one of a handful of evangelical Christian leaders who traveled from the U.S. to the Holy Land in a solidarity visit. Believers, Christians have historically stood with Israel. Anybody with a heart who sees these images sees that Israel has been victimized. The October 7th Massacre happened on a holy Jewish day Simchat Torah. Now more than two months later we're approaching a different holy day for a different religion. Christmas and a group of evangelicals from the United States wanted to come here to one of the scenes of the attack to see, witness firsthand the atrocities and see just how this horrific experience really does span across religion. We appreciate the fact that evangelical leaders come on Christmas Eve to Israel to stand with us, to pray with us we don't take it for granted. We need more time, we need more time to finish the job, to eradicate Hamas and to face evil and I'm sure that those leaders will go back to the U.S. Provinces Hill. Exactly what these leaders vowed to do. We can't sit on the sidelines we can't turn a blind eye we can't go silent on this. If we stand back and don't stand with Israel to defeat this monster we'll see it on our own shores and what we've seen happen to the families of these Israeli villages will happen in our own communities in America and we shouldn't be complacent and naive in thinking that it won't one day come to us. It's a strong message Israeli MK Danny Denone hopes will spread throughout the United States especially as U.S. leaders pressure Israel to wrap up its military operations. You cannot say in one hand support Israel and at the same time say you have a stop clock we will finish it when Hamas is either surrendering or we bury them in the tunnels and even if it means that we have to politely tell to our friends in the U.S. we do not agree we are committed to do that. Now it's about our future, about our lives we saw what they are capable of doing we are not going to back off. Along with the ongoing war efforts this delegation also learned first hand about the ongoing efforts to bring the remaining hostages back home. I just want to add perhaps a request if I may from you as leaders of communities to continue share these stories to continue advocate for the hostages every day. It gives you more credibility when you can go back and say I was there I talked with people I saw first hand what took place. Leave here first grieving for the pain, the hurt and the unimaginable horror but also leave here with an extraordinary resolve to more than ever stand with Israel. As the war goes on more hostages are speaking out about their conditions and the humiliations they suffered in Hamas captivity. One of the recently released Israeli hostages is speaking out Maron Stella Yonai is sharing her story of capture and of survival. I was depressed I was depressed I saw people outside to see what was needed to be captured. I made a group of hostages and decided that through these hostages I would have to take care of the security. Even if they would force me, they would force me to go to the police station. I would go to the police station to get food so I would go to the police station. There was a moment when I said that I am a terrorist and I said, you try to do it again.  I did it in all of this and I had to say, I am hungry and I am really tired I had to go to the police station one of them wanted me to take care of all the time. When he was angry he wanted me to take care of him and read all the time. To remember the times when he was really, really good. But he really took care of me. He took care of me. He took care of me and I went to sleep. And then I went to sleep and I started shooting at night. I said to them that I am a terrorist I am not a terrorist, I am a terrorist and I do not know what will happen I say thank you because I went to sleep that I am not a terrorist that's what makes me happy and the only thing that makes me happy Martin so many hostages still remain in Gaza the reports that we talked about here on this broadcast today that Egypt trying to mediate a multi-pronged multi-year process that will involve very laborious details on technocratic administration etc etc but is there an alternative is there an alternative in terms of trying to get the hostages home the remaining hostages as this war drags on well again it's a matter of competing goals. If Israel is willing to stop its offensive for a prolonged time which means it might stop it permanently and move to a much lower grade conflict at some stage then that opens the route for more hostage negotiation that's something that Hamas is looking for that's something Israel could give the question is if it's going to give something like that because it is going to harm the offensive certain choices have to be made. Martin similarly there's a risk in the north as well earlier today the idea of confirming they are striking Hezbollah targets in the north we have 80,000 families or more who have been evacuated from their homes near the border unclear when they'll be able to go home any of those homes damaged significantly Hezbollah has killed at least 10 Israelis since October 7th in these daily attacks what about the north? That's an excellent question that no one seems to be asking in any serious way I mean in many ways what's going on in Gaza's child's play could happen in the north Hezbollah is a much stronger military force it has very powerful weapons very powerful missiles that is going to come into play in a very serious conflict they're not just simply going to walk back to the Litany River and say okay we've made a deal I am certain Why? You don't think the diplomacy could save the day here that there's some way to save face that will allow Hezbollah to retreat north of the Litany? Well Israel is going to have to make border changes is Israel prepared to make border changes I'm not so sure and also I think that it has to involve a certain amount of a fight for Hezbollah to save face can a certain amount of a fight happen without becoming a full scale war those are very difficult questions and that's a very serious challenge which nobody's really talking about The number of Hezbollah casualties is quite significant over 120 Hezbollah operatives the fighters from the Radoan Union moving a little bit further away from the border is there a way that this can be contained without if there needs to be a fight there needs to be a battle can it be contained without risking a wider regional war? Once there's a battle it's really hard to contain anything I think that Hezbollah would want to have a very limited battle if it has to be forced back not missiles on Haifa not missiles on Tel Aviv but the step of going for missiles to Naharia to Haifa then ultimately Tel Aviv if Israel strikes back with really powerful missiles itself is not a very big step it can happen very easily World War I was a classic example where some isolated assassination led to a war where millions were killed you don't have such control and such conflicts to fine tune it and so there's a very big danger it can get bigger How much time does Israel have politically domestically because these 80,000 families who have been evacuated they can't go home and no one is giving them an answer I don't even know how to talk about the political dimensions for the North you know so much is being put into trying to leverage US support for completing in the South how is that you know let's say the South goes to a downgraded conflict what's going to happen in the North if Israel really strikes hard there will be a lot of civilians killed there too it's going to be a much bigger conflict and so it's a much more complex picture than what is actually being shown no easy solutions there as the threats continue and the attacks continue we've got the idea of confirming today they are striking a causeful of targets after an attack in Lebanon thank you so much for being with us here in I-24 News we're going out for a break stay with us we're going to head more live reporting from the Israel Gaza border more expert analysis on the war and other threats across the Middle East stay with us we'll be right back is in a state of war families completely done down in their beds we have no idea where is she as our soldiers are fighting on the front line but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well more analysis and information about the events of the war Iron Spades exclusive interviews and reports from the war zone the reaction of Spanish-speaking countries News 24 is the only Spanish media that keeps you informed and connected with the Latin community in Israel News 24 only on I-24 News Several breaking news items to update you on so far. We begin in Gaza where Hamas fired a volley of rockets into southern Israel About an hour ago no reports of any injuries the IDF confirming moments ago another soldier has died Fighting in Gaza nine soldiers killed by Hamas yesterday 14 soldiers killed in Gaza Over just the last 48 hours. That's by far the deadliest weekend since the war began 11 weeks ago the IDF chief of staff visiting the southern Gaza city of Haninus yesterday for a battleground Assessment General Hertzi Halevi said that Israel still has a lot of work to do to achieve the goal of destroying Hamas Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke for nearly an hour yesterday with President Biden Biden says he did not ask Netanyahu to reach a ceasefire at this time, but the White House read out did specifically mention that the two held a discussion on the operational goals and Phasins of this ongoing war. Let's start now with I-24 news Correspondent Ariel Osiron joining us on the Israel-Gaza border for the latest Ariel another death has been announced from The recent attacks this weekend the battles continue to rage inside of Gaza tell us more about the IDF's Operations and also how is Hamas able still to fire rockets even today after 11 weeks of war Indeed Jeff so as the operation continues we're receiving reports from the Palestinian side of Clashes across the Gaza Strip whether it's in areas in the northern Gaza Strip Well, then you can see behind me such as bethan on betlahi a Jabali a intensive fighting over there Including reports just moments ago of airstrikes over there also in recent days. The IDF has expanded its operation Entering areas in central Gaza Strip that it hasn't entered until now and also obviously intense fighting in the south mainly Chanyounis close quarter fighting's according to the IDF over the past 24 hours at least 200 targets have been struck by IDF Air Force artillery and Navy But yes as you described These come at a heavy price a heavy toll the 14th casualty of the weekend raising the death toll of Israeli soldiers Since the beginning of the ground operation in Gaza to 153 but this will not stop or deter Israeli forces as they continue to deepen their Operation above ground as well as below ground targeting Hamas infrastructure Is there any progress on a deal a new deal to release hostages? So is there anything tangible the answer unfortunately is no at this stage, but there are accumulating reports of different discussions of renewed negotiations to try and Break this deadlock between the sides obviously The Americans have been saying for a while now that the Israel welcomes any deal But it's Hamas that is posing the problem and if we're looking at recent reports So Saudi a shank and I was such reporting this morning that they're that the Egyptian mediators have managed to Find some sort of deal that they're trying to push to the sides This was pushed to Hamas leader Ismail Aniyah was visiting Cairo last week as he had nachala the head of the PIJ Is expected to arrive in the Egyptian capital either tomorrow or the following day Basically this general outline of a deal has three phases the first phase Includes a two to three week ceasefire In exchange for the release of 40 Israeli hostages the second phase will include discussions internally among the Palestinians to try and form some sort of technocratic government And and the third phase is Working to a complete release of Palestinian prisoners of all hostages and creating a buffer zone inside the Gaza Strip Ariel thank you so much for that report along the Israel Gaza border stay safe With me now in studios marking him a political and international security analyst marking the twin goals that have been stated Multiple times from the Prime Minister on down There's that the goal of this war is twofold to destroy Hamas to grade their military and also Release all of the hostages bring them all home at this point as the operation Intensifies and expands now deep into central Gaza as well. Are those goals in conflict? I think we're increasingly seeing that they are in conflict. You can't Hamas's goals are to survive and as long as Israel's threatening its survival Why should they agree to release hostages? They're definitely not going to release them in any substantial way unless they get some sort of hope or indication that they're going to survive this and Israel is determined to to expand its war to Strengthen its warfare because it's also running out of time. Frankly. You can't see it in Israel But and throughout the international arena, you are seeing over and over again Hundreds and thousands of Palestinians killed wounded, etc And there's not a nation except for the United States that's giving such Israel such such such strong backing to deal with this And that only has so much time and credit to it Okay, can you imagine a scenario where Israel could end this offensive after so much on the Israeli side so many soldiers killed and Wounded so this massive war effort the mobilization of hundreds of thousands of reservists They can't end the war before they get to Sunwar can they before they tackle the leadership They can't let Sunwar declare victory from inside communists That might be the case But if that's the case then certainly some of the hostages are going to be sacrificed Let's at least put the reality on the table So the Israeli public can see the reality. I think that in many ways it's being fudged and it's not honest And it's not candid enough. I think that both goals have a price to it It's up to the Israeli leadership and public to decide which price they're willing to pay What do you make of this latest phone call between President Biden and Netanyahu? They have spoken many times on the phone, of course over the last 11 weeks but this last call last night Lasted nearly an hour, which is a notably long time between two world leaders and a very terse readout on both sides But the admission that they were discussing the operational goals of the war is the US patience running out I don't think it's so much patience running out I think in the United States there's a perception that Israel's goals are not a commiserate with reality that they're not in tandem with the reality of the situation that You can't expect a situation where they're going to fight to the end and put a technocratic government a puppet technocratic Government that's going to work there get the help of the Arab world and then have the right to go in and out of Gaza It just doesn't sink with the reality of the situation So I think what the United States is trying to do for Israel is to give it a reality check an international reality check What's possible not possible in Gaza? And that's but that's still an ongoing question Then what is the exit plan? What's a tangible sign of victory that would allow Israel to leave and preserve the as the as Biden's campaign heats up next year for re-election How can Israel end the high-intensity phase? It's not going to be like the red flag going over Berlin or the US Stars and Stripes going over Iwo Jima It's not going to be an ending like that at the very best I think what we could hope for is that Israel will the use of such a massive campaign of Combined air land warfare is going to be replaced by something much more targeted and limited and release of of Reservists it's not going to be a massive declaration of victory Hamas is is going to revert to low-level guerrilla warfare Sting Israel and and the Israeli public is going to have to face the fact that there'll be casualties every week and There's going to be a low-level guerrilla warfare going for the foreseeable future if Israel's goal is to try to completely try to Wipe out Hamas it's going to wipe out a lot of its ability But it's not going to wipe it out completely and that should also be candidly told the threats of course continues not just on the Gaza Front but also in the north and around the region the US military Which is part of this actually leading the international coalition to protect passageways along the Red Sea of ships The US military says one of its destroyers was targeted by four attack drones fired out of Yemen in Houthi controlled areas The destroyer shot down the drones no American service injuries are reported three other tankers though We're targeted also by explosive drone attacks this weekend in the Red Sea and in the Indian Ocean Two tankers suffered direct hits and had significant structural damage There have been at least 15 attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea just in the last three weeks Attributed to Houthi rebels rather indiscriminately firing missiles or launching suicide drones at passing tankers But perhaps the bigger story now is this attack in the Indian Ocean far away from the Red Sea on the Liberian flag But Israeli-owned ship the US is squarely blaming Iran for launching a suicide drone Iran's foreign minister not denying this Indian Ocean attack But does say Iran not responsible for the strikes in the Red Sea In key Yemen Yemen has officially declared its position its official spokesman repeats their actions daily This is really and completely a Yemeni move in support of Gaza and this American Accusation is a baseless accusation against the Islamic Republic While our side in supporting Palestine is clear the actions taken by others should not be blamed on Iran's proxy groups We do not have any proxy group in the area Martin your assessment here Israel and the and the US directly blaming Iran for this one-way suicide drone out of Iran attacking an Israeli-owned Ship Chemical tanker in the Indian Ocean. This is far away from the Red Sea from the strait What does that mean? Why was Iran do you believe perhaps emboldened to strike directly perhaps on this ship at this time? I think Iran is playing a very dangerous game of chicken basically They're trying to show if you push around a little bit too hard they're going to widen this into an international conflict which the US doesn't want and It's a very complex situation on how to relate to that Because the US doesn't want the conflict to go international, but clearly if Iran is not deterred in some way Without some sort of military action then then The US and Israel will be put into a very serious corner because Iran will achieve more hegemony more influence in the region and Will be a bigger player to contend with when it comes to any sort of solution in Gaza or Lebanon or anywhere else The hegemony here perhaps what's the importance of the Beijing Russia relationship with Iran here as these attacks continue to escalate I mean dozens of attacks in the last four or five weeks on ships many of them causing Significant structural damage ships altering routes that this is something eventually Israel and put not eventually rather soon Israel may have to deal with direct more directly Well Russia needs Iran more than Iran needs Russia in this case Russia's not going to go to the aid of Iran and defend Iranian Territory China will not do that. Also, but it will give considerable backing fuel Financial means etc. You know political backing So I don't think there's any threat of that big of warfare, but I think certainly the US has got to count on some A military confrontation in order to show Iran it's enough is enough and there is the threat that it could go more regional if that happens European cities also on high alert today as in case of an Islamist terror attack according to a report in build authorities in Austria Germany and Spain in particular have received intelligence that terror cells may attempt an attack on Christmas Or perhaps next week on New Year's Eve Of course many churches and Christmas markets are packed all day today and tomorrow for the Christmas holiday With us now is the editor-in-chief of the battleground joining us in Italy Joel Shalit Joel, thank you so much for being with me. Tell me more perhaps about these threats Is there concrete intelligence that there may be a terror cell Planning an attack or is this more of a precaution knowing that Islamist cells are there are across Europe underground The terrorists in question who may carry out the attack have been mooted to be the ISPK they're an ISIS group in Afghanistan and There apparently have been arrests already in Germany and we don't know Anything more than that at present but it's a very interesting development particularly because of the history of German involved and in Afghanistan during the occupation of that Afghanistan by NATO forces between 2002 and 2021 and the fact that Germany has both tried Afghans for war crimes in recent years in German courts and also had Had to deal with Allegations of war crimes level to German troops in European courts for their conduct during the war Tell me more perhaps about the the number of security personnel the level of police officers and other security forces at markets at churches across Europe at this time Germans always deploy large security forces around Markets in the country particularly following the Berlin market attack a few years ago in which a north African jihadist ran through a Christmas market in Charlottenburg And so that is not particularly noteworthy for being any different than it has in recent years but the Germans are very concerned that Following your poll and EU warnings of increased ISIS activity in Europe over the last few weeks That's something of this nature might happen. I think the fact that it turned out to be Isis from Afghanistan rather than ISIS from Iraq or Syria has caught them off guard Are people residents you know out and about on the streets today on Christmas Eve Maybe doing last minute shopping across, you know the continent. Are they aware of these stretch? Are they aware of the growing? Perhaps you need for more for the increased security or it's not something on their minds at this time on this Christmas holiday That's a good question No, it's not because the number of terrorist attacks that have taken place in Europe this year have been lower than in prior years There's only been four successfully carried out by jihadists The actual biggest terrorist threat in Europe in recent years according to your full data and it's really fascinating I was reading it before this program mostly comes from Alleged left-wing groups particularly in Italy and Spain Okay, thank you so much Joe for being with us here on I-24 news great to have you on the program It is Christmas Eve But instead of spending the holiday at home with family members a group of American Evangelical Christian leaders is here in Israel to see firsthand the atrocities that happened on October 7th I-24 news correspondent Nicole Seneck tabbed along with him as they toured Kibbutz Kvart-Aza a target of the Hamas massacre Of the probably close to a hundred trips. I've made Israel I've never made one that I thought was more important than this one Securing his bulletproof vest former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee geared up for a paramount visit to southern Israel We're currently at an active war zone in the case of a red alarm You will either hear a siren or the voice of a woman saying Teva a dome in that case We have approximately 10 seconds to enter a bomb shelter a safe room Huckabee is one of a handful of evangelical Christian leaders who traveled from the US to the Holy Land in a solidarity visit Believers Christians have historically stood with Israel anybody with a heart Who sees these images? Sees that Israel has been victimized the October 7th Massacre happened on a holy Jewish day Simha Torah now more than two months later We're approaching a different holy day for a different religion Christmas and a group of evangelicals from the United States Wanted to come here to one of the scenes of the attack to see Witness firsthand the atrocities and see just how this horrific experience really does span across religion We appreciate the fact that the evangelical leaders come on Christmas Eve to Israel to stand with us to pray with us We don't take it for granted. We need more time We need more time to finish the job to eradicate Hamas and to face evil And I'm sure that those little they'll go back to the US. They will speak about their experiences here Exactly what these leaders vowed to do that we can't sit on the sidelines We can't turn a blind eye. We can't go silent on this If we stand back and don't stand with Israel to defeat this monster We'll see it on our own shores And what we've seen happen to the families of these Israeli villages Will happen in our own communities in America And we shouldn't be complacent And naive in thinking That it won't one day come to us It's a strong message. Israeli MK Danny Denone hopes will spread throughout the united states Especially as us leaders pressure Israel to wrap up its military operations You cannot say in one hand support Israel and at the same time say you have a stop clock finish it We will finish it when Hamas is either surrendering or we bury them in the tunnels And even if it means that we'll have to politely tell to our friends in the u.s We do not agree. We are committed to do that now. It's about our future about our lives We saw what they are capable of doing. We are not going to back off Along with the ongoing war efforts This delegation also learned firsthand about the ongoing efforts to bring the remaining hostages back home I just want to add perhaps a request if I may from you as leaders of communities To continue share these stories To continue advocate for the hostages every day It gives you more credibility when you can go back and say I was there I talked with people I saw firsthand what what took place leave here First grieving for the pain to hurt the unimaginable horror But also leave here with an extraordinary resolve to more than ever stand with Israel As the war goes on more hostages are speaking out about their conditions and the humiliations they suffered In hamas captivity. One of the recently released israeli hostages is speaking out moran stella yonai is sharing her story Of capture and of survival I was nervous I was nervous to see people looking at me from the outside So that they would see what was going to happen I made a group of hostages And I decided that through these actions I would have to focus on my education Even if they tried to force me, they would have to force me to laugh I am a brave woman I will be proud of them I will be proud of them so that I can eat So that I will be able to do what I want There was also a moment when I said that I look beautiful And I said, you try, you try, it's not the first time You try, it's not the first time I look beautiful I said that I am beautiful And I said no You try like you did before And it was a bit strange It was very strange I tried it in all of this and I had to say, I am hungry And to be really brave And I think you have to go to the kitchen to eat One of them wanted me to focus on him all the time When he was a teenager, he wanted me to focus on him And get close to him all the time To remember the times when he was really really good But he really stuck to me all the time He stuck to me all the time And I went to sleep And then I went to sleep And you started shooting at night I told him that I am hungry I am not hungry, I eat in the morning And say thank you for eating in the morning And I am not hungry, I say thank you Because I am going to sleep That I am going to eat again That's what makes me happy And the only thing that makes me happy Martin, so many hostages still remain in Gaza The reports that we've talked about Here on this broadcast today That Egypt trying to Mediate a multi-pronged, multi-year Process that would involve Very laborious details on Technocratic administration etc But is there an alternative Is there an alternative In terms of trying to get the hostages home The remaining hostages As this war drags on Well again, it's a matter of competing goals If Israel is willing to Stop its offensive for a prolonged time Which means it might stop it Permanently and move to a much Lower grade conflict at some stage Then that opens the route For more hostage negotiation That's Something that Hamas is looking for That's something Israel could give The question is if it's going to give something like that Because it is going to harm the offensive Certain choices have to be made Similarly there's a risk In the north as well earlier today The idea of confirming they are striking Hezbollah targets in the north We have 80,000 families or more Who have been evacuated from their homes Near the border, unclear when they'll be able to go home Any of those homes damaged significantly Hezbollah has killed At least 10 Israelis Since October 7th in these daily attacks What about the north That's an excellent question that no one seems to be asking In any serious way In many ways what's going on in Gaza's child's play Could happen in the north Hezbollah is a much stronger military force It has very powerful weapons Very powerful missiles That is going to come into play In a very serious conflict They're not just simply going to walk back to the Lattani river And say okay we've made a deal I'm certain You don't think the diplomacy could save the day here That there's some way to save face That will allow Hezbollah to retreat North of the Lattani Well Israel's going to have to make border changes Is Israel prepared to make border changes I'm not so sure And also I think That it has to involve a certain amount of a fight For Hezbollah to save face Can a certain amount of a fight happen Without becoming a full scale war Those are very difficult questions That's a very serious challenge Which nobody's really talking about The number of Hezbollah casualties Is quite significant Over 120 Hezbollah operatives The fighters from the Radawan unit Moving a little bit further away from the border Is there a way that this Can be contained without If there needs to be a fight There needs to be a battle Can it be contained without risking a wider regional war Once there's a battle It's really hard to contain anything I think that Hezbollah would want to have A very limited battle If it has to be forced back Not missiles on Haithar Not missiles on Tel Aviv But the step of going from Missiles to Naharia To Haifa then ultimately Tel Aviv If this will strike back with really powerful Missiles itself Is not a very big step It can happen very easily World War I was a classic example Where some isolated assassination Led to a war where millions were killed You don't have such control In such conflicts to fine tune it And so there's a very big danger How much time does Israel have Specifically because these 80,000 families Who have been evacuated They can't go home and no one is giving them an answer I don't even know how to talk about The political dimensions for the north So much as being put into Trying to leverage U.S. support For completing in the south How is that suddenly Let's say the south goes to a downgraded conflict What's going to happen in the north If Israel really strikes hard There'll be a lot of civilians killed there too It's going to be a much bigger conflict More complex picture than what is actually being shown No easy solutions there As the threats continue And the attacks continue We've got the idea of confirming today That they are striking a cause Target after an attack in Lebanon Martin, thank you so much for being with us here We're going out for a break Stay with us, we have more news ahead More live reporting from The Israel Gaza border More expert analysis on the war And other threats across the world