The message that I bring to Israel is this, you may be strong enough on your own to defend yourself, but as long as America exists, you will never ever have to. We are responsible all year round for intelligence, defense, offense on the southern front as well as the other sectors. We didn't make it. We will learn. We are now at war. Welcome to this special broadcast on I-24 News. I'm Koleb Dendavid. Now it's day six of Israel's war against Hamas. And the death toll of Israelis has climbed to over 1,300 as more and more bodies are being recovered and identified in the Gaza border area. The death toll is also rising in Gaza too under Israel's relentless air assault on Hamas targets with Palestinian sources saying at least 1,400 are dead there. The U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken touched down here and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledging full American support for Israel's military operation against Hamas. Now Prime Minister Netanyahu presented Blinken with photographic proof of the burning and mutilation of babies by Hamas terrorists. We are about to show you some of these photos because it is important for those who try to discredit these accounts of savage butchery that the evidence of it be seen in plain sight. And we want to warn you now that this is extremely upsetting graphic content. So turn your eyes away from the screen if you think you can't take it. And there are simply no words for this kind of thing. Bodies mutilated and burnt. These were pictures that were released on social media by the Prime Minister's office. The IDF Chief of Staff Herzl Halevi gave a briefing today simply stating this as Israel's main military aim in the Gaza Strip. The IDF is fighting merciless terrorists who have committed acts that are unimaginable wherever there are people, wherever there is humanity. Yahya Sinwa, the Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, decided on this abominable attack. For he and the entire system under him are dead men. We will attack them and we will dismantle them. We will dismantle their system. The IDF under my command understands the magnitude of the hour and the magnitude of the task that rests on our shoulders. The IDF is responsible for the security of the country and its citizens. And on Saturday morning in the Gaza Strip we did not live up to this. We will learn and question but now is the time for war. We do have some updates. There was an attempted terror attack on a police station in East Jerusalem. Apparently at this stage by a lone terrorist he was neutralized to Israeli police office lightly injured in that attack. There are sirens ringing out now in southern Israel and Israel's new emergency wartime government which was just sworn in as in its first decision is decided to make a full evacuation of civilians from the southern border town of Stilrout. We'll be going down there shortly. In the meantime, of course, a key focus of Israel is the fate of the over 100 hostages, men, women, some of them elderly children, the young children now being held in the hands of Hamas. Well, with us now from the city town of Qasariah is Rami Igra. He is formerly from the Mossad in charge of the Missings Persons Unit among other functions in Israel's counterintelligence agency. Rami, thank you for joining us. Now you have some experience with hostage situations and Missing Israelis but nothing on this scale. Let me first ask you, right now there's already talk about some quite a humanitarian deal where women and children would be exchanged for Palestinian security prisoners who are women, maybe minors. Is this something like this even possible in this situation? The government of Israel has decided to exterminate the Hamas, not to weaken the Hamas, not to conquer the Hamas, to exterminate the Hamas. In this situation, there is no way there will be any kind of negotiations on the fate of the prisoners. Let me remind you that the Hamas went into this action because they want to release their prisoners for historical purposes. And after I heard Mr. Netanyahu's speech, let me reiterate, Netanyahu released Mash Al and Yasin out of prison. He, unless he created the Hamas, he kept the Hamas going for years. And while doing the Gidat Shalit deal, he released all the people who are now leading the Hamas, Sinwar and Daal. There is no way there will be negotiations at this stage. The only kind of negotiation that Israel, I think, would be willing to do is destruction of a pile of town instead of for the release of prisoners. We are now fighting this war. We are now focused on winning this war and exterminating the Hamas. And while we are doing this, we should collect information, collect intelligence as much as we can in order to release parts of these, or all of these hostages by force, not by negotiating against prisoners. Well, let me ask you, Rami, that you talked about threats of executing, of Hamas executing hostages. There have been very specific threats, which we haven't seen Hamas carry out where they say if Israel continues its airstrikes for each airstrike, we will execute one hostage. They've made that a few times already. Is there any danger, though, of that tactically associated, for example, with ISIS, for example? Is that possibility that you see as Hamas maybe gets more desperate? I don't think the Hamas will do that. The Hamas sees the hostages as assets. And the Hamas remembers that we have a lot more than 150 prisoners in our prisons. And they're all friends of Yighe Sidwar and his cronies. So I don't think they're going to go there. They will have to understand in the next couple of days. All of this depends on the resolve of the Netanyahu government and remind us that in the past, Netanyahu had a lot of talk, but not a lot of resolve. So hoping that this time, with guns and Eisenhower, the resolve will be different. And the extermination of the Hamas will be final. There is no question that there is no future for Israeli towns around the Gaza Strip and also for towns further away. If we let an entity like Hamas continue existing in our southern border or in any border, this is not a possibility. And we have learned that this possibility is nonexistent Saturday morning. Saturday morning, we were awakened to the fact that there is no future when you live next to a terrorist country, terrorist state. All right, Rami Yigra, thank you for joining us on I-24 News. Danny, I want to just go back to the photos that we showed at the beginning of this. Very unusual. The government usually is sensitive to, of course, the people involved in these situations, the families to release that kind of photos. But in this case, even today, Hamas denying, saying we only talk in an IDF personnel, making the decision to make those photos public. Well, in front of this devastation, the enormity of this event and war waged on us by Hamas, no stops are being pulled. And in the past, it's just a Jewish way, the Israeli way, respect of the bodies. We have in the past, have never used those bodies for PR out of respect and also respect for the families, the Israeli families. But this time, there is a diversion. This is the first time we are doing it in order to really exploit the moment because the war is a multifaceted war. It's not just the war on the ground. It's a psychological war. It's a political war. We need the backing of the world in the United States. And this is what is giving us the legitimacy and is giving us a lot of time to do away with Hamas and to continue as long as we need. You know, Kalev, you've seen it. Seasoned, tough international, you know, foreign press who went in came out crying. Right. It is. It is amazing. All right. And, you know, President Herzog said that since the Holocaust, not manage the day of the 7th of October, more Jews were killed in the last, you know, since the Holocaust in one day. And so we have to go all the way. We have the legitimacy. And I believe that now we're also winning the the well, the PR war, not the public diplomacy, but it's not. Yeah, but it's over yet. Right. For the time being, you just reported about the Hamas calling for jihad in London and anywhere else. Yeah. Right. Well, let's go now. It was a day of continued rocket fire into Israel. There were just sirens in the south. And those rockets continued to fall in southern Israel. But we also had firing across the Lebanese and Syrian borders. Our Pia Stakobach is in the north in the town of Malo Tashisha. What's the been the situation up there in northern Israel, Pia? Well, Kalev, this has been a really, really tense day here in the north. Most of us was calm. There were two alerts this afternoon, early evening, three rockets were reportedly fired from southern Lebanon, one landed in an open area. There were no casualties reported. We do see quite a lot of army vehicle movement here. We know that many of the reservists were deployed to the northern border. Most of the people here stay in their houses. The street, the streets are empty. We are here in an Arab Israeli mixed town. And I'm here with Mariam Yunus. She comes from a family. Her dad is from Lebanon. She was born in Lebanon, a family of the southern Lebanese army that cooperated with Israel within the south-south Lebanon conflict. Her family came to Israel in 2000. Of course, I want to ask you, Mariam, you see the tension. You feel the tension yourself here so close to the Lebanese border, but you also do have family in Lebanon. How do you experience these tensions? We are on edge because we don't really know what will happen when the war might start. And obviously, we don't know what will happen on the other side of the border. So we are very worried and thinking a lot and praying, obviously, hopefully that nothing will happen. So, yeah, it's really tough days. What are you hearing from the other side of the border? What are you hearing from reports coming out of southern Lebanon, maybe even from your family? We can be in touch with my family. It's forbidden, so we don't know anything really about what's going on with them. But from things that I have seen and read, is that many villages near the border are leaving toward Beirut and toward the northern part of Lebanon. So there is a huge mass that are fleeing the southern part of Lebanon. Yes. Now, you told me earlier that you're actually trying to organize food donations for Israeli soldiers who stationed here in the area. Can you tell me a bit more about that and why are you doing it? So it started in other cities like Kiryat Shmona, Tzfat Nahariah. The youth, southern Lebanese army, kids started this initiative because obviously we serve in the army as well, or at least it's not obligatory, but whoever won't do it. So we feel part of what's going on in the country right now. So, you know, it's just an effort to make the stay of the soldiers here better. And we literally just ask people from the community and they offer as well to bring food and drinks and stuff necessities that they might need. So a sense of unity and community also here in the north where tensions are high throughout the day. Kalev, back to you. Pia Stakobach there in northern Israel now, of course, also experiencing from rocket fire cross-border from Lebanon. Also Syrian territory. Pia, thanks for that. Well, as we said earlier, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken arrived in Israel today, pledging strong American support in meetings with Prime Minister Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog, relatives of US citizens killed or taken hostages, and also volunteers gathering goods for displaced Israelis in Tel Aviv. He also updated the number of US citizens who have been killed this week to 25. Here's some of what Netanyahu and Blinken had to say at their meeting. Hamas has shown itself to be an enemy of civilization. The massacring of young people in an outdoor music festival, the butchering of entire families, the murder of parents in front of their children, and the murder of children in front of their parents, the burning of people alive, the beheadings, the kidnappings of a young boy, not only kidnapped, molested, hurt, attacked, and the sickening display of celebrating these horrors, the celebration and glorification of evil. The message that I bring to Israel is this. You may be strong enough on your own to defend yourself, but as long as America exists, you will never, ever have to. We will always be there by your side. Well, let's go now to our senior US correspondent, Mike Wagenheim in New York. Mike, some strong words today here from Anthony Blinken, also pledging support, both, I guess, diplomatic political support, as you'll also military aid. What is the status of that now coming? Because there are some complications right now in Washington DC. That's right. In fact, I just got off the line with Senator Marco Rubio, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, saying how quickly can the Congress actually get something done here in terms of appropriations, in terms of other aid? The House of Representatives is a mess. The Speaker race is not going anywhere at the moment. Meanwhile, there's always the possibility and likelihood that the process gets gummed up in the Senate. There's usually one or two Contrarians who hold that up. What he told me is, listen, we'll get the job done in the end. In the meantime, though, there's already money that's been appropriated already in the annual budget for Israel that isn't there yet. That money is usually forwarded throughout the year in installments. He said that can be a fast track for the rest of the year. There's already weaponry that is stored in Israel, and this is public knowledge anyway, that can be utilized by Israel with American approval. And I don't think the Biden administration will have any qualms about doing that as well. So the immediate need isn't necessarily there. If this war, as it's expected to do, drags on beyond a couple of weeks, well, then it becomes a little bit problematic. He said that hopefully by that time, Congress will have its act together. That has yet to be determined. But Tony Blinken made this visit very personal in a lot of different ways. We heard him talk about coming not only as the Secretary of State, not just a father and a husband and sympathizing and empathizing with what the Israeli families are going through. But he said, I'm here not just as a Secretary of State, but as a Jew recounting his own personal history of family fleeing pogroms and the Holocaust. So Blinken trying to connect with Israelis on a number of levels on this visit. Right, he actually said, I'm a proud Jew. First time, we've heard that from a Secretary of State, even the Jewish ones. My President Biden's staying focused on this situation, but also on, you might call the home front in the United States, some concern about the Jewish communities there, that of course number among many of our viewers. That's right, the White House trying to put together a plan here beyond what is already in the unveiled national anti-Semitism strategy, which was unveiled a few months ago, to make sure that Jewish citizens, institutions, synagogues are protected here. We expect as we always get here in the United States anytime, just an ordinary Israel Hamas or Israel terror group conflict pops up, backlash, violent rhetoric and violent actions in the streets of the U.S. here, from anti-Israel protesters and other various criminals here. So the Biden administration met today with a number of leaders. We've seen Homeland Security get involved. The FBI Director Ray will hold a briefing a little bit later on today with an organization here that protects American Jewry to make sure that everything from just a safeguarding synagogues to making sure that social media is being monitored for any potential threats, just a whole of government approach here to protecting Jewish institutions throughout the country. All right, Mike Wagenheim in New York City. Thank you for that. And Danny, as Mike pointed out, the comments by Secretary Blinken went beyond diplomatic support. Like he said, it became, it's very, very personal.  This is, Kolev, this is phenomenal because this shows that the United States and Israel are not just allies, not just strategic partners.  We've heard that from quite a few presidents in the past. We are a Mishpuche. Now we see the manifestation of this. The Secretary of State, which is the most powerful cabinet member in the American administration, comes here and talks like it does. And you know what, I cannot but make the analogy with another Secretary of State, a Jewish Secretary of State in times of crisis, Henry Kissinger. Who famously said, I'm an American first, correct? I'm American first, Secretary of State, second and third is a Jew. And what did Goldemir said? Yes, but we read from left to right. Right to left. They recreate that in the recent film. Right, so for us you're a Jew first, but Secretary of State Kissinger, maybe also because of the environment in the White House under Nixon. Which Nixon, they say was semi anti-Semitic. You hear his remarks, which was taped. Kissinger was very careful. He was not, he never boasted or was proud of his Jewishness. Never ever. Or saying that publicly. Or saying that publicly. I can tell you even privately, I had a few meetings with him. And he did not even privately. And always this opening of everything by the American arsenal, right away, this did not happen in 73. It took us two bloody weeks to convince the Americans to start sending shipments, the airlift and everything else. What a difference there is. What a difference. All right, we're gonna go now. Of course, Ben Gurion Airport, no stair lines have canceled their regular flights to Israel, but there are flights still coming in. We're going out, taking citizens of different countries here, but also bringing Israelis here from all over the world that are trying to get back, especially young men and women who serve in the Israel Defense Forces. Hamd al-Saghut is at Ben Gurion Airport. Hamd, tell us about what's happening there. Well, Club, the Israeli military calling up 300,000 reserves. So there are some flights that are bringing them in, specifically Israel's national airline, Al-A'al. But the thing is, there really aren't a lot of flights to choose from. If you can just look at the board here, a lot of the departure flights are either delayed or canceled. As many airlines canceled flights to and from Tel Aviv, given the hostile situation, and really like an unprecedented time in Israel's history. People who we've been talking to here at the airport are saying that they're leaving because they're afraid for their children. If they have homes in other countries, they're going to them. They're going to be with family abroad. A lot of airlines also don't really know how to operate in these times of war. So canceling flights is the best thing for them to do. However, Al-A'al is a little bit different because their airplanes are equipped with missile defense type systems and also flares. And anyone who was an Al-A'al pilot previously served in the Israeli Air Force. Here at the airport, it is a little calmer because there aren't as many flights, but there still are passengers that are trying to really even come at the counter and buy a ticket to leave. Earlier in the week, we did see sirens that rang over Ben-Gurion Airport missile defense intercepting a lot of those rockets, but the situation here is still quite volatile. People are scared. So they're really trying to leave, but underneath us in the arrivals terminal where we were in the last hour, a lot of Israeli reservists coming back to serve in the military after they've been called up by Israel's army to fight in the war. All right, Hamdi Sahout there in Ben-Gurion Airport. Thank you for that. And Danny, in fact, Prime Minister Netanyahu in his speech this evening, mentioned a soldier who was in a connecting flight in East Asia, who was- Australia. You know, Australia, he was on his, I think it was at Singapore, he was on his way to Australia. As soon as he heard about the war, he ran to get back to Israel. It's a phenomena that we're seeing young men and women who've been traveling for months in South America and in the Asia, just trying to get on a flight to get back to Israel and to do their duty. This is the epitome of the Israeli spirit.  But when push comes to shove, we all get together and unite because we know what's at stake. Our very survival, our future. I mean, we have not come here to rebuild our state after 2,000 years of exile and the pogroms and the culmination of all horrors with the Shoah, with the Holocaust, just to give it up. We'll never give it up. And you remember, we, Biden mentioned it and we discussed it before, that he said, Golda Meir in 73, told him, what is our secret weapon? We have nowhere to go. So you see, we have nowhere to go but all the Israelis who are traveling, who are being away for relocation, they're all coming back. And you know, it's amazing, they're volunteering.  More came that we need, that the military needs. And people are begging, please take me, please take me. It's amazing. It is amazing. I have some family members who belong to that group. My daughter was drafted this morning. She's a reservist in the paratroopers. Danny, we wish her and all her comrades a safe passage to the end of what's going to be a very difficult period ahead. And Ambassador Danny along, thank you for joining us in this portion of the program. But we will continue. We'll be back in about three minutes with more of our continuing coverage as Israel takes the battle against Hamas into the Gaza Strip into a new phase. Stay with us. Israel is at war. Since the early hours of the morning, Israel has been facing infiltrations of terrorists, kidnapping of Israelis, and a barrage of thousands of rockets emanating from the Gaza Strip, the biggest and bloodiest attack in years. Tune in for our extensive and rolling coverage of the Hamas' deadly attack on Israel. With reporters on the ground in depth analysis and most updated and accurate information, stay tuned with I-24 News. From the State of Israel, it's time to unite and fight. There is a fight for war and a peace. Now, a war. Please and gentlemen. Officially in a state of war. This is a very active scene, and we need to get in the car as we're talking. Within 100 soldiers and civilians have been kidnapped. Help us, we don't want to do it. We just don't know anything. Entire families, including babies and children and elderly were butchered in their beds. Awaken the giant, and we are ready, and we are strong. Everyone is showing up. This is the unity. Welcome back to this special broadcast on continuing coverage of Israel's war against Hamas and the Gaza Strip. Let's jump down to the Israeli border town of Steroz. Our Pia Klosch handler was there. Pia, a couple of things. First of all, there have been some sirens in the city so far. What is the situation there currently in Steroz? No, in Steroz there haven't been any alerts per se, but we've seen rockets flying to other destinations. So to speak, here we hear loud explosions, probably of tanks or artillery fire emanating from the Israeli army, another one right now. And we're surrounded here at the exit of Steroz by many police forces. And there's also, you know, we spoke about the spirit of the Israeli people. You see, you have a soldier here. Yeah, a soldier, a soldier who is here with his friend or... I'm Elia. How are you? I'm fine, and you? Hope for the best. You know, praying for God. Thanks a lot, Elia. You live in Steroz. All right, you have to get out of the way that police car up here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I saw the police car, Caleb. And you are from where? Let's say it's once in Hebrew. OK. My friends, who also lives in Hebrew, we're the Israeli people, I think it's Nadav. We're friends, and we're fighting here in all of Kuwait. What do we need? With all our strength, what we need, what we need. Ma'am? What do you guys think? You guys need to speak English? Go ahead, I speak English. OK, who are you? My name is Michael. I was in the IDF before, and I lived abroad for 10 years. And that's the only reason I can't volunteer with my guys that fought up in the front. But we're here. We're helping them. We give them good moral. We're here to fight, and we're here to win. All right, you see, you hear the spirits of these young people. Right, it's great, great spirit, Pierre. Pierre, I do want to ask you, I don't know if you've heard the news, the new wartime emergency government that was just sworn in in the past hour. And its first decision has decided to evacuate civilians from steer out. Before it was a recommendation. It's wrong, it's wrong. Kaleb, Kaleb, Kaleb, it's wrong. OK. We got a message from the spokesman of the municipality of Sderot. They haven't been, they've been in touch with the prime minister's office, with the defense minister, with the finance minister requesting something like $30 million to allow the evacuation of the 40% of the population that still is here and begging to leave. But right now, no word yet. It's probably under consultation, but there is no word. And the municipality of Sderot doesn't want to give false hope to their residents that they can leave because they're going to start packing with nowhere to go. So at this point, it's not, it hasn't come to fruition. But it's true that Alon Davidi, the mayor of Sderot, has pleaded the government to evacuate the whole remaining population of the city of Sderot, a city of 30,000 inhabitants. Right, there's obviously, as we know, some of those Gaza border communities, those Kibbutzim and Moshevim agriculture communities right on the border have been evacuated. But the numbers there are nowhere near 30,000. So this would be a much more serious effort to relocate that number of people. That would be a very delicate operation, yeah. Right. It would be a very delicate operation because Sderot is on the fire. Right, I did hear Alon Davidi on the radio earlier today saying, if we will leave, but we will come back and rebuild the city stronger than ever. And we see that spirit this evening in your report from there, Pierre Kloschandler in Sderot. Thank you for that. Now let's broaden our focus to the world. The number of world leaders weighed in today on the Israel-Khamas conflict, most supportive of Israel, but not all. Here is some of that. It was important for us to address this situation today. And we were briefed by the Israeli Defense Minister. We saw a shocking video. And of course, the reports are shocking. And that's also reason why allies have so strongly condemned these horrific terrorist attacks against civilians in Israel. Our immediate concern today is for the children, women and men, who have been trafficked into Gaza. We are all deeply moved by their fate. We fear that Hamas will continue to use them as human shields in the coming weeks. And we are working with all our might to ensure that all hostages are released in close coordination with Israel. And of course, with due confidentiality. Everyone has a common opinion that it is necessary to immediately stop this conflict, respect international humanitarian rights, prevent any manifestations of terrorist attacks and discriminate use of force from which civilians on both sides can and already are suffering in huge numbers. And joining me now is our senior diplomatic correspondent, Owen Altamann. Owen, maybe no surprise that Russia they're giving a kind of equivocal response to the situation. You could respond to that. But first, I know you did have a briefing from the foreign, Israel's foreign ministry with other reporters this evening. Anything of newsworthiness from that? Well, a couple of things. There's a briefing for all international media, of course. I24 News is a bit on the cusp of whether international or obviously since we sit here in Israel, of course. But any rate, 5,500 rockets that have been fired since the start of the war, according to the IDF spokesperson, talked about examples of Hamas targets. For example, aerial surveillance equipment that was hidden in civilian water heaters. Just to give you a sense of the difficulties of being able to distinguish between military targets and civilian targets and explaining the complexity of war with Gaza. Which of course is nothing new to us in Israel for that matter, to armies around the world that have had to face broadly similar situations. But given the scope and the depth of the goals that Israel has here, obviously it's going to come in more into focus. Interesting to hear the spokesperson for the foreign ministry, Lior Hayat, we know well, talk about the support Israel's received from abroad, including from the international media. That's not a common phrase heard from the Israeli foreign ministry. Not at all, not all international media, certainly. Certainly not, but it was interesting to hear that noted by the foreign ministry, also relative of someone who has been kidnapped into Gaza telling the story and appealing to the government to get the hostages freed. Of course, a difficult question on its own. As for Russia, look, the Russians are trying to be very clever and carve out this kind of middle ground between the parties and set themselves up as some kind of mediator or something, I think. It seems to be awfully unrealistic at this point. It all, of course, gets to the real elephant in the room, which is, what does Israel's policy look like on the Ukraine war on the other side of this war? And there is, I think already, and is going to be even a bigger push once we can get around to it, to changing that posture, to having Israel swing behind Ukraine, given the entire geopolitical context for this war. I think, I suspect it'll be a question that may arrive sooner rather than later for this war cabinet, even with its busy agenda. Right, especially, and I'll just add, especially if Volodymyr Zelensky makes a visit to Israel. Or asks to make a visit. Right, he's talked about it as a possibility. We'll see if that's a practical situation. Oh, and stay with us. As the picture becomes clearer of what happened in the Gaza border area Saturday, Israelis, thousands of Israelis are grappling with an extremely difficult situation, knowing about their loved ones who have been either kidnapped or killed. We have, joining us with us now is one of those, Yaniv Yakov, he's the brother of Ya'er Yakov, who has apparently been kidnapped to Gaza with his partner and their two children, kidnapped from Kibbutz near Oz. Yaniv joins us from Ganyavna. Tell us about your brother and his family. First of all, Yaniv. Yeah, so my brother has three kids. One girl and two boys. The girl stayed in another house in the Kibbutz and she was saved, luckily. Also, the mother was saved. She was in another Kibbutz. But Ya'er, unfortunately, and Meira, were an amazing couple, amazing people who are always happy, as you can see here in the picture. And are so good. They leave and are staying at this area of Israel, believing that we could live together. But now, unfortunately, they were kidnapped. Well, tell us about that. What is your information about that, that you believe that they were kidnapped as opposed to something else? I know more than just believe that they were kidnapped. We got a propaganda video from Hamas showing the kidnap of my brother and his girlfriend. It was hard to watch. It is hard to think about it, that they actually blowed a grenade within the house just to make them open the door of the shelter that they were sitting at while they were peering shotguns outside. And they couldn't even get to the two boys who were at their mother's house standing in a different shelter. But they bombed the house. They threw a grenade. They forcefully opened the door and forced them to get out and then pulled them out from the wrecks. And the two boys were kidnapped also. And we know that because we got a call from one of the kidnappers who called my brother's ex-wife and made... Wait, how? I just clarified, how did he do that? Did he use one of the phones from one of the family members to do that? They actually called her using their phone and forcing my nephew to say that he was kidnapped. I say. That's shocking. Very hard. It's just shocking. All right, Yaniv, I have to ask you. It's been up now. We're six days in. The government did appoint a coordinator, Gail Hirsch, former Army commander to handle the situation of especially also those families that have lost their loved ones in this way. Have you been in any contact yet with the Israeli authorities? Yeah, so we've been in contact with the Israeli authorities. We've been able to give our DNA also. So if they found any bodies, they can match the DNA, especially because of the horror that happened in the party that was in the south near them. So we did that. We gave the pictures of my brother and his girlfriend also. Their phone numbers, everything that we can do. Everything that we could do. So in order to find them, but we found out a day after that they truly were kidnapped. All right. Well, certainly Yaniv, we pray our thoughts and prayers for their safer turn of all your brother and all members of his family. And thank you for joining us on I-24 News to share with us their story. Thank you, sir. And then I must say this must be the first priority. It must be the first priority to bring them back home. Sure. Thank you for having me. Okay. Yaniv Yakov, thank you for that. Thank you. Certainly heartbreaking. Every one time you hear these stories, Owen, it is heartbreaking. And certainly Israel's going to want to get those families back. It's going to be extremely difficult under the present circumstances. We have to say. We should also note, and this is important, the citizens of several nations. I think it was at one count, 18 nations taken. And Secretary of State Anthony Blinken made a point today of meeting with US citizens here in Israel who have had family members themselves, US citizens kidnapped or killed or kidnapped into Gaza. Yeah. A lot to unpack there. Look, first, the moral dilemma of how to balance the safety of the hostages versus the overall military operation I think is clear, although difficult to all of us. The issue of the multiple nationalities, I've said a couple times over the course of our broadcast in the course of the day, one wonders if Hamas really took that into consideration or understood that element here, that they wouldn't only involve the Israeli government but involve so many governments around the world. Governments where Hamas wants to have a policy and instead it just essentially made them put them on the other side of the table if you will or on the other side of the conflict if you will. Not just the governments but the publics because these are nationals of those countries. And so one wonders if this is a real headache to the leaders of Hamas and something that they didn't really think through completely and fully. As for the release of the hostages, as we know, Israel's Energy Ministry said there will be no food or water, the hostages are released. There's obviously a point of leverage but it's difficult to imagine that Israel is going to starve literally two million civilians in Gaza. So one wonders about the sustainability of that although maybe it's possible to separate food and water on one hand electricity and fuel on the other provided that of course essential services like hospital are a way to keep them running. A couple important updates from the last hour, first of all the unity government has been approved by the government rather by the Israeli Knesset by what is 67 to 4 only the Khadash Tal Arab faction voting against the Ram Arab faction absenting itself from the vote and 67 votes in favor. So more than those who are actually well actually shouldn't say that and there would be many members of parliament frankly just aren't available to go some right serving and so forth. Also, I don't know if you mentioned this Kalev in the first hour but the United States in Qatar this can really extraordinary step. Iran's access to the $6 billion that had been given given it was Iran's money as has been said but it been around had been given access to as part of that prisoner deal the United States and Qatar and Qatar freezing Iran's access to that deal essentially breaking their own prisoner exchange deal. Of course there are extenuating circumstances here I'm certainly not opposed to what they're doing to say the least the idea of giving Iran access to money even if there are controls so to speak on it. I think strikes people in Israel is absolutely ridiculous and I think it's going to be very welcome news here at the United States is taking that step. All right let's take a listen to as I mentioned before Secretary Blinken also met with Israeli President Isaac Herzog today. Let's take a listen to some of that. I want to express our deep gratitude to President Biden for his immense friendship and moral clarity for the United States Congress on from all sides of the aisle and the American nation for being with us and your visit here is another proof and testimony to how close you are and how you care for us in our time of need in one of the darkest hours we've endured since the establishment of the State of Israel. I think it's almost impossible for any of us to comprehend on a human level what Israel has experienced at the hands of Hamas these last few days but we are determined to be with you as you defend your people and defend the values that join us together what we've seen will be very hard to erase from our minds and certainly our hearts but I sense a fierce determination in Israel to prevail and prevail Israel will and the United States is here as your partner to help and show that you do. Alright that was your Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Isaac Herzog we just have a bulletin, siren sounding now in northern Israel in the community, in the town of Kiryat Shmona in what's called the Panhandle or figure the galley that's in far north so that is really close to the Lebanese border we've said or that it has been cross-border fire today again from elements of the Palestinian elements in Lebanon and perhaps also in southern Syria so we'll update you our Pirstak Obach is in the north we'll cover that I just want to go back to the swearing in of the government because one element that did not have was the participation of the opposition figure leader Yael Lapid of the Asia Tea Party he made an announcement today that he is declining in invitation to this party in the government saying that he can't bring himself to do it as long as there are extremist elements remaining in the government but also making some very sharp accusations against Benjamin Netanyahu and the prior government saying they ignored intelligence information or warnings that something like this could happen one hand Yael Lapid saying he's going to support the government 100% from the outside of the other hand as you mentioned the obvious failures who's at fault and so forth of course an entire discussion of its own he also mentioned in addition to the two points you mentioned the presence of those two far-right parties in the government and also you mentioned talking about the government's failures also mentions something we absolutely have to keep our eye on the cumbersome structure that has been set up here because as you know the Israeli system there's the full government cabinet essentially dozens of ministers and in the routine weekly meetings on Sunday morning then there's a smaller by statute security cabinet that includes specific ministers with specific portfolios that as the signer says is entrusted by law to make certain decisions as a way of centralizing decision making and essentially doing an end run around some of the other figures in that security cabinet the idea here is to create this small war cabinet three voting members and two observers Netanyahu, Defense Minister of Galant of the National Unity Party coming into the government former head of the military as the three voting members Gadi Eisencourt from Gonsu's party former Israeli military chief as one of the observers in Rondurmer American board from Likudny Netanyahu's confidence, the other observer Lapid essentially saying that this structure isn't going to work and it's going to collapse I think that really bears watching this was set up as out of necessity but there are statutes governing how wartime decisions are made what extent are you really going to be able to set up this new structure and have it really be the place where decisions are made it's an open question and I think the public obviously hopes that the decision making will be able to be streamlined and clear and not bogged down Goddard by internal power that's one of the questions we could ask our next guest Professor Kobe Michail he's a city research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies former deputy director general at the Israeli strategic ministries first of all Professor Michail let me just ask you we've heard comments today from the prime minister from the defense minister from now Benny Gantz also from the chief of staff the aim is to either destroy Hamas, take out Hamas kill its leaders but has the leadership given enough specificity to what its goals are in this current conflict I think that it is very clear what should be done and what is the strategic aim of this war first of all we have to remember that we are at war this is not another campaign that we used to know since 2009 till today this is a war and it will take some time till we will be able to accomplish the mission and to dismantle Hamas from all of its capacities mainly its military capacities and I assume that there will be no option but to use ground forces as well because most of the leadership and the fighters of Hamas and their equipment are in the tunnels underground and this work can be done only by ground forces or mainly by ground forces and it will take time but I think that the idea is prepared and I think that at the end of the day it will be done it will take some time but now when we have this government I think that there is a sort of unification with regard to the aims with regard to the means that should be used and so on and so forth and let me just ask you about now that we have this government because we also have this new creation as our diplomatic correspondent on ultimate was saying we have this war cabinet making some decisions but of course there still is the security cabinet that we'll have to weigh in is the leadership now into place at the civilian leadership on the political echelon to direct this war to a successful conclusion Yes, of course, first of all this is not a new invention we used to have such combinations in this way or another since the kitchen of Prime Minister Golda Meir and I remember because I served during the years of 2009 until 2013 at the Prime Minister's office and Prime Minister Netanyahu the same Prime Minister had the group of the 6 and then the 7 and then the 9 which was parallel to the cabinet but this was the group that actually did all the work and this was the group that eventually ran all the operations since 2009 till 2013-14 so it is not something new and I believe that everybody understands now that there is no place for any frictions between this cabinet and the war cabinet and at the end of the day the security cabinet will deliberate the authorities to the war cabinet and the war cabinet will be there will be relations between the war cabinet and the bigger security cabinet and things will work and now we have to remember that the IDF doesn't need any professional instructions from the war cabinet it needs political directives that will be translated to military missions and the translation of the political directive to military missions this is the work of the IDF and the work will be done by the IDF at the end of the day All right Professor Koby Michail thank you for joining us on the special broadcast on I-24 news and we will be going out soon for a break please stay with us on I-24 I'm going to ask Owen Altman to stay with us just some updates we have had I-8 sirens in the north of Israel around the town of Kyriakshmona in the northern community we'll go back up there and of course we've had also in the past hour also in the south and also sporadic gunfire down in and around the Gaza Strip stay with us on I-24 news we'll be coming back to you at the top of the hour to continue our special broadcast Israel at war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip stay with us it's no surprise the transition to parent hoard can be transformative for anyone with a new baby but what kind of mark is the change in the brain on the brains of new parents there are dramatic physiological hormonal and neuronal changes in the body and the brain that accompanies parenthood much like the changes that happen in the brain when picking up any new skill like learning a new language or mastering a new musical instrument the brain also changes when becoming a parent it's what scientists call his own digging into this at the Hebrew University's Edmund and Lilly Safry Centre for Brain Sciences the region of the brain called the amygdala it becomes more sensitive in the mothers when they hear baby sounds in short all these senses get a boost to help a mother interact with her baby smell and sound to very strong stimuli are the areas Professor Mizrahi is focused on in his lab but does fatherhood have the same impact on the brain and bodies of men levels of testosterone which is the male hormone which is correlated with male-like behaviors aggressiveness and things of that sort it goes down when the male becomes parents as Professor Mizrahi says each and every one of us has a parent or two parents most of us will become parents one day and as any new parent knows having a baby provides opportunities learning and stress experiences known to transform the adult brain since the early hours of the morning Israel has been facing infiltrations of terrorists kidnapping of Israelis and a barrage of thousands of rockets emanating from the Gaza Strip the biggest and bloodiest attack in years tune in for our extensive enrolling coverage of the Hamas deadly attack on Israel with reporters on the ground in depth analysis and most updated and accurate information stay tuned with I-24 news Welcome to or back to this special edition on I-24 news I'm Khaled Bindavid as we cover Israel's war with Hamas there have been just a quick update we have had sirens air raid sirens just in the past 15 minutes in the north of the country especially around the Kiryat Shmone area that is the Eastern Galilee earlier in the past hour we had rocket alerts and we've just had one now in parts of the Gaza border area now let's go down to Ashkelon this coastal city that has been a major target of the rockets from the Gaza Strip during this conflict and our Bacchia Levitthal who is at Barzali hospital of course Barzali still taking in and treating those wounded Bacchia while it is dealing with being under assault under attack from those rockets from Gaza Khaled there's so much that's unthinkable and unfathomable with regards to this war but I'm going to move out the camera just so you can see because this is the first time the entire day that all the ambulances or at least the majority of them are back in the parking lot underneath the Barzali medical center we've seen this parking lot completely empty the entire day today the ambulances coming in every so now and then because they're mostly out scanning the streets and waiting for those rocket alerts to go off to make sure that their ambulances are already out and about and not waiting here at the hospital for the alerts to go off so we have seen these ambulances coming in throughout the day there was a rocket alert siren at 3 o'clock again at 5 o'clock at 6 o'clock and 7 o'clock so far it has been relatively quiet and I use that term because relative as you mentioned there's sirens right now going off in the Gaza periphery and even today we saw rockets going over our head on that coastal strip but also to more of the desert area by Bear Sheva we heard a couple of those booms and alerts going off as well and so it's very difficult a lot of the nurses and the doctors that do come outside for a break tell us that for them the sirens they don't even hear them because first of all the hospital is a fortified area but secondly their job is to save lives and that's exactly what they're doing so for them less of a concern with regards to the sirens but no doubt for the ambulance drivers very difficult to work under conditions where they themselves are in harm's way while trying to assist those that are injured or wounded from the rocket attacks coming from Gaza Alright, Batya Laventhoro there at Barzali Hospital in Ashkelon thank you for that, Batya I just have an announcement apparently the sirens that were set off in the eastern Galilee in the Kirchman area were false alarms and residents can emerge from their shelters Joining us in studio along with our senior diplomatic correspondent Owen Ultiman is a reserves IDF Brigadier General Relic Shafir also the Air Force former commander of the Telnove Air Force base actually I want to just talk about the north for a minute because we've had a couple of false alarms for the past couple of days we have this one this evening we had this one yesterday where there was I'm not going to say panic but there was panic over a drone reports of over a dozen maybe drone vehicles coming over it seems that tensions are on edge there but and none of it was ultimately true it was false alarm right so what is happening why is this happening I know it may sound a little absurd but it's a reality the bird flocking season the bird flocking season flocking seasons where the birds are migrating from Europe via Israel Israel is one of the centers of migration from Europe to Africa and these birds have a radar signature the bigger birds and usually they fly very slowly and usually the radars track them and you can tell after a while that these are birds but in these tense times sometimes the people who man the positions are more edgy and less willing to take risks what's that expression in English better safe than sorry in a way this is it so some of the commanders like yesterday made a mistake in their response some of the air force people who man the radars took precautions that were very edgy maybe new people that came in and reserved and weren't as used as the regulars so these things just happen during tense times and this seems to be not withstanding that might be the way for Hezbollah to actually fly some drones and then go down to low level so it looks like they're disappearing which is something that if I were to create a tactic I would use that tactic so as the the people who watch these radars might say these may not be birds but drones who have gone to low level or something like this so it will take time to learn and not be too edgy but as you just said better safe than sorry now Relic of course your branch of the IDF the air force has really taken the lead until this point this has been an air war for Israel primarily other than of course the fighting in and around Gaza border area the question is when does the air war achieve its aim and then there's consideration being given to sending in the ground forces in other words what's the goal in which the air force can then say to the army now you have to take it from here this is a good question that the answer depends on the results just think that there's an underground city in Gaza in the depth of around 40 maybe 50 meters can't be lower than this because of the water level coming from the sea so if the air force is able to create to puncture the Hamas underground and create Is that possible? Is that using bunker I don't want to give away operational details Bunker Buster it is possible to create an opening into the tunnels just think that if you know where the entrances are where the air vent system is or where the main channels are you can continuously bomb that area it is weakens and the bombs go into area that has been bombed before and it goes deeper and deeper into the concrete and then into the sandy area which it can penetrate easily and so by doing this continuously at certain points weak points or juncture points you can actually get underneath and create pressure on Hamas down there so that they will have to come out or be buried there or be in a position where they are if they don't ask for ceasefire then they might end there suffocate there etc so it really depends on whether this can be done from the air if it can then we can suffice with an air war if it doesn't I don't think we're going to see a repeat of Tsukaitan in 2014 in that the ground forces advanced to about three kilometers I think we might see after the area is cleared and it is actually the ground forces can reach certain points not all of Gaza but certain points in order to reach that underground city and be able to destroy that that might come about if the air force is not able to do it itself but I think so far because we've seen small collateral damage in the sense that the casualties it's not a great number if we compare it to previous events and compare it to the damage on the ground the more the international community allows Israel to continue this and the more we are able to check the Lebanese border we saw today a treatment of Iranian forces and munitions in Syria as a show of as a power projection force and the fact that the Americans in British have moved their ships here rather than the most straight which actually say the same then the better are the chances that we'll have the length of time to reach an inflection point so we'll have to wait and see that so I understand it's about having intelligence for those weak points and about finding ways to minimize civilian casualties and to hit them enough and then to I want to go to the north now and our correspondent P.S. Takobach is in Naharia an explanation from a security expert in studio that it could have been a flock of birds setting off those false alarms that were in the eastern galley clearly nerves on edge there in the north definitely Kalef you can really feel the sentiment the high tensions here you do not see a lot of people out on the streets and also earlier this afternoon the Patriot missile defense system activated against an aerial threat in the area of Tzvat which also turned out to be false alarm really shows you how high the tensions are and how much on edge also the Israeli defense system is here in the north it's a vast region where also false alarm was triggered yesterday after again an aerial threat really thousands hundreds of thousands of people actually all over different locations in the north sent into bunkers many stayed there for half an hour and for more until it was clarified that this was indeed a false alarm here you also do see quite a lot of military vehicles on the street we also saw a tank earlier as I said people are not on the streets we were in a location earlier where people were telling us that soldiers are patrolling the streets really in an attempt to prevent the scenes that we have seen in the south where people were Palestinians could infiltrate this is a threat that also is here at the Lebanese border very present although the geographical conditions are different but you do feel the sense of fear that people here are acting because they do sense that any minor even minor security incident could lead to a different front opening up in this work alive alright Pia Stakhovach there in Nahari right just south of the Lebanese border thank you for that Pia now earlier this evening the IDF spokesperson Daniel Higari did give a briefing he had some interesting things to say here is a bit of that we continue to discover findings in the field these findings clearly indicate a murderous and planned attack whose architect is Iqya Sinwar he planned it with all the members of his government and the military ranks this is an attack by a murderous terrorist organization Hamas is ISIS and this is not a slogan Hamas is ISIS because we located findings of terrorists in the area with ISIS flags today we found in the area a weapons preparation booklet found on the body of a terrorist with an ISIS symbol and a symbol of Al Qaeda we're fighting against an organization that is ISIS Hamas is ISIS Hamas is Al Qaeda it is important for the world to know this and to understand this and Relic as a form of short hand and because Hamas is the dominant force in the Gaza Strip we shorted Israel Hamas war but there it is not just Hamas of course Palestinian Islamic Jihad which is a largely direct sponsored and directed by Iran has played a major role here and as we just heard the IDF spokesperson elements obviously with some allegiance to ISIS to Islamic state may have been involved in this attack as well and certainly those behavior we showed earlier these pictures of atrocities committed against civilians against babies that are straight out of what you might call the ISIS playbook Yes if you read the Bible you'll find I guess parallels to these kind of treatment even by one of our kings in the books so this is the Middle East in its old capacity as a place where tribes collide obviously we would like to paint Hamas as the parallel to ISIS at least in their ideology and behavior this allows us to align the western world with our case since they're using the same tactics and maybe the same ideology necessarily the same group but certainly the same type of behavior and ideology so this is a smart move by the spokesperson otherwise we're looking at a condition where the Iranians the Lebanese and Hamas have aligned their interests certainly with the Saudi plan and the Israeli plan and the alignment of some of the Gulf states and the weakening of the Israeli system that this government has a responsibility for had actually the stars have aligned so to speak for Hamas to try and work for Iran against the Saudi idea against the Gulf states Hamas specifically mentioned that in his initial statement on Saturday saying that part of this was generated by the signs of the burgeoning relationship between Israel and Saudi Arabia so in a way they're trying to create a change just like the killer of Rabin did in 1995 by a single act he was able to change the course of history for the Middle East and this is may in the future we will look at this retrospectively as a change in the way we were going we don't know whether it's a positive or a negative change but it's certainly an inflection point in that so many things have changed both for them for ourselves and for the other players in the area I want to ask you the new government as we mentioned the old government the new government was formed in this evening with of course Benny Gantz joining a war cabinet basically the main decisions for the war being made by himself the defense minister of garland prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu of course some issues will have to go to what's called the widest security cabinet as well is this a is this now current formation of the government I mean the army obviously will handle the tactical the military will handle the tactical decisions but ultimately strategic decisions will have to be made at the political level and is this current framework going to be sufficient for translating that into effective orders for the army this is an interesting point Netanyahu tried to put off this as much as he could as much as he and his wife could but I think the Biden speech had dwarfed Netanyahu and weakened Netanyahu to such a degree that the Likud members kind of panicked and put pressure on him to the extent that this morning I think or the morning before one of his ministers said enough with these nonsense that they were dealing with up to now and he reflects the feeling of a lot of Likud members so he was forced to make that decision which means that there are three people whom the public trusts to put Israel's interests first I'm talking about the whole public not part of the public which is the defense minister Gantz and Eisencourt that are held by the public to have Israeli interests first and personal interests in second place if at all so in that position Netanyahu is I would say in a position where he cannot call the shots I mean I guess two points number one there was obviously plenty of pressure to form this government long before I mean long in the terms of this week long before the Biden speech so that train was already very much had already very much left the station by the way we should mention pressure from across the Israeli political spectrum from within the coalition even from many parts of the opposition right so that was already out there second a point that Yair Lapid made in his speech which bears noting remember three people have voting power in the war time in the war cabinet right Netanyahu and Galan both from the Likud Lenny Gantz from the National Unity Party so Yair Lapid made the point that at the end of the day right it's a unity government it's emergency government Gantz is literally in the room as is Gadi Eisencourt from his party again both former heads of the Israeli military so they'll be making the decision in the room that make where the decisions are made but at the end of the day it's two votes against one right so that was a point that Lapid made at the end of the day in the final analysis Gantz doesn't have the votes quote-unquote within the room so again we'll see how that works I do think though that once we're in a war where there's broad agreement I think about at least at this point about the strategic objectives in the big picture these aren't ideological questions and they're more of tactical and strategic questions maybe the votes don't quite break down in in that way all right gentlemen I'm going to go down who still wrote on our correspondent Pierre Klosschandler and Pierre the situation there we do continue to hear of sirens maybe even not in specifically in the ster open in that southern Gaza border area throughout the evening what's the situation down there well there was a rocket alert on Nachal Oz which is just a little bit further down south about a couple of kilometers away here no alert for since 5 p.m. local time but you know the quiet is punctuated by a lot of tank fire artillery fire emanating from Israel directed to the Gaza Strip there's a lot of police forces here where we are the road which is just behind me which goes along the border is completely closed to non-security vehicles the situation is such that there is an urgent need according to the mayor for the evacuation of the remaining 30-40% of the population of the city of 30,000 inhabitants we've heard that at the Knesset parliament the government is preparing for that evacuation but it hasn't happened yet and the green light hasn't been given yet according to the spokesman of the city of Sderot in spite of the urgent plead by Sderot mayor Alon Davidi to ask for 30 million dollars for the evacuation of those people because those people do not have the wherewithal to neither the accommodation to leave that city right now I do want to point out Pierre that the announcement the prime minister's office just this evening put out an announcement of what they're calling a new socio-economic headquarters to deal with among other issues aided in evacuating residents from certain places that would be Sderot would be one of them and also expediting the process of identifying the murdered victims go on, go on Pierre Yeah, you got a streamline you know the bureaucratic processes and you create new comedies you create new structures it just slows down the urgency you know there is an urgency here there was a rocket barrage at noon in which a young woman of 20 years old was really severely wounded she's fighting between life and death and there was another man who was severely injured another one moderately wounded an urgent need to evacuate this city it's 15 seconds away from the Gaza Strip's rockets you know we don't measure here in kilometers anymore we measure the distance with the flying rockets and I think it's about time that the government puts its act together now that there is an emergency government and quickly Alright Pierre, certainly that is what I've been hearing from certainly the residents in the south but of course many other sectors of the Israeli population throughout the country Pierre Kloschendler instead wrote to thank you for that and of course the rockets continue to fly down there there has been a tapering off over 5,000 5,500 by the way if I'm not mistaken 2,500 in the first day no matter where we were in the country to understand that that's a very believable number So the question Relic that comes to my mind is does this tapering off indicate A that Hamas is running out of rockets or is holding its powder keeping its powder dry to some degree or is it that they're having more difficulty launching the rockets in the face of this aerial assault or perhaps even a combination of those two and as more and more pressure is put on Hamas they won't be able to hide these rocket launchers in their hiding spots between buildings or take out of a garage of some kind because there will be no garage and so as their hideouts are being taken out and as they deplete some of their munitions we'll see less and less of these but I would guess that if we were to think of what to do they will still keep some of their capabilities with the hope of hitting or maybe they will stop for a few days and then launch a massive attack as they could in order to create a maximum damage but they could say that they were responsible for evacuating their rot which is something that they can boast about even though I think what happened was that most of the people left by their own accord and so the calling to actually move out everybody was an afterthought rather than something that precedes any move in this way it's not a great compliment to ourselves for not having done this before and for the government not taking charge because most of the people who evacuated were evacuated by public or private right we've had stories on one hand I guess you might say positive stories about private hotel and bed and breakfast owners giving letting those residents stay there free of charge on there you could say why didn't the government organize that? An example the brothers in arms who were leading the protest movement had switched very quickly into an aid centers around both for bringing in civilian clothing food etc both to the military and the local residents and helping them come out and arrange places I'm sorry we're going to break immediately I will give you a chance to pick up that point stay with us we'll be back in about three minutes time with more of my special book made for me designer of all your events schedule your appointment at www.madeforme.co.il made for me official dresser of i24 news good evening ladies and gentlemen officially in a state of war this is a very active scene and we need to get in the car as we're talking within a hundred soldiers and civilians have been kidnapped we just don't know anything entire families including babies and children and elderly were butchered in their beds awaken the giant and we are ready and we are strong everyone is showing up this is the unity I started working in i24 news in 2013 that same year as part of the documentary series reportage inside I traveled to Argentina to visit the Fiscal Alberto Nisman who had determined in constitutional memorandum of understanding between Argentina and Iran signed by the ex-president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was related to the attack on the AMIA in 1994 that left a salary of 85 dead and more than 100 injured all the material with which we work daily on January 18, 2015 an impactant event occurred the Fiscal Alberto Nisman was found dead in the bathroom of his apartment with a bullet in his head and what everyone was asking was a suicide or a murder the Supreme Argentine Court dictated that it was a murder the only solution is to bring them here and bring them back what is behind this so interesting story terrorist coverage international conspiracies search for the truth will we ever know the truth in the last 7 years for the magazine News 24 in Spanish which is broadcast on I-24 News I made more than 40 reports related to the issue AMIA Nisman Iran a topic that has all the documents for an international channel of news like I-24 News continue to investigate until one day the truth is clarified Welcome back to this special breaking news edition on I-24 News as of course we followed in the sixth day of Israel's war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip of course following Saturday's devastating surprise attack by Hamas terrorists over the into the cross-border area still with us are senior correspondent Otto Altman, reserves IDF Brigadier General Relic Shafir I do want to go back down to our correspondent Bacchia Levinthol at Barzali Hospital as you mentioned earlier and we see them Bacchia the ambulances are there indicating perhaps at least for the time and we are in a situation where there's been a sort of slow tail-off of rockets and those cross infiltrations that we saw earlier but of course if we're looking at a possible ground force operation in Taghaza Barzali hospitals is certainly going to be one of the hospitals of dealing with from that situation so I would imagine it's in a state of intensive preparation as well as dealing with the current situation Well you hit the nail on the head Kalev and we've spoke to quite a few nurses earlier who were telling us that they have already started preparing the hospitals so you can see the entire ground floor for example there are certain areas that are being shut off that we're not allowed to enter because they're redoing the whole area moving gurneys moving not necessarily walls but wall cabinets so that they can prep the area promptly we've also been told that upstairs certain rooms have been closed off and moved and shifted obviously as you know because I24 News was reporting just yesterday being Wednesday that there was a direct hit on the medical development or at least the child development center here at the Ashkelon Barzali hospital so that being the ward where a lot of these psychologists are working in particular with children that are coming across from the Gaza Strip needing very similar treatment of which they can't get in the Gaza Strip so they come through here at the moment that's no longer the case evidently because those borders are closed in particular the movement of people as well but what we are hearing is that preparations absolutely are underway they know that this is going to be in it for the long haul for the time being the same way from the political point of view we keep saying that there's so many questions but there'll be a time for answers right now there's a bigger picture at stake and a bigger point to make with regards to the defensive operation at the moment a similar situation exists here at the hospitals the nurses the doctors know that they have to deal with the immediate patients that are coming in knowing full and well that this is obviously going to spiral into a much larger operation in the coming weeks and even the coming months. Alright that's our Bart 11th all down in the Barzali hospital in Ashkelon I want to go back to our Hamd Salhout at Ben-Gurion Airport international airport of course most airlines have canceled their regular flights certainly into Israel some are those still maintaining their departing flights a lot of this attack court a lot of foreign citizens in Israel and in fact Hamd of the United States the State Department also looking into making special measures to get us citizens out of the country that's right the National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby announcing that charter flights will start in the next few days for Americans who want to leave Israel because all major airlines have canceled their flights to and from Tel Aviv as the country is facing a multitude of rocket launches from the Gaza Strip here at Ben-Gurion Airport in the departures terminal there is a sea of people looking to leave a lot of them with children they just want to get the kids to a safer place and they're trying to seek refuge somewhere else here behind me though in the arrivals terminal people are welcoming back those who are called for reserve duty Israel called about 300,000 reservists to the army for this war and there are people coming back now and these people have all come here on public transportation like the train to come and greet them there's a lot going on in this arrival terminal and if you see at the board behind those people there Adam if you could just point to the board there you can see a lot of them a lot of those flights are canceled and also delayed because of the impact of this war so people looking to flee are not really able to but a lot of countries like France and now the United States are chartering flights for their citizens to leave Israel in this time of war. Right and the other side of that as you say is allow making special flights to try to bring as many Israelis coming back we've seen stories of people from Israelis in the middle of trips in the Brazilian jungles just trying to get back and get on flights and clearly they were seeing appreciation there behind you from those young people. Right so for the first time in about 40 years is going to be operating flights on Saturdays to try and get people back to Israel who need to serve in the reserve duty they're really one of the only airlines that has continuous flights to Tel Aviv to bring people back to serve in the military now as Israel has called them to do so but as I've said in my previous report Jets are equipped with missile defense mechanisms as well as flares and anyone who is a pilot for that airline has previously served in the Israeli Air Force so they are able to navigate a congested sky and a difficult situation should there become one. Alright Hamd Salchot there at the arrivals hall at Ben Gurion airport which has almost a festive atmosphere I would say Hamd. Right so a lot of people have been coming out throughout the day to get people back who have been taking some of these flights there are not a ton of flights landing at this airport but the ones that are are primarily filled with people coming for the reserves as I previously stated Israel has called up 300,000 reserves to come for this war after that unprecedented attack on Saturday by Hamas infiltrating the border there's a lot to watch out for in the coming days specifically tomorrow on Friday in Jerusalem at the Al-Aqsa mosque there's a lot of opinions from all across the country to protest to go through different parts of the city and reach there so there is a lot that's going to be happening in the coming hours and in the coming days not just here at the airport. Alright Hamd Salchot there at the airport thank you for that. Hamd mentioned Jerusalem I just reminded there was an attempted terror attack as far as we know at the time from a lone terrorist at a police station in the Jerusalem I want to go back to this question about flights in and out of Israel because you mentioned Hamas could be saving it's keeping some of its powder dry to so to speak some of its rockets maybe some of its longer range rockets and of course for them to be able to shut down Ben-Gurion Airport completely would be a major a major aim for them do they have that capability and can allow keep flying at least allow keep flying in the face of it as you know when the rockets are being shot from Gaza the radar radar system picks them up and can tell within about a mile or so where they're going to hit and if they're vectored into that area there'll be more iron dome shots towards those missiles right so that the chances for those missiles to reach certain points that I will not mention here but one of them is the airport are quite minimal because of the salvos that will be shot at them when they are targeting strategic targets that's one thing another thing that I want to mention about the reserves being called when a reservist is being called a military his military unit doesn't know where he is he's not doesn't have to right so people who'd gone out to Europe or tours etc and don't forget for years understand and you mentioned the Brazilian jungles on purpose because as many Israelis non-Israelis know it's customary for Israelis just after their military service often to travel in India in South America so many people were literally there was a special flight from Lima organized for ministry and funded by the UJ mistaken in Peru again to get Israeli travelers of South America there so that they could come and so it's more the people want to come home and want to take part in what happens here than the actual military requirement unlike the 1973 war right where there was a lack of commanders and so on so this is more I would say public show a force or a morale a morale booster not only that but also there it shows the Israeli public that under pressure or in a wartime situation will put down all quarrels and gather around the bonfire so to speak to save the day well speaking of young Israelis I want to go to a personal story here among the many young Israelis who are at that Nova Music Festival who are still unaccounted for after the brutal attack by Hamas terrorists on Saturday which left some 260 people there killed and of course there are dozens more missing and presumed kidnapped into Gaza one of them is 27 year old Inbar Haiman family friends and her boyfriend Lona desperately hoping for some sign of life for her and Noam joins us now from the town of Binyaminah first of all Noam tell us about Inbar and she had some special connection with that Music Festival didn't she indeed Inbar was an helper in this party and in this kind of parties it means she was there for people to guide them to have them if they are losing they are lost and so she wasn't just partying with all the rest she also had a welder she had a job there and she was there to help other people do we know anything about what may have happened to her in the sort of last moments before we debate basically she is unaccounted for do you have any speak to any people that saw her that the at the festival for example we do we spoke with two guys which are in her age she didn't knew them before and they didn't knew her these two guys ran together with her when they needed to hide and they ran to the open ground far from the party area and in some point they were hiding in the bush for a few hours and in some point to terrorists get closer to them by foot in bar and the boys noted them and they understand that they are too close and they started to run in that point the two terrorists chased them and one of them had a Japanese knife and one of the in the moment one of the terrorists managed to catch in bar one of the guys the Israeli guys who were there stopped running grabbed wood stick that was on the ground and ran directly to the terrorists in that moment the terrorist leave in bar and the guy shout for her run away run now but in bar was free she was panicked she cried and and in this moment another two terrorists riding on a motorbike came and they took her away without any resist bar and the two boys managed to escape and they are alive and safe but they are traumatized of course of course they are of course and that's led you further in bar as I'm asking everybody here has the family the authorities been in touch yet with authorities in terms of any it happened only just today actually it's been nearly six days I think and just today the Florida is a reach out to in bar's family we hope and we want to believe that the Florida is doing everything to return our love that was captured and taken to Gaza and today was the first day that there was actually contact with the Florida's right and no let me just ask that's your message for the for Israel and the authorities what about for the world we had you know we had Secretary Blake and other people the international community we broadcast abroad so I want to know the family from you and maybe our family for the world it's clear and the first we want a life signal a sign of life yeah we want to know that she's okay we want to know that she's well treated if she got hurt so she's get a medical help that she gets food and water and everything that is basic that needed for her and for all the other hostages we want our government the international community will do everything to bring us back to us this is the most important thing for us personally the love of my life I just want to see back here with us and this is the most important thing for us at the moment all right now on thank you so much for joining us of course we wish you a great return of Inbar back to her family thank you for joining us and telling us her story thank you it's devastating to hear that of course Relic it's a difficult subject but I do have to ask you this over a hundred hostages what considerations does that could that be playing in the military operations and in the coming ground operation these are the kind of decisions we have to choose between bad and worse there are no good choices here obviously the war will go on but if there's any information on the whereabouts that they are being held obviously that will play a part but one of the things we can think about is that for Hamas the hostages are an asset and this is also for them a bargaining chip in case they're pressed to the point where they will have to play their chips put their chips down then we believe or I think it is plausible to believe that at that time they will opt for a change or to play that card when their back is to the wall so I think by that logic and logic in the Middle East doesn't always play I was going to say I just have to get in we don't want to bargain with Hamas we don't want Hamas's back to the wall against the wall I think or at least I hope I speak for a large part of the Israeli public I mean there are obviously plenty of end games for the hostages but just remember and I said this before and I'm going to say it again I think when historians look back at this era I think it is quite possible that the single worst decision in 75 years of Israeli history was the Shalit deal where Israel in order to get one soldier many of whom are in leadership positions probably organized what happened on Saturday how many lives have been lost because of that decision I want a PhD dissertation on that there are difficult decisions we have to be very very clear about our objective and about the threat it is essentially an existential threat to the country I think with all due respect that is a point a good point that you're making I don't think I think Hamas has an ideology and they've been trying to kidnap Israelis for a long time they were able to do the Shalit I just have to say on a personal experience there were two soldiers kidnapped back into Gaza when Israel was still in full control of Gaza and I took part in search parties for those two young men who later found killed it goes well beyond the capture of Gilad Shalit I think for Israel this is who we are we value life and we're ready to pay for life 1200 to 1300 lives I think that one of our things is that one life is a world of its own and I think what we'll have 1300 lives are 1300 I don't want to have a I don't think we'll go into that but one thing I think is for sure that Hamas when driven to the wall will try to bargain with the lives of those in all kinds of ways I just want to note in support of that that we have heard more than once communicate from Hamas threatening to execute hostages if Israel would continue with its airstrikes at one point even saying kill one hostage for each airstrike and of course that has not come to pass presumably because as you say Relic they are an asset up to a certain point for Hamas though Yes I think they will not opt for this situation because this puts Israel at a position it cannot accept so in a way they're wasting their cards right which is the point I was making that there's no absolutely it's hard to imagine the government making any deals at this stage and for sure though we can say we don't know What the IDF spokesperson said to this I believe asked said that this issue of the hostages is being taken into consideration in terms of the operational planning as far as I know didn't say more than that didn't say how much it's being considered of course it's the bottom line question but it is being considered is what we've heard from the military gentlemen this is a quite depressing conversation but I want to just look at some points of light in the current situation we saw that with the return of all these young Israelis above and beyond as you pointed out Relic in the way above and beyond the call of duty to come back and serve there's also the Israel's civilian population has also joined the effort to provide support and relief both for the civilians impacted by the conflict those in the south also sub the many of the soldiers who have been called up to fight it our Emily Francis went out today to check one such initiative in the city of Rishon Lezion let's take a look I am right now standing in the Makabi House if you could believe this is normally the professional basketball stadium for the Makabi Rishon Lezion basketball team a very good team here now that we're in the middle of this war this is literally turned into an emergency place to collect special items that are going directly to the soldiers in the south of Israel right now along the border preparing to do whatever is being prepared to do you can see here we have clothes underwear supplies hygienic items and a very enthusiastic crowd which we're going to get to in a second I want to also share here if you look at some of these boxes it's been over 2,000 boxes that have been packed with individual notes look at this individual notes this is going to our children that are fighting and defending Israel at this time shampoo toothpaste underwear basic supplies that human beings need that are going to be fighting this war and this is the heart and soul again of this country this group of people that have been here every single day even the supply isn't that full because they've given it all away all away so now we are joined by a very special man he's a deputy mayor of Rishon Lezion thank you so much for number one being so on top of your beloved city and all of these wonderful people who already feel like family and I've only been here an hour with you it feels good to be here in spite of the fact that we're here for the worst possible reason yeah in order to overcome the atrocities we hear from the front the best way for us and to boost the morale is just bring all these wonderful volunteers to do everything they can in order to help our troops on the Gaza border unfortunately now even on the northern border and to help all the families that lost the best the best friends and all the kings and everything and don't forget there are so many missing people after six days they still don't know where they are it's unbelievable how they kidnapped babies, elderly 90 years old in wheelchairs and everything and they just want to have any news from their families so these boxes that you guys are preparing there have been more than 2000 that are literally being delivered in armored cars directly to the soldiers at the border of Gaza that we know of right now exactly they take everything directly to the soldiers and to the kibbutz near the border which all the homes were burned they don't have any clothes any food nothing and we give them the first aid to survive the first days. Also with Rishon a very tight community as we can see here this is really I'm loving being here in Rishon with you all right now it gives me a lot of comfort to be here with such strong warm people and I just want to know how are you dealing with the fact there are what how many people from Rishon have been killed 30? 30 was delivered to us this data on Sunday I'm very very excited to see how we deal with this explain why this is how Amisra'il deals with this we have mainly our viewers in the United States so what is your message besides what we're going to get to in a moment our message is that we don't have any other country and that's our secret weapon we don't have anywhere to go this is the only country in the world that can safeguard all the Jews so nobody will drive us away from our country and from our homeland amen now all of you do you have something to say? I'm Israel Chai we're coming to the end of this broadcast just looking ahead the U.S. Defense Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin will land in tomorrow in Israel and there was just reports from the U.S. Defense official in the media that the U.S. is preparing transfers of iron dome interceptors artillery ammunition and precision guided munitions and fully expects to continue fulfilling Israel's request well like that is certainly going to be good news for the defense establishment yes even though the United States has prepositioned munitions but this is some of which reportedly had been emptied using Ukraine for maybe understandable rehearsals a few months ago yes but when we say precision munitions these are bombs with either laser guided guidance that are able to pinpoint the target at about one meter when you throw a 2,000 pound bomb right and it hits about one meter off where it was targeted that is what we call precision or GPS guided bombs let's say if the weather turns bad in the next few days which is planned on I think Saturday night that doesn't mean we can't hit targets with precision we're going to have to end on that note though Brigadier General Relic Shafir our ultimate thank you for joining us that ends this particular broadcast but do stay with I-24 News to continue our rolling coverage of Israel's battle against Hamas and the other terror groups in the Gaza Strip thanks for joining us and keep watching is officially in a state of war this is a very active scene and we need to get in the car as we're talking within a hundred soldiers and civilians have been kidnapped help us we don't want to do we just don't know anything entire families including babies children and elderly were butchered in their beds awaken the giant and we are ready and we are strong everyone is showing up this is the unity this particular project with a gross capacity of 103.5 megawatt will be producing around 230 gigawatt hour of clean renewable energy per year global warming is affecting Bolivia and not just Bolivia but the whole world and we need rain for the embryos Fakita reserve we have the right ingredients and we have to do the job and that if we have the right ingredients and we do the job the Fakita can be protected come to the special broadcast here on I-24 News we continue our rolling coverage on day six of Israel's war against the vile murderous Hamas terror group 1300 lives gone the number of Israelis murdered keeps on rising and the body count is not even over yet the scenes the testimonies from what was nothing other than a living hell continue to pour in the mind the heart cannot really comprehend if Hamas's eyes sounded like a phrase until now well today not that anyone needed more proof eyes' flag found between the ruins of one of what used to be an Israeli community along the border now ashes the idea of chief of staff vowing today that every Hamas leader will not see the day of light again while over 150 Israelis are still being held hostage not by animal not by monsters by people who in the name of twisted ideology or God knows what committed acts that no human being can ever accept acts that humanity hoped will never see again again never again but also today US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken here in Israel a short visit that contained everything really and then some with the message that was able to both be empowering and relieving without any patronizing saying Israel Israelis we know you can defend yourselves on your own we know it but as long as America exist you don't have to we are here Blinken is saying and we're not going anywhere we want to begin our broadcast by going down south to the southern city of Sderot or what is left of it I-24 news correspondent Pierre Klochendler standing by there Pierre what is the situation on on the ground some devastating direct hits of missiles today yes right at noon there were a few rocket barrages in the morning but at noon it was murderous one Israeli reserve soldier according to the municipality of female soldier 23 year old was killed in a rocket attack as she was parking her car she was called up for the war the soldier next to her was severely wounded another one was moderately wounded the last rocket attack was at 5pm here in Sderot that's when the new police station was inaugurated by minister of national security Tamar Ben-Gvir Israel police commissioner Yaakov Shabtai and obviously the police officers of the city of Sderot those who survived because seven of eight of them were killed in the onslaught on Saturday and Sunday ten were wounded all in all 47 police officers were killed throughout the country so there was a ceremony to pay tribute to the bravery of those police officers who behaved like soldiers maybe also a message to project law and order and public and private security yet the mayor Alon Davidi has pleaded the government to allow the remaining 30 to 40% of this city of 30,000 inhabitants to be able to leave the city completely to empty the city because it's not safe is demanding 30 million dollars for the evacuation it's a complicated operation the emergency government has just been approved by the Knesset parliament so it's going to take some more time because they are establishing right now the structures to rebuild the community to evacuate the residents of the cities and villages near the Gaza border so again a heavy bureaucratic machine to answer the urgent needs of the population I-24 news correspondent Pierre Kluschendler and the rest of the I-24 news team there down south thank you very much for this Israel's Pearl Harbor it's 9-11 for years Israelis were living under the false pretension that the state, the army is well aware of anything happening in Gaza a concept which obviously completely collapsed Saturday morning Israel was caught completely off-guard but there are now indications there was at least some intelligence on a pending attack by Hamas so was there really no clue was it no understanding or was it simply a decision to look away I-24 news from Jonathan Regev with the details the scope of the tragedy that Israel went through on Saturday morning is simply unthinkable what may even be more unthinkable are the reports that Israel had some pieces of information about what may happen on the Gaza border but chose to ignore them only six days into this war has a first official acknowledgement been given by the IDF Prime Minister Benjamin Gari in a briefing this morning he said there were indications on Friday night about a possible move by Hamas but not for such an extensive attack and they did not materialize into a concrete warning this comes a few days after sources in Egypt claimed the Egyptian intelligence minister warned Israeli authorities including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of a big operation planned in Gaza warnings that were ignored in Jerusalem those same reports were echoed later by the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee head Michael McColl but were categorically denied by the Prime Minister's office authorities now are urging to put this issue aside while promising to thoroughly investigate it once the fighting is over for now Israelis are asked to focus on the war and on the call that Hamas is ISIS a claim getting further attention as an Islamic State flag was found in the body of a Hamas terrorist all these are very important but cannot hide the fact there was a massive intelligence failure one that will require an extensive self-examination when the war will end we want to welcome now Lieutenant Colonel and the Reserves Mr. Morris Hirsch former head of the military prosecution and director of the initiative for Palestinian Authority accountability and reform those words sound different today at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs thank you very much Lieutenant Colonel Hirsch the idea of spokesperson is confirming today that indeed there was some intelligence before the attack obviously not elaborating and reports that senior intelligence officials were discussing a pending attack not last month not last week but in the hours right before Saturday morning attack how can we explain that? that's what appears to be the case this is just a huge failure of the intelligence you had a massive army building up on the other side of the fence you had a thousand two hundred terrorist soldiers marching across the fence with heavy engineering equipment to blow up the fence and to move it out of the way and it appears that no one really understood these people were serious in their intentions to cross the border and to murder Jews this isn't something new it's been an idea of the Palestinians for a very long time they tried to do in 2018 and I think the conception was that the Palestinians Hamas is deterred they're not interested in starting a war Israel has been very generous recently towards Gaza, towards Hamas giving more and more work permits to the Gazans to come into Israel and that whole conception of well, if we just give them enough to placate them, they'll stay quiet just exploded in our faces so it seems that it's not the lack of intelligence but rather the analysis of intelligence that was the main failure Lieutenant Colonel Hirsch you're staying with us we now want to show you some pictures that even their verbal illustration is impossible to bear those images were presented by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as President Joe Biden photographic proof of de-burning and mutilation of babies by Hamas terrorists we're about to show you some of those photos because it is important for those who try to discredit these accounts of savage butchery that the evidence of it be seen so we would like to warn you this is extremely graphic content so if you wish turn your eyes away for about 10 seconds or so if you think you cannot take it do you ever think you can see a dead body cry not in black and white not way back when, now and on that note we want to turn now to Yossi Landau, commander of Zaka the Hebrew acronym for disaster victim identification this rescue and recovery organization the organization of angels largely made up by volunteers Mr. Landau you've been doing this most difficult job for over three decades now you have seen things let's put it that way but what you have seen in recent days eyesight can't even see really you know I just saw the pictures that you posted and it took me a back flash from two days ago and it's only a drop what do you saw could you share with us sir some of what you've been seeing in recent days as you said I'm more than three decades doing this horrible work and I would call it holy work absolutely and this holy work is not it's not only for Jewish people we do this for every religion we don't care if it's by accident any unnatural death but when I was called on Saturday when I left my family it was a holiday Saturday I left my family and just left to Sterot and when I got over there and I saw the bodies piled up on the street all over and I was on the fire I was trying to fight I fought back with my friends and so you know and then I went on the road and picked up all the shattered bodies and burned bodies for no reason I'm used to it I would say I'm used to it that's the limit but then when it's a little bit hard I'm sorry because I just got home after five days not being home and when I'm in the field I don't think about it but when we go home and you start to think about it it gets a little bit harder it's difficult and when we went in and I nobody's going to get feared from what I'm going to say now when I go into a house well this is my team right over there when I go into a house and I see a woman on the stomach I decide we have to turn her around because that's the way we have to put her heads up we have to put it into the body bag and you know I'm not prepared what I'm going to see we know we saw blood I see a gunshot wound in the back of the head but when we turn over and we see the stomach is open and a baby attached with the cord to the mother and stabbed with a knife and the mother shot and just trying to think what happened first was the mother shot first or was the baby stabbed first Yes you're saying those words and it's truly incomprehensible and Mr. Lando you've shared with our colleague earlier another scene that will perhaps be engraved forever of literally bodies crying parents, children hugged together if you could share some more it was you know when you go to the next and then when we see this and my colleagues my group says we can't go further and I know we're in a mission that we have to go further I don't think there's anybody that would be able to do what I did just told them let's let's sit down and sing a song to a prayer song let's get some courage Yes it worked but it worked only for five minutes because when we went into the next the second house and we see in the dining room the living room is one side sitting father and mother wow I know this picture um their hands tied in the back and on the other side there's two children a boy and a girl small children hands tied in the back and they were torched you can see they were torched that the parents should see how the children are being torched and the children should see how the the parents are being torched and in the middle there's a full table of food with those terrorists who are sitting and eating while torching them how much evil could be how much evil I don't know Yossi I really don't know um how do you keep on going how can you unsee that we keep on going because there's two reasons first of all we keep on going because we know it's a mission it's a holy mission we have to do and it's only my brothers and sisters and the second of all the support of the whole world and when I talk to you let's say and I see that I see that that you're suffering together with us that gives us support we salute you that no words can describe the holy work you're doing as you've put it no other ways to describe it I know that um Yossi materials equipment that usually last for four years were all gone in three days piles of children there how can we help how can our viewers help Yossi you're right our nothing left in our warehouses in our storage everything is gone because we weren't ready for something disaster like that and you know we use the same equipment it's unfortunately we use the same equipment for our victims for the terrorists because there it's our mission it's our mission that we have to it's unfortunately it's a heartbreaking thing but we have to respect we have to do something we can't live leave them on the on the road so their bodies are being collected is the body count over Mr. Landau? yeah before we let you go to give a deep squeezing hug to your children is the body count over Mr. Landau unfortunately not Yossi Landau um words cannot I know my body count I know my body count for my team 682 in five days 682 that's what only my team talking about 35 people in my team all volunteers by the way and we commend you we salute you for your for your work words truly cannot describe the gratitude and appreciation we are sending you now from here in the studio and as you've said waiting to see your children after five days in this living hell I again hope that you will get strength by hugging them by seeing life that are worth fighting for thank you so much Mr. Landau for what you do and for speaking with us and we keep on going because there is no other choice as you put it thank you sir thank you no more hollo amen thank you alright and as we speak there are still at least 150 Israelis held captive hostage by Hamas in the Gaza Strip we're talking children women elderly men on the heels of this conversation that we've just had those vile terrorists did to bodies no mind cannot even imagine what is happening to them right now and Hamas knows it and will capitalize on it those terrorizing thoughts so what could, what should be done we want to turn now to Mr. Gershon Baskin negotiator with Hamas during the Gilad Shalit exchange and Middle East director of international communities organization thank you Mr. Baskin very much how can you negotiate without negotiating this is more or less the question please allow me to start by also wishing Mr. Landau in his comfort in the horrible mission that they have I need a deep breath before I can even talk after this conversation Hamas, yeah my focus is on saving human lives how do we save the hostages who were taken so brutal into Gaza as you said women and children infants, old people I have friends who were taken one of my close friends has 12 relatives who were taken from people it's personal it's personal for every single Israeli this attack was horrific beyond imagination and as you said it's beyond imagination to think about what the hostages are going through I know that when they held one single Israeli soldier he was a very valuable asset to them and they took good care of him actually it was never physically tortured he was good he was taken care of that's not the current situation this is unprecedented the one positive side of such a large number of hostages is knowing that Hamas cannot keep their location secret they are for sure not being kept together and they're divided and what we believe is that they're not only held by us but Islamic jihad and the PFLP the popular front of liberation of Palestine are also holding hostages and even though Hamas has apparently demanded that they all be turned over to Hamas the other groups have not turned over the hostages so there's not even a single body in control and with the war going on the military operation taking place the what was the slogan over the last 18 years is that we are going to remove Hamas from power is no longer a slogan this is real this is what's happening on the ground this is the Israeli resolve to make sure that the day after Hamas regime is not controlling Israel and that means that every day that goes by there's a chance that there won't physically be people to negotiate with and the horrific fault that there may not be hostages alive to negotiate for I'm sure that the Israeli intelligence gathering is trying to find the locations where these hostages are being kept and that the Israeli army with special forces will go in whenever they can to try and rescue them and that's at risk both to the soldiers the hostages the one thing that I can say assuredly is that the people holding the hostage will not live another day after the Israeli mission goes in even though I wouldn't like to talk about those people or holding them hostage Hamas number two cowardly trying to distance it from the atrocities trying to blame the civilians who flooded Israeli territory today of the attack for kidnapping Israelis as if it was not a well orchestrated mechanism what I mean to ask Mr. Baskin it sounds horrendous to use those terms but are those civilians who are being held hostage at this point in time becoming less of an asset quote unquote and more of a burden on Hamas I think that Hamas does not yet realize the huge mistake that they made in their calculations I believe not only what Sara Haruri the number two in Hamas said that this was not their intent from the information that I have the plan was to attack military bases and take soldiers as hostage and this might be true it might not be true it's really irrelevant because they have the hostages and it doesn't matter if they took them or they didn't take them it's now their responsibility for their welfare I have been appealing to context that I have in Hamas and in Gaza for them to understand that they are not going to live very long and they should do the humanitarian thing of releasing the hostage first I know that the Qatari foreign minister is deeply involved in telling Hamas that they should release the hostages but I would say to the Qatari foreign minister and to the rulers of Qatar if you're serious about this then tell Ismail Hania and the Hamas leaders in Qatar that they have one week to free the hostages or they will be forced to leave Qatar and never come back I know that the Turks are involved in the same thing and there are hundreds of Hamas operatives in Turkey and in Egypt the Egyptians are working and the Egyptians control the border with Gaza the Egyptians have an additional task if not only trying to persuade Hamas to release the hostages but I think they're also looking at the huge numbers of civilian casualties in Gaza and I know want to step back from a moment from our own suffering and mention the fact that there are 2.2, 2.3 million people living in Gaza who many of them do not support Hamas and many of them are appalled by the atrocities committed by Hamas and they have nowhere to go appealing to Egypt to open up the border and allow people an exit of those people who want to leave and be safe during this period of war Mr. Baskin going back to the issue of the Israeli civilians being held hostage there we are seeing campaigns targeting the international community international audience trying to raise awareness and apply pressure but can it help can the humanitarian pressure on Hamas bear fruit or is it only by force only if Qatar or Turkey simply tell Hamas enough is enough there are 3 countries that have some influence over Hamas that's Qatar Turkey and Egypt they don't really care about the United States or Europe or the UK or any of these other countries they have no influence whatsoever over Hamas so all the international campaigns we saw the huge international campaigns there wasn't a house around the world that didn't know the name of Gilad Jalid Gilad Jalid was also a French national not only an Israeli citizen and that had no impact whatsoever on Hamas so I think that the international campaigns are important to show solidarity with Israel they're not going to help on the issue with the hostage being freed themselves I think what is important and I'm telling this to the families of the hostages is that they need to tell the stories they need to say the names it needs to be out in the media these are human beings and the more that that can be done in the Arab media the better the Arab world including people in Gaza and in the West Bank and in Jerusalem and around in Jordan and Egypt around need to know that these are human beings and not numbers it's not 150 hostages it's 150 lives of people of real people of human beings who had families and a life before they were taken hostage so we need to humanize the numbers and get the stories out there and maybe that will impress upon people in Gaza and around the world it's my grandmother it's my sister it's my brother it's my father my mother my son my daughter tell their stories Gershon Baskin a negotiator with Hamas during the Shalit exchange deal and Middle East director of international communities organization thank you very much for this all right we want to move down south to the Barzalai hospital Batya Leventhal 24 news political correspondent is joining us from there Batya thank you very much for joining us so before you brief us on the latest Batya a short minutes ago we were talking to commander of Zaka Yossi Landau and he was telling us that they're using the same equipment which is which they're running out of to collect the bodies of terrorists the same equipment that they're using to collect the bodies of of slain Israelis and I want to ask you about a scene that even in those surreal times is something else really vile Nazi Hamas terrorists receiving medical treatment in Israeli hospitals right next to people they slaughtered and somehow managed to survive are they still there that's the question Batya right Ely and it was a question that was on my mind as well not just as a journalist but as an Israeli obviously a very upsetting situation to be in knowing that there was a massacre a literal butchering of young people of children of women of elderly of men of soldiers and to know that you know in usual times Israel does quote-unquote the correct thing and actually follows by a lot of the laws that the hospitals and the doctors have to take the Hippocratic oath to be able to save anyone anyone that comes in we are seeing a huge outcry at the moment within the Israeli public doesn't matter what their political ideologies are that this is actually unacceptable we're not talking about a terrorist that was perhaps brainwashed in the West Bank even one that possibly infiltrated through the borders because infiltrate would be the wrong word if they had a work permit in Israel but the situation is that and so I did speak to quite a few nurses earlier in the day and asked them that question bluntly are the terrorists being treated at this hospital the answer was absolutely not because they were absolutely nervous about the safety and the security of their staff given the fact that Ashkelon is already under rocket fire to begin with they did not want more protests coming to the hospital as well and so very much made clear that there are really zero terrorists being treated at this hospital when I asked where they were perhaps being treated I was told they are not allowed to answer that question but you completely are and it's a very sensitive topic and definitely one that a lot of Israelis want some answers to in particular in a time when there's more questions than there is undoubtedly answers with family members there by sitting in the bedside of their loved ones fighting for their lives there obviously a tense situation is perhaps an understatement first according to by understanding been transferred to a special facility to provide them medical care but separately from their victims. I-24 News political correspondent Bhatia Leventhal thank you so very much for this and Lieutenant Colonel here's you're still with us here in studio hearing with us all the testimonies from the ground and you wanted to comment on the hostage situation is it the epicenter of Israel's strategy or as the official Israeli being delivered now we will deal with it after the war ends perhaps this is the tactic I think it is really one of the main features of Israel's policy now is how to deal simultaneously with getting rid of Hamas destroying Hamas removing the any semblance of their presence in the Gaza Strip but at the same time trying to get as quickly as possible to the victims to the hostages I would suggest that there are many other ways to go about really getting to the hearts of Hamas if they have any hearts and that is really through the international community I would suggest that the argument of Baskin is not true that the international community does have a very large place in this discussion what Hamas has seen over the last 30 years and specifically over the last 20 years while they have been in charge is that it doesn't matter what atrocities the Palestinian terrorists commit the international community is always there always there to vilify Israel always there to rebuild Gaza always there to placate and whitewash the atrocities the international community needs to step up they need to say we are not going to tolerate this anymore we will not be there the day after not to save you, not to help you not to reconstruct there are definitely red lines that have been crossed already and Hamas needs to immediately release all of the hostages unquestionably unequivocably even before they know they're about to die and to that point exactly Colonel here's Blinken the US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken here in Israel today and I said at the opening of the broadcast it was a short visit but it contained everything with the message being as clear cut as it could possibly be that was both empowering and reliefing and without a glimpse of patronizing because what Blinken was saying as Israelis we know you can defend yourself we know you're strong we know you can do it on your own but as long as America exists you don't have to because we're here we're not going anywhere people of Israel have long and rightly prided themselves on their self-reliance on their ability to defend themselves even when the odds are stacked against them the message that I bring to Israel is this you may be strong enough on your own to defend yourself but as long as America exists you will never ever have to we will always be there by your side as Israel's defense needs evolve we will work with Congress to make sure that they're met and I can tell you there is overwhelming overwhelming bipartisan support in our Congress for Israel's security and I'll add to New York, I-24 News the senior US correspondent Mike Wagenheim is joining us Mike, after the historic Biden speech enters Blinken, deep impressions here in Israel and he's on the go in the Middle East Lloyd Austin, Secretary of Defense is also on his way to Israel map it up for us Well this is part of a larger regional effort here from the Americans to try to make sure that they make clear that they have Israel's back in every way shape or form this has really been an extraordinary outpouring from the Biden administration in terms of its level and the depth of its support of Israel over the last few days the question long term is the war against Hamas becomes protracted as if we'll see any cracks in the armor but that's for the longer term discussion but Blinken will go on to other countries now, travel to Jordan to meet with King Abdullah Palestinian Authority President off to other regional countries as well including the UAE and Qatar making sure that the message is getting through to those leaders that it needs to get through to whether it's rounding up support or sending messages that those who should stay out of the situation do in fact stay out and only play a productive role here so this trip for Blinken even though it's quite a landmark trip in terms of its content still just beginning here as part of a broader effort to make sure this doesn't spill over into the broader Middle East and meanwhile Mike, former slash hopeful US President Donald Trump the one that got a community named after him up north here with what he seems to think was a stand up comedy act the signs for Ramat Trump might be coming down when this war is over Trump and he can't question his pro-Israel bona fides in terms of the policies that he implemented while he was president but some of the rhetoric especially post-presidency is quite bizarre he had a speech within the last hours or so in which he was quite critical of Israeli leaders including Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Galant the Defense Minister at quite a perilous time and he also had some comments about the terrorist group up in Lebanon here to a former US president Donald Trump I'll never forget that BB Netanyahu let us down that was a very terrible thing I will say that so when I see sometimes the intelligence you talk about the intelligence or you talk about some of the things that went wrong over the last week they've got to straighten it out because they're fighting potentially a very big force they're fighting potentially Iran they're fighting security people can you imagine national defense people and they said gee I hope Hezbollah doesn't attack from the north because that's the most vulnerable spot Hezbollah is very smart they're all very smart the press doesn't like when they say well both you and I are speechless but someone who is not speechless please may I keep on going someone who is not speechless we spoke a little while ago with US Senator Marco Rubio out of Florida a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee I asked him about those comments from the former president in addition to how quickly a dysfunctional Congress right now can actually get aid through to Israel when it really matters here's our interview earlier on in the day with US Senator Marco Rubio in terms of getting aid to the House I know it's a priority on both sides of the Capitol right now obviously there's chaos to deal with on the House side and the Speaker has to be in place or at least extended powers given to the acting Speaker in the meantime to make something happen that that could take considerable period of time on the Senate side there's always a Libertarian Contrarian what have you who generally puts a hold on you know large amounts of foreign aid with those obstacles in place to Israel coming out of the US Congress well first let me say that assistance and cooperation defense cooperation and work with Israel is very different than Ukraine for a number of reasons first of all we don't start off at a baseline of zero in 2021 we pass the law as part of the Defense Authorization Act that basically authorizes already in codified in our law already at least three point three billion dollars a year of defense cooperation with Israel so that's how we're going and in many cases the munitions that Israel will need for resupply they're already in the pipeline they're already ordered what we can do is help get the contractors to expedite delivery of summits we also have preposition material inside of Israel it's been publicly reported and it's there for purposes of not just Israel needs it but if we ever go into a regional conflict and quickly have to be resupplied it's exist so there's already a baseline we're operating on as this continues and look I don't want to be wiped out but it's not going to be easy urban warfare going in on land in the nation that frankly is going to rely on reservists many of whom just got off a flight 48 hours ago flying in from Miami where I live flying in through the planes were full of reservists reporting for duty you know it's not it's urban warfare is difficult with groups that have tunnel systems and are willing to conduct long term insurgency type campaigns and so as that develops the needs that we may need to resupply on might be different than what's anticipated so I think you'll find all the support in need in Washington and we'll have the mechanism to deliver it I think what's important is we understand their baselines already there the authorities are already there and at some point if more is needed and probably will be we'll need to know exactly what that is and I don't think there'll be any impediments to getting it done and I hope that it can be kept separate from these other debates I need to ask if you're being remiss if I didn't former president Donald Trump his pro-Israel bonafide in terms of policy unquestionable but some disturbing comments coming out of him in a speech in recent hours in which he criticized Prime Minister Netanyahu called Defense Minister Yov Galant a jerk called Hezbollah smart really comments that kind of seemed a bit off the wall looking at it from an Israeli perspective do you have any thoughts on those comments from former president Trump well look I didn't hear the comments I don't know the context that they were said so I'm just going to respond the way you've described it I don't think any of that is surprising and I'd like to hear an explanation behind it because I don't think in a moment like this it's certainly helpful it's also not consistent with the positions that the Trump administration took I mean I remain convinced and I don't want to delve too much into our domestic politics on this but I remain convinced that Donald Trump or president today some of these conflicts were seeing around the world would not have happened because some of these entities would have thought twice before moving forward in that regard that said I'm surprised to hear that reported I certainly don't think there's any on the contrary that Donald Trump is a sympathizer or supporter of Hezbollah and I think has along been very supportive of Israel irrespective of who its leader and its democratic process was so but I don't think comments like that are helpful in fact that's the thing which and I don't know how they'll be interpreted in the Middle East but certainly not my view in terms of the Congress itself this it seems to be one of the very few issues we've seen in the last several years now that have unified the body in such a way I mean even you know Ukraine there is a division now in terms of how far it should go carrying forward how long do you think this can last I mean this military operation is not going to be a short one it's not a matter of days and probably not a matter of weeks either do you see something similar coming down the road if this is an extended operation or do you see Congress holding firm here in its support of Israel in the long term well despite some disturbing images of people in the street supporting Hamas in the aftermath of all this and some ridiculous stuff coming out of academia where we have a lot of morally confused leaders of higher education and that's a separate problem for Americans to confront I mean most members of Congress overwhelmingly are going to be against anybody who decides they're going to go in and massacre elderly women teenage girls and little babies and so I'm glad to see that that level of moral clarity still exists in our politics the challenge is going to be the following and that is this is not one of the 72 hour campaigns or two week deals I mean this is going to be messy it's a protracted situation it's going to be these guys are deeply entrenched inside of Gaza and it's not going to be easy to degrade them to an acceptable level and so the real challenge is not today the real challenge is three four five six weeks from now because the way it has played out historically is Israel has attacked everyone rallies to Israel side Israel does what it needs to do and then all of a sudden starting Western Europe and then spreading even here in the United States you start hearing calls of okay you've done enough it's time to stop and that's where I think the real challenge is going to come I think clearly if Hamas is not eliminated if Hamas is not substantially degraded they will come back and they will do this again and they will do it worse and other groups will look at this as an example of what they need to do and they will do the same we need to understand that if we don't stop this now it won't be you know a thousand twelve hundred people it could be thousands upon thousands of people that are murdered because they happen to be Jews living in Israel and are hated by these people so if this doesn't stop now it's going to lead to more loss of life more bloodshed if we've le